Erwin Rommel

Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel
File:Rommel in Africa1941.jpg General Erwin Rommel (right) in Africa, 1941
Nickname(s)	"Desert Fox"
Allegiance	German Empire (to 1918) Weimar Republic (to 1933) Nazi Germany
Years of service	1911 –1944
Rank	Field marshal
Unit	Alpenkorps
Commands held	7.Panzer-Division Afrika Korps Panzer Army Africa Commander-in-chief North Italy Army Group E, Greece Army Group B
Battles/wars	World War I Battle of Caporetto (1917) World War II Fall of France Battle of Arras (1940) North African Campaign Siege of Tobruk (1941) Operation Crusader (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)
Awards	Pour le Mérite Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds With Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds With Oak Leaves, Swords, and Diamonds

Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel () (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944) was one of the most famous 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 skilful 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. He is thought by many to have been the most skilled commander of desert warfare in World War II.

Rommel's military successes earned the respect not only of his troops and Adolf Hitler, but also that of his enemy Commonwealth troops in the North African Campaign. Following the defeat of Axis forces in North Africa, and whilst commanding the defence of Occupied France, his fortunes changed when he was suspected of involvement in the failed July 20 Plot of 1944 to kill Hitler.

Early life and career

Rommel was born in Heidenheim, Germany, approximately 45 kilometers from Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg (then part of the German Empire). He was baptised on 17 November 1891. He was the second son of a Protestant headmaster of the secondary school at Aalen, Prof. Erwin Rommel the elder and Helene von 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 short distances. 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. He graduated in November 1911 and was commissioned as a lieutenant in January 1912.

While at Cadet School, early in 1911, Rommel met his future wife, 17-year-old Lucia Maria Mollin (commonly called Lucie). They married in 1916, and in 1928 had a son, Manfred, who would later become the mayor of Stuttgart. Scholars argue that during this time, Rommel also had an affair with Walburga Stemmer in 1913 and that relationship produced a daughter named Gertrud.

World War I

During World War I, Rommel fought in France, as well as in Romania (see: Romanian Campaign) and Italy (see: Italian Campaign) as part of the Württemberg Mountain Battalion of the élite Alpenkorps. 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 after fighting in the mountains of west Slovenia – Battles 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, 9,000 men and 81 pieces of artillery. His battalion used gas during the battles of the Isonzo and also played a key role in the 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 the War Ministry liaison with the Hitler Jugend’s (Hitler Youth), Headquarters of Military Sports, the Hitler Jugend branch involved with paramilitary activities: terrain exercises and marksmanship. Rommel applied himself energetically to the new task. The army provided instructors to the Hitler Jugend Rifle School in Thuringia, which in turn supplied qualified instructors to the HJ's regional branches.

In 1937, Rommel conducted a tour of HJ meetings and encampments, delivered lectures on German soldiering while inspecting facilities and exercises. Simultaneously he was pressuring Baldur von Schirach, the Hitler Jugend leader, to accept an agreement expanding the army's involvement in Hitler Jugend training. Schirach interpreted this as a bid to turn the Hitler Jugend into an army auxiliary, a "junior army" in his words. He refused and Rommel, whom he had come to dislike personally and apparently envy for his "real soldier"'s appeal to the youngsters, was denied access to the Hitler Jugend. An army-Hitler Jugend agreement was concluded, but on a far more limited scope than Rommel had sought; cooperation was restricted to the army providing personnel to the Rifle School, much to the army's chagrin. By 1939, the Hitler Jugend had 20,000 rifle instructors. Simultaneously, Rommel retained his place at Potsdam. In his class, Rommel was awarded the 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 and later ensured that Rommel's exploits were celebrated in the media.

World War II

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 his wife'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 apply to the Gestapo for information, only to be, inevitably, brushed off with the reply that no information on the man existed.

France 1940

Panzer commander

Rommel asked Hitler for command of a panzer division and, on 6 February 1940 only three months before the invasion, Rommel was given command of the 7.Panzer-Division for Fall Gelb ("Case Yellow"), the invasion of France and the Low Countries. This string-pulling provoked resentment among fellow officers. The Chief of Army Personnel had rejected Rommel's request on the grounds of him having no experience with armour, instead suggesting Rommel was more suitable for commanding a mountain division lacking a commander. Rommel had, however, emphasised the use of mobile infantry, and had come to recognise the great usefulness of armoured forces in Poland. He set about adapting himself and learning the techniques of armoured warfare rapidly and with great enthusiasm.

The invasion of France

On 10 May 1940 the 7th Panzer Division, a part of 15th Corps under General Hoth, advanced into Belgium to proceed to the Meuse river near Dinant. At the Meuse 7th Panzer was held up, due to the bridge having been destroyed and determined sniper and artillery fire from the Belgian defenders. The Germans lacked smoke grenades, so Rommel, having assumed personal command of the crossing, ordered a few nearby houses to be torched to conceal the attack. The German Panzer Grenadiers crossed the rivers in rubber boats, with Rommel leading the second wave across the river. The Division dashed further inland, always spurred on by Rommel, and far in front of any friendly forces.

Rommel's technique of pushing forward boldly, ignoring risks to his flanks and rear and relying on the shock to enemy morale to hinder attacks on his vulnerable flanks, paid large dividends during his rapid march across France. When encountering resistance, Rommel would simply order his tanks forward, all guns blazing, relying on the shock of the sudden assault to force the enemy to surrender. This method offset the disadvantage the German panzers had in terms of armour and low calibre guns, often causing large formations of enemy heavy tanks to simply give up a fight they would otherwise have had a good chance of winning. This approach, although it saved lives on both sides by avoiding prolonged engagements, did cause mishaps. On one occasion his tanks, following this tactic, closed with a convoy of French trucks and fired into them, only to realise that the trucks acted as ambulances ferrying wounded from the front.

Battle of Arras

Matilda II tank of the British army.

By 18 May the Division had captured Cambrai, but here Rommel's advance was checked briefly, as his Chief of Staff, still with the unmotorised part of the Division in Belgium and not having received radio reports from Rommel, had written Rommel and his combat group off as lost and had not arranged for fuel to be sent up. There was a degree of controversy over this issue, with Rommel furious with what he perceived as a negligent attitude on the part of his supply officers, whereas his Chief of Staff was critical of Rommel's failure to keep his Staff officers up to speed on his actions.

On 20 May Rommel's panzers reached Arras. Here he wanted to cut off the British Expeditionary Force's path to the coast, and Hans von Luck, commanding the reconnaissance battalion of the Division, was tasked with forcing a crossing over the La Bassée canals near the city. Supported by Stuka dive bombers the unit managed to force a crossing. The British launched a counterattack (the Battle of Arras) on 21 May with Matilda tanks, and the Germans found their 3.7 cm antitank and tank guns useless against its heavy armour. A battery of 88 mm guns had to be brought up to deal with the threat, with Rommel personally directing the fire.

