5 I i i i ' d i k} d 3 a j r 3 d i { t 4 i { F i 7 y "v 1 1I 116268 i .. '', a "'F, PO OB WEST (Atlantic Wall to Siegfried Line) A STUDY IN COMMAND MS # B-308 GENLT ZIMMER.MANN MS# B-672 GENMAJ von BUTTLAR MS # B-718 GENLT S.PEI DE L MS # B-633 GE NFLDM von RUNDSTEDT MS # B-344 GEN INIF BLUMENTRITT Volume I EUCOM : HD : OHGB : FILE - DA GSGS 4072:'. NW 48/2 to s o to: zo a t KILOMETERS S1Vaast w rbourg FRANCE Ch C Vaagns 400 ITS APPROACHES 200 AND too x o goo St Souveur NVicomN KILOMETERS St Aubin Portbail A sunder to Huts r ton du Puits Bayeux GSGS 4464 Hi, C Lessay - Pirfen Coen StSauveur L' Lendelin St Coulnont p" 300. Coutonces 2 Texel. Bremer ISO All o -}'_ Vro q [1 o Q % - " Fclaise cy1155erp0 Q r Granville OJ " tie r"J . Vol Amsterdam v + . HOnG N" O V r Argent it THE HAGUE Hilversum x ' lers Hookof Holland y "Rotterdam Nijmegen Z BAY OF - - . 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Moulins CholOn - a -Saline i S n to Rochelle eR J," B A Y OF *Vichy Genevo 00 f St.Giers- *Clermont phone q 1 J ."J (, I" r s"Gironde Ferrand Lyons 6 B / S C A Y. pSSiF CENTR Bordeaux 4< b# C \ Valence 2° Montelimor f Go o " 44° 2 *Bayonne - Nov vignon -- -" 44 ° Toulouse " Montpellier " Draguignon " Corceseon" Marseilles Cannes S {r ., P " P \,1 1, Q / ti R Toulon S E P TERRA NEAN _ E:r.i 0 I S PREPARED BY EUCOM HD OHGB APPROVED BY .14 ." \ YI U WBEST (Atlantic Wall to Siegfried Line) A .STUDY IN COWAM C-in-C West Chief of Staff Ia (Operations Officer) von RUNDSTEDT BLUMENTRITT 1tbbt ZIMMERMANN 'us # B-308 Title CB WEST, Atlantic -Wall to Siegfried Line, A Study in Command Author Genit. zV, Zimmermann, Bodo PositS.on Ia .OBWEST, 26 ct 40 -ll1May 45 Date of MS "Oct 46 Place HDIE, Allendorf, Germany Prepared for *Mr F. Monroe Ludden Translator *Mrs Elisabeth S.,.Hartsook -ii- MS # B-672 Title Commentary on MS #.B-308. Author Genmaj Frhr Treusch von Buttlar-Brandenfels, Horet (commonly known as Von Buttlar) Position Chief of Army, Operations, Armed Forces Operations Staff (wFt), 12 Jan 42 - 15 Nov 44, Date of MS "20 Oct 47 Place HDIE, Neustadt, Germany Prepared for "Capt Frank C. Mahin & Capt James F. Scoggin, Jr Translator Miss Dawn E. Thompson -iii- MS #B-7J.S Title Commentary on MS # B-308 Author :Genit Dr Speidel, Hans Position Cof S,.AGpB,15 Apr-lSep44 Date of MS : 5.Dec 47 Place Freudenstadt, Germany Prepared for :Capt Frank C. Mahin& Capt James F. Scoggin, Jr Translator Miss Dawn E. Thompson -iv- MS # B-.633. Title Commentary on MS # B-308 Author Genfldm von Rundstedt, Gerd Position *C-in-C West, 1lMar 42 -3 Ju144 &5Sep 44 9Mar 45 Date of MS 5Aug5 47 Place PoW Camp U1, United Kingdom Prepared for Capt Frank C. Mahin & Capt James F. Scoggin, Jr Translator Miss Dawn E. Thompson MS # B-344 Title :Three Marshals, National Character, and the 20 July Complex Author Gen Inf Blumentritt, Guenther Position CCof S,OB WEST,253Sep 42 -8Sep 44 Date of MS " 15 Feb 47 Place * DIE, Allendorf, Germany Prepared for Prof Dr Kurt Hiesse Translator Herr E. R..Mysing -vi- O B' ES T (Atlantic Wall to Siegfried Line) A STUDY IN COMMAND Preface As long as the campaigns of World War II are discussed, there will be disagreement and controversy between the adherents of Eisenhower, of Montgomery, of Bradley, of Patton; Allied strategy will be studied and reappraised and the reputations of the leading Allied commanders will fluctuate accordingly. Yet how much more intricate is the problem of evaluation in the German camp, where strategic possibilities were dras- tically limited by Allied superiority, where the chain of command had become a net, where politics and machinations overrode military consid- erations, and where even tactical decisions were reserved to Hitler. A definitive study of the German command relationships and strategy in the West, therefore, could be made only after thorough