us of the deception had shifted from the regions of the Balkans and Norway to the Pas de Calais. The concentration of Allied troops was so great, that an invasion of France seemed inevitable. Bombing attacks, sabotage by the French Resistance and false messages from compromised German agents all focused on the Pas de Calais with only minimal attention to Normandy. Also, German intelligence thought that the Allies had 90 divisions ready for the invasion (really only 39), so that even after the invasion of Normandy, the belief could still exist that Normandy was just a preliminary measure and the main invasion of the Pas de Calais was still to come. None of the German high command in France doubted that the invasion would strike the Pas de Calais. The Fhrer himself, Adolf Hitler, had an intuition that the invasion would come to Normandy but was unable to incite his commanders to make more than minimal reinforcement there. Due to poor weather conditions, the first step in the invasion began a day late, on June 6 around 12:15 am, an air attack on Normandy. The Germans saw the airborne assault as nothing more than a raid or at most a diversionary attack. As the airborne landings continued, Field Marshal von Rundstedt nevertheless decided that even if the assault was a diversionary attack, it had to be defeated. Around 4:00 am, he ordered two Panzer divisions to prepare for counter attack, but when he reported what he had done to the high command in Germany, word came back to halt the divisions pending approval from Hitler. That would be a long time coming, for Hitler's staff was reluctant to disturb the Fhrer's sleep. For the following 12 hours, Allied forces landed on five beaches defeating with minimal casualties, the German defenses. It was 4 pm on D-Day before Hitler at last approved the deployment of the two panzer divisions. Allied deception had been remarkably effective and because Hitler had been sleeping and was then slow to carry o...
