Overwhelmed by the strength of the Allied air and ground forces, following the D-Day landings and subsequent bitter fighting in Normandy, the Germans were compelled to abandon their efforts to hold France and much of the Low Countries and retreat to the Rhine. The Wehrmacht Archive helps reveal the experience of German soldiers and armed forces personnel as they withdrew through a remarkable collection of translated original orders, diaries, letters, after-action reports and other documentation. The book also draws upon Allied technical evaluations of weapons, vehicles and equipment, as well as transcripts of prisoner of war interrogations. The reader will learn from official documents about the Germans' efforts to cope with Allied air and artillery superiority, create new tactical methods for all arms and maintain discipline in the face of superior numbers.
DONALD E. GRAVES is one of Canada’s best-known military historians and the author or editor of more than twenty books dealing primarily with early nineteenth-century conflict and Second World War land and naval subjects. Amongst his more recent publications is Dragon Rampant, a history of the Royal Welch Fusiliers in the Napoleonic Wars. Donald E. Graves’ first volume in The Wehrmacht Archive – Normandy 1944 – received highly favourable reviews.
"Prepare yourself for another extraordinary in depth journey into the psyche and mind set of the German Wehrmacht and ordinary people. Seen through the eyes of allied intelligence and reinforced with a plethora of captured and intercepted documents as the entire army front withdrew into its own Reich borders during the often fierce fighting of late 1944. From captured letters home to loved ones, POW Soldaten diary extracts, home front radio broadcasts and opinions of those German Volk under occupation to Divisional front reports, German newspaper headlines and high command battle orders amongst many other sources provide a wealth of information and context to explore what the Germans really thought of the Allies and their views of events surrounding the great retreat to the Reich's fatherland!"
~Grossdeutschland Aufklärungsgruppe
"Provided a good sampling of both the state of affairs of the German Armed forces in late 1944 and Germany as a whole at the same time."
~Military Review
“Chapter 8 is particularly interesting: bits and pieces on the creation of new German divisions after the Falaise pocket and before the Bulge. Chapter 6 (Armor Tactics) and Chapter 7 (Infantry Tactics) were also enlightening in an anecdotal way. Enjoyed it.”
~Historical Miniatures Gaming Society
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