By the third week of July 1944 the senior German officers in the west feared their armies were on the verge of collapse. Battle casualties totalled more than 116,000 men and just 10,000 replacements had arrived to sustain combat strength. The loss of 2,722 officers was particularly worrying. Ten generals, eight officers of the General Staff and 158 regimental and battalion commanders had been killed or seriously wounded between June 6 and July 24. On July 15, two days before he was wounded by a strafing aircraft, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel prepared a new Analysis of the Situation which began with the statement: “The position on the Normandy Front…is rapidly approaching its crisis.” Noting the heavy losses in men and equipment, “17 tanks to replace about 225,” and the weakness and inexperience of the newly arrived infantry divisions, he concluded “the enemy will shortly be able to break through our thinly held front, especially in the 7th Army sector…the end of the unequal battle is in sight.”

By the third week of July 1944 the senior German officers in the west feared their armies were on the verge of collapse. Battle casualties totalled more than 116,000 men and just 10,000 replacements had arrived to sustain combat strength. The loss of 2,722 officers was particularly worrying. Ten generals, eight officers of the General Staff and 158 regimental and battalion commanders had been killed or seriously wounded between June 6 and July 24. On July 15, two days before he was wounded by a strafing aircraft, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel prepared a new Analysis of the Situation which began with the statement: “The position on the Normandy Front…is rapidly approaching its crisis.” Noting the heavy losses in men and equipment, “17 tanks to replace about 225,” and the weakness and inexperience of the newly arrived infantry divisions, he concluded “the enemy will shortly be able to break through our thinly held front, especially in the 7th Army sector…the end of the unequal battle is in sight.”

By the third week of July 1944 the senior German officers in the west feared their armies were on the verge of collapse. Battle casualties totalled more than 116,000 men and just 10,000 replacements had arrived to sustain combat strength. The loss of 2,722 officers was particularly worrying. Ten generals, eight officers of the General Staff and 158 regimental and battalion commanders had been killed or seriously wounded between June 6 and July 24. On July 15, two days before he was wounded by a strafing aircraft, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel prepared a new Analysis of the Situation which began with the statement: “The position on the Normandy Front…is rapidly approaching its crisis.” Noting the heavy losses in men and equipment, “17 tanks to replace about 225,” and the weakness and inexperience of the newly arrived infantry divisions, he concluded “the enemy will shortly be able to break through our thinly held front, especially in the 7th Army sector…the end of the unequal battle is in sight.”