Ollie Garchy said:
Doppleganger, I have not looked into Guderian for a long time. Why do you think that his opinions fell on deaf ears after...was it...1941? Did Manstein have any opinions that resembled Rundstedt's? Which German "higher ups" really thought about the defence of France? How do you think the Germans should have organized a defence?
On 26 December 1941 Guderian was stripped of active duty and transferred to OKH Reserve Pool. He fell out of favour for organising a staged withdrawal of his 2nd Panzerarmee against Hitler's general orders. He was actually dismissed by his commanding officer Gunther von Kluge, not for the first time as von Kluge had dismissed him in France too for refusal to obey orders. On that occasion Hitler overruled von Kluge but this time he didn't. It's probably partly because of the fact that von Kluge hated Guderian with a passion that the latter's influence was reduced. Von Kluge had assumed overall command of Army Group Centre after Fedor von Bock was dismissed and his influence was in the ascendancy. Guderian and von Bock had enjoyed a good relationship and Hitler had felt that both had failed him. However, in 1943 Guderian was back in favour and from then on had reasonable influence with Hitler. He did become Chief of Staff to the OKH after the July Bomb Plot and was 'in theory' in day-to-day charge of the Ostfront until he was dismissed in March 1945.
I'm not exactly sure what Manstein did after he was dismissed in early 1944. He appears to have retired and not made much further comment on the state of the war. Certainly he would have been in agreement with Rundstedt about strategy for defence of France before and after D-Day as he was in favour of giving up ground to force the enemy to overextend, then counterattacking and reforming the line. An example of his famous 'backhand' plan. This is exactly what Manstein wanted the Ostheer to do in mid 1943, instead of pinching out the Kursk salient, which played into the strengths of the Soviets.
We can see than that Guderian, Rundstedt (who had been advised by General Freiherr von Geyr, another talented Panzer commander) and Manstein were all in general favour of a 'defence-in depth' operational strategy, whereas Rommel wanted to deploy almost on top of the beaches. For a man who was supposedly an expert in mobile warfare it was a remarkably uninspired decision. Committing Panzer divisions so close to the beach would negate their main strength, namely that of mobility. In that sense they would be deployed almost as mobile pill boxes. According to Guderian in
'Panzer Leader', ISBN 0-141-39027-1, one of the main reasons for Rommel's favoured strategy was his belief that due to Allied airpower, it would not be possible to move large concentrations of Panzer/Panzergrenadier forces, even at night, hence the reason to have them deployed close to the beaches. Guderian noted that Rommel's experiences of Allied airpower in Africa seems to have left an impression on him. Rommel also had strong faith in the ability of the Atlantic Wall to hold back, or at least seriously delay, any Allied invasion.
The Wehrmacht really had to play to its strengths, or lack thereof, in 1944. It had superior armour like the Tiger 1, which was an excellent defensive tank. It also had dwindling fuel supplies and combat manpower replacements of uneven quality, to say the least. However, using 'Elastic Defence' tactics would have made maximum use of the greater tactical skill and superior weapon systems of the Wehrmacht, like the MG-34/42 machine gun teams and '88 AT teams. It would have made even better use of the bocage terrain of Normandy, which was made for defensive operations. Case in point was Michael Wittman's use of six Tigers to hold up an entire British armoured regiment for nearly 24 hours at the Battle of Villers-Bocage. This was a correct demonstration of how the strengths of the Wehrmacht could be maximised. The Wehrmacht would have gradually retreated, enticing the Allied Armies to overextend their advance, then using the Panzer Divisions stationed near Paris to counterattack and envelop the over committed Allied forces. Such tactics would have limited the possibilities of German disasters like the Falaise Pocket from ever developing.
BTW, no apologies for the use of Wikipedia as the information appears to be correct. Besides, Wikipedia was found in one study to be almost as accurate as the online edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERguderian.htm
http://www.strategos.demon.co.uk/D-Day/Epsom.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Villers-Bocage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chambois_pocket
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v438/n7070/full/438900a.html