D-Day through German eyes

The 71st anniversary of the June 6, 1944, Allied landings at Normandy provided us with reminiscences of veterans as well as pictorial and video records of the day. As important as this is, it still only presents one view of D-Day.

In 1944, Dieter Eckhertz was a military journalist assigned to the German magazines "Signal" and "Die Wehrmacht." Shortly before June 6, Eckhertz was sent to Normandy to interview soldiers building and manning the Atlantic Wall defenses. After the war, Eckhertz was working on a collection of these interviews, which he never completed because of his death in 1955. His grandson, Holger Eckhertz, collected the interviews, assorted notes, corroborating information, and then found and re-interviewed many of those same former soldiers. In 2015, "D-Day Through German Eyes" was published by DTZ History Publications. The book includes one interview from a soldier at each of Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword beaches.

The stories are fascinating and disturbing to an Allied D-Day veteran or other readers. It is fascinating reading about the motivations, beliefs and reactions of the Germans. The Germans believed they were there to protect and defend the "united Europe" created by Germany. The Allies were simply invaders and destroyers. Before and even during the battles, the soldiers in the bunkers and fighting positions believed they would see relief columns of tanks and infantry coming to fight with them. When that did not happen, they began to realize they would not be able to throw the invaders back into the sea. Survival became the new goal.

Reading the descriptions by German soldiers firing on and killing American soldiers was disturbing. Landing craft were hit by German 88 mm guns, killing, wounding and setting soldiers afire. The Germans machine-gunned survivors as well as soldiers who managed to reach the shallows near shore. It was not random firing, but rather well aimed bursts at those specific soldiers.

The Germans described the Allied soldiers as having angry expressions that suggested retaliation, and they believed the Allies would not take German prisoners. When they were captured, many were surprised that they were given medical treatment, food and treated well. The captured Germans were also shocked and discouraged at the speed of the Allies in landing huge numbers of tanks, artillery, vehicles and supplies.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He lives in Chaffee, Missouri.