Erwin Rommel

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Erwin Rommel
File:Rommel portrait.jpg Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel in 1942
Nickname(s)	Desert Fox
Allegiance	Germany
Years of service	1911-1944
Rank	Field Marshal
Unit	Alpen Korps
Commands	7th Panzer Division Afrika Korps Commander in chief North Italy Army Group E, Greece Army Group B
Battles/wars	World War I World War II -Fall of France -North African Campaign -Battle of Normandy
Awards	Pour le Mérite Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oakleaves, Swords, and Diamonds

Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel () (November 15 1891 – October 14 1944) was one of the most distinguished German field marshals of World War II. He was the commander of the Deutsches Afrika Korps and also became known by the nickname The Desert Fox (Wüstenfuchs, ) for the skillful military campaigns he waged on behalf of the German Army in North Africa. He was later in command of the German forces opposing the Allied cross-channel invasion at Normandy.

Rommel is often remembered not only for his remarkable military prowess, but also for his reputation for chivalry (though this is far from universally accepted) towards his adversaries - being one of the German commanders who disobeyed the commando order. He is also noted for possibly having taken part in a plot to assassinate Hitler, for which he was forced to commit suicide before the war's end.

Early life and career

Rommel was born in Heidenheim, Germany, approximately 45 kilometres from Ulm, in the state of Württemberg. He was baptised on November 17 1891. He was the second son of a Protestant headmaster of the secondary school at Aalen, Prof. Erwin Rommel the elder and Helene Luz, a daughter of a prominent local dignitary. The couple also had three more children, two sons, Karl and Gerhard, and a daughter, Helene. Later, recalling his childhood, Rommel wrote that "my early years passed very happily". At the age of fourteen, Rommel and a friend built a full-scale glider that was able to fly, although not very far. Young Erwin considered becoming an engineer and would throughout his life display extraordinary technical aptitude; however, at his father's insistence, he joined the local 124th Württemberg Infantry Regiment as an officer cadet in 1910 and, shortly after, was sent to the Officer Cadet School in Danzig.

File:Rommel cadet.jpg

A young Rommel as an officer cadet around 1910

While at Cadet School, early in 1911, Rommel met his future wife, 17-year-old Lucia Maria Mollin (commonly called Lucie). He graduated in November 1911 and was commissioned as a Lieutenant January 1912. Rommel and Lucie married in 1916, and in 1928, they had a son, Manfred, who would later become the mayor of Stuttgart. Scholars Bierman and Smith argue that, during this time, Rommel also had an affair with Walburga Stemmer in 1913 and that relationship produced a daughter named Gertrud. (1 p. 56).

World War I

During World War I, Rommel fought in France, as well as in Romania (see Romanian Campaign (World War I)) and Italy (see Italian Campaign (World War I)) as part of the elite Alpen Korps. While serving with that unit, he gained a reputation for making quick tactical decisions and taking advantage of enemy confusion. He was wounded three times and awarded the Iron Cross; First and Second Class. Rommel also received Prussia's highest medal, the Pour le Mérite - an honor traditionally reserved for generals only - after fighting in the mountains of west Slovenia – Battle of the Isonzo – Soca front. The award came as a result of the Battle of Longarone, and the capture of Mount Matajur, Slovenia, and its defenders, numbering 150 Italian officers, 7,000 men and 81 artillery guns. His battalion also played a key role in the decisive victory of the Central Powers over the Italian Army at the Battle of Caporetto. Interestingly, Rommel for a time served in the same infantry regiment as Friedrich Paulus, both of whom were to preside over catastrophic defeats for the Third Reich in their own markedly different ways.

Inter-war years

After the war, Rommel held battalion commands and was an instructor at the Dresden Infantry School from 1929 to 1933 and the Potsdam War Academy from 1935 to 1938. Rommel's war diaries, Infanterie greift an (Infantry Attacks), published in 1937, became a highly regarded military textbook, and attracted the attention of Adolf Hitler, who placed him in charge of militarily training of the Hitler Jugend that same year. However Rommel was soon denied access to the Hitler Jugend by Baldur von Schirach, the Hitler Jugend's Fuhrer who came to dislike him personally as well as resent, what he perceived to be, the Wehrmacht's attempt to turn the Hitler Jugend into its auxiliary. This brought an end to Army-Hitler Jugend cooperation, much to the army's chagrin. Simultaneously Rommel retained his place at Potsdam. Rommel was awarded in his class highest war ribbons for excellent performance.

