“We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general.” Winston Churchill
Erwin Rommel (born November 15, 1891, died October 14, 1944) was probably the most skilled German commander of World War II and the most respected by the Allies. He wrote two books: Attacks (1937) chronicling his exploits in WWI and released shortly before WWII; and The Rommel Papers, which were actually collected after his death and published at that time, although he was actually writing much of the material with a view to publishing them after the war as a sequel to his first book. The second book also compiles his letters to his wife written contemporaneously, as they complement his battle reports.
Attacks
France Part I (1914). This was the early (August-September) warfare when it was still fairly dynamic, with the Germans still in pickelhaubes (spiked helmets) and the French still in dark blue coats, kepis, and their famous red pants. This was Rommel’s first experience as an infantry officer, but he certainly learns quickly. The French fight inconsistently: sometimes surrendering quickly, other times putting up a fight. His narrative is peppered with tactical maps – very detailed and very clear – and periodic theoretical conclusions drawn from his experiences (“this is what I learned – the hard way”).
France Part II (late 1914, early 1915). By now the war had turned into trenches, but still spiked helmets and red pants. The French still don’t impress him very much, and still fight somewhat inconsistently.
Romania (1916). Off into the mountains with the Wurttemburg Mountain Battalion. Although frequently outnumbered substantially, he tends to lead his troops to victory consistently. The Romanians fight better than the French (some French officers lead them) but are really no match for German soldiers. He does not mention any trips to Bucharest, though I know the Germans walked into the capital city after decisively defeating the Romanian Army.
Italy (1917). Into the mountains of Italy on the Isonzo Front. This has been the site of countless battles with heavy casualties on both sides yet neither able to achieve any tactical or strategic victory, resulting in simply lots of dead, frozen bodies and a frustrating stalemate – until Rommel showed up. Here he really did some spectacular magic, really pulling a major Sgt. York. His unit darted from mountain top to mountain top, tricking various Italian units – full strength and greatly outnumbering his own – into surrendering without a fight. The Italian officers cursed at him for his Ulysses-style trickery, but it was too late. He practically won the mountain war singlehandedly, resulting in his Pour Le Merite (aka “Blue Max”), Germany’s highest decoration.
The Rommel Papers.
France (May-June 1940). As commander of the 7th Panzer Division, he led his unit across France in 3 phases. First was the crossing of the Meuse – a real nailbiting, touch-and-go affair, France’s best chance and hope to stop the blitzkrieg in its tracks, spectacularly blown, of course – ending with the arrival on the coast, cutting off the Allied forces and most of the BEF, which led to the evacuation at Dunkirk. Then was a second offensive over the Somme, pretty much against leftover French units which mostly disintegrated without much of a fight. This ended at St-Valery. Third was the offensive further west up to Cherbourg with the capture of that port. By this point the Armistice had been signed, but there was still some fighting going on. The British make a few appearances during this phase and consistently fight well.
Interesting: very early on he came to the conclusion that the best tactic was not to find some cover, pick a target, and shoot carefully; rather, it was to charge forward, guns blazing in the enemy’s general direction. Although the firepower appears indiscriminately applied, in practice it forces the enemy to keep their heads down and they will ultimately be smashed by the infantry/armor forces when they do reach the enemy lines.
Little understood is the fact that the German panzer divisions were mostly outclassed by their opponents. A substantial portion of the German tanks were Mark I and II models with machine guns and 20mm cannon respectively, originally intended as nothing more than practice tanks to learn tactics in maneuvers, and never intended to actually go up against enemy armor in combat. Even the Mark III and IV tanks, which were a minority, were only barely a match for the French tanks. The Czech tanks the Germans used were apparently in between. The 37mm anti-tank gun commonly used was practically worthless, though even at this early stage the Germans were using the dreaded “88” in an anti-tank role. Fortunately they had complete air superiority, which worked in their favor. Where the Germans truly shined and defeated the Allies was by (A) putting radios in all the tanks, and (B) concentrating them into armored divisions instead of spreading them out piecemeal in support of infantry units. Unfortunately for the Germans, their enemies soon learned from them and turned this around – as Rommel found in his next “adventure” in North Africa.
