Rommel and the SS

Was Rommel in charge of the SS units involved during the Normandy landing ... and if so, did he take any measures against SS troops who murdered Canadian (and others) prisoners?

Rommel was overall battle commander of all German divisions, including the SS units. But he would have been unable to stop SS atrocities because SS divisions were largely outside Army command, except for receiving combat assignments. They reported to Himmler on matters such as policy towards POWs.

The official status of the SS in the broad sense (which includes, but is wider than, the Waffen SS divisions) was a sort of super military police. As such it had power of detention and even execution over the regular army. In the months to come after Normandy thousands of regular army soldiers and officers were executed by SS squads for desertion. They could do as they

The SS was under the direct control of Hitler. This helped the allies because Rommel couldn't use the SS panzers, when he eventually got back by a 12 hour drive . he german generals had been forbidden to fly because the allies controlled the air.

I don't know what he thought or did about Kurt Meyer but he was tried as a war criminal afetr the war. cpmac
www.cpmac.com/normandy

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The German command situation in Normandy was very complicated, but basically, no.

Rommel was titular Commander of Army Group B, covering the French, Belgian and Dutch coast line from St Nazaire northwards. He controlled 7th and 15th Armies which were in turn divided into Corps. Individual divisions came under corps command. There were initially 30 infantry and 6 armoured divisions in total in Army Group B, but all of the first-class mobile divisions (ie those which were equipped for mobile combat operations) in Army Group B's area were actually under OKW (ie Hitler's) direct operational control.

There was also in France an additional army group command, Panzergruppe West, which could only be activated by Hitler, under the command of a Hitler-loyalist, von Schweppenburg. It appears that Hitler's plan was to release OKW-reserve divisions not to Rommel, who was suspected of disloyalty, but to Panzergruppe West. von Schweppenburg would then conduct the German counter-attack under direct OKW control while Rommel handled the static defence.

On the morning of 8 June, Hitler released 5 panzer divisions (3 SS), 1 SS panzer grenadier division and two infantry divisions from OKW reserve and they were ordered to move up to the front. All of these divisions were supposed to be assigned to Panzergruppe West in due course, and 17 SS Pz Gr division was in fact so attached later on 8 June.

Unfortunately for Hitler's plan, the activation of Panzergruppe West HQ on the afternoon of 8 June caused signal traffic which enabled Bletchley Park to twice pinpoint its location. A bombing raid on 10 June killed most of the command staff and Panzergruppe West was deactivated for two weeks - before ever having become fully operational. On 11 June, I SS Pz Corp was given orders to take command of those units originally destined for Panzergruppe West while retaining command of other SS units then moving up to the front from northern France. On 12 June II SS Pz Corp was ordered in from the Eastern Front, arriving at the end of June. When Panzergruppe West was reactivated at the end of June, however, Hitler had changed his mind again. Rather than being controlled from Berlin, it was brought under 7th Army control, but an SS commander, Hausser, had been brought in to command 7th Army.

By arranging the command structure in this way, Hitler hoped to use the supposed loyalty of the SS and the independent SS command structure to prevent Rundstedt and Rommel from sabotaging the defence of France through 'disloyalty' or 'defeatism'.

Of all the many SS units notionally attached to Army Group B, only 2 SS Pz and 17 SS Pz Gr divisions were in fact assigned to a corp under Rommel's direct control - LXXXIV - but the former did not arrive in Normandy until the end of June and then without many of its tanks.

On 17 July 1944 Rommel was seriously wounded by an RAF attack and left command.

As explained above, these troops were not actually under Rommel's command. Even if they had been, only the SS Operational Command Office could discipline Waffen SS

I watched a biography of Rommel, whose main purpose was to demystify him. They were all for telling the 'real' story, which was often not flattering.

But one incident did shed some light.

In one of the battles, the germans attacked anad captured a company that was made up of people who had fled eastern Europe and Germany for Britain and subsequently had many jewish men, ex german communists etc. Apparently when Hitler had heard of this groups existence, he had ordered that there be no prisoners taken - he wanted them treated most harshly as he considered the germans to be traitors.

Rommel did capture these men and quietly countermanded those orders - he couldn't stand something so un gentlemanly.

On the other hand, when a colonel riding in his staff car was wounded by passing plane, and fell out, Rommel urged the driver to go forward , one of his aides volunteered to stay behind(and he told the story in the documentary). He was suprised that this wounded colonel survived. All of the men interviewed though he was cold.

James Linn

It should be noted that the SS as a whole, could not be arrested charged or tried by any other authority than the SS itself. Rommel could not by writ, take any dispilinary action against any member of the

you may gain some insights into the espirit de corps of the troop under rommel, especially in afrika by reading the story of Hans von Luck, i do not remember the name of the book, but it provided interestings glimses of the war in africa, from a gemans point of view.

competing commands and authorities. Examples of this in practrice, in the Reich goverment and all organizations of the party are everywhere and obvious.

The command that they would be released to. Technically, PGW was under AOK West, and not subordinated to Rommel. In practice, Rommel had tactical control.

It all depends on what you're looking for. Theoretically, PGW wasn't under Rommel's control.

However, since Hitler wanted a 'no retreat' strategy, there ended up being no point in a separate armored command tasked with a counterattack, because 1/ the mobile battle envisioned by von Rundstedt and Geyr never materialized, 2/ the German armored reserves never managed to deliver a concentrated counter-attack for various reasons (mostly the British not cooperating), 3/ PGW HQ being knocked out early on, while there might still have been a chance of a successful counterblow.

So, because in practice Geyr's orders ended up to doing what Rommel wanted to, he ended up fighting under Rommel. But I'm not sure he was directly subordinated.

The difference is that the paras were not a strategic reserves and had always been considered part of 7th Army.

That means you understood it correctly, because it was fuzzy.

> Once Geyr was wounded (June 9th), the panzer

Yes.

At that time, Army Group B had operational control. Please note that this was after D-Day.

Ultimately, yes. But the mobile divisions originally earmarked for Panzergruppe West were not put under the control of Heer corps under 7th Army, but lumped together (from 11 June) under the unwieldy control of I SS Pz Corp HQ, which still reported direct to OKH through OB West. The next day, presumably in recognition of the impracticability of this arrangement, II SS Pz Corp HQ took over some of the units from I SS Pz Corp. This continued until 29 June, when PGW HQ was re-activated under Hausser's 7th Army.

In this way, the mobile reserves were kept under close control by Hitler, with Rommel in particular cut out of the formal command loop.