In the second Countdown to D-Day blog, Peter Margaritis reveals the life of a lesser known officer who would later serve as first of the German liaison staff for the United States Army Europe, Wilhelm Meyer-Detring.
Tall, robust, dark-haired Oberst i.G. (im Generalstab―in the General Staff) Wilhelm Meyer-Detring attended the Kriegsakademie in Berlin in 1936. He had been the Operations Officer for the 299th Infantry Division, and then for the 137th Infantry Division, participating in the invasion of France, before being appointed as the Ic (Intelligence Chief) at von Rundstedt’s theatre headquarters in 1942.
He had just turned 38 years old in early May 1944 when he was finally allowed to go on leave. He had not seen his family since before Christmas, so he was understandably eager to go. He left Saint-Germain-en-Laye on May 15th and was not due back until (ironically) June 6th. He returned home to his family estate in East Prussia and spent three cheerful weeks with his wife and children. He left his home on June 5th and boarded a train for Paris. So as the first Allied airborne units were landing in Normandy, Meyer-Detring was fast asleep in a train compartment.
Sometime after 6:30 a.m., the train stopped at the Thionville railroad station just inside the French border, still some 370 km from his headquarters. There, the German officer in charge of the station told him in an agitated voice that the Allies had landing in France. Meyer-Detring immediately grabbed a phone and called his headquarters to confirm the news. They arranged for a car to meet him at Château-Thierry and drive him back the last one-third the distance. His train departed and pulled into Château-Thierry around noontime. There he hopped into the waiting staff car and roared off towards Paris. The drive was in good weather the temperature quite warm, and he finally made it back to Saint-Germain-en-Laye late in the afternoon.
From September 1944 until the end of the war, he served as a staff officer in the Wehrmacht command staff. In May 1945, he surrendered to the Americans and was held until 1946. Ten years later, he joined the West German Bundeswehr. Here he was the first head of the German liaison staff at the United States Army Europe (USAREUR), later a Generalmajor with NATO. In 1959, he was made deputy commander of the 2nd Panzergrenadier Division and two years later, commanded the 1st Panzer Division and then the First Corps in Münster.
He died on May 4, 2002.
Wilhelm Meyer-Detring and his role in the defence of the Atlantic Wall is explored in the new book, Countdown to D-Day, due to be released June 2019.
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