After Arras, Hitler ordered his Panzers to hold their positions, while the British evacuated their troops at Dunkirk and the 7th Panzer Division was given a few days of much needed rest. On 26 May 7th Panzer continued its advance and it reached Lille on 27 May. For the assault on the town Hoth placed his other tank division, 5th Panzer Division under Rommel's command, to the chagrin of its commander, General Max von Hartlieb. The same day Rommel received news that he had been awarded the Knight's Cross, as the first Divisional Commander during the campaign. This award, which had been secured for Rommel on Hitler's bequest, caused some animosity among fellow officers, who were critical of Rommel's close relationship with Hitler as it seemed to give him preferential treatment.

On 28 May, while making the final push into Lille and far in front of friendly forces, 7th Panzer came under heavy fire from French artillery due to the rapidity of the advance. Eagerly Rommel drove his forces on, capturing Lille and trapping half of the French First Army, preventing them from retreating to Dunkirk. After this coup, Rommel's forces were again given time to rest.

To the English Channel coast

Rommel resumed his advance on 5 June, in a drive for the River Seine to secure the bridges near Rouen. Advancing 100 km in two days, the Division reached Rouen, only to find the bridges destroyed. On 10 June Rommel reached the coast near Dieppe, sending his "Am at coast" signal to the German HQ.

On 15 June 7th Panzer started advancing on Cherbourg. On 17 June the Division advanced 35 km, and on 18 June the town was captured. The Division then proceeded towards Bordeaux, but stopped when the armistice was signed on 21 June. In July the Division was sent to the Paris area to start preparations for Operation Seelöwe. The preparations were half-hearted however, as it became clearer and clearer that the Luftwaffe would not be able to secure air superiority over the British coast.

The Ghost Division

7.Panzer-Division was later nicknamed Gespenster-Division (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. He also set the record for the longest thrust in one day by Panzers up to that point, covering nearly 200 miles.

Rommel received both applause and criticism for his tactics during the French campaign. Many, like General George Stumme, who had previously commanded 7th Panzer Division, were impressed with the speed and success of Rommel's drive, others were more reserved, some out of envy, others because they felt Rommel took needless risks. Hermann Hoth publicly expressed praise for Rommel's achievements, but he did have private reservations saying, in a confidential report, that Rommel should not be given command over a corps unless he gained "greater experience and a better sense of judgment." Hoth also accused Rommel of an unwillingness to acknowledge the contributions of others to his victories.

The Fourth Army's commander, General Günther von Kluge, also criticised Rommel for falsely claiming all the glory for his achievements. Rommel did not, Kluge felt, acknowledge the contribution of the Luftwaffe, and Rommel's manuscript describing his campaign in France misrepresented the advances of neighbouring units to elevate the achievements of his own dazzling advances. Kluge also cited the complaint by General Hartlieb that Rommel had misappropriated the 5th Panzer's bridging tackle on 14 May after his own supplies had run out in order to cross the Meuse, delaying 5th Panzer Division for several hours. Rommel had repeated this procedure on 27 May at the River Scarpe crossing.

North Africa 1941 - 1943

Rommel's reward for his success was to be promoted and appointed commander of the 5th Light Division (later reorganised and redesignated 21.Panzer-Division) and of the 15.Panzer-Division, which were sent to Libya in early 1941 to aid the hapless and demoralised Italian troops, forming the Deutsches Afrika Korps () in February 1941. It was in Africa where Rommel achieved his greatest fame as a commander.

The first Axis offensive

His campaign in North Africa earned Rommel the nickname "The Desert Fox". On 6 February 1941 Rommel was ordered to lead the Afrika Korps, sent to Libya to help shore up the Italian forces who had been driven back during Operation Compass launched by British Commonwealth forces under Major-General Richard O'Connor during December 1940. Initially ordered to assume a defensive posture and hold the frontline, the German High Command had slated a limited offensive towards Agedabia and Benghazi in May, and hold the line between those cities. Rommel argued that such a limited offensive would be ineffective, as the whole of Cyrenaica would have to be captured if the frontlines were to be held. The task of even holding the remaining Italian possessions seemed daunting, as the Italians had only 7,000 troops remaining in the area, after O'Connor's successful capture of 130,000 prisoners and almost 400 tanks during the previous three months of advance.

The Western Desert area, showing Rommel's first offensive 24 March 1941 – 15 June 1941.

On 24 March 1941 Rommel launched a limited offensive with only the 5th Light Division supported by two Italian divisions. This thrust was to be minor, in anticipation of Rommel receiving the 15th Panzer Division in May. The British, who had been weakened by troops being withdrawn to fight in the Greece operation, fell back to Mersa el Brega and started constructing defensive works. Rommel decided to continue the attack against these positions, to prevent the British from building up the fortifications. After a day of fierce fighting, the Germans prevailed, and the advance continued, as Rommel disregarded holding off the attack on Agedabia until May. The British Commander-in-Chief, General Archibald Wavell, overestimating the strength of the Axis forces and, already apprehensive about the extent of his advances during the previous winter, ordered a withdrawal from Benghazi in early April to avoid being cut off by Rommel's thrust.

File:Rommel in Africa1941.jpg

Rommel in Africa, Summer 1941.

Rommel, seeing the British reluctance to fight a decisive action, decided on a bold move, the seizure of the whole of Cyrenaica, despite having only light forces. He ordered the Italian Ariete armoured division to pursue the retreating British, while the 5th Light Division was to move on Benghazi. Generalmajor Johannes Streich, the 5th Light Division's commander, protested this order on the grounds of the state of his vehicles, but Rommel brushed the objections aside because, in his words, "One cannot permit unique opportunities to slip by for the sake of trifles." The Italian Commander-in-Chief, General Italo Gariboldi, tried repeatedly to halt Rommel's advance, but was unable to contact him.

