Fighting the Invasion: The German Army at D-Day

An “invaluable” collection of eyewitness accounts of war written by German commanders present at the Allied invasion of Normandy during World War II (Craig L. Symonds, author of Neptune).
 
In one of history’s most violent battles, Allied troops gathered along the shores of southern England, preparing for the invasion of Hitler’s Fortress Europe. Facing them on the shores of France—from Brittany to the Pas-de-Calais—German troops who were dug in, prepared, and waiting for the inevitable confrontation.
 
This book offers a rarely-explored aspect of the Normandy Invasion—the Allied assault as seen from the perspective of the enemy combatants—written as a series of in-depth accounts by German commanders at the behest of the US Army after the war in an attempt to analyze their strategy in the event of future conflicts.
 
These once-private accounts detail everything from Nazi defense plans, to the uncertainties waiting, and finally to the ordeal of D-Day itself—the reactions to the first reports of troop landings and a blow-by-blow account of the bitter fighting on the beaches and in running battles in Normandy villages.
 
Fighting the Invasion paints a vivid picture of D-Day from the German side, bringing home the entire experience of that fateful battle from a little-considered point of view.