The largest invasion fleet in human history has descended upon the coast of Normandy, and for the men waiting behind the Atlantic Wall, the moment they have both anticipated and dreaded has finally arrived. In the early light of June 6th, 1944, German soldiers stationed in their concrete bunkers along the French coastline watched in disbelief as more than 6,000 warships, transports, and landing craft emerged from the morning fog, stretching across the horizon as far as the eye could see.
Lieutenant Colonel Werner Pluskat, commander of the first battalion of fusiliers of the 352nd Infantry Division, was among the first German officers to witness the beginning of the end. Stationed in a fortified observation post high above Omaha Beach, Pluskat had been scanning the English Channel through his binoculars since dawn, seeing nothing but empty sea. His dog, resting silently at his feet, suddenly sprang up and began barking toward the water as if sensing an invisible threat.
Moved by the animal’s unease, Pluskat raised his binoculars once more, and this time the fog had lifted enough to reveal the dark silhouettes of thousands of vessels advancing directly toward the French coast.
At approximately 5:50 in the morning, the Allied fleet unleashed its fury. Battleships, cruisers, and destroyers opened fire on the coastal defenses, hurling hundreds of shells and more than 38,000 rockets at the five designated landing beaches. The coastline was transformed into a devastated lunar landscape, covered in craters and thick smoke.
Yet the German troops, protected within their reinforced bunkers and trenches, withstood the bombardment without catastrophic losses. They were rested, alert, and waiting with weapons ready for the infantry that would soon come ashore.
The first American soldiers set foot on Utah Beach at 6:30 a. m. , and by a stroke of ironic fortune, a navigation error carried them to a less fortified sector that had been accidentally bombed beforehand.
The 4th Infantry Division, led by General Theodore Roosevelt Jr. , secured the beach with relative ease, suffering only 429 casualties. Leading his men with the now-legendary phrase “We’ll start the war from right here,” Roosevelt watched as his troops pushed inland, dislodging German defenders who offered only scattered resistance.
But it was Omaha Beach that became a true hell on Earth. There, the preliminary bombardment had failed to destroy German defenses, leaving the 352nd Infantry Division and the 716th Coastal Division intact. Approximately 7,000 German troops were deployed along eight kilometers of beach protected by cliffs reaching up to 50 meters in height, and they were ready.
When the first American landing craft dropped their ramps, German machine guns directed devastating fire straight into the openings, cutting down soldiers before they could even set foot on the sand.
The assault boats quickly earned the nickname “sardine cans” among the American troops because of how easily they were hit. In the western sector of Omaha, the three platoon leaders of the 116th Infantry Regiment were killed instantly as their ramp opened. Soldiers jumped into water that in many places rose above their heads, and those who could not swim discarded their weapons and equipment in desperation, only to drown or be cut down by enemy fire.
Lifeless bodies floated beside wounded men calling for help, and some pretended to be dead, hoping the current would carry them to solid ground.
Among the German defenders, one name would become etched into the history of that bloody morning: Hinrich Severloh, a young machine gunner stationed in Resistance Nest 62. For hours, Severloh fired his MG42 machine gun with relentless efficiency, supported by a team that kept him supplied with ammunition. He watched as American soldiers threw themselves to the ground, seeking cover that did not exist on the đźđđčđžđŒđźđ beach.
When his machine gun was not in operation, he continued firing with his Mauser K98 rifle, expending approximately 400 rounds that day.
The most disturbing moment for Severloh came not from the mass casualties inflicted by his machine gun, but from a single shot fired from his rifle. He spotted an American soldier carrying a flamethrower, taking cover behind two concrete blocks in the middle of the beach. Severloh aimed and fired, and the bullet pierced the soldier’s helmet, killing him instantly.
That image haunted him for years in recurring nightmares, more than watching dozens of men fall to his machine gun fire.
By mid-morning, Severloh noticed something deeply unsettling. The neighboring German positions that had also responded intensely at the start of the landing had gone silent, one by one. At 10:12 a.
m. , a message confirmed that only one machine gun was still functioning in Resistance Nest 62: his. For hours, Severloh practically held the defense of that beach sector alone.
It was not until around 2:00 in the afternoon, after a shell fragment wounded him in the face, that his commander ordered him to abandon the position. Severloh withdrew, and his commander, Lieutenant Bernard Frerking, was killed shortly afterward.
The scenes across the rest of the Normandy front presented a mixed picture. At Pointe du Hoc, the 2nd Ranger Battalion completed its perilous climb under enemy fire, only to discover the guns they had been sent to destroy were no longer there. At Gold Beach, British forces from the 50th Infantry Division pushed inland despite scattered resistance.
At Juno Beach, Canadian troops faced a more consistent defense, suffering considerable losses in the first wave before breaking through German lines. And at Sword Beach, British troops and interallied commandos advanced rapidly, securing coastal defenses and nearby towns while a German torpedo boat sank a destroyer.
By midday, the Allies had established a solid beachhead along the Normandy coast, though at tremendous cost. German soldiers began retreating through the remains of the terrain toward Colleville, while the wounded and dying covered the sands of Omaha.