After Benghazi had been secured following the British withdrawal, Cyrenaica as far as Gazala was captured by 8 April, despite fervent protests from Italian HQ, which felt Rommel were going beyond his orders, especially since he was nominally under Italian command. Rommel had received orders from the German High Command that he was not to advance past Maradah, but he turned a blind eye to this as well as protests from some of his staff and divisional commanders, grasping what he perceived to be a great possibility of largely destroying the Allied presence in North Africa and capturing Egypt. Rommel decided to keep up the pressure on the retreating British, and launched an outflanking offensive on the important port of Tobruk, during which he managed to capture the Western Desert Force commander O'Connor as well as the commander of the troops in Egypt, General Philip Neame, on 9 April. With Italian forces attacking along the coast, Rommel decided to sweep around to the south and attack the harbour from the south-east with the 5th Light Division, hoping to trap the bulk of the enemy force there. This outflanking could not be carried out as rapidly as was necessary due to logistical problems from lengthening supply lines and spoiling flank attacks from Tobruk, so Rommel's plan failed. By 11 April, the envelopment of Tobruk was complete, and the first attack was launched. Other forces continued pushing east, reaching Bardia and securing the whole of Libya by 15 April.

The siege of Tobruk

The following Siege of Tobruk lasted 240 days, with the garrison consisting of the Australian 9th Division under General Leslie Morshead and reinforced by all the British troops who had withdrawn to the port city, bringing the defenders to a total of 25,000. Impatient to secure success, Rommel launched repeated, small-scale attacks. These were easily defeated by the Australian defenders. The Italians' failure to provide Rommel with the blueprints of the port's fortifications, for which Rommel would later criticise them, was due to his surprising advance so far beyond the agreed point, hardly allowing them to produce the plans in time. Reflecting on this period, General Kircheim, the then commander of the 5th Light Division, said: "I do not like to be reminded of that time because so much blood was needlessly shed." Kirchheim had been reluctant to launch further attacks on Tobruk, as the cost of earlier assaults was very high.

Rommel remained wishfully positive that success was imminent. In his memoirs he would claim that he immediately realised that the enemy was determined to cling to Tobruk, however this seems to be in doubt. In a letter to his wife dated 16 April, he wrote that the enemy was already abandoning the town, and he remained confident that the enemy were not going to defend the town until well into April. In reality the ships arriving at the port were not evacuating the defenders but unloading supplies, something a letter of his refers, starting to indicate doubts on 21 April. His relations with his subordinate commanders were at their nadir at this point, especially with Streich who was openly critical of Rommel's decisions and refused to assume any responsibility for the attacks, and he began court martialing many of them, though ultimately signed almost none of the verdicts. This state of affairs led Army Chief Walther von Brauchitsch to write to him that instead of making threats and requesting the replacement of officers who "hitherto had excelled in battle... a calm and constructive debate might bring better results". Rommel remained unmoved.

At this point Rommel requested reinforcements for a renewed attack but the High Command, then completing preparations for Operation Barbarossa, could not spare any. Chief of Staff General Franz Halder had also told Rommel, before the latter left for Africa, that a larger force could not be logistically sustained, only to be told "that's your pigeon". Now Halder sarcastically 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 by 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 Friedrich Paulus to "head off this soldier gone stark mad" in Halder's words.

Upon arrival, Paulus on 27 April was initially convinced to authorise yet another attack on Tobruk. Back in Berlin, Halder wrote "in my view it is a mistake", but deferred to Paulus. When the attack, launched on 4 May, seemed to turn into a disaster he intervened and ordered it halted. In addition he now forbade Rommel from committing the forces into any new attack on Tobruk, and further ordered that the attacks were to halt until the regrouping was completed and even then no new assault was to take place without OKH's specific approval.

Furious with what he perceived as the lack of fighting spirit in his commanders and Italian allies, Rommel, on the insistence of Paulus and Halder, held off further attacks until the detailed plans of the Tobruk defences could be obtained, the 15th Panzer Division could be brought up to support the attack, and more training of his troops in positional warfare could be conducted, after the last attack launched on 4 May. For Streich however it was too late. He was transferred from command of 15th Panzer Division. When he met Rommel for the last time as he was taking his leave, Rommel told him that he had been "too concerned for the well-being of your troops"; Streich shot back: "I can recognise no greater words of praise", and a new quarrel ensued. After the decision was made to hold off attacks on Tobruk for an indefinite period, Rommel set about creating defensive positions, with Italian infantry forces holding Bardia, the Sollum-Sidi Omar line and investing Tobruk, and mobile German and Italian forces held in reserve to fight any British attacks from Egypt. To this end, Halfaya Pass was secured, the high water mark of Rommel's offensive. A elaborately prepared great assault was scheduled for 21 November 1941, but this attack never took place.

Whereas the defenders could be supplied by sea, the logistical problems of the Afrika Korps greatly hampered its operations, and a concentrated counter-attack by the besieged Allies might have succeeded in reaching El Adam and severing the Axis forces' communications. General Morshead, however, was misled by intelligence overestimates of the German forces investing Tobruk, thus no major action was attempted.

General Wavell made two unsuccessful attempts to relieve Tobruk (Operation Brevity (launched on 15 May) and Operation Battleaxe) (launched on 15 June). Both operations were easily defeated as they were hastily prepared, partly due to Churchill's impatience for speedy action. During Brevity the important Halfaya Pass was briefly recaptured by the British, but lost again on 27 May. Battleaxe resulted in the loss of 87 British for 25 German tanks, in a three day battle raging on the flanks of the Sollum and Halfaya Passes, with the British being unable to take these, by now, well fortified positions.

In August, Rommel was appointed commander of the newly created Panzer Group Africa. His previous command, the Afrika Korps compromising the 15th Panzer Division and the 5th Light Division, which by then had been redesignated 21st Panzer Division, was put under command of Generalleutnant Ludwig Crüwell, with Fritz Bayerlein as chief of staff. In addition to the Afrika Korps, Rommel's Panzer Group had the 90th Light Division and six Italian divisions, the Ariete and Trieste Divisions forming the XX Motorised Corps, three infantry divisions investing Tobruk and one holding Bardia.

The Allied counter offensive - Operation Crusader

Following the costly failure of Battleaxe, Wavell was replaced by Commander-in-Chief India, General Claude Auchinleck. The Allied forces were reorganised and strengthened to two corps, XXX and XIII, as the British Eighth Army under the command of Alan Cunningham. Auchinleck, having 770 tanks and 1,000 aircraft to support him, launched a major offensive to relieve Tobruk (Operation Crusader) on 18 November 1941. Rommel had two armoured divisions, the 15th and 21st with 260 tanks, the 90th Light Infantry division, and three Italian corps, five infantry and one armoured division with 154 tanks, with which to oppose him.

The Eighth Army deeply outflanked the German defences along the Egyptian frontier with a left hook through the desert, and reached a position from which they could strike at both Tobruk and the coastal road, the "Via Balbia". Auchinleck planned to engage the Afrika Korps with his armoured division, while XXX Corps assaulted the Italian positions at Bardia, encircling the troops there. The British operational plan had one major flaw. When XXX corps reached the area of Qabr Salih, it was assumed that the Afrika Korps would move eastward and accept battle, allowing the British to surround them with the southerly armour thrust. Rommel, however, did not find it necessary to do as the British planned, instead attacking the southern armoured thrust at Sidi Rezegh.

