Rommel

Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944) was a German general and military theorist. Popularly known as the Desert Fox, he served as field marshal in the Wehrmacht (Defense Force) of Nazi Germany during World War II, as well as serving in the Reichswehr of the Weimar Republic, and the army of Imperial Germany.

Rommel was a highly decorated officer in World War I and was awarded the Pour le Mérite for his actions on the Italian Front. In 1937 he published his classic book on military tactics, Infantry Attacks, drawing on his experiences from World War I. In World War II, he distinguished himself as the commander of the 7th Panzer Division during the 1940 invasion of France. His leadership of German and Italian forces in the North African Campaign established his reputation as one of the most able tank commanders of the war, and earned him the nickname der Wüstenfuchs, "the Desert Fox". Among his British adversaries he earned a strong reputation for chivalry, and the North African campaign has often been called a "war without hate".^[2] He later commanded the German forces opposing the Allied cross-channel invasion of Normandy in June 1944.

Rommel supported the Nazi seizure of power and Adolf Hitler, although his reluctant stance towards antisemitism, Nazi ideology and level of knowledge of the Holocaust remain a matter of debate among scholars.^{[3][4][5][6][7]} In 1944, Rommel was implicated in the 20 July plot to assassinate Hitler. Due to Rommel's status as a national hero, Hitler desired to eliminate him quietly instead of immediately executing him, as many other plotters were. Rommel was given a choice between committing suicide, in return for assurances that his reputation would remain intact and that his family would not be persecuted following his death, or facing a trial that would result in his disgrace and execution; he chose the former and committed suicide using a cyanide pill.^[8] Rommel was given a state funeral, and it was announced that he had succumbed to his injuries from the strafing of his staff car in Normandy.

Rommel has become a larger-than-life figure in both Allied and Nazi propaganda, and in postwar popular culture, with numerous authors considering him an apolitical, brilliant commander and a victim of the Third Reich although this assessment is contested by other authors as the Rommel myth. Rommel's reputation for conducting a clean war was used in the interest of the West German rearmament and reconciliation between the former enemies – the United Kingdom and the United States on one side and the new Federal Republic of Germany on the other. Several of Rommel's former subordinates, notably his chief of staff Hans Speidel, played key roles in German rearmament and integration into NATO in the postwar era. The German Army's largest military base, the Field Marshal Rommel Barracks, Augustdorf, is named in his honour.

• 1 Early life and career
• 2 World War I
• 3 Between the wars
• 4 World War II
  • 4.1 Poland 1939
  • 4.2 France 1940
  • 4.3 North Africa 1941–1943
  • 4.4 Italy 1943
  • 4.5 Atlantic Wall 1944
  • 4.6 Plot against Hitler
  • 4.7 Death
• 5 Rommel's style as military commander
  • 5.1 Relations with Italian forces
  • 5.2 Views on the conduct of war
• 6 In Nazi and Allied propaganda
  • 6.1 Successes in North Africa
  • 6.2 Military reverses
  • 6.3 Rommel's views on propaganda
• 7 Relationship with National Socialism
• 8 Rommel myth
  • 8.1 Foundational works
  • 8.2 Elements of the myth
  • 8.3 Contradictions and ambiguities
• 9 Reputation as military commander
• 10 Family life
• 11 Awards
• 12 Posthumous honours
• 13 References
• 14 External links

Early life and career

Rommel was born on 15 November 1891 in Southern Germany at Heidenheim, 45 kilometres (28 mi) from Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, then part of the German Empire. He was the third of five children of Erwin Rommel Senior (1860–1913), a teacher and school administrator, and his wife Helene von Lutz, whose father Karl von Luz headed the local government council. As a young man Rommel's father had been a lieutenant in the artillery. Rommel had one older sister, an art teacher who was his favorite sibling, one older brother named Manfred who died in infancy and two younger brothers, of whom one became a successful dentist and the other an opera singer.^{[9][10][11][12]}

At age 18 Rommel joined the local 124th Württemberg Infantry Regiment as a Fähnrich (ensign), in 1910, studying at the Officer Cadet School in Danzig.^[13] He graduated in November 1911 and was commissioned as a lieutenant in January 1912 and was assigned to the 124th Infantry in Weingarten.^[14] He was posted to Ulm in March 1914 to the 46th Field Artillery Regiment, XIII (Royal Württemberg) Corps, as a battery commander. He returned to the 124th when war was declared.^[15] While at Cadet School, Rommel met his future wife, 17-year-old Lucia (Lucie) Maria Mollin (1894–1971), of Polish and Italian descent.^[16]

World War I

Lieutenant Rommel in Italy, 1917.

