Fighting the Invasion

A detailed German perspective on D-Day, featuring accounts by German commanders on preparations, strategy, and the brutal fighting during the Allied invasion of Normandy.

“The planned landing operation in France of the Allies was on so large a scale – and of such decisive importance – that the preparations for it could certainly not be kept secret…Everyone realized that, sooner or later, the invasion would have to become a reality.” – Generalmajor Rudolf, Freiherr von Gersdorff.

In June 1944, Allied troops were massing along the shores of southern England in readiness for the invasion of Hitler's Fortress Europe. Facing them, from the Pas de Calais to Brittany, were German troops, dug in, waiting and preparing for the inevitable confrontation.

This compilation of in-depth accounts by German commanders presents D-Day, and the events leading up to it, from the point of view of the officers entrusted with preventing the Allied landings. The accounts selected, all written soon after the war's close for American military intelligence, cover preparations for the invasion and chart the development of German strategy as invasion looms. They then turn to the ordeal of D-Day itself including reactions to the first reports of troop landings and a blow-by-blow account of the fighting.

Together, they present a superb picture of D-Day from the German perspective, bringing home the entire experience from the initial waiting to the bitter fighting on the beaches and running battles in Norman villages.