D DAY Through German Eyes - The Hidden Story of June 6th 1944

by Holger Eckhertz

The presence of the Tobruk was well-known locally, and French civilians would give us a formal greeting as they passed; there was a herd of dairy cows nearby, and the farmer was under instructions to give us a can of milk every second day. We rewarded this with cigarettes and boiled sweets from our ration. The farmer’s daughter was a very charming girl of about our age, who had taken the sensible precaution of learning to speak some German words and also some English. In general it can be said that we had an excellent relationship with the local people.

Would she be regarded as a collaborator after the war, I wonder?

Yes, I was. I had entered the Tobruk at midnight, and my comrade Sepp was on duty with me. He was a Belgian with fiercely pro-German sentiments who had volunteered to serve in the Wehrmacht, and a very clever fellow.

And would the Belgians have regarded Herr/Monsieur Sepp as a traitor?

We must remember that, after 1943, our German propaganda changed radically in tone. Where before the message had always been ‘Conquer, occupy, expand’ now the idea was ‘Defend the Reich against our enemies who will try to invade it.’ Now that I think about it, this significant change, from ‘conquer’ to ‘defend’ as the main message, this happened roughly after the battle of Kursk and the invasion of Sicily. Maybe that is when the commanders and the politicians realised they must acclimatise us to being permanently on the defensive.

Insightful.

We knew that the Russians sought the destruction of Germany, and this would mean the rape and enslavement of our families under communism. This was our motivation at that time.

As evil as the Nazi regime truly was, he’s got a valid point there.

I am sure that infantrymen throughout history have received precisely this reassurance countless times from their superiors.

What was your personal reaction to this realisation, and what was your comrade Sepp’s reaction? Well, I had been in action in Italy, and I felt the familiar sensation of dry throat, shaking fingers, apprehension. At the same time, though, I felt an excitement and a desire to be part of the combat, as this was my purpose and my role.

That dichotomy and rollercoaster of emotions.

The first explosion was between us and the strong house, and it was preceded by a low whining sound. The explosion was huge; I deduced from the whining noise that this was shell fire, not aerial bombing, but the power was bigger than anything I had seen in Italy.

To the south, the inland zone where I was to expect the partisans or paratroopers to approach, I saw, instead of an advancing enemy, that the shelling had damaged the sheds of the nearby dairy herd, and many of these animals were running out of control in the fields. It was a dreadful thing; these large cows, with their full udders, were injured, bleeding, and in some cases their hides were on fire. They were staggering or trampling in utter confusion. One began to charge towards me, obviously maddened, with its legs burning; I shot it immediately with the MG to prevent myself being trampled. That was the first shot I fired on June 6th, ironically.

Tragic collateral damage to innocent farm animals...definitely not your typical D-Day account.

I could not see any Luftwaffe planes anywhere, which frankly was not a great surprise to me; the lack of Luftwaffe cover was an accepted fact by that stage, on all fronts, I believe.

Sepp was sitting on the edge of his hatch looking down there with binoculars. I asked what he could see, and he turned to me to answer. As he did so, he was shot directly through the throat; because I was looking at him, I saw the bullet emerge from the back of his neck, causing a spray of blood and tissue. He remained upright, and another bullet hit him in the chest, causing a lot of matter to shoot out of his back, along with shreds of his uniform. He was literally shot to pieces in front of me.

I guess that ultimately spared Sepp the trouble of a treason trial from his fellow Belgians after the war.

I understood much later that this was the day of ‘the largest seaborne invasion in history’ or ‘the biggest military operation ever mounted’ – but that is actually all I saw of the landing itself. Just that glimpse between the dunes, with a lot of boats on the water. I think this often happens to basic foot soldiers in a war: they are in historic battles or campaigns, but their view is limited to the fields around them.

Little picture vs. The Big Picture.

One man was hit horribly in the head, and he lost most of his skull;

one was immediately hit in the neck and had his head partially severed.

As we came level with the three dead Americans, one of them moved and seemed about to rise; he had a Thompson gun close to him. The Leutnant stooped down quickly and shot him in the head with his MP40, then shot the other two men likewise.

One of our men took a Thompson gun and spare ammunition magazines from the bodies. I would not have done this; I knew from Italy that if a soldier (whether German or Allied) was captured with enemy ‘souvenirs’ on him, then his treatment as a prisoner would be violent or even lethal; on the Eastern Front, it was an immediate death sentence, apparently. But the Thompson guns were superb items, being famous as the ‘gangster guns’ from the 1930s, and they were hard to resist.

A Tommy Gun as a war trophy? I guess turnabout is fair play, in light of all the captured Lugers and Walther P-38s that American GIs brought back home.

There was the definite sound of tank tracks; I knew these were not ours, as we had no panzers on the beach line itself.

To my surprise, the Leutnant’s water was mixed heavily with schnapps, and it was very refreshing. That Leutnant was a complete contradiction in many ways. I never knew his name.

Jawohl, Prost!

It is not remembered much, but all Reich-controlled territories had substantial numbers of prisoners of war or civilian prisoners working as manual labourers and farming or construction workers. These people were mostly Russian or Polish, mostly male, but also with women among them.

Ah yes, treating the Slavs as slaves.

It was not in our nature at the time to make protests to officers.

