This book is a collection of reports written by German generals after the war for the US Army. The authors of the reports were senior generals from army, corps, and divisional field commanders up to OKW staff officers who had a direct influence on operations in the West during the Allied Invasion on D-Day.

Each general presents his thoughts on the preparations, deployments and activities on the first two days of the invasion undertaken by his subordinate units in the style of the movie Rashomon so that the same story is told again and again from all the different angles.

This approach is unique and highly insightful, in particular, it allows the reader to find out how the generals looked at each other, the different views on strategy and tactics of how best to defend the West, the departure from the old school axioms of the chain of command, strategic defense, and employment of mobile forces.

I found the reports of Blummentrit on the general situation before the invasion and Geyr von Schweppenberg’s report on the use of the Panzer divisions in the west particularly interesting. Another beautiful chapter was the one which reproduced the telephone log of an infantry division; it transports the reader through space and time to the actual moment when the invasion started and places him in the midst of the action.

I recommend this book to anyone with more than a casual interest in the Allied Invasion in the West, the German Army of WWII and military history in general.

Great Models, Georges Lteif