141 The Ob. West Hq At Saint-Germain-En-Laye.pdf

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THE OB. WEST HQ AT
SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE
Number 141
4 1
9
770306
154080
£3.95
NUMBER 141
© Copyright
After the Battle
2008
Editor-in-Chief: Winston G. Ramsey
Managing Editor: Gordon Ramsey
Editor: Karel Margry
Published by
Battle of Britain International Ltd.,
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In the summer of 1940, the Oberbefehlshaber West (German Commander-in-Chief in
the West) set up his headquarters in the Pavillon Henri IV at Saint-Germain-en-Laye,
just west of Paris.
Above:
Maurice Veillon, a local photographer, pictured a German
wire obstacle barring access to the château on the park side.
THE OB. WEST HQ AT
SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE
UNITED KINGDOM
RAF Target Mapping Centre at
Hughenden Manor
WRECK DISCOVERY
The Discovery of HMAS
Sydney
2
34
42
Front
Cover:
The
main
Ob.
West
headquarters bunker at Saint-Germain-en-
Laye, just west of Paris. Sixty years of
growth have wrapped the huge concrete
block in a cover of green. (Jean Paul Pallud)
Centre Pages:
Taken in March 1961, with no
leaves on the trees and a low sun, this
photograph from the archives of the French
Institut Géographique National shows all the
German bunkers then remaining at Saint-
Germain. (IGN)
Back Cover:
Lieutenant John Perryman, RAN
Senior Naval Historian, pays tribute to the crew of
HMAS
Sydney
which was sunk with the loss of all
hands on November 19, 1941. The wreck off west-
ern Australia lay undiscovered until March 2008.
Acknowledgements:
For their help with the Ob.
West story, the Editor would like to thank Denis
Bamps, Yannick Billiault, Patrick Périn, director
of the Musée d’Archéologie Nationale and his
colleagues Laurent Cardine and Vital Drille,
Josef Charita and Peter Heijkoop. A special
thanks to Henri de Rolland for his long-time
support. For help with the Hughenden Manor
story, we thank Jessie Binns, National Trust
Learning Officer, and Mary Edwards.
Photo Credits:
AMSG — Archives Municipales
de Saint-Germain; AVO — Archives du Val
d’Oise; AWM — Australian War Memorial,
Canberra; BA — Bundesarchiv; ECPAD —
Mediathèque de la Défense, Fort d’Ivry
The Renaissance château of Saint-Germain was built in the 16th century and reached
its present form under King François I. King Louis XIV was born there in 1638 (the
city’s coat of arms features a cradle and his birth date) and chose the city as his prin-
cipal residence until 1682. King James II of England lived there for 13 years following
his exile from Britain after the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and today still lies buried
in the local church. The château now houses the Museum of National Antiquities,
which has a fine collection of archaeological material, ranging from the Palaeolithic
and Bronze Age to Celtic and Gallo-Roman times.
LA ROCHE-GUYON
SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE
VAUX-LE-VICOMTE
Situated on the left bank of the Seine river, Saint-Germain is the last station on
Line A of the RER, the Paris express subway train system.
2
ATB
CONTENTS
MAURICE VEILLON
THE OB. WEST HQ AT SAINT-GERMAIN-EN-LAYE
After seven months of ‘Phoney War’, the
Wehrmacht launched its attack in the West
on May 10, 1940 and within six weeks the
Netherlands, Belgium and France had been
defeated, as had the British Expeditionary
Force. The armistice with France was signed
on June 22 and hostilities ceased three days
later.
Of the three army groups that had fought
and won the swift campaign, Heeresgruppe
A was designated to remain in the West and
Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt
and his staff soon established themselves at
Saint-Germain-en-Laye, just west of Paris.
(Heeresgruppe B was moved to the East in
August, soon followed by Heeresgruppe C
which was returned to Germany in October.)