Rommel was faced with the decision of whether to go through with the attack on Tobruk, trusting his screening forces to hold off the advancing British, or to reorient his forces to hit the British columns approaching. He considered the risks too great if he chose to attack Tobruk, and so called off this attack.

The British armoured thrusts were largely defeated by fierce resistance from antitank positions and German and Italian tanks. The Italian Ariete Armoured Division was forced to give ground while inflicting losses on the advancing British at Bir el Gobi, whereas the 21st Panzer Division checked the attack launched against them and counterattacked on Gabr Saleh. Over the next two days the British continued pressing the attack, sending their armoured brigades into the battle in a piecemeal fashion, while Rommel, aware of his numerical inferiority, launched a concentrated attack on 23 November with all his armour. 21st Panzer Division held defensively at Sidi Rezegh, while 15th Panzer Division and the Italian Ariete Division attacked the flanks and enveloped the British armour. During this battle, among the biggest armoured battles of the North African campaign, the British tanks were surrounded, with about two-thirds destroyed and the survivors having to fight themselves out of the trap and head south to Gabr Saleh.

Rommel counterattacks

On 24 November Rommel, wanting to exploit the halt of the British offensive, counterattacked deep into the British rear areas in Egypt with the intention of exploiting the disorganisation and confusion in the enemy's bases and cutting their supply lines. Rommel considered the other, more conservative, course of action of destroying the British forces halted before Tobruk and Bardia too time consuming. Rommel knew his forces were incapable of driving such an effort home, but believed that the British, traumatised by their recent debacle, would abandon their defences along the border at the appearance of a German threat to their rear.

General Cunningham did, as Rommel had hoped, decide to withdraw the Eighth Army to Egypt, but Auchinleck arrived from Cairo just in time to cancel the withdrawal orders. The German attack, which began with only 100 operational tanks remaining, stalled as it outran its supplies and met stiffening resistance. The counterattack was criticised by the German High Command and some of his staff officers as too dangerous with Commonwealth forces still operating along the coast east of Tobruk, and a wasteful attack as it bled his forces, in particular his remaining tank force. Among the Staff officers who were critical was Friedrich von Mellenthin, who said that "Unfortunately, Rommel overestimated his success and believed the moment had come to launch a general pursuit.". In Rommel's favour, the attack very nearly succeeded, with the British Eighth Army commander ordering a withdrawal, and only Auchinleck's timely intervention prevented this.

While Rommel drove into Egypt, the remaining Commonwealth forces east of Tobruk threatened the weak Axis lines there. Unable to reach Rommel for several days, Rommel's Chief of Staff, Oberstleutnant Westphal, ordered the 21st Panzer Division withdrawn to support the defence of Tobruk. On 27 November the British attack on Tobruk linked up with the defenders, and Rommel, having suffered losses that could not easily be replaced, had to concentrate on relieving the 90th Light Divisions that had attacked into Egypt. By 6 December the Afrika Korps had averted the danger, and on 7 December Rommel fell back to a defensive line at Gazala, all the while under heavy attacks from the RAF. The Italian forces at Bardia were now cut off from the retreating Axis. The Allies, briefly held up at Gazala, kept up the pressure to some degree, although they were almost as exhausted and disorganised as Rommel's force, and Rommel was forced to retreat all the way back to the starting positions he had held in March, reaching El Agheila on 30 December. His main concern during his withdrawal was being flanked to the south, so the Afrika Korps held the south flank during the retreat. The Allies followed, but never attempted a southern flanking move to cut off the retreating troops as they had done in 1940. The German-Italian garrison at Bardia surrendered on 2 January 1942.

On 5 January 1942 the Afrika Korps received 55 tanks and new supplies, and Rommel started planning a counterattack. On 20 January the attack was launched, which mauled the Allied forces, costing them some 110 tanks and other heavy equipment. The Afrika Korps retook Benghazi on 29 January and the Allies pulled back to the Tobruk area and commenced building defensive positions at Gazala.

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."

The second German offensive - The Battle of Gazala

Camouflaged PzKmpw III command vehicle. In desert position some 45 kilometers west of Gazala.

Following General Kesselrings's successes in creating local air superiority and suppressing the Malta defenders in April 1942, an increased flow of vital supplies reached the Afrika Korps, after it had been receiving about a third of its needed supplies for several months. With his forces thus strengthened, Rommel began planning a major push for the summer. Rommel felt the very strong British positions around Gazala could be outflanked, and he could then drive up behind them and destroy them. The British were planning a summer offensive on their own, and their dispositions were more suited for an attack rather than a defence.

The British had 900 tanks in the area, 200 of which were new Grant tanks, whereas Rommel's Panzer Army Africa commanded a mere 320 German, 50 of which were the obsolete Panzer II model, and 240 Italian tanks, which were no better than the Panzer IIs. Therefore Rommel had to rely predominantly on 88 mm guns to destroy the British heavy tanks, but even these were in short supply. In infantry and artillery Rommel found himself vastly outnumbered also, with many of his units under-strength following the campaigns of 1941. In contrast to the previous year the Axis had more-or-less air parity though.

On 26 May 1942 Rommel's army attacked in a classic outflanking Blitzkrieg operation in the Battle of Gazala. His Italian infantry assaulted the Gazala fortifications head on, with some armour attached to give the impressions that this was the main assault, while all his motorised and armoured forces outflanked the positions to the south. On the following morning Rommel cut through the flank and attacked north, but throughout the day a running armour battle occurred, where both sides took heavy losses. The attempted encirclement of the Gazala position had failed, and the Germans had lost a third of their heavy tanks. Renewing the attack on the morning of 28 May, Rommel concentrated on encircling and destroying separate units of the British armour. Heavy British counterattacks forced Rommel to assume a defensive posture, and not pursue his original plan of a dash north for the coast. On 2 June 90th Light Division and the Trieste Division surrounded and reduced the strongpoint at Bir Hakeim, capturing it on 11 June. With the southern strongpoint of the British line thus secured, Rommel attacked north again, forcing the British back, relying on the minefields of the Gazala lines to protect his left flank. On 14 June the British began a headlong retreat eastwards, the so-called "Gazala Gallop", to avoid being completely cut off.