Yep; no UCMJ obligation to disobey unlawful orders in the Wermacht!

various Eastern recruits in the ROA insignia. Can you explain the ROA? This was a formation of men originally taken prisoner from the Soviet and Polish armies earlier in the war, who had now sworn an oath to us and agreed to work for the Wehrmacht;

We in the Wehrmacht regarded them as unreliable, although I have heard that some of them fought to the death in Normandy, fearing the consequences of being recaptured by the Allies.

Sometimes the planes fired on us, and at other times they simply flew along the road, firing at the empty pathway; they were at liberty to do as they pleased, with no Luftwaffe to challenge them at all.

Air supremacy embodied.

I remember that one man, one of the ROA, was hit in the abdomen by several bullets; his body was cut in half, I am sorry to say, and the rest of us could only step over the two pieces as we ran on.

Towards the end, we were fired on from ahead of us, killing one of our group, but this proved to be another German Tobruk sited near the bunker line. When this Tobruk gunner realised who we were, he waved us on towards the bunkers and called them to warn of our approach.

Goes to show that even the enemy is susceptible to friendly fire incidents.

Panzerschrek (bazooka) crew.

Different from a Panzerfaust?

‘soldier’s cocktail,’ which was a mix of morphine and amphetamine against the pain and exhaustion.

A Feldwebel (sergeant) came in and gave us criticism for our behaviour, and we became more orderly under his command.

But what happened to die Leutnant?

These planes had very large radial engines, which from our recognition sessions I knew was distinctive of the Thunderbolt plane.

The T-Bolt AKA The Jug AKA The Flying Bathtub!

the men were well-disciplined. Some of the men produced crucifixes or rosaries and said prayers, others seemed to be simply cursing; both were inaudible, but I could see their mouths moving.

Then the shout went up ‘Jabo again!’ It seemed that the Americans had an endless stream of planes available, which were always arriving freshly armed on top of us.

had never seen rocket explosions close at hand before, and did not know what to expect. The effect of these rockets was in some ways worse than the bombs.

The warheads used some kind of incendiary material which exploded with a very intense white light and then burned and expanded with a hissing noise.

Willie Pete (white phosphorus)?

What kind of incendiary was this in the rockets? I learned afterwards that this material was a phosphorous weapon. It is a very powerful explosive chemical that the Allies were starting to experiment with.

Looks like I guessed correctly.

We were honest foot soldiers, defending France and ultimately the Reich from aggression.

and they gave me another amphetamine tablet, which boosted my energy and my frame of mind greatly.

Similar to the “Go Pills” given to modern USAF pilots?

One thing that we saw on that first stage of the retreat disturbed me. We slowly rounded a curve in the track, shielded by the hedgerow, and plainly visible along the top of the embankment were several dead American troops. They were in a kneeling position, with their hands behind their backs, and it seemed they had been shot methodically, then simply left where they kneeled. The crew of the Stug that I was riding on commented that this must be the work of the SS boys, who apparently had a taste for such things. It concerned me greatly that these Americans, who seemed to be Airborne troops, had been captured and deliberately executed in such a way.

I saw a group of half a dozen of these SS troops torn into pieces, with their innards ripped out and their empty bodies left burning in the road.

Eff ‘em, serves ‘en right.

Each time, the German forces were overwhelmed by vast superiority of numbers and weaponry, especially in artillery and attack from the air. I had a feeling of great despair, doubting that we could ever resist this enemy that had such machines and such resources.

The mood of us recuperating men was quite pessimistic, as we had all seen the enormous power of the weapons that the Allies used, and their superiority in the air.

We found this fascinating, and we formed an impression of an unstoppable power that would simply roll over any obstacle.

May I ask, in your mind now, do you think of that place as ‘Omaha’ or ‘Vierville’? To me, it is Vierville. That was the name of our position, which was a Resistance Point. I was posted there in April 1944 and we were inspected by Rommel himself shortly after my arrival.

Did you see Rommel personally? Yes, he was a very energetic and active man; he walked very briskly and spoke rapidly.

He was quite a short man, but had a very powerful presence, although, as with all famous leaders, how much of this was due to our expectations and preconceptions, it is difficult to say.

‘Widerstandsnest’ (Resistance Point)

If the Allies were allowed to gain a foothold in our sector, however slender, their huge material resources would allow them to build it up and threaten the whole of France. This in turn would give them a puppet state to use in order to harass and blockade Germany itself.

“Puppet state?” You mean like Vichy France? Ha ha ha.

The tension was very noticeable, because of the intensity of the bombing.

but the Jabos could have caused much more disruption to us than they did before the landing.

Who knows how may American lives that might’ve saved at Omaha Beach?

Did this cause you alarm, or fear? I think that most of us were simply sick of the tension of waiting, waiting. An event of some kind, even an attack, would at least break the tension, the silence, the sense of foreboding that we had. For this reason, some of our men said, ‘Let them come soon,’ which made other men wink and laugh.

Yep; the waiting is worse than the actual event itself in many ways.

The whole situation was unfolding in a way that seemed almost like a dream, detached from reality. This great assembly of ships was simply looming out of the sea mist, just getting bigger and bigger, closer and closer, and nothing at all was happening on our side.

Just as I was doing this, the sea bombardment began. You must have expected the bombardment, surely? Yes, but the intensity was astonishing. It was heavier and also far more accurate than the bomber planes that had just hit us.