In 1938, Rommel, now a colonel, was appointed commandant of the War Academy at Wiener Neustadt (Theresian Military Academy). Here he started his follow up to Infantry Attacks, Panzer greift an (Tank Attacks sometimes translated as The Tank In Attack). Rommel was removed after a short time however, to take command of Adolf Hitler's personal protection battalion (FührerBegleitbataillon), assigned to protect him in the special railway train (Führersonderzug) used during his visits to occupied Czechoslovakia and Memel. It was at this period that he met and befriended Joseph Goebbels, the Reich's minister of propaganda. Goebbels became a fervent admirer of Rommel. Later he would see to it that Rommel's exploits would be celebrated in the media

World War II

File:Rommel France 1940.jpg

Rommel during the French campaign of 1940

Poland 1939

Rommel continued as FührerBegleitbataillon commander during the Polish campaign, often moving up close to the front in the Führersonderzug, and seeing much of Hitler. After the Polish defeat, Rommel returned to Berlin to organise the Führer's victory parade, taking part himself as a member of Hitler's entourage. During the Polish campaign Rommel was asked to intervene on behalf of one of Lucie's relatives, a Polish Priest who had been arrested. He has been criticised for not doing enough on the man's behalf, though he did at least apply to the Gestapo for information, only to be, inevitably, brushed off with the reply that no information on the man existed.

France 1940

Rommel asked from Hitler command of a panzer division and, on 6 February 1940 only three months before the invasion, Rommel was given command of the 7th Panzer Division for Fall Gelb ("Case Yellow"), the invasion of France and the Low Countries. This string-pulling provoked resentment among fellow officers. The more so as Rommel, remarkably, had no experience with armour whatever. He showed considerable skill in this operation, repulsing a counterattack by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) at Arras. 7th Panzer was later nicknamed Gespenster-Divisionen (the "Ghost Division", due to the speed and surprise it was consistently able to achieve, to the point that even the German High Command lost track of where it was. 7th Panzer was one of the first German units to reach the English Channel (on 10 June) and captured the vital port of Cherbourg on 19 June. Rommel's success owed partially to his misappropriating supplies and a bridging tackle belonging to the neighbouring divisions. this gravely hampered their operations. His commander Herman Hoth considered court-martialing him for this, but was dissuaded by his own commander Gunther von Kluge. The fame gained by Rommel during the campaign made a court martial, or even a reprimend, impractical. Rommel's reward for his success was to be promoted and appointed commander of the 5th Light Division (later reorganized and redesignated as the 21st Panzer) and of the 15th Panzer Division, which were sent to Libya in early 1941 to aid the hapless and demoralized Italian troops, forming the Deutsches Afrika Korps (). It was in Africa where Rommel achieved his greatest fame as a commander.

Africa 1941-43

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Erwin Rommel, 1941

His campaign in Africa earned Rommel the nickname "The Desert Fox". He spent most of 1941 building up his forces, the Italian component of which had suffered a string of defeats at the hands of British Commonwealth forces under Major General Richard O'Connor. An offensive pushed the Allied forces out of Libya. Though ordered not to advance beyond the oasis of Maradah, Rommel disobeyed and was shortly stalled exacyly on the Egyption border at the Helfaya pass, after he, disregarding the obgections of his staff and divisional commanders, ordered that the important port of Tobruk, be outflanked. This outflanking proved to be impossible due to logistical overstretch, the road paralel to the coastal road's not reconnecting to the coastal road, spoiling flank attacks from Tobruk and before long a sand storm. although surrounded, Tobruk was still held by Allied forces under the Australian General, Leslie Morshead. The Allied Commander-in-Chief, General Archibald Wavell made two unsuccessful attempts to relieve Tobruk (Operation Brevity and Operation Battleaxe). Both easily defeated as they were hastily prepared due to Churchil's impatience for speedy action. The assult on Tobruk, whose capture was logistically imperative, was a failure which imperilled Rommel's career. Impatient to secure success Rommel ordered repeated, barely prepared, small-scale attacks which were easily gobbled up by the defenders. At this time he also began clmouring for reinforcements which the High Command completing the preparations for Operation Barbarossa could not spare and that in any event could no be logistically sustained as Halder had pointed out to him befforehand. Franz Halder was sarcastic and commented: "now at last he is constrained to state that his forces are not sufficiently strong to allow him to take full advantage of the `unique opportunities` offered bu the overall situation. That is the impression we have had for quite some time over here". Angry that his order, not to advance beyond Maradah, had been disobeyed and alarmed at mounting losses Halder, never an admirer of Rommel, dispatched Freidrich Paulus to "head off this soldeir gone stark mad" in Halder's words. Upon arrival Paulus soon forbade Rommel from undertaking any more small scale assults, but to plan a systematic all-out one. His composure restored, Rommel complied. His elaborately prepared great assult was schedualled for November the 21st was not to take place.

