Question: Which factor contributing to the German losses at Normandy were strictly beyond the Germans' control?
About the article "Invasion of Normandy", section "German leadership".

Candidate passages:
Nazi Germany had at its disposal 50 divisions in France and the Low Countries, and another 18 were stationed in Denmark and Norway.
Fifteen divisions were in the process of formation in Germany, but there was no strategic reserve.
Overall commander on the Western Front was "Oberbefehlshaber" West (supreme commander West; OB West) West Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt.
The Calais region was defended by the 15th Army, and Normandy by the 7th Army, commanded by "Generaloberst" (colonel general) Friedrich Dollmann.
Combat losses throughout the war, particularly on the Eastern Front, meant the Germans no longer had a pool of able young men from which to draw.
German soldiers were now on average six years older than their Allied counterparts.
Many in the Normandy area were "Ostlegionen" (eastern legions) – conscripts and volunteers from Russia, Mongolia, and elsewhere.
They were provided for the most part with unreliable captured equipment and lacked motorised transport. 
Hill 262, or the Mont Ormel ridge (elevation ), is an area of high ground above the village of Coudehard in Normandy that was the location of a bloody engagement in the final stages of the Normandy Campaign during the Second World War.
By late summer 1944, the bulk of two German armies had become surrounded by the Allies near the town of Falaise.
The Mont Ormel ridge, with its commanding view of the area, sat astride the Germans' only escape route.
Polish forces seized the ridge's northern height on 19 August and, despite being isolated and coming under sustained attack, held it until noon on 21 August, contributing greatly to the decisive Allied victory that followed.
The American success of Operation Cobra provided the Allies with an opportunity to cut off and destroy most German forces west of the River Seine.
American, British and Canadian armies converged on the area around Falaise, trapping the German Seventh Army and elements of the Fifth Panzer Army in what became known as the "Falaise pocket".
On 20 August "Generalfeldmarschall" Walter Model ordered a withdrawal, but by this time the Allies were already blocking his path.
During the night of 19 August, two battlegroups of Stanisław Maczek's Polish 1st Armoured Division had established themselves in the mouth of the Falaise pocket on and around the northernmost of the Mont Ormel ridge's two peaks.
On 20 August, with his forces encircled, Model organised attacks on the Polish position from both within and outside the pocket.
The Germans managed to isolate the ridge and force open a narrow escape corridor.
Lacking the fighting power to close the corridor, the Poles nevertheless directed constant and accurate artillery fire on German units retreating from the pocket, causing heavy casualties.
Exasperated, the Germans launched fierce attacks throughout 20 August which inflicted losses on Hill 262's entrenched defenders.
Exhausted and dangerously low on ammunition, the Poles managed to retain their foothold on the ridge.
The following day, less intense attacks continued until midday, when the last German effort to overrun the position was defeated at close quarters.
The Poles were relieved by the Canadian Grenadier Guards shortly after noon; their dogged stand had ensured the closure of the Falaise pocket and the collapse of the German position in Normandy. 
The division landed at Utah Beach in Normandy on 1 August 1944, about two months after the D-Day landings, and served under General Patton as part of Third Army.
The division played a critical role in the battle of the Argentan-Falaise Pocket (12–21 August), the Allied breakout from Normandy, when it served as a link between American and Canadian armies and made rapid progress against German forces.
They all but destroyed the 9th Panzer Division and defeated several other German units.
During the Battle for Normandy, the 2nd Division lost 133 men killed, 648 wounded, and 85 missing.
Division material losses included 76 armored vehicles, 7 cannons, 27 halftracks, and 133 other vehicles.
In the same period, the 2nd Division inflicted losses on the Germans of 4,500 killed and 8,800 taken prisoner, while the Germans' material losses in combat against the 2nd Division during the same period were 117 tanks, 79 cannons, and 750 wheeled vehicles. 
The Normandy landings were the first successful opposed landings across the English Channel in over eight centuries.
They were costly in terms of men, but the defeat inflicted on the Germans was one of the largest of the war.
Strategically, the campaign led to the loss of the German position in most of France and the secure establishment of a new major front.
In larger context the Normandy landings helped the Soviets on the Eastern front, who were facing the bulk of the German forces and, to a certain extent, contributed to the shortening of the conflict there.
Although there was a shortage of artillery ammunition, at no time were the Allies critically short of any necessity.
This was a remarkable achievement considering they did not hold a port until Cherbourg fell.
By the time of the breakout the Allies also enjoyed a considerable superiority in numbers of troops (approximately 7:2) and armoured vehicles (approximately 4:1) which helped overcome the natural advantages the terrain gave to the German defenders.
Allied intelligence and counterintelligence efforts were successful beyond expectations.
The Operation Fortitude deception before the invasion kept German attention focused on the Pas de Calais, and indeed high-quality German forces were kept in this area, away from Normandy, until July.
Prior to the invasion, few German reconnaissance flights took place over Britain, and those that did saw only the dummy staging areas.
Ultra decrypts of German communications had been helpful as well, exposing German dispositions and revealing their plans such as the Mortain counterattack.
Allied air operations also contributed significantly to the invasion, via close tactical support, interdiction of German lines of communication (preventing timely movement of supplies and reinforcements—particularly the critical Panzer units), and rendering the Luftwaffe ineffective in Normandy.
Although the impact upon armoured vehicles was less than expected, air activity intimidated these units and cut their supplies.
Despite initial heavy losses in the assault phase, Allied morale remained high.
Casualty rates among all the armies were tremendous, and the Commonwealth forces had to use a recently created category—Double Intense—to be able to describe them. 
Operation Lüttich was a codename given to a German counterattack during the Battle of Normandy, which took place around the American positions near Mortain from 7 August to 13 August 1944.
("Lüttich" is the German name for the city of Liège in Belgium, where the Germans had won a victory in the early days of August 1914 during World War I.)
The offensive is also referred to in American and British histories of the Battle of Normandy as the Mortain counter-offensive.
The assault was ordered by Adolf Hitler, to eliminate the gains made by the First United States Army during Operation Cobra and the subsequent weeks, and by reaching the coast in the region of Avranches at the base of the Cotentin peninsula, cut off the units of the Third United States Army which had advanced into Brittany.
The main German striking force was the XLVII Panzer Corps, with one and a half SS Panzer Divisions and two "Wehrmacht" Panzer Divisions.
Although they made initial gains against the defending U.S. VII Corps, they were soon halted and Allied aircraft inflicted severe losses on the attacking troops, eventually destroying nearly ½ of the tanks involved in the attack.
Although fighting continued around Mortain for six days, the American forces had regained the initiative within a day of the opening of the German attack.
As the German commanders on the spot had warned Hitler in vain, there was little chance of the attack succeeding, and the concentration of their armoured reserves at the western end of the front in Normandy soon led to disaster, as they were outflanked to their south and the front to their east collapsed, resulting in many of the German troops in Normandy being trapped in the Falaise Pocket.