D-Day: The Battle for Normandy

Waffen-SS

advance to the front

discipline

and Hitler

indoctrination

morale

rivalry with German Army

Waffen-SS, Corps

I SS Panzer

II SS Panzer

Waffen-SS, Divisions

1st SS Pz-Div Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler

2nd SS Pz-Div Das Reich

9th SS Pz-Div Hohenstaufen

10th SS Pz-Div Frundsberg

12th SS Pz-Div Hitler Jugend

17th SS Pzgr-Div Gotz von Berlichingen

Waffen-SS, Regiments etc.

1st SS Pzgr-Rgt

2nd SS Pz-Rgt

Deutschland-Pzgr-Rgt

Fuhrer-Pzgr-Rgt

19th SS Pzgr-Rgt

20th SS Pzgr-Rgt

21st SS Pzgr-Rgt

25th SS Pzgr-Rgt

26th SS Pzgr-Rgt

37th SS Pzgr-Rgt

38th SS Pzgr-Rgt

101st SS Heavy Pz Bn

102nd SS Heavy Pz Bn

Wagner, Gen Eduard

War damage

Warlimont, Gen d. Art Walter

Warsaw uprising

Weintrob, Maj David

Weiss, Lt Robert

Westover, Lt John

Weyman, Brig Gen

Whistler, Lt Rex

Whitehead, Don

Williams, Brig E. T.

Wilmot, Chester

Witt, Brigadefuhrer Fritz

Wittmann, Obersturmfuhrer Michael

Witzleben, GFM.

Wolfsschanze, Rastenburg

Wood, Maj Gen John S.

Z

Ziegelmann, ObLt

Zimmermannn, GenLt Bodo

Acknowledgements

College Park, Maryland; Dr Conrad Crane, director of the US Army Military History Institute in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and his staff; the staff of the National Archives at Kew; the Trustees and staff of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives; Alain Talon at the Archives Departementales de la Manche; Frau Jana Brabant at the Bundesarchiv-Militararchiv in Freiburg-im-Breisgau; and Frau Irina Renz of the Bibliothek fur Zeitgeschichte in Stuttgart. As well as Sebastian Cox, I am also grateful to Clive Richards, the senior researcher at the Air Force Historical Branch, for his assistance.

At the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Dr Gordon H. Mueller, Jeremy Collins and Seth Paridon could not have been more welcoming while I worked on the Eisenhower Center archive. I was also deeply touched by the kindness of everyone at the Memorial de Caen: Stephane Grimaldi, Stephane Simonnet, Christophe Prime and Marie-Claude Berthelot, who put up with me for so long and so often.

I also owe a great deal to those who so kindly lent me their own diaries and letters or those of their parents. I am most grateful to David Christopherson, who sent me the diary of his father, Colonel Stanley Christopherson; Professor J. L. Cloudsley-Thompson; James Donald; L. B. Fievet (the great-nephew of Raoul Nordling); Brigadier P. T. F. Gowans, OAM; Toby and Sarah Helm for the diary of their father, Dr Bill Helm; the late Myles Hildyard; and Charles Quest-Ritson for the collected letters of his father, Lieutenant T. T. Ritson, RHA. Others, such as Morten Malmo, Miles d’Arcy-Irvine and Philip Windsor-Aubrey, have offered leads and supplementary material, and William Mortimer Moore sent me his unpublished biography of General Leclerc. Dr Lyubov Vinogradova and Michelle Miles have helped with research and Angelica von Hase has again checked my translation and provided many useful details.

Once more, this whole project has been immeasurably assisted by Andrew Nurnberg, my literary agent for the last quarter of a century, by my editor Eleo Gordon at Penguin and by Lesley Levene, the copy-editor. But as always, my greatest thanks go to my wife, Artemis Cooper, who has edited, corrected and improved the text from start to finish.

Notes

ABBREVIATIONS

ADdC Archives departementales du Calvados, Caen

AdM Archives de la Manche, Saint-Lo

AFRHA Air Force Research Historical Agency, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama

AHB Air Historical Branch, Ministry of Defence, Northwood

AN Archives Nationales, Paris

AVP Archives de la Ville de Paris

AVPRF Arkhiv Vneshnoi Politiki Rossiiskii Federatsii (Foreign Policy Archives of the Russian Federation), Moscow

BA-MA Bundesarchiv-Militararchiv, Freiburg-im-Breisgau

BD Bruce Diary, Papers of David Bruce, Virginia Historical Society, Richmond, Virginia

BfZ-SS Bibliothek fur Zeitgeschichte, Sammlung Sterz, Stuttgart

CAC Churchill Archive Centre, Churchill College, Cambridge