Falaise 1944, Death of an army (Campaign): by Ken Ford.

The official description of the book

"At Falaise, the armoured units of US Third Army encircled the German Seventh Army, squeezed them into an ever-smaller cauldron of chaos and crushed them against the advancing British Second Army. The results were devastating: those troops able to escape the disaster fled, those who remained were killed or captured and vast quantities of armour and equipment were lost."

makes one wonder what the Germans went through at this point, which must have been a definite moment of transformation from a nation believing in their destiny as a superior race to rule the world to a nation bewildered into waking up as one being possibly defeated, and at any rate having suffered losses of their beloved sons, brothers, husbands, fathers who were supposed to have been superior to those that had now defeated and killed a great many of them as well.

Had the nation even wondered if this would come, not as a few open eyed silent people but as a nation, even when Russian defeats were painful? No, then they blamed Russia, as if somehow that nation, that land were responsible for the killing of Germans and defeat of Germany in the east, not the aggressors. But now this was far too definite and the nation could no longer be lulled into a somnolent trust in the leaders chanting of their superiority.

What a stunning shock they must have felt, how long did it take to get over, did they get over, did they ever really know they had been wrong or at least mistaken, or did they simply think they were merely defeated by very cruel but inferior nations?