Normandy 1944: German Military Organization, Combat Power and Organizational Effectiveness [Hardcover]

This is an excellent, albeit esoteric, treatise on German ground forces opposing the Allied campaign in Normandy. It covers the period June 6 through August 22, 1944. Geographically it covers the area delineated by the base of the Brittany peninsula, the Loire River, the line Tours - Vendome - Nogent le Routrou - l'Aigle - Lisieux, and the English Channel. This was the scene of widespread desperate combat that ultimately broke the back of organized German resistance in France. It is steeped in detail about the German forces -- not only their composition, but their status, capabilities, time on the battlefield, losses, and movements. It presumes some prior knowledge of the campaign and the forces involved. Much of it confirms conventional wisdom, but it is not without controversy. For example, Zetterling strongly challenges the view that the Germans had numerical superiority and that it was only the inherent superiority of the Allied soldier and his massive weight of materiel that led to Allied victory. He presents compelling evidence that in fact it was the Allies that had numerical superiority, in men, planes, tanks, artillery tubes, and so forth.
His order of battle information is amazing. He includes non-divisional formations (including corps and army-level units) and an incredible amount of information on tank strength and losses for each unit, by type of tank. The book also contains a excellent collection of photographs, tables, and organization charts. If you're a wargamer or just into OB type of stuff, or just like a lot of detail on a pivotal World War II campaign, this book has it. (You should also see his Kursk 1943 ~ A Statistical Analysis, written with Anders Frankson; Portland: Frank Cass Publishers, 2000.)

Niklas Zetterling's _Normandy 1944: ..._ prompts this reviewer to ponder an unanswered question: who should accept the lion's share of the blame for a poorly organized finished product: the author, or the publisher? Zetterling had several irons in the fire with this work. It appears some professional guidance would have been in order to keep the author focused to pursue one goal for one book, not many.In Part 1: "Campaign Analysis" (pp. 1-113), Zetterling presents a competent scholarly study of German combat efficiency during the Normandy Campaign. The author introduces several contentions: the effects of Allied Air power were more of a nuisance to German movements and decision making, rather than destructive; German casualty figures were grossly inflated in Allied participant memoirs, and by western historians; the Allied forces did not enjoy numerical superiority over the Germans, as previously thought; and, collectively, the German units deployed in Normandy performed better than their Allied adversaries. Zetterling stresses throughout that gleaning data from surviving German archival material only (a practice most historians do not do), supports his conclusions. Along the way, Zetterling argues, more accurately, broadsides the works of other historians, most notably: Stephen Ambrose and Peter R. Mansoor. Zetterling tends to digress into other campaigns such as The Battle of the Bulge, and those on the Russian Front. This is more than comparative in nature, to the point where one almost forgets this is supposed to be a book about Normandy. Still, with some polishing, this first part could have emerged as a book length publication, or at least a good series of scholarly articles.In Part 2. "German Combat Formations" (pp. 117-392), the author presents an order of battle reference of German combat units in Normandy. Zetterling focuses mostly on artillery, infantry, and armor formations, but also includes miscellaneous units such as: airborne and Luftwaffe field divisions. Zetterling presents organization and movement information, but little else.The research extends down to battalion level in most cases, to the exclusion of details relating to higher headquarters such as Army and Corps. I was disappointed to find nothing more than mere mention of the German LXXXIV Armee Korps, a headquarters I am particularly interested in. Zetterling's data is extensive, but suffers the same maladies as other order of battle studies. Like Samuel W. Mitcham, Jr.'s _Hitler's Legions: The German Army Order of Battle, World War II_ (1985), there is no combat narrative. A brief overview for each unit's time in action, on the model of Shelby L. Stanton's _Order of Battle U.S. Army World War II_ (1984) would have been a nice touch. Again, Part 2 could have been a separate reference work. W.J.K. Davies' old standard _German Army Handbook 1939-1945_ ( 1973) is much more user-friendly, however.The third part of the book contains Appendices containing data, sometimes repeated, that could have been put to better use elsewhere. The full-length rebuttal to Trevor Dupuy's thesis by the historian Christopher A. Lawrence belongs in a scholarly journal, not here. The book is a nice package, printed on thick, high quality glossy paper. Many never before seen photos are sprinkled throughout, but as R.A. Forczyk (Amazon reviewer) has noted, the work contains neither an index, nor maps. Normandy 1944 should be a lesson to writers contemplating whether to write a polemic, or a reference work. When too many ingredients are thrown in the broth, an unsavory stew results. This is one book I would check out of the library before purchasing it.

