Falaise Bloody Falaise.

[Owen]

These were the lucky ones then.
B9627
Description: Tea being served to German prisoners in the Falaise pocket, 22 August 1944.


EA34516
Description: The Falaise Gap: An aerial view of more than 10,000 German prisoners of war in a large POW stockade for transport to camps in the rear. All were trapped in the Falaise pocket.

[Gotthard Heinrici]

Originally Posted by Von Poop

Thinking of the Keegan quote there is surely a lot of truth there?
Regardless of the sheer scale of the defeats in the west there was something hugely significant about the retreat from France for Germany.
Similar perhaps to the way most westerners now perceive the battles in Western Europe as a more immediate and accesible part of the war, wouldn't the German 'Volk' have seen the crushing loss at Falaise as rather closer to home than the (at that time) slightly more 'remote' conflict to the East?
The first 'local' catastrophe for the Reich? and maybe more significantly than any other factor; over the same ground as the First War. An enormous symbolic defeat with huge ramifications across not just the military sphere but also the Social and political? It has to have been the point many German citizens, politicians, and soldiers finally thought "We're not going to win this are we..."

Vp, In Germany the big menace (and remember that Goebbels had been on about this for years) was Bolshevism. when the war was going well the Russians were portrayed as sub-humans who would be quickly routed. After Stalingrad the propaganda changed somewhat. Suddenly the Russians were portrayed as this Communist Horde and the Wehrmacht were holding it back! Whilst the Allies were breaking out of Normandy the Russians put their feet on German Soil in East Prussia. They were the first Allied Army to accomplish this. Following the atrocities committed at Nemmersdorf and other East Prussian towns, the Germans realised that the pandoras box they had opened with Barbarossa was going to bite them badly. Bagration showed the German Reich that the war was right on their doorstep and I'm not even mentioning the numbers killed or captured.

Please dont think I'm in any way dismissive of the Falaise as an important victory and maybe as an ostfronter I would be considered biased. But I fervently believe that Bagration was the most siginificant victory against the Germans and whatever about anything else the fact is that the Wehrmacht sustained 80% of its casualties in the East. It was bled white on the Steppes of Russia.

[Owen]

From Barbarossa to Berlin Volume 2 Brian Taylor.page 196.

Operation Bagration had suceeded in destroying Army Group Centre. The Stavka and Red Army had sucessfully broken the individual armies in small-scale encirlement operations before trapping the remenants in a larger cauldron thrown around Minsk. For the Ostheer the defeat eclipsed even Stalingrad, some 20 infantry, 1 security, 3 panzer grenadier, 1 panzer and 2 luftwaffe field divisions being destroyed and 350, 000 men being lost. The German front in the central sector simply no longer existed.

I suppose we can argue about numbers forever, so being fair, I'd say Falaise biggest German defeat in the West, Op Bagration biggest German defeat in the East.
How's that for siting on the fence?

[von Poop]

I'm thinking of the German people themselves though. Psychologically the loss of France has to have been the real beginning of the final crack in the morale, belief in the war, the Wehrmacht, and Hitler must have shaken for the first time truly across the board. The east was boiling in and what filtered news of Stalingrad etc. they had recieved must have seemed a disaster, but still a remote-seeming one with propaganda at home painting the Soviets as an entire force of untermensch, lucky sometimes but always beatable. France however was the symbolic source of Germany's 'shame', as long as she belonged to the Reich there must have been some hope that Germany could stand. All of the countrys of Western Europe feel this way about the old (even 'traditional') battlegrounds, they have great emotional effect and therefore political power.

Of course GH I agree with you on the 'Eastern front' being where Germany was 'bled white', any historical coverage confirms that to me but contemporarily, at that moment, I reckon France was likely percieved by 'the man in the street' as the major disaster and perceptions can be as powerful as actuality.

[Gotthard Heinrici]

You make a good point VP and indeed I do agree with you and Owen .I suppose when I saw the sweeping statement of Keegan I felt that he was incorrect and so I decided to put the case for Bagration. But the fact was that Falaise was the decisive battle in the West and ensured that no protracted battle would happen for France.

[sapper]

The depth of what happened at Falaise, as the greatest defeat is taking into consideration they lost France Belgium and the best part of Holland due to that one terrible defeat,
That was massive,
Sapper

[cash_13]

Great topic but Just out of interest Villers Bocage!

Whittman was apparently laid to rest there but we have tried twice to find his grave and can only find a modern square church with no grave yard..just off the main high street

Anyone know where he is burried?

Regards Lee

[Owen]

HERE>>> La Cambe German war cemetery - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia






La Cambe German Cemetery.

Achtung Panzer! - Michael Wittmann!



Tiger 007 crew's graves at De La Cambe.
Picture provided by Eric Peytavin

[cash_13]

That would explain why we could'nt find the graves then thanks....

Will defo take a look as we are off to Caen o the 7th July

[4th wilts]

bradley orders recon units of i believe the u.s 85th inf div to retreat out of falaise because they were green,saying ,i would prefere a strong shoulder at argentan,than a broken neck at falaise.