Hitler, meanwhile, had slept through the beginning of the invasion. He rose at 8:00 a. m.
, learning that Allied forces had landed on the coast of Normandy. Showing no alarm, he called an urgent meeting with the Army High Command and authorized the deployment of the 21st Panzer Division. Convinced that now that the Allies were on solid ground, he could destroy them, Hitler confidently declared that the time had come to defeat them on the continent.
At 9:00 a. m. , the National Socialist regime officially announced the invasion over the radio.
But confusion reigned within the German command structure. General Erich Marcks ordered the 21st Panzer Division to attack British positions, but his direct superior Edgar Feuchtinger cancelled the order. A bitter argument broke out between Fritz Bayerlein and Friedrich Dollmann over whether to expose tanks in broad daylight to Allied artillery and air power.
General Gerd von Rundstedt reluctantly ordered the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend to advance toward Normandy, but he did so with deep misgivings, fearing that moving the unit so far north would leave it out of position when what he still believed to be the real invasion came at the Pas de Calais.
At approximately 4:30 p. m. , the 21st Panzer Division finally launched its attack, but the offensive was strongly repelled, and the division withdrew toward Caen.
The commander justified the retreat by claiming he had sighted 600 Allied aircraft moving east and feared being cut off. The division had lost 70 of its 124 tanks. The first elements of the 12th SS Panzer did not arrive at the Orne River until around 10:00 p.
m. , and most of their tanks were immobilized due to lack of fuel.
The German high command remained convinced that the entire Normandy operation was a diversionary maneuver. They believed the Allies were being cunning, and that the real invasion had not yet begun. Years later, senior commanders would try to justify their confusion by blaming a supposedly sleeping Hitler, but the truth was that Allied intelligence had brilliantly deceived them.
The first serious set of German offensive orders was not issued until 14 hours after the start of the landing. The Germans had assumed that, for logistical reasons, the Allies would attack a port. They simply did not expect the Allies to bring their own floating ports with them.
What followed in the days after D-Day was a brutal war of attrition. The Hitlerjugend Division, composed of boys just 17 and 18 years old, fought with an uncommon ferocity that shocked even battle-hardened Allied troops. Trained under the motto “Flexible like leather, tough like Krupp steel, swift like greyhounds,” these young soldiers were among the most ideologically indoctrinated formations within the Waffen-SS.
Equipped with Panzer IV tanks and led by experienced officers from the Leibstandarte, they held their ground as if they had years of combat experience.
By the end of the clashes in Normandy, the Hitlerjugend had suffered 60 percent casualties, but they had proven to be the most feared force the Allies faced in France. On June 14th, a British naval bombardment struck near Venoix, where the command post of the 12th SS Panzer Division was located. The unit’s commander, Fritz Witt, was hit in the face by shrapnel and died instantly.
Command fell to Kurt Meyer, a young 33-year-old officer known for his boldness.
Operation Epsom, launched on June 26th, represented Montgomery’s desperate attempt to break the stalemate at Caen. More than 60,000 soldiers and 600 tanks advanced against formidable German defenses, including the feared 88mm anti-aircraft guns and the battle-hardened Waffen-SS divisions. The assault on Hill 112 turned into a catastrophe for the British 11th Armoured Division, whose Sherman tanks were destroyed one after another by direct fire from the summit.
The offensive failed to achieve its strategic objectives, and the Battle of Caen dragged on for 36 days before the city finally fell on July 20th.
The figures reflect the intensity of the fighting around Caen. The Allies suffered nearly 23,000 casualties and lost around 890 tanks, while German forces counted approximately 12,000 casualties and 300 tanks destroyed. It was a tactical victory for the German army, seen as one last great success for Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who had tirelessly worked to strengthen the coastal defenses in the months leading up to the invasion.
But the German success would be short-lived, as after the breakthrough south of Caen, the American and Anglo-Canadian troops united and advanced inland, soon facilitating the liberation of Paris and marking the beginning of the collapse of the Third Reich in Western Europe.
As for Hinrich Severloh, his war ended on the same beaches where he had inflicted so much destruction. Captured by American forces on June 6th, he did not reveal his role in the battle, a decision that may have saved his life. He spent nearly two years in various labor camps along the east coast of the United States, harvesting crops.
One moment left a deep mark on his conscience: a comrade read him a magazine article describing how American soldiers in the Easy Red sector could not land because the mud mixed with blood made them slip constantly. It was a harsh emotional blow that made him confront for the first time the human dimension of what he had experienced.
Released in April 1947 at the request of his father, Severloh returned to Germany and tried to resume a normal life. He married his former girlfriend Lisa in 1949, and for years she was his only refuge for talking about the past. He returned to Normandy on several occasions, seeking understanding and forgiveness.
In the year 2000, he published his memoirs as a cathartic act, not to become famous but to free himself from the emotional burden he had carried for decades. He died in 2006. Today, Resistance Nest 62 stands preserved as a silent witness to the story of a young man who survived the hell of Omaha, and to the thousands on both sides who did not.
