General Jodl about the Military Situation - 24 February 1944

Gentlemen, today I would just like to follow up on what I said on November 8th of last year, without having prepared a presentation. And would like to make a tour on the outer ring road of the Fortress Europe. I'll start with the Eastern Front: The situation on the Eastern Front has, despite all the difficulties, not turned out to be as bad as I expected months, 3,4 months ago. The Russian has continued his onslaught, they are attacking uninterruptedly, sometimes here and sometimes there, since the middle of June last year. A performance that- one has to say that outright- no other military force in the world could have accomplished on such a scale. We see this on the Italian theater of war, where the attacks are stopped immediately after heavy losses, units are being regrouped, [attacks] only carried out on a small scale, but this incessant attacking, today here and tomorrow there, and often with the same shock troops, after all it is always only the tank corps that lead the attack, that is a quite incredible achievement. Due to the tenacious and necessary holding, especially in the south of the Eastern Front, a situation had already arisen months ago with a right wing far to the east and a left wing bent far back, which I considered hardly tolerable in the long run. Today, we have an even more extreme situation: while the right wing holds position on Crimea, and then gradually moves in a southwestern direction via Kirovograd, the left wing is slightly ahead Kowel. So, we don’t even have an eastern front anymore, but we have a front facing northeast. Apart from a few crises caused by the tenacious holding of individual points, such as the recent encirclement of the 11th Corps, the troops have - surprisingly, I can only say - been able to carry the burden [incomprehensible] The Russians have moved back on several points as a result of our counterattacks, which will probably prevail, especially on the extreme left wing where for a time it looked as if Lviv was already threatened, this danger has been averted for the time being and, in my opinion, will not reappear on a large scale before a dry period in the summer. Norway: no changes to what I said last time, except, as I said before, that we have removed a division out of Norway and are transporting a new division to Norway that will be ready by early summer. The assistance we gave to Finland consisted of that we have committed to replace a division of the Finnish front by a German one, thus weakening the German front of the Mountain AOK 20, and in return to give the Finns the possibility to free up and put another Division into reserves. They have acknowledged this concession with particular gratitude. Norway and Denmark, as mentioned, no changes compared to last time. Italy: in Italy there is much more war than one imagines. Even from all the reports, I didn't get the full picture of the immense extent to which the war events here reflect on the country itself. One can say that all the way up to Rome is front, and I have yet to see a staff that makes such a front and war-like impression as the one of Field Marshall Kesselring of Army Group C, which resides in a factory drilled inside a mountain with the entire staff of the Army Group. All major thoroughfares, both on the western and eastern sides of Italy, are under constant attack, all the villages along these roads are destroyed, radically destroyed, so that there are no troops to be seen along these roads, but only the crowd of inhabitants fleeing back, on donkeys and other vehicles. The front down in the mountains held perfectly, although there were battles whose preparation corresponded to the great battles of the last war, albeit on a smaller front. Generally, these heavy fights occurred with 20, 30, 40.000 artillery rounds in shortest time, but only on the width of a regiment, at maximum of a division. They then melted down more and more and at last they reached a width of only 1000 meters during the attacks against the block of Casino. In the southeast, no significant changes have occurred, the threat to the southeastern area has become weaker, I will come back to this when I’ll talk about the enemy, we have been able to move one division to Italy, and we have further divisions ready and are grouping them along the major railway from Agram via Belgrade to Athens, in order to have them ready - depending on the development of the situation, either for a major invasion in the west or possibly still for use in Italy or for use with Bulgaria, on the Bulgarian front. The fights against Tito have died down after the recent high snowfalls, on both sides it’s being understood that it’s necessary to let the troops rest, Tito has ordered to stop the large-scale attacks and has forbidden even the attacks against our fortified villages, because it has caused him too much losses. The snowdrifts are so immense that even the 1st Mountain Division is currently tremendously delayed and hindered on its march to the major railroad Agram-Belgrade. Now to the most essential part, the information about the enemy’s intentions we have until today and on which our further actions depend. The main forces of the enemy are still in England. It is to be assumed that there are 54-55 division, the total transports which ar still comming from America, and we expect large transports within the next 8 days, all headed to England. Remarkable is a shift of the forces from the north, from Scotland and central England to the south and in the south also, a shift towards this direction has begun. Most of the airborne divisions are located here. There is no doubt that the invasion against France is being prepared at the moment and on a massive scale from England. Could also be against the Netherlands and Denmark, but here only as a distraction because otherwise these movements would not take place here. The airborne divisions are here and that makes me think of these areas where a major airborne operation could be deployed to shield and close off a beachhead to the rear, and then with a frontal attack take one of the major ports, Brest or Cherbourg, here. […]