On 15 June Axis forces reached the coast, eliminating any escape for the Commonwealth forces still occupying the Gazala positions. With this task completed, Rommel set off in pursuit of the fleeing Allied formations, aiming to capture Tobruk while the enemy was confused and disorganised. Tobruk, isolated and alone, was now all that stood between the Afrika Korps and Egypt. The defenders were mostly disorganised units recovering from the Gazala battle. On 21 June, after a swift, coordinated and fierce combined arms assault, the city surrendered along with its 33,000 defenders, including most of the South African 2nd Division. Only at the fall of Singapore, earlier that year, had more British Commonwealth troops been captured. Hitler made Rommel a Field Marshal for this victory. (Rommel later told his confidante, Hans von Luck, that he would have preferred the Führer gave him another division.)

The drive for Egypt

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, with his aides during the desert campaign. 1942

Determined to ensure his supply lines, Rommel determined to press the attack on Mersa Matruh, despite the heavy losses he had suffered at Gazala and Tobruk. He also wanted to prevent the British from establishing a new frontline, and felt the weakness of the reeling British formations had to be exploited by a thrust into Egypt. This decision met with some criticism, as an advance into Egypt meant a significant lenghthening of the supply lines. It also meant that a proposed attack on Malta would have to wait, as the Luftwaffe would be required to support Rommel's drive eastwards. Kesselring strongly disagreed with Rommel's decision, and went as far as threatening to withdraw his aircraft to Sicily. Hitler agreed to Rommel's plan, despite protest from Italian HQ and some of his staff officers, seeing the potential for a complete victory in Africa. Rommel, apparently aware of his growing reputation as a gambler, defended his decision by claiming that to merely hold the lines at Sollum would confer upon the British a distinct advantage, in that they could more easily outflank the positions at Sollum, and the overseas supply lines would still have to be routed via Tripoli unless he secured a front further east.

On 22 June Rommel continued his offensive eastwards, and initially little resistance was encountered. Apart from fuel shortages, the advance continued, until Mersa Matruh was encircled on 26 june, surrounding four infantry divisions, the bulk of the Eighth Army. One of the divisions managed to break out during the night, and over the next two days some elements of the remaining three divisions also slipped away. The fortress fell on 29 June, yielding enormous amounts of supplies and equipment, in addition to 6,000 POWs.

Rommel continued his march eastwards, but with the supply situation steadily worsening and his men exhausted after five weeks of constant warfare, the offensive on El Alamein seemed in doubt. On 1 July the First Battle of El Alamein started, but after almost a month of inconclusive fighting both sides, completely exhausted, dug in, halting Rommel's drive eastwards. This was a serious blow to Rommel, who had hoped to drive his advance into the open desert beyond El Alamein where he could conduct a mobile defence. Although the Eighth Army suffered higher causalties in the fighting around El Alamein, some 13,000, Rommel lost 7,000 men, 1,000 of which were Germans, and he could afford the losses to a much lesser degree.

The Allies attack again - Second Battle of El Alamein

The summer standoff

After the stalemate at El Alamein, Rommel hoped to go on the offensive again before massive amounts of men and material could reach the British Eighth Army. With Allied forces from Malta intercepting his supplies at sea, and the Desert Air Force keeping up a relentless campaign against Axis supply vessels in Tobruk, Bardia and Mersa Matruh, most of what supplies reaching the Afrika Korps still had to be landed at Benghazi and Tripoli, and the enormous distances supplies had to travel to reach his forward troops, meant that a rapid reorganisation of the Afrika Korps could not be done. Further hampering Rommel's plans was the fact that the Italian divisions received priority on supplies, with the Italian authorities shipping material for the Italian formations at a much higher rate than for those of German formations. It seems the Italian HQ was uneasy with Rommel's ambitions, and wanted their own forces, whom they at least had some control over, resupplied first.

The British, preparing for a renewed drive, replaced C-in-C Auchinleck with General Harold Alexander. The Eighth Army also got a new commander, Bernard Montgomery. They received a steady stream of supplies, and were able to reorganise their forces. In late August they received a large convoy, carrying over 100,000 tons of supplies, and Rommel, learning of this, felt that time was running out. Rommel decided to launch an attack, with the 15th and 21st Panzer Division, 90th Light Division and the Italian XX Motorised Corps in a drive through the southern flank of the El Alamein lines. The terrain here was without any easily defendable features and so open to attack. Montgomery, having realised this threat, had set up his main defences behind the El Alamein line, along the Alam El Halfa Ridge, where he could meet any outflanking thrust.

The Battle of Alam El Halfa

The Battle of Alam el Halfa was launched on 30 August, with Rommel's forces driving through the south flank. After passing the El Alamein line to the south, Rommel drove north at the Alam el Halfa Ridge, just as Montgomery had anticipated. Under heavy fire from British artillery and aircraft, and in the face of well prepared positions that Rommel could not hope to outflank due to lack of petrol, the attack stalled, and by 2 September Rommel decided the battle unwinnable, and decided to withdraw.

Montgomery, seeing that the enemy withdrew, ordered his 2nd New Zealand Division and 7th Armoured Division to attack on 3 September, but the attack was stalled by a fierce rearguard action by the 90th Light Division, and Montgomery called off further pursuits. On 5 September Rommel was back where he had started, with only heavy losses to show for it. Rommel had 2,940 casualties, lost 50 tanks, a similar number of guns and perhaps worst of all 400 trucks, vital for supplies and movement. The British losses, except tank losses of 68, were much less, further adding to the numerical inferiority of Panzer Armee Afrika. The Desert Air Force had inflicted the highest proportions of damage to Rommel's forces, and he now realised the war in Africa was unwinnable without more air support, which was an impossibility with the Luftwaffe already stretched to breaking point on other fronts.

Second Battle of El Alamein

El Alamein 1942: British Matilda tanks move forward at Tobruk.

In September the British launched a series of raids on important logistical harbours and supply points, collectively known as Operation Agreement. Added to this, the level of supplies successfully ferried across the Mediterranean had fallen to a dismal level. In addition, Rommel's health was failing and he took sick leave in Italy and Germany from late September, thus being away from the front when the Second Battle of El Alamein was launched on 23 October 1942. Although he immediately set out for the front it took him two vital days to reach his HQ in Africa. The defensive plan at El Alamein was more static in nature than Rommel had wished, but with the shortness of motorised units and fuel supply he had felt it was the only course left open to him. The defensive line had strong fortifications and was protected with a large minefield, which in turn was covered with machine guns and artillery. This, Rommel hoped, would allow his infantry to hold the line at any point until motorised and armour units in reserve behind the front could advance to the points of engagement and counterattack any British breaches.

