Comments by "David Himmelsbach" (@davidhimmelsbach557) on "D-Day From the German Perspective | Animated History" video.

  1. You have repeated and reinforced the common false-hood that Hitler denied panzers to Rommel & Coy. This is not quite true. The ONLY panzers that Adolf held under his personal thumb were the 1SS Panzer Corps. ALL other panzers were automatically released by a General Order -- under Adolf's own hand -- nailed to the doors and walls of every HQ in France. It, the order, was forgotten by every officer due to their distress. It spelled out that the Allied Invasions must be considered ON if any of the following occurred*... and that no further 'release' orders from OKW were required. This general order was only remembered by a panzer commander during a remembrance visit to England -- decades after the war. Reliving the invasion, the order popped back into his head. The order was so widely distributed that it soon became -- as wallpaper -- ignored. The paste-up had become tattered by D-Day. One might note that the 21st Panzer didn't wait. The unit that is of the controversy was the 12SS -- which was so close by. The rest of the corps was behind 15th Army. One SS panzer division would not, could not, throw the British and Canadians into the Channel.  This was actually attempted in Sicily. The Herman Goering Panzer Parachute division was blown away by 8" shells when it was attempted during Husky. So, Rommel was entirely wrong. The Royal Navy would've loved to see the panzers charging towards the water. One element of the 21st Panzer division did make it to the beach -- and became so demoralized it simply retreated. Panzers are mere targets for 8" rifles. * Parachute landings were at the top of a pretty long list. It also included Parachute dummies being dropped, too. Either one was sufficient, by general order, to constitute proof that a full-on invasion was underway. ( Battleships, landing craft, etc. were also on the ten-point bullet-list. ) It was Patton that froze Adolf. He'd long told the Japanese Ambassador that he was convinced that only Patton would be the Allied ground force commander. It was for this reason that Patton was sidelined -- and he never knew why. Heh. Neither did Bradley or Eisenhower. This decision was made by Marshall. It was based upon Purple intercepts -- as the Barron used that diplomatic code to spill all of Adolf's beans. ( He was very chatty with the Barron. )
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