Following the costly failure of Battleaxe, Wavell was relieved by Commander-in-Chief India, General Claude Auchinleck. Auchinleck launched a major offensive to relieve Tobruk (Operation Crusader). Initially `Crusader` appeared as doomed as Brevity and Battleaxe. The British deeply outflaked the German defences along the Egyption frontier and reached a position whence they could strike at both Tobruk and the coastal road, "Via Balbia". The German were then supposed to counter attack so as to drive the British back. This as a result of British Numerical superiourity in both planes and tanks would result in their annihilation. Since the Germans did not oblige, the British felt compelled to attack and try to relieve Tobruk and sever the Via Balbia and were naturally cut to pieces in the effort for which they lacked the necessary artillery. The problem was that Rommel drunk with victory tried to overexploit the success and against the advice of his officers resolved to drive the British further than their start line. His forces suffered heavy losses from British anti-tank guns, and the RAF, which unlike the British they could not replace and soon could not even hold their initial positions. During the confusion caused by the Crusader operation, Rommel and his staff found themselves behind Allied lines several times. On one occasion, he visited a New Zealand Army field hospital that was still under Allied control. "[Rommel] inquired if anything was needed, promised the British [sic] medical supplies and drove off unhindered." (General Fritz Bayerlein, The Rommel Papers, chapter 8.)

Crusader was a defeat for Rommel. After several weeks of fighting, Rommel ordered the withdrawal of all his forces from the area around Tobruk (December 7 1941) towards El Agheila. The Allies followed, attempting to cut off the retreating troops as they had done in 1940, but Rommel's counter-attack on January 20 1942 mauled the Allied forces. The Afrika Korps retook Benghazi and the Allies pulled back to the Tobruk area and commenced building defensive positions.

On May 24 1942 Rommel's army attacked. In a classic blitzkrieg, he outflanked the Allies at Gazala, surrounded and reduced the strongpoint at Bir Hakeim and forced the Allies to quickly retreat, in the so-called "Gazala Gallop", to avoid being completely cut off. Tobruk, isolated and alone, was now all that stood between the Afrika Korps and Egypt. On 21 June 1942, after a swift, coordinated and fierce combined arms assault, the city surrendered along with its 33,000 defenders. By then the splendid troops who had defended Tobruk in 41, had been dispatched to the Pacific at the insistence of the Australian government. The new garrison was vastly inferiour. Only at the fall of Singapore, earlier that year, had more British Commonwealth troops been captured. Hitler made Rommel a field marshal. Within weeks, the Allies were pushed back far into Egypt.

File:Rommel in Africa1941.jpg

Rommel in Africa - Summer 1941

Rommel's 21st Panzer Division was eventually stopped at the small railway town of El Alamein, just sixty miles from Alexandria.

With Allied forces from Malta interdicting his supplies at sea, and the enormous distances supplies had to travel to reach his forward troops, Rommel could not hold the El Alamein position forever. Still, it took a large set piece battle, the Second Battle of El Alamein, to dislodge his forces and even this British attack would not have pushed the Germans furher than Fuka had Hitler not forbidden a retreat, during a lull in the battle, that was already in progress with his infamous "victory or death" stand fast order.

