Ordered by Hitler 'to hold, or to die' and to fight 'to the last grenade and round', the German army was a formidable opponent during the 1944 Normandy campaign. This book depicts the experience of that army in Normandy through its own records and documentation.

Blood and Steel, The Wehrmacht Archive : Normandy 1944 is an informative and colourful collection of translated original orders, diaries, letters, after action reports, and even jokes, as well as Allied technical evaluations of German weapons, vehicles and equipment and transcripts of prisoner of war interrogations. The translations also feature comments from wartime Allied intelligence officers which provide an insight into how the German army was regarded by its opponents at the time.

As you read the landser''s letters to wives and families in Germany, his forbidden diaries, his gripes about food, officers, and shortages of just about everything, the daily life of the German soldier in the long and bloody summer of 1944 will come to life. You will also learn from official documents about his superiors' efforts to cope with Allied air and artillery superiority, create new tactical methods for all arms and maintain discipline in the face of overwhelming odds with both exaggerated claims of miraculous new 'Vengeance Weapons' and threats of the ultimate sanction for desertion or surrender.

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Plates
• Introduction
• A Note to the Reader
• German Ranks and Their Equivalents
• Abbreviations and Acronyms Used in Text and Notes
• Chapter 1: The German Experience of Battle
• Chapter 2: Defending Normandy
• Chapter 3: The German Experience of Battle
• Chapter 4: The Individual Soldier’s Experience
• Chapter 5: Tactics
• Chapter 6: Infantry Weapons and Tactics
• Chapter 7: Anti-Tank and Artillery Weapons and Tactics
• Chapter 8: Armoured Vehicles and Tactics
• Chapter 9: Allied Evaluations of German Armoured Vehicles, Weapons and Tactics
• Chapter 10: The Training of Senior Officers
• Chapter 11: Shortages of Medical Supplies, Weapons and Equipment
• Chapter 12: Discipline, Morale, Propaganda and Tensions Between the Army and the SS
• Chapter 13: Casualties and Casualty Replacement
• Chapter 14: The Effects of Allied Artillery and Air Bombardment
• Chapter 15: Miscellaneous and Humour (Such as it Was)
• Epilogue: The Wehrmacht Retreats from Dieppe, August 1944