It’s 1944 and you are Hitler. Whose plan for D-Day defense would you side with, Rommel's plan to have all tanks at the beach or Rundstedt's plan to keep them en masse behind?

Both plans had problems.

Locating the Panzer reserves some distance from the beach per Rundstedt would have subjected them to interdiction by the Allied air forces except in bad weather. This, in fact, did hamper the two SS Panzer Division’s movements when Hitler actually released them. Rundstedt had to get permission from Hitler to activate the Panzer reserves which was not given until late afternoon. Then the two divisions had to play hide and seek with Allied air assets.

Locating the Panzer reserves close to the beaches would have made them vulnerable to naval gunfire as well as air attack. I believe Rommel’s plan was to have them close enough for rapid response, but not actually at the beaches. At the beaches makes no sense as they did not know where the landings would actually take place. Besides, Rommel was the only one who thought Normandy was the target. Rundstedt, OKW and Hitler were focused on Calais due to Allied misinformation. To Rundstedt’s credit, he changed his mind when reports of the airborne landings reached his headquarters before the beach landings took place.

Finally, without substantial air assets, the Germans could not have prevented the landings. The fact that they were completely surprised due to faulty weather forecasts did not help either.

To answer the question, I would have opted for the Rommel plan. Allied air supremacy was just too great for the massive counterattack plan to work. Close enough to the beaches for quick response would have increased Allied casualties but would not have stopped the invasion.

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