In September, he took sick leave in Italy and Germany, but immediately returned when news of the battle reached him. After the defeat at El Alamein, Rommel's forces managed to escape by using all the Italian transports. Despite urgings from Hitler and Mussolini, Rommel's forces did not again stand and fight until they had entered Tunisia. Even then, their first battle was not against the British Eighth Army, but against the U.S. II Corps. Rommel inflicted a sharp defeat on the American forces at the Battle of Kasserine Pass.

Turning once again to face the British Commonwealth forces in the old French border defences of the Mareth Line, Rommel could only delay the inevitable. At the end of January 1943, the Italian General Giovanni Messe was appointed as the new commander of Rommel’s Panzer Army Africa, which was now re-named 1st Italo-German Panzer Army (in recognition of the fact that it consisted of one German and three Italian corps). Though Messe was to replace Rommel, he diplomatically deferred to the German, and the two co-existed in what was theoretically the same command until March 9, when Rommel finally departed Africa. Rommel's departure was kept secret on Hitler's explicit orders, so that the morale of the Axis troops could be maintained and respectful fear by their enemies retained. The last Rommel offensive in North Africa occurred on March 6 1943, when he attacked Montgomery's 8th Army at the Battle of Medenine with three panzer divisions (10th, 15th and 21st). Decoded Ultra intercepts allowed Montgomery to deploy large numbers of anti-tank guns in the path of the offensive. After losing 52 tanks, Rommel was forced to call off the assault. On 9 March he handed over command of Armeegruppe Afrika to General Juergen von Arnim and left Africa, because of health reasons, never to return. On May 13 1943, after the collapse of the 5th German Army, the fall of Tunis and the surrounding of the 1st Italian Army, still holding the line at Enfidaville, Giovanni Messe formally surrendered the remnants of Army Group Afrika to the Allies. On May 12, one day before the surrender, Messe was promoted to the rank of field marshal.

Some historians contrast Rommel's withdrawal back to Tunisia against Hitler's wishes with Friedrich Paulus's obedience of orders to have the German 6th Army stand its ground at the Battle of Stalingrad, which resulted in its annihilation. Fieldmarshal Albert Kesselring appointed overall axis commander in North Africa saw things differently. He believed the withdrawls, some of which were carried out against his orders, unnecessary and ruinous since they brought forward British airfields ever closer to the port of Tunis. As far as he was concerned Rommel was an insubordinate defeatist and string puller. The increasingly acrimonious relations between the two did nothing to enhance performance.

Some sources state that during this period, there was a failed Allied attempt to capture Rommel from his headquarters, 250 miles behind enemy lines. [1]

France 1943-1944

File:Blaskowitz, Rommel, Rundstedt2.jpg

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (centre) discusses the expected Allied invasion of France with Colonel General Johannes Blaskowitz and Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt.

Back in Germany, Rommel was for some time virtually "unemployed". On 23 July 1943 he moved to Greece as commander of Army Group E, to defend the Greek coast against a possible allied landing that never happened, only to return to Germany two days later, upon the overthrow of Mussolini. On 17 August 1943, Rommel moved his headquarters from Munich to Lake Garda, as commander of a new Army Group B, created to defend the north of Italy. After Hitler gave General Albert Kesselring sole Italian command, on 21 November, Rommel moved Army Group B to Normandy, France, with responsibility for defending the French coast against the long anticipated Allied invasion. Dismayed by the situation he found, the slow building pace, and fearing he had just months before an invasion, Rommel reinvigorated the whole fortification effort along the Atlantic coast. Under his direction, work was significantly sped up, millions of mines laid, and thousands of tank traps and obstacles set up on beaches and throughout the countryside.Instead of helping, Hitler and his officers under him decided to strengthen the defenses in Calais thinking the allies would attack there since it is closer to England. Rommel disagreed saying the enemy wanted the fuher to strenthen the defences in the wrong place and that they would attack Normandy instead. He was right.

