Today is the 70 Anniversary of the final closing of the Falaise Pocket and thus the final chapter of the Normandy Invasion. Once the Allies broke out of the Normandy hedge row country, the Germans were being pushing back by the Americans who were attacking under Patton from St. Lo (often attacking in 4 directions at one time) and by the Canadians and the British from Caen (on the Eastern end of the Normandy Bridgehead).

South of Caen was a small French town of Falaise and it was through this town that the Germans were being forced to retreat. Thus the idea became to surround the town and try to capture the remaining 200,000 Germans who were still in the area.

The First Canadian Army (under Crerar) which included the 1st Polish Armored Division was given the job to encircle Falaise from the east while the American 3rd Army (under Patton) was driving from the other direction.

Only the Poles actually reached their objectives on time which left the Poles sitting on a hill above Falaise and directly blocking the German retreat. But since their resupply and reinforcement from either the Canadians or from the US 3rd Army was late, a large number of Germans managed to fight their way out, perhaps as many as 50-80,000. But in the final analysis of the Normandy Battle, the German loses were still staggering. Of 450,000 Germans who fought in Normandy, 240,000 were either killed or wounded. Contrasted with this, the Allies lost about 70,000 killed roughly 25,000 American and the rest split between British, Canadian, Polish and French forces. Sadly, the 80,000 Germans who managed to escape would mostly end up on Holland and the Canadian Army was forced to fight them again as the Canadians moved up the coast to free Antwerp in Belgium and towards Rotterdam and Amsterdam.

An equally important and interesting piece of this history surrounds what was going on with the German Officer Corps during this same time period.

When the Allies invaded Normandy, they faced Erwin Rommel who reported to Von Rundstedt. In early July of 1944, von Rundstedt went to Hitler and told him that Germany had all but lost the war and that Hitler should immediately negotiate peace with Britain and America. For this, Hitler dismissed von Rundstedt immediately and replaced him with Gunther von Kluge. 2 weeks later Rommel was injured when his car was shot up by a Allied plane thus leaving von Kluge completely in charge. Von Kluge was a most capable and experience general but unknown to Hitler, he and many on his General staff, had been trying to assassinate Hitler for several years. Of the many failed attempts to kill Hitler during the war, von Kluge and his staff (who were in charge of the largest of the 3 Army Groups that were operating inside Russia) were involved in most of them. Von Kluge’s Chief of Staff was Henning von Tresckow (a guy with a funny sounding name but one of the most courageous members of the resistance to Hitler). Von Tresckow was involved in at least 4 or 5 different attempts to knock off Hitler and he was directly involved in the July 20th plot to kill Hitler. Tresckow committed suicide on July 21 and von Kluge was relieved of command on August 17 (just as the Falaise pocket was closing). Von Kluge committed suicide later that day while he was driving to Berlin as he knew what fate was in store for him.

Unfortunately for the allies, von Kluge was replaced by Walter Model. Model was a fanatical Nazi who would be responsible for much of German defense during Operation Market-Garden (the attempt to enter Germany over the Rein at Arnhem in Holland) and was the main planner behind the Battle of the Bulge. Model too would commit suicide but not until early May of 1945 when he was faced with surrendering to the Allies and faced with what he knew was going to be his trial for war crimes he had committed mostly while in Russia.

Keep in mind that all of this chaos in the German ranks was going during the Battle of Normany. Just imagine how much worse the Allied loses might have been had the German Officer Corps actually been completely focused on winning rather than on killing Hitler.