Rommel began his inspection on November 30, 1943, in Denmark. He was to report his findings to Hitler, while keeping the overall commander in the West, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, informed of his progress. Meanwhile, the staff of Army Group B now based itself at Fontainebleau in preparation for Rommel's assumption of command of a northern army group that would extend from Belgium to Brittany. Army Group B's responsibilities would include the presumed main threat areas of Pas de Calais and Normandy.

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The weaknesses that Rommel found along the coast appalled him — especially the lack of preparedness in the immediate coastal areas. In effect, German troops in the West had been on vacation — certainly in comparison to what was happening on the Eastern Front.

Now that it was clear that he would assume command of the defense of northwestern Europe, Rommel had already developed his conception of how the Wehrmacht must conduct that defense. The German general best known for his lightning-quick armored advances across the desert now concluded that he would have to prepare the strongest possible positional defense. The most immediate need was to energize the forces along the English Channel and quickly marshal the resources necessary to build an effective system of fortifications along the coastal regions. For the next six months, he spent much of his time and energy pushing everyone within his area of responsibility to build field fortifications and bunkers, lay barbed wire, dig trenches and emplace beach obstacles between the low and high tide limits. Under his direction, the Germans also embarked on a massive program of mine laying. The field marshal's aim was to have 12 to 15 million mines in place before the Allies landed — a goal that, fortunately for the Allies, the Germans fell well short of.

As late as it was, Rommel's program of emplacing beach obstacles between high and low tide so alarmed Allied planners that they changed the timing of the landings from high to low tide, which considerably increased the vulnerability of those making the initial landing — especially on Omaha Beach. In dealing with the airborne threat, Rommel ordered telephone poles and concrete posts — nicknamed 'Rommel asparagus' — emplaced throughout the fields and meadows of the areas immediately behind the most obvious landing areas. Not surprisingly, all this activity caught the attention of senior Allied commanders, further complicating the already difficult task of planning for and then making a successful amphibious landing on the coast of France.

Unlike other senior army leaders, Rommel had had experience with the air power the Anglo-American powers would bring to the battlefield, as well as with their immense logistical capabilities. For other German leaders, especially Hitler, American and British military capabilities simply did not appear nearly as threatening as they did to Rommel. To a considerable extent, the memories of British defeats in the desert in 1941 and 1942 and the American defeat at Kasserine Pass clouded German judgment. Nor had the Allied campaign in Sicily and southern Italy looked particularly impressive. Yet Rommel understood that both the British and especially the American armies possessed steadily improving military capabilities.

Rommel's experiences in North Africa as well as his recognition of Germany's overall strategic situation had led him to very different conclusions as to how the Wehrmacht should defend northwestern Europe. From early 1944, Rommel argued that the Germans must defend against the coming invasion on the beaches. If the Wehrmacht failed to defeat the Allies at the water's edge, the superiority of Anglo-American air power and logistics would inevitably enable them to build up their forces on the Continent more quickly than the Germans could. The result would be an inevitable defeat that would end whatever chance the Reich had to achieve a compromise peace.

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