AS it happened (i.e. not before it happened)...

AS it happened (i.e. not before it happened), could the Germans had done anything to repel the Allies' D-Day beach landings?

Not really, no. They were hugely overmatched. Even the "Mass stuff on the beaches and hope you massed them on the right beach" probably wouldn't have driven the Allies into the sea, it didn't at the Salerno landings.

The Allies had too much air cover, too much naval cover, had blown up too much of the local transport network for the Germans to effectively move their forces around, just had too much going for them.

Why are like 25% of threads on Veeky Forums about how Germany could have won WW2?

d-day was done far after germany had already lost. it was a completely unnecessary american offensive made to get street cred and to get part of the spoils

Sure they could, the D-Day landings were still incredibly risky.

As it happened, several SS-Panzer divisions were sitting around near the beachheads just twiddling their thumbs because, due to SS/Wehrmacht infighting, the Panzers only answered to SS superiors (which effectively meant getting approval from Hitler and his inner circle in the Berghof) and not the Wehrmacht generals overseeing the defense of France (i.e. Rommel).

While Rommel was on the phone trying to get those tanks moving the Allies were hard at work, and by the time those Nazi tanks started moving a couple of days later the invasion part of Overlord was over - and tens of thousands of troops with tanks and equipment were pouring out of the Mulberry harbors.

Had those SS-Panzer divisions mounted an attack on the beaches straight away it might've spelled the doom for the amphibious landing part (as the Allies had very little armor to counter them, most of the special DD Shermans sank due to the rough seas), but even so the Germans fell for Operation Fortitude disinformation hook line and sinker and were no where near as ready as they could have been.

At a guess

1) WW2 is highly visible. Almost everyone everywhere knows something about WW2, it was the biggest war in history, and it was the most recent worldwide total war, and it led to a lot of the current political setup in the world.

2) Perhaps to inject drama, I'm not really sure, most pop-history of WW2 makes it seem far more balanced than it really is. I've seen a lot of people who graduated from public school systems in the U.S., don't have a real interest in history let alone military history, who honestly think that if "Hitler hadn't made THIS mistake, Germany would have won the war!"

3)Nazism appeals to a certain edgy portion of the population, which is especially prevalent on somewhere like Veeky Forums, where there aren't any real social consequences for your expressed opinions. Some of them are actual nazi types driven from other communities, and others are just rolling along with it to get a rise out of people in a relatively safe area.

4) Obviously, someone who is either really believing in Nazi ideas, or just shamming for attention, would like to draw attention to a German victory in WW2.

5) Combine with points 1-2 above, trying to come up with ways Germany could have won the war is very popular.

>Had those SS-Panzer divisions mounted an attack on the beaches straight away it might've spelled the doom for the amphibious landing part (as the Allies had very little armor to counter them, most of the special DD Shermans sank due to the rough seas), but even so the Germans fell for Operation Fortitude disinformation hook line and sinker and were no where near as ready as they could have been.

So when you had the exact same thing on a smaller scale during Operation Avalanche, sans the communication difficulties, and the Germans failed to throw the Americans and British into the sea there; with their armor being countered, not by Allied armor, but primarily by ATGs and handheld anti-tank weapons like bazookas.

What makes you think it would have worked any better at Normandy?

so when time travel is invented we can go back and make things right

Except that wasn't the state of affairs between the Waffen-SS and the local Heer forces at all. Rommel and Sepp Dietrich spent quite a bit of time fostering good will between each other in order for inter-service cohesion. It got to the point where Dietrich told Rommel that should anything happen to the Boss, his support would be to the Army and not to Himmler.

The problem stems from Hitler's insistence of personal control over the Panzer units and to a lesser extent, the belief that the main attack would be occurring else ware. If Rommel thought the landings occurred elsewhere and was proven wrong, at least he would quickly be able to turn his tank Divisions back to Normandy. German generals have a decent track record of fixing their operational errors as quickly as they could, but Hitler was inflexible in his faith that the main invasion was coming . Which led to a perfect storm of Hitler's stubbornness, and the German General Staff's weakness to their loyalty oath to Hitler.

Even if the Nazis pulled of forcing an operational collapse of the Normandy landings, Bagration still happens and whole Europe is now fucked. Normandy was the best case scenario.

Avalanche was another close call, though Allied air and naval support kept their troops reasonably safe. As the Germans counterattacked, Kesselring was denied reserves because German High Command considered pushing at the Allied beachhead pointless as the British 8th Army was already moving up Southern Italy thanks to Operation Baytown. So they went for the Gustav line instead.

That is not to say the Germans would've thrown the Allies out at Normandy with 100% certainty had the SS intervened - just that they could've made more of an attempt. The defense of Northern France most certainly WAS a priority to German High Command.