Countdown to DDay, Peter Margaritis
Countdown to DDay, Peter Margaritis
1 Rating(s)
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Countdown to D-Day
The German Perspective

Author: Peter Margaritis

Narrator: Roger Clark

Unabridged: 28 hr 53 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 10/08/2019


Synopsis

In December 1943, with the rising realization that the Allies are planning to invade Fortress Europe, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel is assigned the title of General Inspector for the Atlantic Wall. His mission is to assess their readiness.

His superior, theater commander, crusty old Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, who had led the Reich to victory in the early years of the war, is now fed up with the whole Nazi regime. He lives comfortably in a plush villa in a quiet Paris suburb, waiting for the inevitable Allied invasion that will bring about their final defeat.

General der Artillerie Erich Marcks, badly injured in Russia, is the corps commander on the ground in Normandy, trying to build up the coastal defenses with woefully inadequate supplies and a shortage of men to fulfill Rommel's demands. Marcks is convinced that the Allies will land in his sector, but no one higher up the chain of command seems interested in what he thinks.

Countdown to D-Day takes a detailed day-to-day journal approach, tracing the daily activities and machinations of the German High Command as they try to prepare for the Allied invasion.

About Peter Margaritis

Peter Margaritis minored in history at Ohio State University. A retired chief petty officer, he has an extensive military background in communications and naval intelligence. He now writes and lectures on military history. He has written many technical manuals and guides as a civilian, dozens of reports in the military, and several articles on World War II and the Civil War. He is coauthor (with George Peto) of Twenty-Two on Peleliu and has also written several short books on the European theater.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Boudewijn on September 17, 2020

The Wehrmacht politics in the days and months before the Allied invasion can be summarised in just one question: where to place the Panzer divisions. Rommel, who already knows from his Afrikakorps days what devastating effect the Allied air supremacy can have on a Panzer division on the move to the......more

Goodreads review by Greig on July 22, 2019

My rating is closer to a 4.5 than a 4. Overall, a very interesting and informative book on a topic that has been covered in great detail on the Allied side, but less so (at least, from what I have seen) on the German. The writing is fine and I do not share others' comments about the need for editing......more

Goodreads review by Adam on September 28, 2024

2.5 stars [History] (W: 2.72, U: 2.47, T: 2.82) Exact rating: 2.67 Margaritis strung together individual events, telephone calls, and diary entries into a sort of narrative, delivered chronologically from December 1943 to June 6, 1944. It moved along, and didn't get caught up in too many details (altho......more

Goodreads review by Alex on December 11, 2024

Decent read for WWII aficionados, written as a narrative from the German point of view. The author gives it a valiant try, concocts an essentially interesting, fact-filled narrative focused on the doings of Rommel as the main protagonist and his role in the defence of the French coastline. Being an av......more

Goodreads review by Translator on May 07, 2024

Based mostly on Erwin Rommel's diaries, this is exactly what the title promises: We count down the months, then weeks, then days, and finally, the hours until the Allied D-Day invasion, but from the German point of view. Will they invade? Will they not? Certainly not this week - the weather's crap.......more