consideration of the views of several hundred German officers and careful investigation of a high percentage of the German military records still extant. The following study is less ambitious. It is a composite of the opinions, ideas, and memories of five German officers who helped shape the course of the War in the West-three from OB WEST, one from OKW, and one from A Gp B. This study is not a comprehensive disk, but a three-spoked wheel which, when laid upon the discussion table, covers a part completely, a part inadequately, and a part not at all. The hub of the wheel is MS # B-308, fashioned from memory by Genlt Bodo Zimmermann, Ia (Operations Officer) of OB WEST, in the His- torical Division Interrogation Enclosure, during a four-month period in mid-1946. The three spokes are the three commentaries on Genlt Zimmer- mann's MS # 3-308: one (MS # B-672) by Von Buttlar, Chief of Army Operations in the Armed Forces Operations Staff (WFSt); one (MS # B-718) by Speidel, Chief of Staff of A Gp B; and one (MS # B-633) by Von Rundstedt, C-in-C West. Each commentator worked independently from a typed copy of MS # B-308 which did not include the appendices. The commentaries were prepared in widely separated locations at approximately the same time, with no opportunity for consultation or collusion among their three authors. Each commentary was prepared in a brief period of time--one month, on the average--and each was largely a product of the author's memory, with the significant exception of M. # B-672, whose author had available a copy of the semi-official war diary of the WFSt (MS # B-034 or OUSCC Document 1793-PS). The rim of this historical -vii- wheel was not really prepared as a manuscript at all, for it (MS # B-344) consists of an exchange of personal correspondence between the OB WEST Chief of Staff and an indigenous employee of the Historical Division. Nevertheless, it caps the spokes by providing an analysis of the core of the problem, by one well-qualified observer. In assembling the five manuscripts which make up this study, the editor has treated Genlt Zimmermann's MS # B-308 as the basic ac- count and, after subdividing the three commentaries according to their content, has inserted the remarks of the three commentators at the ap- propriate places in MS # B-308. The reader of Volume I, therefore, will find Gen Zimmermann's treatment of each controversial aspect either amplified, endorsed, or contested by one or more of the commentators. In Volume II, the editor has placed ten brief discussions by Von Buttlar, which were too detailed and too independent to be merged with MS # B-308 without impairing the continuity of that account; Volume II is concluded by Gen Inf Blumentritt's MS # B-344---a debatable, but interesting dis- cussion of why things were as' they were. Volume III comprises the 18 maps and charts prepared by Gen Zimmermann as appendices to MS # B-308. Volumes IV and V contain the German texts of the five manuscripts. It has been possible to resolve, with a fair degree of satis- faction, all the translation problems encountered in the editing of this report. Only one of them need be discussed at this point: the German term, "Oberbefehlshaber West," which may mean either the C-in-C West or his headquarters, has been rendered as "C-in-C West" when it seemed to refer to the person, and as "OB WEST" when it seemed to refer to the headquarters. In these five volumes, then, the editor presents an interim study in command, an attempt to fix truth through the controversies of those who shaped history, JAVMS F. SCOGGIN, JR Capt Sig C Historical Editor JUL 20 1948 (Atlantic Wall to Siegfried Line) A STUDY IN CO &MN TABLE OF CONTENTS V o lu me I INTR~ODUCTION . ............. Chapter One - CHAIN OF COW4A1ND. AN'D ORGANIZATION IN THE WEST DURING AND AFTER THE SUAMR OF 1943 .