During the initial fighting the commander in charge of Panzer Army Africa in Rommel's absence, General Georg Stumme, died of a heart attack while en route between two command posts. This delayed the German command staff in reaching vital decisions in the battle's early hours, until General Ritter von Thoma took command. After having returned to the El Alamein front, Rommel learnt that the fuel supply situation, critical when he left in September, was now disastrous, with his army scarcely having any fuel left, hampering any mobile defence Rommel might undertake. Counterattacks by the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions on 24 October and 25 October had caused heavy tank losses, due to the intensity of the British artillery and aircraft bombardments. Rommel's main concern was to counterattack in full force and throw the British out of the defensive lines, in his view the only chance the Germans had of avoiding defeat. The counterattack was launched early on 26 October, but the British units that had penetrated the defensive line held fast on Kidney Ridge. The British continued pushing hard with armoured units to force the breakthrough, but the defenders' fire destroyed many tanks, leading to doubts among the officers in the British armoured brigades about the chances of clearing a breach.

Montgomery, seeing his armoured brigades losing tanks at an alarming rate, stopped major attacks until 1 November, when he achieved a 4 km penetration of the line. Rommel immediately counterattacked with what tanks he had available in an attempt to encircle the pocket during 2 November, but the heavy British fire stopped the attempt. By this time Panzer Army Africa had only one-third of its initial strength remaining, with only 35 tanks left operational, virtually no fuel or ammunition and with the British in complete command of the air, yet the British had been fought to a standstill, having taken murderous losses with some armour brigades reporting losses of 75% of their strength.

Rommel's retreat

On 3 November Montgomery found it impossible to renew his attack, and he had to wait for more reinforcements to be brought up. This lull was what Rommel needed for his withdrawal, which had been planned since 29 October, when Rommel determined the situation hopeless. At midday, however, Rommel received a message from Hitler, forbidding a retreat with his infamous "victory or death" stand fast order. Although this order demanded the impossible and virtually ensured the destruction of Panzer Army Africa, Rommel could not bring himself to disobey a direct order from his Führer and the Axis forces clung desperately on.

On 4 November Montgomery renewed the attack, with fresh forces brought up from the rear, and with almost 500 tanks against the 20 or so remaining to Rommel. By midday the Italian XX Motorised Corps had been surrounded, and after some hours of desperate resistance the Corps was completely destroyed. This left a 20 km gap in Rommel's line, with powerful armour and motorised British units pouring through the lines, threatening the entire Panzer Army Africa with encirclement. At this point Rommel could no longer uphold the no retreat order, and ordered a general retreat. Early on 5 November he received authorisation by Hitler to withdraw, 12 hours after his decision to do so - but it was far too late, with only remnants of his army streaming westwards, while most of his unmotorised forces (the bulk of his army) unable to reach safety.

After the defeat at El Alamein, Rommel's forces managed to escape, but took heavy losses from constant air attacks. Despite urgings from Hitler and Mussolini, Rommel's forces did not stop to engage the pursuing Allies until they had entered Tunisia, except for brief holding engagements, due to the numerical superiority and air supremacy of the Allied and most of Rommel's remaining divisions reduced to combat groups.

The end in Africa

A Tiger I tank, captured by American forces in Tunisia in 1943.

In Tunisia Rommel launched an offensive against the U.S. II Corps, rather than the British Eighth Army, in part due to his reluctance to hold the British east of Tunisia with his depleted forces and seeing this as a way of redeploying some forces west. Rommel inflicted a sharp defeat on the American forces at the Kasserine Pass in February.

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 the new commander of Rommel’s Panzer Army Africa, which was now renamed the 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 coexisted in what was theoretically the same command until 9 March, 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 6 March 1943, when he attacked Bernard Montgomery’s Eighth Army at the Battle of Medenine with three Panzer divisions (10, 15, and 21). 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 Hans-Jürgen von Arnim and left Africa, because of health reasons, never to return. On 13 May 1943, after the collapse of the German 5th Army, the fall of Tunis and the surrounding of the Italian 1st Army, still holding the line at Enfidaville, General Messe formally surrendered the remnants of Armeegruppe Afrika to the Allies. On 12 May, one day before the surrender, Messe was promoted to the rank of field marshal.

Some historians contrast Rommel's withdrawal to Tunisia against Hitler's wishes with Friedrich Paulus's obedience of orders to have the German Sixth Army stand its ground at the Battle of Stalingrad, which resulted in its annihilation. Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, appointed overall Axis commander in North Africa, saw things differently. He believed the withdrawals, 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.

According to papers left by Lieutenant-Colonel G.C.T Keyes there was a failed Allied attempt to capture Rommel from his headquarters, 250 miles behind enemy lines during February 1943.

France 1943 - 1944

The inglorious end of the North African campaign meshed poorly with the Nazi propaganda machine's relentless portrayal of Rommel as an unbeatable military genius. This opened in Berlin the awkward question of precisely what use now to make of the erstwhile Desert Fox. Back in Germany, he 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. While Gerd von Rundstedt, Commander-in-Chief West, believed strongly in a landing at Pas-de-Calais because it offered a great strategical springboard for a thrust against Germany, Führer HQ, although agreeing with this assessment, considered a landing at Normandy as a possibility. Rommel, believing that Normandy was indeed a likely landing ground, argued that it did not matter to the Allies where they landed, just that the landing was successful. He therefore toured the Normandy defences extensively during January and February 1944, ordering millions of mines laid, and thousands of tank traps and obstacles set up on beaches and throughout the countryside, including in fields suitable for glider aircraft landings, the so-called Rommel's Asparaguses.

After his battles in North 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, 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. Other renowned Panzer commanders agreed with von Rundstedt, with Heinz Guderian among his supporters. The commander of Panzer Group West, General Geyr von Schweppenburg strongly disagreed with Rommel, wanting the armour placed far inland. 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, in an order in late April. Rommel did order some of the armoured formations under his command to take up positions as far forward as possible, ordering General Erich Marcks, commanding the 84th Corps defending the Normandy section, to move his reserves into the frontline.

In April the Allies started their Operation Fortitude, a plan to mislead the Germans as to the actual landing place for D-Day. Although Hitler himself firmly believed in a Normandy invasion as late as early May, the information his belief was based on, intercepted Allied plans, analysis of enemy mine laying and bombing operations and air reconnaissance over southern England, was not revealed to the commanders in France, and Rommel, along with most Wehrmacht commanders in France, also started believing in a Pas-de-Calais landing. With this, his focus on building obstacles shifted to the River Somme estuary, lagging the work in Normandy. By D-Day on 6 June, 1944, virtually all German officers, including those in the Führer's HQ, firmly believed that Pas-de-Calais was going to be the invasion site, and, when it occurred, many thought that the Normandy landing was a mere diversion. There was still some doubt though, with Jodl's staff still warning of the favourable landing opportunities in Normandy on 2 June, indeed this was confirmed by intelligence intercepts of British messages to the French resistance movement in Normandy. However, this information was not heeded by the commanders in France.