After his battles in Africa, Rommel concluded that any offensive movement would be nearly impossible due to overwhelming Allied air superiority. He argued that the tank forces should be dispersed in small units and kept in heavily fortified positions as close to the front as possible, so they would not have to move far and en masse when the invasion started. He wanted the invasion stopped right on the beaches. However his commander, Gerd von Rundstedt, felt that there was no way to stop the invasion near the beaches due to the equally overwhelming firepower of the Royal Navy. He felt the tanks should be formed into large units well inland near Paris, where they could allow the Allies to extend into France and then cut off the Allied troops. When asked to pick a plan, Hitler vacillated and placed them in the middle, far enough to be useless to Rommel, not far enough to watch the fight for von Rundstedt.

During D-Day, several tank units, notably the 12th SS Panzer Division, were close enough to the beaches to create serious havoc. Hitler refused however to release the panzer reserves as he believed the Normandy landings were a diversion. Hitler and the German High Command expected the main assault in the Pas de Calais area, thanks to the success of a secret Allied deception campaign (Operation Fortitude). Facing only small-scale German attacks, the Allies quickly secured a beachhead.

The plot against Hitler

File:LangRugeSpeidelRommel May1944.jpg

May 1944, Rommel (right) with his closest staff members: (L to R), his personal aide Captain Hellmuth Lang, his chief naval aide Admiral Friedrich Ruge, and his chief of staff General Hans Speidel, all of whom were heavily involved in the anti-Nazi conspiracy within the Wehrmacht.

A memorial at the site of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel's suicide outside of the town of Herrlingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany (west of Ulm).

On July 17 1944, Rommel's staff car was strafed by an RCAF Spitfire piloted by Charley Fox; he was hospitalized with major head injuries. (Although the Americans claimed to have hit the vehicle as well, many German reports specifically mentioned a Canadian Spitfire as the sole attacker). In the meantime, after the failed July 20 Plot against Adolf Hitler a widespread investigation was conducted to identify possible participants in the plot. Rommel was identified in some of the coup ringleaders documentation as a potential supporter and an acceptable military leader to be placed in a position of responsibility should their coup succeed. No evidence was found that directly linked Rommel to the plot nor that he had been contacted by any of the plot ringleaders. At the same time, local Nazi party officials reported on Rommel's extensive and scornful criticism of Nazi incompetent leadership during the time he was hospitalized. Bormann was certain of Rommel's involvement, Goebbels was not. The only damning evidence against him was provided by his chief of staff Speidel, a lynchpin of the conspiracy, who now used Rommel as a scapegoat, claiming that it was Rommel, not him, who had issued the rebelious orders and that he (Speidel) had tried to report these criminal acts to the OKW, but was prevented from so doing. This was flimsy and suspicious evidence indeed but the `Court of military Honour` that was to decide weather or not to hand Rommel over to Roland Freisler's people's court included two men with whom he had crossed swords before, Heinz Guderian and Gerd von Rundstedt. The Court decided that Rommel should be handed over to the People's Court.

The true extent of Rommel's knowledge of or involvement with the plot is still unclear. After the war, however, his wife maintained that Rommel had been against the plot. It has been stated that Rommel wanted to avoid giving future generations of Germans the perception that the war was lost because of backstabbing, the infamous Dolchstoßlegende, as was commonly believed by some Germans of World War I. Instead, he favored a coup where Hitler would be taken alive and made to stand trial before the public. Hard evidence exists only that he sought to arrange his forces' illicit surrender to the western allies.

Because of Rommel's popularity with the German people, Hitler gave him the option to commit suicide with cyanide or face a trial before Roland Freisler's "People's Court" and the murder of his family and staff. Rommel ended his own life on October 14, 1944, and was buried with full military honors. After the war, an edited version of his diary was published as The Rommel Papers. He is the only member of the Third Reich establishment to have a museum dedicated to him. His grave can be found in Herrlingen, a short distance west of Ulm.

Erwin Rommel's Grave.

Battles

• Battle of Caporetto (1917)
• Battle of Arras (1940)
• Siege of Tobruk (1941)
• Battle of Gazala (1942)
• Battle of Bir Hakeim (1942)
• First Battle of El Alamein (1942)
• Battle of Alam Halfa (1942)
• Second Battle of El Alamein (1942)
• Battle of Medenine (1943)
• Battle of the Kasserine Pass (1943)
• Battle of Normandy (1944)

Popular perception

Rommel was in his lifetime extraordinarily well known, not only with the German people, but also with his adversaries. Popular stories of his chivalry and tactical prowess earned him the respect of many opponents, particularly the British. Claude Auchinleck, Winston Churchill, George S. Patton, and Bernard Montgomery are all on record as having both positive and negative things to say about the "Desert Fox." Rommel, for his part, was complimentary towards and respectful of his foes. Hitler considered Rommel among his favorite generals.

