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by the Das Reich before D-Day was a raid on Figeac, in which the Germans discovered a Resistance arms dump including sixty-four rifles, three Bren guns, thirty-one Stens and a bazooka. The town paid a terrible price: more than a thousand people were arrested and deported to Germany. Forty-one were killed.
    Yet for all the thoroughness with which the Das Reich approached these operations when ordered to carry them out, they were a matter of exasperation to the divisional staff, anxious about its training programme. Several protests were made to 58 Corps and Army Group G about this use of Frontsoldaten against communist bandits. ‘We were completely unsuited in character and mentality to this sort of warfare,’ said Major Stuckler. ‘Therewere specially trained units for this type of work.’ Training was also being hampered by the chronic shortage of fuel. Although they exercised intensively at company and battalion level, they lacked opportunity to manoeuvre as a division. Communication and liaison between units was poor. Many of the raw recruits who had joined them in February and March were scarcely past basic training. They were still acutely short of transport – above all trucks for the infantry units and tractors for the towed artillery. Deliveries of tanks were proceeding slowly. On 16 May, they had received thirty-seven Panzer Vs and fifty-five Panzer IVs towards their new reduced establishment of sixty-two of each. But they possessed a full complement of thirty of the superb Sturmgeschützen – assault guns that were in effect turretless tanks, with a low silhouette that made them very difficult targets for enemy fire. The two Panzergrenadier regiments – each in British parlance a brigade – were at full strength, but under-trained. Major Weidinger, casting a critical eye upon his men, believed that they were capable of fighting a limited battle. His fear was that in a prolonged action, under continuous strain for a period of weeks, their inexperience and lack of training would tell against them.
    Then Heinz Guderian, the godfather of all German armoured forces, arrived on an inspection tour. For three days he watched their exercises, above all the night movements which they knew would be critical against Allied air power, the ‘walking forest’ – heavily camouflaged advances of the tank units who had been warned that there would be none of the great sweeps across open plains that had been possible in Russia. Guderian pronounced himself reasonably satisfied. On his last evening, the officers arranged a dinner for him in their mess at a nearby château. Silver candles and linen tablecloths were found, the black market was swept for food, and that night a circle of dress-uniformed young tankmen and gunners sat down to dinner with the general at the head of the table. He was at his most affable and talkative. He told one of his favourite stories:
    How long have infantry existed? Four thousand years! And in all that time, no one has been able to invent a useful pair of infantry boots. They are always too long or too short. How long have cavalry existed? More than four thousand years! And in all that time, they have never been able to invent a useful lance – they are always too long or too short! How long has artillery existed? Five hundred years. I suggested to our designers a revolutionary measure. They answered: ‘My dear Oberst Guderian, you may be a very good tankman, but you know nothing about artillery. Artillery has been pointing backwards for five hundred years! Now you say you want a gun that will go into action pointing forward!’
    The officers of the Sturmgeschützabteilung laughed with the rest at his version of the development of their self-propelled guns.
    With the benefit of hindsight, the success of the Allied landings in Normandy, against indifferent and poorly directed German resistance, seems inevitable. It did not seem so to either side at the time. Even a sceptic such as Fritz