This is a well-accepted line of history, but i was just randomly thinking, "well, I doubt they'd want to admit the Germans just saw it coming..."
Obviously the casualties of Operation Overlord were immense, so the resistance was fierce. Is it true that the Germans didn't expect Normandy, at least compared to alternatives?
Here is a map of German dispositions on the morning of the invasion. (I think the source is the US Army official history, aka, the green books, or at least it's got the same info.)
You can see that the Germans had a fair few divisions in the Normandy area. But they also had divisions all over the western theatre and the coastline. The Pas de Calais area, across from Dover, clearly has the most intense German defense in terms of concentration of troops.
So it's probably fair to say that Normandy area wasn't totally a bolt out of the blue, but if the Germans had truely expected an attack in that specific area, they would have concentrated many more troops in that area. Deception efforts and operational security clearly caused Overlord to have a greater chance of success and lower casualties.