By July it was clear that Britain intended to
keep on fighting so Hitler ordered his army
and navy staffs to plan for the invasion of
Great Britain. On September 5, Heeres-
gruppe A drew up the provisional instructions
for Operation ‘Seelöwe’ which would involve
two armies — the 9. Armee and 16. Armee —
and defined the two waves of the assault. On
September 14, Heeresgruppe A issued its
Order No. 1 for ‘Seelöwe’ and on the 25th
Generaloberst Franz Halder, Chief of the
General Staff at the Oberkommando des
Heeres (OKH, the Army High Command),
came in person to the headquarters at Saint-
Germain for a map exercise. This confirmed
his view that the main attack should be car-
ried by the 16. Armee on the right wing.
By Jean Paul Pallud
Apart from the continuing lack of air supe-
riority over southern England, it was equally
apparent that there was insufficient shipping
available to carry the Wehrmacht across the
Channel. The Kriegsmarine strongly recom-
mended against the operation and on Octo-
ber 12 Hitler decided to postpone ‘Seelöwe’
until the following spring. In his book
Von
Rundstedt, the soldier and the man
published
in 1952, Günther Blumentritt (in 1940 the
Operations Officer at Heeresgruppe A)
wrote that from the beginning von Rundst-
edt and his staff always thought that the
operation would never be launched.
BA 246/713/32
Top:
In April 1941, when Generalfeldmarschall von Rundstedt
(left) and his staff were secretly moved to the East, the function
of Ob. West was taken over by Generalfeldmarschall Erwin von
Witzleben (right).
Left:
At first, Jean Paul was confident that this
series of photos was showing the actual take-over between the
two field-marshals, and that it had logically been taken at Saint-
Germain-en-Laye. However, when investigating on the spot, it
became clear that this was not so. Luckily, Jean-Paul’s son
Michaël had a look at the photos and recognised the location as
another famous château, that of Vaux-le-Vicomte, located near
Melun, 55 kilometres south-east of Paris.
Right:
The comparison
to prove it, taken in the Chambre du Roi at Vaux-le-Vicomte.
3
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BA 246/713/23
BA 246/713/6
Jean Paul then discovered that these pictures had been taken
in March 1941 by German Kriegsberichter (war photographer)
Dieck during a party held to celebrate von Witzleben’s 40 years
in the army. The gathering took place in the central Grand
Salon which rises the full height of the château under a dome.
Hitler had by then decided to attack the
Soviet Union and, to enable the OKH to
devote its attention to planning that cam-
paign in the East, on October 29 Heeres-
gruppe A was designated theatre comman-
der for the West. Its commander,
Generalfeldmarschall von Rundstedt, was
appointed Commander-in-Chief West
(Oberbefehlshaber West or Ob. West for
short) and made responsible for all the Ger-
man-occupied territory in western Europe.
He was placed directly under the Oberkom-
mando der Wehrmacht (OKW, Armed
Forces High Command).
Then in April 1941 the headquarters of
Heeresgruppe A was secretly moved to the
East under the code-name ‘Abschnittstab
Winter’ (on the day of the attack on the
Soviet Union, it would take command of the
right wing of the front under the new title of
Heeresgruppe Süd). Meanwhile in the West,
the function of Ob. West was taken over
from April 15 by the headquarters of
Heeresgruppe D. The new Commander-in-
Chief in the West was Generalfeldmarschall
Erwin von Witzleben who had three armies
under his command, the 15. Armee and 7.
Armee manning the coastline from Antwerp
to the Spanish border and the 1. Armee in
charge of the occupied portion of France.
In December 1941, at his request and for
health reasons, von Rundstedt was relieved
from command of Heeresgruppe Süd. In
March 1942 von Witzleben took leave of his
command in the West due to ill health and
von Rundstedt took over, being appointed
acting commander of Heeresgruppe D and
Commander-in-Chief in the West from
March 8. He returned to Saint-Germain-en-
Laye and his position was made permanent
on May 1 although letters to his wife make
clear that he was not particularly happy to
return to active service. However von Witz-
leben’s health problems were real (he actu-
ally had to have an operation) but Hitler used
them as a convenient pretext to get rid of him
as he had never been a supporter of the Nazi
regime. After his recovery, von Witzleben
was put in the OKH Führer-Reserve, a pool
of officers unassigned but on active duty.