During World War I, Rommel fought in France as well as in the Romanian and Italian Campaigns. He successfully employed the tactics of penetrating enemy lines with heavy covering fire coupled with rapid advances, as well as moving forward rapidly to a flanking position to arrive at the rear of hostile positions, to achieve tactical surprise.^[17] His first combat experience was on 22 August 1914 as a platoon commander near Verdun, when – catching a French garrison unprepared – Rommel and three men opened fire on them without ordering the rest of his platoon forward.^[18] The armies continued to skirmish in open engagements throughout September, as the static trench warfare typical of the First World War was still in the future.^[19] For his actions in September 1914 and January 1915, Rommel was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class.^[20] Rommel was promoted to Oberleutnant (first lieutenant) and transferred to the newly created Royal Wurttemberg Mountain Battalion of the Alpenkorps in September 1915, as a company commander.^[21] In November 1916 in Danzig, Rommel and Lucia married.^[22]

In August 1917, his unit was involved in the battle for Mount Cosna, a heavily fortified objective on the border between Hungary and Romania, which they took after two weeks of difficult uphill fighting.^[23] The Mountain Battalion was next assigned to the Isonzo front, in a mountainous area in Italy. The offensive, known as the Battle of Caporetto, began on 24 October 1917.^[24] Rommel's battalion, consisting of three rifle companies and a machine gun unit, was part of an attempt to take enemy positions on three mountains: Kolovrat, Matajur, and Stol.^[25] In two and a half days, from 25 to 27 October, Rommel and his 150 men captured 81 guns and 9,000 men (including 150 officers), at the loss of six dead and 30 wounded.^[26] Rommel achieved this remarkable success by taking advantage of the terrain to outflank the Italian forces, attacking from unexpected directions or behind enemy lines, and taking the initiative to attack when he had orders to the contrary. In one instance, the Italian forces, taken by surprise and believing that their lines had collapsed, surrendered after a brief firefight.^[27] In this battle, Rommel helped pioneer infiltration tactics, a new form of maneuver warfare just being adopted by German armies, and later by foreign armies,^[28][29] and described by some as Blitzkrieg without tanks.^[30][31] He played no role in the early adoption of Blitzkrieg in World War II though.^[31] Acting as advance guard in the capture of Longarone on 9 November, Rommel again decided to attack with a much smaller force. Convinced that they were surrounded by an entire German division, the 1st Italian Infantry Division – 10,000 men – surrendered to Rommel. For this and his actions at Matajur, he received the order of Pour le Mérite.^[28]

In January 1918, Rommel was promoted to Hauptmann (captain) and assigned to a staff position with XLIV Army Corps, where he served for the remainder of the war.^[32]

Between the wars

Rommel remained with the 124th Regiment until 1 October 1920, when he was named a company commander in the 13th Infantry Regiment in Stuttgart, a post he held with the rank of captain for the next nine years.^[33][26] His regiment was involved in quelling riots and civil disturbances that were occurring throughout Germany at this time.^[34] Wherever possible, he avoided the use of force in these confrontations.^[35] He decided against storming the city of Lindau, which had been taken by revolutionary communists.^[36] Instead, Rommel negotiated with the city council and managed to return it to the legitimate government through diplomatic means.^[4][37] This was followed by another bloodless defence of Schwäbisch Gmünd.^[38] Historian Raffael Scheck praises Rommel for being a coolheaded and moderate mind, exceptional among the massive violence caused by takeovers of many revolutionary cities by regular and irregular units.^[4] After that, he was posted to the Ruhr where a red army was responsible for fomenting unrest. This episode left an indelible impression on Rommel's mind, and also that of Hitler (like Rommel, he had also experienced the solidarity of trench warfare) who participated in the suppression of the First and Second Bavarian Soviet Republics by the Reichswehr, that, according to Reuth, "Everyone in this Republic was fighting each other," and that there were people trying to convert Germany into a socialist republic on the Soviet lines. The need for national unity thus became a decisive legacy of the first World War.^[37]

Rommel and Adolf Hitler in Goslar, 1934

He was assigned as an instructor at the Dresden Infantry School from 1929 to 1933, and was promoted to major in April 1932.^[26][39] While at Dresden, he wrote a manual on infantry training, published in 1934. Rommel was promoted to Oberstleutnant (lieutenant colonel) in October 1933, and given his next command, the 3rd Jäger Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, stationed at Goslar.^[40] Here he first met Hitler, who inspected his troops on 30 September 1934.^[41] In September 1935 Rommel was moved to the War Academy at Potsdam as an instructor, a post he held for the next three years.^[42] His book Infanterie greift an (Infantry Attacks), a description of his wartime experiences along with his analysis, was published in 1937. It became a bestseller, which, according to Scheck, later "enormously influenced" many armies of the world;^[4][43] Adolf Hitler was one of many people who owned a copy.^[44]

Hearing of Rommel's reputation as an outstanding military instructor, in February 1937 Hitler assigned him as the War Ministry liaison officer to the Hitler Youth in charge of military training. Here he clashed with Baldur von Schirach, the Hitler Youth leader, over the training that the boys should receive.^{[45][46][47][48][49]} Trying to fulfill a mission assigned to him by the Ministry of War,^[50] Rommel had proposed a plan (twice) that would have effectively subordinated Hitler Youth to the army, removing it from the NSDAP control. That went against Schirach's express wishes who appealed directly to Hitler. Consequently, Rommel was quietly removed from the project in 1938.^[51] He was promoted to Oberst (colonel) on 1 August 1937, and in 1938, Rommel was appointed commandant of the Theresian Military Academy at Wiener Neustadt.^[52] In October 1938 Hitler specially requested that Rommel be seconded to command the Führerbegleitbatallion (his escort battalion).^[53] This unit accompanied him whenever he traveled outside of Germany.^[41] During this period he indulged his interest in engineering and mechanics by learning about the inner workings and maintenance of internal combustion engines and heavy machine guns.^[54] He memorized logarithm tables in his spare time and enjoyed skiing and other outdoor sports.^[55]

World War II

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