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    Fall Gelb 1940 (1): Panzer breakthrough in the West
    Fall Gelb 1940 (1): Panzer breakthrough in the West
    Fall Gelb 1940 (1): Panzer breakthrough in the West
    Ebook211 pages1 hour

    Fall Gelb 1940 (1): Panzer breakthrough in the West

    By Douglas C. Dildy and Peter Dennis

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    About this ebook

    Never in the history of warfare has the clash between such great and apparently equal forces been decided so swiftly and conclusively as the German conquest of France and the Low Countries in May and June of 1940.

    Not deigning to spend itself against the extensive fortifications of France's Maginot Lines, Hitler's Wehrmacht planned to advance its 136 (of 157) divisions through Belgium and northern France in order to destroy the Allied forces there and gain territory from which to prosecute continued combat operations against France and England.

    Beginning on 10 May 1940, this title follows the fortunes of Heeresgruppe A as its three Panzer Korps moved stealthily through the dark, hilly, and thickly forested Ardennes in southern Belgium before forcing a passage across the river Meuse and racing through France to the Channel in one of the most daring campaigns in history.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateApr 20, 2014
    ISBN9781782006466
    Fall Gelb 1940 (1): Panzer breakthrough in the West
    Author

    Douglas C. Dildy

    Douglas C. Dildy is a retired US Air Force colonel who retired with approximately 3,200 hours of fast jet time. As commander of the 32d Fighter Squadron, he enforced the No-Fly-Zone over Iraq, making him an expert on F-15 employment. He is a USAF Academy graduate with a Masters Degree in Political Science and has authored numerous books, including To Defeat the Few for Osprey. He contributes regularly to the modelling magazine Small Air Forces Observer and lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

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      Book preview

      Fall Gelb 1940 (1) - Douglas C. Dildy

      ORIGINS OF THE CAMPAIGN

      How the situation would turn out if France and England march into Belgium and Holland is constantly the concern of the Führer

      Oberkommando der Wehrmacht War Diary, 6 October 1939

      Fresh from their speedy and victorious offensive through southern Poland, on 24 October 1939 Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt and his Heeresgruppe Süd (Army Group South) staff travelled by train across the breadth of Germany to establish their new headquarters at Koblenz, thus becoming Heeresgruppe A. Before they arrived Adolf Hitler was already hectoring his OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, Hitler’s personal joint military staff) to organize a blow against the Western democracies – he was anxious to quickly and decisively end the war that had already expanded beyond his initial designs.

      In a final, futile political act attempting to reverse the disastrous course of events in Europe, on 1 September 1939 France and Great Britain issued an ultimatum to Hitler to cease his invasion of Poland and withdraw his military forces. However, the Wehrmacht was already driving deep into the Polish Army’s rear areas and there was no thought of turning back. Unfortunately committed – and woefully unprepared – the allied French and British had no recourse but to fulfil their promise to the Poles and their threat to the Nazis, and they declared war on the Third Reich two days later.

      Hitler and OKH staff members at the planning map table. (Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1971-070-61)

      The French Army’s half-hearted offensive into the Saar region (7–12 September) – a vain attempt to distract the Germans from completing their crushing campaign in Poland – only antagonized the Führer. Consequently, Hitler desperately wanted to defeat the impertinent western Allies before they had opportunity to recover from their ill-considered unpreparedness, enlist the support of neutral Belgium and Holland, and advance to Germany’s western frontier, thus threatening the Ruhr industrial basin and presaging a destructive defensive conflict on German soil.

      ‘The enemy gains strength’, Hitler said, ‘and one winter night England and France will be on the Maas [the Meuse in French-speaking regions] without firing a shot and without our knowing about it.’ Consequently, on 9 October, he directed the three service chiefs to plan a pre-emptive offensive campaign ‘on the northern flank of the Western front, through Luxembourg, Belgium and Holland. This offensive must be launched at the earliest moment and in the greatest possible strength.’

      Issued ten days later, and revised ten days after that, the army’s plan (Aufmarschanweisung Fall Gelb or ‘Deployment Directive, Case Yellow’) was produced under the direction of the OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres, the army high command) chief of staff General der Artillerie Franz Halder. In order to meet Hitler’s demand for an offensive before winter, he developed a hasty plan that called for a direct frontal attack by the German forces then stationed in the west. These consisted of 56 infantry divisions deployed defensively to protect the Reich from attack by the French and British armies advancing through Belgium and southern Holland, reinforced by nine newly arrived or recently formed Panzer divisions.

      In the plan’s initial iterations the main thrust was to be through central Belgium with armoured, motorized troops on the northern wing, mountain troops advancing through the Ardennes on the southern flank, and airborne forces landing in the rear, near Ghent, to disrupt Allied mobile forces attempting to reinforce the Belgian front lines. On the north side, Generaloberst Fedor von Bock’s Heeresgruppe B (43 divisions in four armies, plus two air-delivered divisions) was to cross the Maas/Meuse between Nijmegen and Namur and drive to the Channel coast. Dutch neutrality was to be respected, except for the necessity of transiting the ‘Maastricht Appendix’ (a sliver of the Netherlands on the east bank of the Maas descending south between Belgium and Germany), which Generaloberst Walter von Reichenau’s Armeeoberkommando (AOK) 6 had to cross in order to bypass the Liège fortresses to the north, while Generaloberst Günther Hans von Kluge’s AOK 4 skirted Liège to the south. These two armies – including nine Panzer and four motorized divisions – would link up west of Liège and advance together through Brussels and Charleroi to Calais and Boulogne in France.