During the confusing opening hours of D-Day, the German command structure in France was in disarray. Rommel, along with several other important officers, was on leave. Several tank units, notably the 12th SS Panzer Division and Panzer Lehr, were close enough to the beaches to create serious havoc. The absence of Rommel, along with the still reigning confusion among the Staff officers, led to a hesitation and unwillingness to release the Panzer reserves, fearing the second part of the invasion which was imagined to land further north. Facing only small-scale German attacks, the Allies quickly secured a beachhead. Rommel personally oversaw the bitter fighting around Caen, where only the determined defence of Kampfgruppe von Luck hindered a British breakout on the first day. Here, again, the necessary liberty of the on-site commanders were withheld, and the German commanders did not launch a concentrated counterattack before midday on the 6 June.

The plot against Hitler

On 17 July 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 unsuccessful 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.

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

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 and wrong-doings during the time he was hospitalized. Bormann was certain of Rommel's involvement, Goebbels was not. The only serious evidence against him was provided by his chief of staff Hans Speidel who scapegoated Rommel for his own actions, claiming that the rebellious orders were issued by Rommel, not him, and that he, Speidel, tried to report these criminal acts to Berlin, but was prevented from so doing (See Reuth 2006). Another piece of evidence against Rommel was that his name was found on a list drawn up by Dr Carl Goerdeler on which he was earmarked as a possible future President of Germany. Unfortunately for Rommel, the 'Court of Military Honour' that was to decide whether or not to hand him over to Roland Freisler's People's Court included two men with whom Rommel 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.

This ex post facto version of events does not entirely exculpate Rommel; if he knew enough about the plot to oppose it, it would have been a dereliction of duty not to report the conspirators to the Nazi heirarchy. In that case, Rommel's inaction would have amounted to complicity in the eyes of his superiors.

Because of Rommel's popularity with the German people, and possibly because he had been one of Hitler's favourites and one of Germany's most successful battlefield commanders, he was given the option of committing suicide with cyanide or facing a trial before Roland Freisler's "People's Court" and the murder (or internment into the concentration camps) of his family and staff. Rommel ended his own life on 14 October 1944. 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.

The Nazi elite gave a different, 'official' story of Rommel's death to the general public. Joseph Goebbels informed the world's media that Rommel had succumbed to a heart attack while recovering from injuries sustained in a "automobile accident" in Normandy. To further strengthen the lie, Hitler ordered an official day of mourning in commemoration, and Rommel was buried with full military honours. Hitler himself took a leading role in the highly publicized funeral. On Youtube a rare video showing his extravagant funeral is available[1].

Rommel as a military commander

Rommel has been hailed as a brilliant tactician and competent strategist, but certainly not without flaws. Contemporaries who had to work with him under adversity often 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 submitted by Alfred Gause, Halder concluded: "Rommel's character 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". Others mentioned his leadership style, with expecting much of his commanders, and not being open to criticism or objections. He had little patience for sub-commanders who did not do their jobs properly. Only three weeks after assuming command of the 7th Panzer Division in February 1940 Rommel found a battalion commander performing sub-par, and had the man sacked and sent on his way in 90 minutes. This manner of management would certainly send a signal that he demanded the utmost of his men, but it was bound to create a feeling of resentment among some of his officers.

F.W. von Mellenthin, who served on Rommel's staff during the Africa campaign, says Rommel took great chances on several occasions, gambling entire battles on decisions made almost on the spur of the moment and with incomplete information, citing Rommel's counterattack during Operation Crusader as just one such instance. Others who served under him in Africa, most notably General Fritz Bayerlein, said he took risks, but only after carefully weighing the potential dangers and rewards. Rommel himself was aware of his growing reputation as a gambler, and added careful notes in his papers explaining and defending his actions, especially concerning his decision to drive into Egypt during the 1942 Summer Offensive.

His leadership style was also admired and criticised, with aggressive sub-ordinates, like Hans von Luck, praising his leadership from the front, while others, like Mellenthin, question this leadership style, as it often led to his staff officers becoming involved in the fighting, instead of maintaining an overview of the situation. His sometimes long absences from HQ also meant that subordinates had to make decisions without consulting Rommel, leading to confusion.

In France, Rommel's aggressive drive through the French and British lines, disregarding the safety of his flanks and rear, succeeded to a remarkable degree. His aggressive attacks often caused larger enemy formations to simply surrender. His aggressiveness did cause resentment among fellow officers, however, who felt he at times acted too recklessly and failed to keep his commanders and colleague commanders properly informed of his intentions. He was also criticised for claiming too much of the glory himself, neglecting support from other elements of the Wehrmacht, and downplaying other units' achievements.

Rommel won many battles in Africa, both during 1941 and 1942, against British forces that always outnumbered him and had better supply lines, through aggressive attacks, but he never achieved a decisive victory, and his eagerness to drive for Egypt, despite not having the logistical "tail" to support it, meant that these drives were stopped, with great losses in men and materiel. Rommel perceived "unique opportunities" in capturing Egypt and perhaps the Middle East, a result which would definitely have had a huge impact on the Allies' capabilities of waging war, but his grand vision was never supported by Hitler, nor the General Staff in Berlin. During the siege of Tobruk, Rommel launched frequent attacks during the first month of the siege, and these were costly. The level of losses incurred caused Rommel to have several rows with his unit commanders, and also with the German High Command — indeed some sources indicate that Chief of Staff Halder had to send Friedrich Paulus to Africa to rein Rommel in, although Rommel himself maintained he had realised the futility of further attacks on the fortress on his own accord.

Popular perception

Rommel was in his lifetime extraordinarily well known, not only by the German people, but also by his adversaries. Popular stories of his chivalry and tactical prowess earned him the respect of many opponents: Claude Auchinleck, Winston Churchill, George S. Patton, and Bernard Montgomery, for example. Rommel, for his part, was complimentary towards and respectful of his foes. Hitler considered Rommel among his favourite generals.

The Afrika Korps was never accused of any war crimes, and Rommel himself referred to the fighting in North Africa as Krieg ohne Hass - war without hate. Numerous examples exist of Rommel's chivalry towards Allied POWs, such as his defiance of Hitler's infamous Commando Order, as well as his refusal to comply with an order from Hitler to execute Jewish POWs. When British Major Geoffrey Keyes was killed during a failed Commando raid to kill or capture Rommel behind German lines, Rommel ordered him buried with full military honours. Also, during the construction of the Atlantic Wall, Rommel directed that French workers were not to be used as slaves, but were to be paid for their labour.

