How Britain's film industry helped to fool Hitler on D-Day (2024)

Adolf Hitler spent most of the spring of 1944 at his heavily guarded retreat in the Bavarian mountains near Berchtesgaden, the Berghof.

With the base's spectacular views across to the Austrian Alps, Hitler's head was literally as well as metaphorically in the clouds that spring.

Everyone in the German leadership knew that an invasion of Europe was coming. But no one knew when.

Meanwhile, workers from Britain's famed film production hub - Shepperton Studios - were busy collaborating in a deception that would prove staggeringly successful.

The objective of Operation Fortitude was to convince the Nazis that the invasion of occupied Europe would take place in the Pas-de-Calais, across the shortest stretch of the English Channel.

Studio technicians built dummy tanks out of rubber and canvas - as well as landing craft - that could easily be lifted up and moved around.

A completely fake army was also conjured up and was based in the south-east of England.

Radio messages which the Germans could pick up filled the airwaves with phoney orders and instructions about training regimes.

The ruse was swallowed in its entirety by the Germans, and so on the first day of the Normandy landings, on June 6, 1944, the Allied attack took Hitler entirely by surprise.

But we need to rewind to the previous month to understand why the Nazis did not spot the deception.

The end of May 1944 had seen bright clear weather in northern Europe with high pressure over the Channel.

The warm, dry spell was ideal to launch an amphibious operation.

But no invasion came. Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Propaganda chief, taunted: 'They say they are coming, why don't they come!'

The Germans not only did not know when the invasion was coming but also had no idea where the Allies would land.

There were hundreds of miles of coastline to choose from. There was Norway and Denmark, the sandy coastline of Holland and Belgium, the cliffs of the Pas-de-Calais in northern France and further west Normandy and Brittany.

Hitler at different points predicted the invasion would be launched in Norway, or Brittany, or Normandy, or Belgium.

No doubt he suggested all these regions were possible so that he could later claim, wherever the Allies landed, he had been right all along.

In addition, there was a dispute among German generals in charge of defending northern France.

Field Marshal Irwin Rommel was convinced that the only way to defeat a substantial landing force was to keep his panzers near the coast and throw the invaders back in to the sea on the very first day before they could establish a secure beach head.

He predicted this would be 'the longest day'. However, the commander of the panzer forces, General Geyr von Schweppenburg, took a different view.

He wanted to wait until the Allies had landed and built up their resources before launching a powerful panzer counter-attack to throw them back.

He wanted the panzer reserves to be based a hundred miles or so back from the coast, enabling them to move to wherever landings took place.

The dispute turned into a major row and Hitler stepped in and decreed that only limited panzer units could be situated near the coast.

The rest could only be moved with his own personal and direct approval. It was a compromise that would prove fatal.

Meanwhile, a large Anglo-American army was assembling and training in the south and west of England - in Hampshire, Dorset and Devon.

They were preparing to launch the D-Day invasion along fifty miles of Normandy coastline.

They were under the overall command of American General Dwight D. Eisenhower, whilst Britain's General Bernard Montgomery led the land forces in the 21st Army Group.

But the Allies had been running Operation Fortitude throughout the spring of 1944.

The completely fake First US Army Group was 'based' in Kent, Essex and Sussex and supposedly consisted of about three hundred thousand men.

Divisions and Corps were invented out of thin air. They were given names and locations where they were supposed to be based and carrying out their training.

Surrey's Shepperton Studios had been one of Britain's busiest studio complexes before the war.

Opened in 1932 by Scottish businessman Norman Loudon, the studios' main innovation were its two large sound stages.

By1939 the studios had doubled in size and were attracting greats such as director Anthony Asquith as the era of the 'talkies' became established.

But, with the major downturn for the film industry that came with the outbreak of war, all of the experts left at Shepperton were drafted in to help defeat Hitler.

The technicians' fake tanks were built around a metal frame and could be pumped up with air to full size.

They looked like the real thing but could easily be lifted up by four men.