Tempering this favorable view of Rommel are the facts that he did loyally serve Hitler and the Nazi government if not throughout his life at least until 1944, that he never publicly disagreed with any Nazi actions or goals during his lifetime, and several examples of racially prejudiced policies inacted under his command. Some examples of Rommel’s racial attitude are his 1942 order that non-white Allied prisoners of war in Axis captivity be fed only 800 calories a day, while white prisoners would be fed 1,200 calories and his killing of unarmed black prisoners of war in 1940 in order to film propaganda newsreel footage recreating his victories in France. When his illegitimate Gertrude asked his permission o marry her Italian boyfriend, he admonished her to make sure he was aryan (that non-Jewish under the Nuremberg Laws)

Contemporaries who had to work with him under adversity had very few kind words to say about him and his abilities. Following Paulus return from his inspection of Rommel's doings in North Africa and also considering the reports submited by Alfre Gause Halder concluded: "Rommel's charachter defects make him very hard to get along with, but no one cares to come out in open opposition because of his brutality and the backing he has at top level" and yet his military colleagues would also play their part in perpetuating his legend. His former subordinate Kircheim though critical of Rommel's performance nonetheless observed: "thanks to propaganda , first by Goebbels, then by Montgomery, and finally, after he was poisened (sic), by all former enemy powers , he has become a symbol of the best military traditions. ....Any public criticism of this legendary personality would damage the esteem in wich the German soldeir is held" (in a letter to Streich another former subordinate. One who came to loath Rommel).

After the war, when Rommel's alleged involvement in the plot to kill Hitler became known, his stature was enhanced greatly among the former Allied nations. Rommel was often cited in Western sources as a general who, though a loyal German, was willing to stand up to the evil that was Hitler (however accurate or inaccurate this depiction may be). The release of the film The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951) helped enhance his reputation as one of the most widely known and well-regarded leaders in the German army. In 1970 a Lütjens class destroyer was named the FGS Rommel in his honor.

In fiction

He has been portrayed by:

• Erich von Stroheim in the 1943 film Five Graves to Cairo
• James Mason in both the 1951 The Desert Fox and the 1953 The Desert Rats
• Werner Hinz in 1962's The Longest Day
• Karl Michael Vogler in the 1970 Patton, starring George C. Scott
• Wolfgang Priess in the 1971 Raid on Rommel
• Hardy Kruger in the 1988 television miniseries War and Remembrance
• Michael York in the 1990 TV-movie Night of the Fox

In Philip K. Dick's alternative history novel The Man in the High Castle, Rommel is the Nazi-appointed president of the United States of America in the early 1960s.

In Douglas Niles's and Michael Dobson's alternative history novel Fox on the Rhine (ISBN 0-8125-7466-4), Hitler is killed by the bomb plot of July 20 1944. This leads to Rommel's survival, and a different quick offensive strike. This is repelled and the book ends with his surrender to the Americans and British, in the belief that the Germans would be better off with the western powers than with the Soviets. Fox on the Rhine was followed by a sequel, Fox at the Front (ISBN 0-641-67696-4).

In Donna Barr's novel Bread and Swans, the historical Rommel shares his concerns and career with a fictitious younger brother, Pfirsich, also known as The Desert Peach. Both Rommels also appear as focal characters of Barr's long-running comic strip series about "The Peach".

During the 1980's, there was a popular arcade tank-based game called Rommel's Revenge which found its way to the home computer market.