      In the German centre, Rundstedt’s Heeresgruppe A (22 divisions in AOKs 12 and 16) was to protect Bock’s left flank from French attacks from the south-west. In the south, facing the indomitable Maginot Line, the role of Generaloberst Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb’s Heeresgruppe C (19 divisions in AOKs 1 and 7) was purely defensive, holding the Rhine and preventing a more determined replay of the French offensive into the Saar. Air support for the offensive would be provided by General der Flieger Hellmuth Felmy’s Luftflotte 2 and General der Flieger Hugo Sperrle’s Luftflotte 3.

      None of the participants – the OKH, the Luftwaffe, the army group commanders, or even Hitler himself – were pleased with the plan. Particularly dissatisfied was Generalleutnant Erich von Manstein, Rundstedt’s chief of staff. His assessment was that there was little to commend it: it required a frontal ‘push’ against the bulk of Allied mobile forces in Belgium to gain territory rather than a manoeuvre designed to annihilate the Allied forces, securing the required territory as a natural consequence of victory. Additionally, it was vulnerable, even with Heeresgruppe A’s best efforts, to French counterattacks from Lorraine which could drive north-eastwards and trap German forces in Belgium.

      Most critically, Manstein stated, ‘The 1939 operation plan contained no clear-cut intention of fighting the campaign to a victorious conclusion. Its object was, quite clearly, partial [sic] victory (defeat of Allied forces in northern Belgium) and territorial gains [sic] (possession of the Channel coast as a basis for future operations).’ Rundstedt agreed and both began needling OKH for a major change, urging a shift of the Schwerpunkt (the main weight of the assault) to the southern wing of the offensive.

      Meanwhile, in November Hitler too began to ‘tinker with’ the plan’s fundamental concept. Presciently, he foresaw the offensive’s first phase – now to be launched mid-winter – stalling in central Belgium due to poor weather and ground conditions. For the second phase, he ordered a small mechanized (one Panzer and one motorized division) corps be added to Heeresgruppe A to make a penetration via Arlon, Belgium, cross the Meuse at Sedan, and attack towards Laon, in order ‘to ease the task of Heeresgruppe B in [the advance] beyond Liège’. Obediently, on 9 November, the OKH assigned General der Panzertruppen Heinz Guderian’s XIX Armeekorps (motorisiert) (AK (mot.)), then in OKH reserve near Berlin, to Heeresgruppe A. Guderian’s branch of the follow-up assault was added to the Fall Gelb orders as an amendment.

      Chief architect of the Fall Gelb plan: OKH Chief of Staff General Franz Halder. (Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1970-052-088)

      Now supported by the clear vision and energetic voice of Guderian, Rundstedt and Manstein pressed the OKH repeatedly for a third army – heavily armoured and mechanized – to be assigned to Heeresgruppe A. While their badgering continued – seven messages in ten weeks – the army’s commander-in-chief, Generaloberst Walther von Brauchitsch, Halder, and the OKH staff saw these petitions as altering the plan’s fundamental concept of operation and steadfastly refused to do so.

      The OKH’s position was that, during this the worst European winter in 50 years, with blizzards covering roads in up to 3ft of snow and ice, a large body of mobile forces could not move through the icy, snow-clogged roads of the Ardennes. Therefore, even in the January 1940 revision of the Fall Gelb deployment order – occasioned by the infamous ‘Mechelen Incident’ in which portions of the Luftwaffe’s part of the plan inadvertently ended up in Belgian hands – the plan’s authors stayed with the original concept, which now formally included the subjugation of Holland, Hitler’s third (diversionary) axis of attack, emphasized the requirement for surprise, and reduced the Panzers’ final assembly time to 24 hours.

      However, Halder soon saw an Achilles heel – the vulnerable southern flank – in his campaign plan as he personally witnessed two ‘command post exercises’. The first was by the Heeresgruppe A staff at Koblenz on 7 February, the second by Generaloberst List’s AOK 12 staff at Mayen one week later. These exercises visibly and dramatically demonstrated the potential for failure if additional forces were not assigned to the southern wing of the offensive.

      Meanwhile, Hitler was having similar reservations. After reviewing the detailed dispositions of the Fall Gelb deployment order, he feared that the Panzers would be stopped at the Maas and stalled in the ‘barricaded and fortified’ region around Liège. He predicted they would be ‘much better employed at Sedan, where the enemy would least expect them’. On 13 February, two OKH plans officers were called to the OKW HQ to prepare a formal assessment of the Führer’s suggestion.

      Hitler’s clairvoyance was vindicated four days later when, during a luncheon for the five newest army corps commanders, Manstein (who had just been given command of XXXVIII AK, in the OKH reserve) used the opportunity to explain his own vision in detail. He lobbied for strengthening Guderian’s Panzer corps to form the Schwerpunkt that would break through at Sedan and drive to the Somme estuary on the Channel coast. This would completely encircle and destroy the Allied armies in Belgium, thereby achieving a decisive result.

      The instigator for change: Generalleutnant Fritz Erich von Manstein. (Bundesarchiv Bild 183-H01757)

      At noon the next day Halder appeared before Hitler with an outline of a new OKH plan to do just that. The new concept was even more drastic than anything Manstein had ever proposed. First, Kluge’s AOK 4 was moved from Bock’s command to Rundstedt’s. More critically, five Panzer and three motorized infantry divisions were concentrated in an army-level formation on the extreme left end of the advancing front. They were to make a massive assault across the Meuse from Sedan to Dinant, with a fifth army (General der Kavallerie Maximilian Freiherr von Weichs zu Glon’s AOK 2, all infantry) following to protect the southern flank of the advance to the Somme. This, the fourth iteration of the Fall Gelb plan, conformed closely to Hitler’s own ideas and he immediately ordered the changes made.

      The completely changed plan was published in Aufmarschanweisung Nr 4 Fall Gelb on

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