I wonder what was going on in the average Wehrmacht soldiers head when this huge invasion happened right in-front of their eyes? Did they believe they could repel them back?

Moderator Edit:

Additional information on this subject, see Beast of Omaha

Watch the movie 'The longest day' and look at the reaction of the German commander in the bunker when he sees the amarda over the horizon, and then the shelling starts. He tries to convince the higher command that they are there but his commander says that cant possibly be.

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-haha that is funny, yeah I remember. But the soldiers in the bunkers that were defending the beaches, I wonder if they actually thought they could repel them or if they were just trying to kill as many as they could.

Is there a difference between the two
I don't know if this is true but I watched one documentary on the MG42 and it was said that one Machine Gun nest on omaha beach killed over 1000 pf the american soldiers there, if that isn't them just trying to kill as many as possible I don't know what is.

But I do not know what they would have thought, there commanders wouldn't really have told them much of the overall position of the German war or how it is going due to moral problems and plain propaganda issues.

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We have discussed this in this thread


Beast of Omaha

http://www.ww2f.com/wwii-general/20154-beast-omaha.html

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

I've seen the documentary with the MG42 gunner a couple of times. He meets with a GI and a British landing craft coxwain who were also there that morining. I have even been to Omaha beach and stood in the Mg gunners tiny bunker. He had a perfectly uninterupted view of the incoming invasion. As there were no tanks or heavy equipment on the beach due to all the Duplex Drive Shermans being launched too far out he must have been pretty confident of knocking them back into the sea and according to what I have read about Bradley's thinking at the time, they came within a hairs breadth of doing it. l think it safe to say that had all defenders been determined Germans like this one instead of Ost battalions etc. D Day may have turned out differently or at least been much more costly. Remember they were expecting 50% casualties on D Day across the 50 mile front.

The average German soldier probably felt the same as their commrades sitting in a bunker or foxhole when Bagration commenced.

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"Oh Bugger" - A Germans thoughts on D-Day.

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"The Americans will always do the right thing ... After they've exhausted all the alternatives."

Winston Churchill

I would imagine that the German reaction varied anywhere from outright panic, to fear, to resignation, to relief. I would also think most were not thinking about whether they, themselves, could throw the invasion back but were rather just concentrating on their particular job at the moment or, in the case of those under fire their survival.

Exactly. In that type of situation it comes down to you and them and you want to live.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

the History channel just had a repeat of one of their D-Day documentaries and they said one MG-42 nest killed over 1,000 American G.I.'s. Exactly how much ammo did they have in those bunkers? I mean they much have gone through a ton of ammo.

Just a curious question to some of you, do you read all the posts before replying? Because this statmenet and answer has already been discussed in this thread, because I meantioned it and was politly shown another thread concerning it, so does this mean you didn't read either of the two posts pactof steel?

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Obviously, someone isn't reading links or threads. This idea of one guy with a machinegun at WN 62 killed...KILLED 1000 + soldiers is absurd. If The Discovery Channel is putting this on a documentary as fact then they need to fire their research and copy departments for not doing even a minimum of checking. It took me all of five minutes, if that, to look up in three or four books a map of Ohama beach, the location of WN 62 and what landed within 1000 yards of that position along with the casualties that the US suffered.
As I have pointed out this claim is completely absurd. US casualties, killed, wounded, missing....THE TOTAL CASUALTIES SUFFERED.... don't amount to 1000 men. So, how some guy with a machinegun could have caused that many is simply fantasy or delusional. This guy likely killed a couple dozen men, wounded maybe as many as 50 to 100 and that's it. He probably didn't get that many. Will we ever know the exact count? No. But, one thing is for sure he didn't get 1000 + like he claims.

I don't have an exact figure, but I think the average landing craft carried roughly 30 troops.
So that would mean roughly 30-some landing craft landed in front of this guys gun to kill 1000 troops. Even more if he "missed" a few.
It just does'nt add up.

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My old school toutor and family freinds grandfather served as an office at Omaha I was able to speak to him breifly before his passing and he knew my passion for history and shard some of it with me. He said his first thought upon the barrage lifting and seeing the boats was that he would die. How ever he said he would take every man with him he could. He ended up being pulled back by the higher ups though and lived.

I don't think he did tomcat. Of course in the other thread had more of a rebuttal.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

an mg42 could fire up to 1500 rounds per minute so it could be possible

Only if every German soldier had a MG-42 LOL.You might want to read the "Beast of Omaha" thread and learn alittle more.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

BTW here is a information request for you. Care to post the source(s) which state that Stalin was considering surrendering because the Allies were being too slow? I think some here would like to know.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

My vote goes for delusional.

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Best Regards,
JW

i actually didnt write that i said he was considering peace with the third reich not surrendering besides this is not the right place this is a thread about dog green sction the german reaction

"but germany would only be able to defeat the allies if peace was made with the soviets which almost happened when stalin was getting impatient with the allies slow progress in italy"

Well since you didn't address it in the thread where you stated it. I thought you may answer it here. The question still stands regardless. WHERE did you come across the information that Stalin was considering peace with Germany because the Allies were going too slow?

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

The amount of ammunition would have been enormous!! With only 250 rounds in every ammo can. How much do you think there would have to been there close by? Not to mention the number of barrels that would have had to be changed?

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

For further discussion go to this thread:

Beast of Omaha

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