Operation Overlord, the Allied invasion of Northern France in June 1944, was the greatest combined undertaking in the history of warfare. Up until now it has been recorded almost exclusively from the attackers' point of view with the other side's story being largely ignored - a situation that has long begged to be rectified. Drawing upon letters, diaries, first-hand accounts, divisional histories, newspaper cuttings and official documents, The Germans in Normandy points a vivid and frequently horrific picture of life for the men who held Hitler's vaunted Atlantic Wall: men how believed both in their cause and their ability to defeat any Allied onslaught. Belief in victory quickly turned to disappointment. By 8 June 1944 it was clear to every German soldier in the West that the enemy had a foothold on the shores of France. What ensued was a bitter struggle as towns and cities such as Villers-Bocage, Cherbourg, St Lô, Caen and Avranches were thrust into the front line where men like Michael Wittman and Kurt Meyer and the ranks of the 12th SS Panzer Division, the Hitlerjugend, were immortalized. With the American breakout in late July, the German line crumbled and was eventually rolled up, culminating in the horrors of the Falaise pocket, where the core of the Wehrmacht in Normandy was trapped, the fall of Paris and the wholesale, chaotic withdrawal of Hitler's forces from France. At least 60,000 German soldiers, sailors and airmen were killed defending Normandy.

However odious the regime they served was, they fought bravely, and for the most part honourably, against overwhelming enemy superiority. This is their story. Book jacket.