Johannes Blaskowitz - Occupation of France

Occupation of France

Following the Fall of France in May 1940, Blaskowitz was initially slated to command the 9th Army for occupation duties, but the appointment was blocked by Hitler and instead he was appointed to a relatively minor position as Military Governor of Northern France, a position he held until October 1940, when he was transferred to the command of the 1st Army, on the southwest coast between Brittany and the Spanish border.

In May 1944, following the appointment of Gerd von Rundstedt as Commander-in-Chief in the West, Blaskowitz was appointed head of Army Group G. This comparatively small command, consisting of the 1st Army and the 19th Army, was given the task of defending southern France from the imminent Allied invasion.

The invasion of southern France commenced on 15 August 1944, with Operation Dragoon, when Allied forces landed on the Riviera between Toulon and Cannes. Blaskowitz, badly outnumbered and lacking air superiority, brought up units, stabilized his front, and led a fighting withdrawal to the north to avoid encirclement. US army units pursued Blaskowitz up through the Vosges mountains before pausing to regroup. There, Blaskowitz's forces were reinforced by the 5th Panzer Army under Hasso von Manteuffel. Blaskowitz wanted to entrench his forces, but Hitler ordered him to immediately counterattack the US Third Army. Both Manteuffel and Blaskowitz realized the futility of such an action, but obeyed their orders, and their attack caught the US forces in disarray and pushed them back to near Lunéville on 18–20 September 1944, at which point resistance stiffened and the attack was suspended. Furious over this failure, Hitler summarily relieved Blaskowitz, replacing him with Hermann Balck.