Quotations about Rommel

• The British Parliament considered a censure vote against Winston Churchill following the surrender of Tobruk. The vote failed, but in the course of the debate, Churchill would say:
  • "We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great General."
• Churchill again, on hearing of Rommel's death:
  • "He also deserves our respect, because, although a loyal German soldier, he came to hate Hitler and all his works, and took part in the conspiracy to rescue Germany by displacing the maniac and tyrant. For this, he paid the forfeit of his life. In the sombre wars of modern democracy, there is little place for chivalry."
• Theodor Werner was an officer who, during World War I, served under Rommel.
  • "Anybody who came under the spell of his personality turned into a real soldier. He seemed to know what the enemy were like and how they would react."

Quotations

• "Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, and brains saves both."
• "Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas."
• "The best form of welfare for the troops is first-rate training."
• "Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning."
• "In a man-to-man fight, the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine."
• "Courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility."
• "In the absence of orders, find something and kill it."
• Referring to Italians: "Good troops, bad officers. But remember that without them we wouldn't have civilization."
• "Training errors are recorded on paper. Tactical errors are etched in stone."
• "There is one unalterable difference between a soldier and a civilian: the civilian never does more than he is paid to do."
• "Men are basically smart or dumb and lazy or ambitious. The dumb and ambitious ones are dangerous and I get rid of them."
• "Be an example to your men, in your duty and in private life. Never spare yourself, and let the troops see that you don't in your endurance of fatigue and privation. Always be tactful and well-mannered and teach your subordinates to do the same. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness of voice, which usually indicates the man who has shortcomings of his own to hide."
• "This business with the Jews has got to stop."

References and further reading

• Germany and the Secnd World War. Vol 3, part 4 Clarendon Press • Oxford 1995
• The Battle of Alamein: Turning Point, World War II, by Bierman and Smith (2002). ISBN 0-670-03040-6
• Rommel's Greatest Victory, by Samuel W. Mitcham, Samuel Mitcham. ISBN 0-89141-730-3
• Meeting the Fox: The Allied Invasion of Africa, from Operation Torch to Kasserine Pass to Victory in Tunisia, by Orr Kelly. ISBN 0-471-41429-8
• Inside the Afrika Korps: The Crusader Battles, 1941-1942. ISBN 1-85367-322-6
• Alamein, by Jon Latimer. ISBN 0-674-01016-7
• Tank Combat in North Africa: The Opening Rounds : Operations Sonnenblume, Brevity, Skorpion and Battleaxe February 1941-June 1941 (Schiffer Military History), by Thomas L. Jentz. ISBN 0-7643-0226-4
• Rommel's North Africa Campaign: September 1940 - November 1942, by Jack Greene. ISBN 1-58097-018-4
• Tobruk 1941: Rommel's Opening Move (Campaign, 80), by Jon Latimer. ISBN 1-84176-092-7
• 21st Panzer Division: Rommel's Africa Korps Spearhead (Spearhead Series), by Chris Ellis. ISBN 0-7110-2853-2
• Afrikakorps, 1941-1943: The Libya Egypt Campaign, by Francois De Lannoy. ISBN 2-84048-152-9
• With Rommel's Army in Libya, by Almasy, Gabriel Francis Horchler, Janos Kubassek. ISBN 0-7596-1608-6
• Generalfeldmarschall Rommel: opperbevelhebber van Heeresgruppe B bij de voorbereiding van de verdediging van West-Europa, 5 November 1943 tot 6 juni 1944, by Hans Sakkers (1993). ISBN 90-800900-2-6 [text/photobook in Dutch about Rommel at the Atlantic Wall 1943/44]
• Knight's Cross: A Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, by David Fraser. ISBN 0-06-092597-3
• Rommel The Desert Fox, by Desmond Young, Foreword by Sir Claude Auchinleck.
• The Armies of Rommel, by George Forty, (Arms and Armour Press, London 1997) ISBN 1-85409-379-7
• Reuth, Ralf Georg. Rommel: The End of a Legend. London: Haus Books, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 1904950205).

External links

• Rommel Chronology World History Database
• The Forced Suicide of Field Marshall Rommel, 1944
• Excerpts from Rommel's account of the blitzkrieg, 1940
• Prominent People - Erwin Rommel
• Erwin (Johannes Eugen) Rommel, The Desert Fox / Der Wüstenfuchs at Achtung Panzer!
• A history of Rommel in headquarters of La Roche Guyon (French)
• Erwin Rommel's Gravesite

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