Two weeks later, Hitler issued his Führer
Directive No. 40 covering the conduct of the
defence of the West. He decreed that the
defences along the coast should be organised
in such a way that any invasion attempt could
be broken up either before the actual landing
or certainly immediately after. Strong
defences were to be built in locations suit-
able for an enemy invasion, and sectors in
danger of small-scale attacks were to be
defended by a series of strong points. Other
less-vulnerable parts of the coast were to be
patrolled.
4
It was in this same salon that TV actress and
Desperate House-
wives
star Eva Longoria and basketball celebrity Tony Parker
held their wedding reception on July 7, 2007. They had booked
the château for two days and
OK Magazine
paid two million
dollars for exclusive photos.
The German party then had a meal in another luxurious salon of the château. Von
Witzleben addressed his guests, among them in the forefront Generalfeldmarschall
Hugo Sperrle, commander of the Luftwaffe in the West, and General der Infanterie
Otto von Stülpnagel, the Military Governor of France.
No banquet today in the Salon Carré but an endless stream of fascinated visitors. All
rooms of the château are furnished and open to the public and thousands of tourists
flock to view its ornate treasures every year.
ATB
BA 246/713/37
ATB
BA 246/712/36
Vaux-le-Vicomte château was built in
1658-61 for Nicolas Fouquet, the superin-
tendent of finances of Louis XIV, and is
one of Europe’s finest constructions of its
kind. To achieve this masterpiece, Fou-
quet brought together the genius of
three men: architect Louis Le Vau,
painter-decorator Charles Le Brun and
garden designer Le Nôtre. Fouquet owed
his success as finance minister to his
superb intelligence, his daring and loy-
alty to the throne. Many were envious of
him and nearly as many, among them
Jean-Baptiste Colbert who aimed at
replacing him, sowed seeds of distrust in
the young King’s mind with each passing
day, combining justified criticism with
calumny. They finally succeeded in mak-
ing the King believe that his minister’s
splendour was funded by misappropria-
tion of public funds and in September
1661, a few weeks after the festive open-
ing of his château, Fouquet was arrested
by d’Artagnan, captain of the King’s mus-
keteers. A specially convened emergency
court ruled for banishing Fouquet but the
King overruled the court’s decision, com-
muting the sentence to imprisonment for
life. Fouquet stayed incarcerated under
close surveillance until his death in
March 1680. Vaux-le-Vicomte, from
which Louis XIV took his inspiration to
build Versailles, remains as his legacy.
Holding his field-marshal’s baton, von Witzleben inspected an honour company lined
up for him in the château garden.
Unfortunately these photos show very little of the grandeur of the garden designed
by 17th-century landscape architect André Le Nôtre, a balanced composition of
patterned flower-beds, water basins, fountains and canals.
BA 246/712/38
Von Witzleben left his command in March 1942, officially for
health reasons but sources indicate that he was forcibly retired
for criticising the regime. The only field-marshal to be wholly
enrolled into the conspiracy against Hitler, his assignment in
the July 1944 plot was to take over supreme command of the
Wehrmacht once Hitler was dead. In the evening of the 20th,
he went to the Bendlerstrasse block, the General Army Office
of the Wehrmacht High Command, in Berlin to take this com-
mand but he quickly saw that things were going wrong and
left at 8.15 p.m., knowing that the attempt had failed. He sim-
ply returned home where he was soon arrested. Part of the
first group of accused conspirators to be brought before the
People’s Court on August 7, he was sentenced to death and
hanged at Plötzensee Prison on the 8th.
5
ATB
ATB
BA 246/712/37

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