Normandy 1944 provides a highly detailed look into the organization of the German Wehrmacht and SS units that fought in the Normandy Campaign in June-August 1944. The author has compiled an enormous amount of information on German order of battle by utilizing German strength and loss reports from the German military archives. Be advised, this book is only for the serious military historian and will be absolutely useless to anyone seeking a general history of the German army in Normandy.

The book consists of two parts: one is a campaign analysis and the other is a detailed description of all German combat formations in the campaign. The first part has chapters on sources used, German reports terminology (which is actually crucial to this work), German unit organizations, the number of soldiers employed in Normandy, the effects of Allied airpower, German tanks used, German losses, German combat efficiency and unit movements to Normandy. It is obvious early on that the author has revisionist inclinations and the data that is presented is used to support revisionist conclusions, such as stating that the Anglo-Americans enjoyed a larger numerical superiority over the Germans did than the Soviets had on the Eastern Front. By and large, the author's revisionist positions appear sound, at least with the facts presented. The author also affects an attitude of moral superiority based upon his research efforts and tends to swing data with all the dexterity of a meat cleaver. For example, the author makes a major effort to prove that Allied airpower inflicted only modest battlefield damage on German units and he uses partial facts and extrapolation to estimate losses; "Allied air power caused great destruction to the French rail net. The destruction of the bridges over the Loire and the Seine was also a great hindrance to road movements. Otherwise it seems that the destruction caused by air power was modest." Curiously, there is no mention of Field Marshal Rommel being badly wounded by Allied fighter-bombers on 17 July 1944; was this just a fluke? The major increases in German unit-level anti-aircraft protection and fear of the dreaded "jabos" do not seem likely reactions to a modest threat. While airpower advocates have frequently exaggerated their ability to win or shape campaigns, there is little doubt that the Allied efforts in Normandy hinged on air supremacy. Indeed, there would have been no Second Front with Allied air superiority in Normandy, so it was decisive. On German losses however, the author does make valid points that many divisions were not as "destroyed" as other accounts would suggest.

The chapter on German combat efficiency is weird and worthless, beginning by using chunks of Stephen Ambrose' s D-Day as a whipping boy. The author then shifts to Trevor Dupuy's quantitative models of combat efficiency and then shifts back to idiotic generalizations: "..it could be concluded that 100 Germans would make an even fight against about 150 Allied soldiers." However, as Napoleon said, "in war, the moral to the material as three is to one." Combat effectiveness is based upon intangibles such as morale, leadership, training, doctrine and experience far more than mere numbers. Most German combat units in June 1944 had a core of combat-experienced officers and sergeants, whereas few British or US units had prior combat experience. The Germans also benefited from a proven tactical doctrine, tough realistic training and dependable weapons, while the US units were to learn through the school of hard knocks. Yet both sides had elite units and not-so-elite units; the US Rangers and 82nd Airborne were certainly better than most of the battered, ill-equipped German infantry divisions in Normandy. While the US 29th Division might have lacked combat experience it was fully equipped and certainly superior to a thread-bare "static" division like the German 709th Infantry Division, which in addition to lacking combat experience, was equipped with a mix of Czech, French and Russian weapons.

The heart of this book lies in the second section, which covers each German division and separate unit in great detail. However, the detail is more impressive at first glance than after carefully reading through the entries. There are odd omissions, such as a failure to list who the unit commander was in most cases or to provide a detailed organization chart for the German 7th Armee and its subordinate corps. There is not even a section on German commanders in Normandy or on defensive doctrine which shaped organization. Yet one of the greatest omissions is the lack of any maps, which makes it difficult to determine where units were actually located in Normandy. Although the author consulted the German daily situation maps, his failure to present any graphic depictions is a serious flaw. If a researcher tries to utilize this volume, as I did, you will quickly run into the realization that this volume is not optimized for research (there is not even an index). For example, when I tried to assess probable German losses in Operation Jupiter on 10-11 July 1944 it quickly became apparent that only the roughest guess would be possible using this source. The book is particularly vague about German units and losses in the first few days of the campaign, which frustrates any attempt to assess the effectiveness of Allied airborne operations.

This could have been a superb book, because the author was clearly willing to spend the time to gather a huge amount of data. Unfortunately, Zetterling has too many axes to grind against other authors and it has blinded him to his task at hand, which is to make this data available without distortion. This book belongs in any serious Normandy collection but it is far from definitive and not user-friendly.

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