Keith,
After many enjoyable hours spent tinkering together on my 84 300D Turbo, my neighbor decided to get his 77 240D back from the college student he had given it to..... we drove the 2 hours away to get it anticipating having to rent a trailer to tow it (been under a tree sitting for two years..... "won't start" we were told). Couldn't find a car hauler at UHaul so we decided to pull start it (jumpercables would turn it over but it just wouldn't fire). So we tied a pull strap to it and dragged it around the neighborhood where it had been sitting. After about 50 yards of pulling it coughed, sputtered and while clacking and shaking, it started finally. We drove it home.

We've now replaced the glow plugs, have run lubro-moly through it to clean up the injectors and have purchased a bunch of other miscellaneous stuff to get it back in running shape, but my point is, now she starts when we crank it over!

Neither my 300 nor the 240 have owners manuals in them but another friend with a 240 does and it says in there that you can pull/tow the automatic to start it. It gives procedures in the manual on how to do it. Unsure from your post if there might be other problems but perhaps your glow plugs are not getting the job done if fouled with alot of carbon deposits or the injectors are fouled and you just need to get it to run to burn it off. Perhaps configure a lubro-moly can under your hood to where you can tow it with the fuel to the vehicle being that and tow it/start it with that. Just a suggestion. It doesn't sound like your car is terminally ill. If your battery is weak, i.e. you cannot crank multiple times without draining it, I would suggest this. Heat of compression is as we all know the ticket to firing.

JMH