The dummy landing craft were about 170 feet long and 30 feet wide and were made out of heavy canvas stretched across a steel frame, floating on empty oil drums.

Two hundred and fifty of these large craft were 'launched' at night in Dover and Folkestone.

They were moored along the Essex coast and were amassed as far north as Lowestoft and Great Yarmouth.

A few German reconnaissance aircraft were allowed to overfly the south-east of England and photograph the signs of this vast army that appeared to be assembling.

This was in marked contrast to the south-west of England, where the real army was gathering for the invasion. No reconnaissance aircraft were allowed here.

Soon, German military Intelligence, the Abwehr, began to report that a large army was assembling in the south-east of England and preparing to invade in the Pas-de-Calais.

As a final coup de theatre, General George S. Patton was put in charge of this fake Army Group in the south-east.

He was an aggressive commander and a fine leader of tanks and armour.

But he was in disgrace for having abused soldiers in the previous year who were showing signs of post traumatic stress disorder.

He had slapped and threatened to shoot them if they didn't return to the front line.

Now, having only been given the job of commanding an imaginary army, he threw himself into it.

As a natural showman he would make speeches and inspect armoured units with great fanfare.

Everywhere he went he was photographed and his picture appeared in the papers.

The Germans believed he was the best commander the Allies had and totally accepted that he would be chosen to command troops who would spearhead the invasion.

Evidence shows that the German military leaders in the West became convinced that the Allies were preparing a major amphibious operation against the Pas-de-Calais.

But in the German High Command everything ultimately depended upon Hitler. And it is clear that Hitler too fell for the Allied deceptions hook, line and sinker.

On May 27, ten days before the invasion, Hitler had a meeting with the Japanese ambassador to Germany, Baron Hiroshi Oshima.

Hitler spoke openly to Oshima and told him that wherever the invasion came first, whether in Norway, Denmark, Normandy or Brittany, this would be a feint as the Allies would then 'come forward with an all-out Second Front in the area of the Straits of Dover.'

A transcript of their conversation was sent by Oshima to Tokyo. This was intercepted and quickly deciphered by the Americans.

The deceivers were delighted when they read the intercepts. They could barely believe how Hitler had taken their bait.

It was as though they had written Hitler's script for him.

So on June 6 the Germans were totally surprised when, soon after dawn, Allied troops started splashing ashore in Normandy.

Their radar stations had been destroyed by Allied attack aircraft and telephone lines cut by the French Resistance.

But even then, senior German commanders were convinced the landings were only a sideshow to distract them. They were still waiting for what they thought would be a main assault to come in the Pas-de-Calais.

In the Berghof, when the first reports of the landings came in, Hitler was fast asleep.

He had been up until nearly 3am the night before talking with Goebbels and other cronies and had taken a sleeping pill on retiring.

Despite news of the landings, Hitler's aides did not want to wake him. It was not until 11am that he finally awoke and was told of events in Normandy.

Only he could order the panzer reserves to move towards the invasion beaches. But he did nothing.

Instead, he went to a reception in Salzburg and only when he returned to the Berghof at about 4pm that afternoon did he respond to pleas to send in the panzers.

By then it was too late. The 'longest day' had been won by the Allies - 155,000 men with all their vehicles, supplies and armoured support had been landed and were safely ashore.

The first panzer reserves did not arrive until the following day and most took several days to get to Normandy.

That's not to say that the battles that followed were not hard and long. It took roughly two months to break out from Normandy. Paris did not fall until August.

Despite massive losses the German Army maintained its fighting ability and would fight on for many months.

But D-Day was a turning point. Its success was the beginning of the end of the Third Reich.

This came about largely as a consequence of the fighting ability of the men who led the invasion in Normandy, but also because of the brilliant deception plan that fooled Hitler and the Germans into thinking this was not the real thing.

And, of course, Hitler slept late on D-Day. The Allies were lucky that the Führer was a deep sleeper.

Taylor Downing is the author ofThe Army That Never Was: D-Day and the Great Deception, which is published by Icon Books.