Tempering this favourable 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. There are several documented examples of racially prejudiced policies enacted under Rommel's command including his 1942 order that non-white Allied prisoners of war in Axis captivity be fed less (1,400 calories a day) than white prisoners' calories, and his killing of unarmed black prisoners of war in 1940 in order to film the propaganda newsreel Victory in the West.

Rommel also told his illegitimate daughter Gertrud, when she asked his blessing to marry her Italian boyfriend, to make sure that he is an Aryan (non-Jewish). Following a conversation he held with a number of Swiss officers he wrote to his wife about "their amazing understanding to our Jewish problem".

His military colleagues would also play their part in perpetuating his legend. His former subordinate Kircheim, though privately critical of Rommel's performance, nonetheless explained: "thanks to propaganda, first by Goebbels, then by Montgomery, and finally, after he was poisoned (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 which the German soldier is held" (in a letter to Johannes Streich, who also served under Rommel as the commander of the 5th Light Division in North Africa, and came to loathe 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. 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 honour.

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
• Eric Braeden in the 1966-1968 ABC TV Series The Rat Patrol
• Karl Michael Vogler in the 1970 Patton, starring George C. Scott
• Wolfgang Preiss in the 1971 Raid on Rommel
• Hardy Krüger in the 1988 television mini-series War and Remembrance
• Michael York in the 1990 TV-movie Night of the Fox
• Kevin Peckenpaugh, Union Pines production of Kill Hitler
• Brian Jackson in the 2007 short film Patricide
• Janne Saarikivi in the 1996 lyrics of pop song Säkeitä Erwin Rommelille by Finnish pop band Ultra Bra

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 20 July 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".

Much of Rommel's success in North Africa was due to his detailed intelligence about his British opponents. The Key To Rebecca, by Ken Follett, concerns an Egyptian belly dancer who rifles the briefcases of British officers who sleep with her, and passes their contents to Rommel. City of Gold, by Len Deighton, follows a hunt in Cairo for a different German spy. Both books are based on true events, and in real life, the shutting down of both spy networks contributed to Rommel's ultimate loss at the Second Battle of El Alamein.

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 stated:

• "We have a very daring and skilful 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."

British General Claude Auchinleck, one of Rommel's opponents in Africa, in a letter to his field commanders:

• "There exists a real danger that our friend Rommel is becoming a kind of magical or bogey-man to our troops, who are talking far too much about him. He is by no means a superman, although he is undoubtedly very energetic and able. Even if he were a superman, it would still be highly undesireable that our men should credit him with supernatural powers."

Quotations

• "Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, and brains save 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. The dumb and lazy ones I give mundane duties. The smart ambitious ones I put on my staff. The smart and lazy ones I make my commanders."
• "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."
• "I know I haven't offered you much; sand, heat, scorpions ... but we've shared them together. One more last push, and it is Cairo. And if we fail, ... well, we tried, ... together"*

• To his son Manfred just before he went to his death: "Never be a soldier."

References and further reading

• John Bierman and Colin Smith. The Battle of Alamein: Turning Point, World War II, (2002). ISBN 0-670-03040-6
• Michael Carver (1962); El Alamein; Wordsworth Editions; ISBN 1-84022-220-4
• Francois De Lannoy.Afrikakorps, 1941-1943: The Libya Egypt Campaign, ISBN 2-84048-152-9
• George Forty. The Armies of Rommel, (Arms and Armour Press, London 1997) ISBN 1-85409-379-7
• David Fraser. Knight's Cross: A Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, ISBN 0-06-092597-3, the standard full-length biography
• Jack Greene. Rommel's North Africa Campaign: September 1940 - November 1942, . ISBN 1-58097-018-4
• David Irving (1977). The Trail of the Fox - The Search for the True Field Marshal Rommel, Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 1-872197-29-9 - 2005 Electronic Version.Download from David Irvings website
• Thomas L. Jentz. Tank Combat in North Africa: The Opening Rounds: Operations Sonnenblume, Brevity, Skorpion and Battleaxe February 1941-June 1941 (Schiffer Military History), . ISBN 0-7643-0226-4
• Orr Kelly. Meeting the Fox: The Allied Invasion of Africa, from Operation Torch to Kasserine Pass to Victory in Tunisia, . ISBN 0-471-41429-8
• Jon Latimer. Alamein, . ISBN 0-674-01016-7
• Jon Latimer. Tobruk 1941: Rommel's Opening Move ISBN 1-84176-092-7
• Ronald Lewin. Rommel as military commander B&N Books: ISBN 0-7607-0861-4
• F.W. von Mellenthin (1956). Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War., Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-32158-8
• Charles F. Marshall The Rommel Murder:The Life and Death of the Desert Fox,Stackpole Books, 1994, ISBN 0-8117-2472-7
• Samuel W. Mitcham. Rommel's Greatest Victory, ISBN 0-89141-730-3
• Reuth, Ralf Georg. Rommel: The End of a Legend. London: Haus Books, 2006 (hardcover, ISBN 1904950205).
• Hans Sakkers. (1993) Generalfeldmarschall Rommel: opperbevelhebber van Heeresgruppe B bij de voorbereiding van de verdediging van West-Europa, 5 November 1943 tot 6 juni 1944. ISBN 90-800900-2-6 [text/photobook in Dutch about Rommel at the Atlantic Wall 1943/44]
• Dennis Showalter. Patton and Rommel: Men of War in the Twentieth Century. 2005. 441 pp. ISBN 978-0-425-20663-8.
• Bernad Stegmann. (1995) Germany and the Second World War - Volume III - Part IV and V, Clarendon Press • Oxford.
• Hans von Luck (1989). Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck, Cassel Military Paperbacks. ISBN 0-304-36401-0
• Desmond Young. Rommel The Desert Fox (1950)
• Inside the Afrika Korps: The Crusader Battles, 1941-1942. ISBN 1-85367-322-6

Primary sources

• Liddel-Hart, Basil ed. The Rommel Papers (1982)
• Erwin Rommel, Infantry Attacks (2006)
• Erwin Rommel, Rommel and his Art of War (2006)
• Laszlo Almasy. With Rommel's Army in Libya (2001)

See also

• Nazi Germany
• North African Campaign
• Western Desert Campaign
• Wehrmacht
• List of German military units of World War II
• Hans-Jürgen von Arnim
• Afrika Korps
• Panzer Army Africa
• László Almásy

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
• Essay: The Success of the Deutsches Afrika Korps was Based on Rommel's Leadership
• Erwin Rommel - The Idol German Documentary