North Africa. Rommel finally meets his match against the British 8th Army. He started off in Libya in April 1941, took Benghazi, surrounded Tobruk, and gave the 8th Army a bloody nose with no more than 2 Panzer divisions and 2-3 Italian motorized divisions - most of the Italian Army in North Africa was non-motorized, which Rommel found to be practically useless in modern war; he found it best to simply employ them in static defense, allowing troops who might otherwise be tied down in that capacity to be freed for mobile warfare. Many of his tanks were Mark I and II models, his III’s and IV’s had short barrels (before finally getting some long-barrelled Panzer IVs), whereas the British got Matilda II’s, some Crusaders, and much to Rommel’s distaste, the Grant tank from the US. He only got a few Tiger tanks in Tunisia, but even these were wasted by von Arnim. In fact, most of his best supplies only came in when he was trapped in Tunisia, i.e. when they were too late to have any strategic impact on the campaign.
After stunning successes in Cyrenaica (eastern Libya) by October 1942 the Afrika Korps had reached Egypt and El Alamein, and was threatening to break forth into the Middle East. By this point, however, London – unlike Berlin – realized how important this front was, and began throwing in far more tanks and troops, and achieved air superiority. Moreover, Berlin & Rome had essentially cut off Rommel on supplies and petrol – whatever such supplies could make it to him running the gauntlet of the Royal Navy. Whereas the British could afford to throw in fresh troops and rotate their forces, Rommel had the same two Panzer divisions he started out with and almost no replenishment.
At El Alamein, Rommel was decisively pushed back, and unable to retake the offensive. It took all his skill and intelligence to keep his army intact as it retreated from Egypt, across Libya – passing all the territory which he and his men had fought so hard to take over the previous months – and eventually winding up in Tunisia, trapped between Montgomery and Eisenhower. He was recalled to Berlin before the end, which was the surrender of the Axis forces in Tunisia, instead of their rescue and transport to Italy, in March 1943.
Throughout the battles in North Africa, from April 1941 to March 1943, Rommel persistently fought as much against his superiors in Rome and Berlin as against the British. From June 1941 onwards, the Russian Front drew the majority of Berlin’s attention, with North Africa considered a losing front. To the contrary, according to Rommel, this was a front with enormous strategic potential. The Middle East was very lightly defended, yet rich in oil. With a few more divisions, he could break through the British lines in Egypt, take the Middle East (mainly Iraq and Persia/Iran), and even loop up to the Caucasus and steal the Russians’ oil fields there. In one fell swoop he could solve Germany’s oil issues AND assure a strategic victory on the Eastern Front. But he couldn’t convince anyone in Berlin of this idea.
The Italians. More of a liability than an asset. Their tanks were so small, underarmed, underarmored, and underpowered, that the soldiers called them “self-propelled coffins”. Their Navy was totally outclassed by the Royal Navy and did a poor job of protecting the Mediterranean supply lines. The soldiers themselves rarely fought well unless led by German officers. Rommel notes that the Italian officers mistreated their troops, refused to fraternize with them, and many Italian generals expressed outright hostility to the Germans. And as noted earlier, most of the infantry was non-motorized, which made them of little value in this war; the troops were consistently poorly-equipped. Obviously the Italians were way behind in putting forth a military which could fight competitively in a modern, mobile war. Rommel does note, though, that in certain limited circumstances, Italian soldiers did fight well, but overall the odds were stacked against them, so a fair analysis of the Italian soldier’s fighting skill is difficult to make.
Aside from Mussolini and Hitler themselves, the Germans and Italians never seemed to get along very well during the war. The Italians thought the Germans were arrogant and stuck up, while the Germans did in fact look down on the Italians as incompetent clowns. The Italians were always the weak point, and their collapse at El Alamein meant the entire side had to give in – similar to the buckling of the Romanian and Hungarian flanks protecting the German Sixth Army in Stalingrad, resulting in that army’s encirclement and defeat.
The British 8th Army. Here Rommel finally found a worthy opponent. Whether it was the tenacious Tommies on the ground, or their equally steel-nerved officers, the Brits gave Rommel a very hard time. This was finally an opponent he would have to literally smash to pieces, they would NOT be frightened, bluffed, or tricked into retreat or captivity. Montgomery, himself, however, was not particularly impressive as a commander. By the time he arrived on the scene, at El Alamein, the British had overwhelming superiority in manpower, tanks, artillery, and above all, complete air superiority. Montgomery was overly cautious and only attacked when he was 100% certain of success; the most which can be said for him is that he capably managed the drive from El Alamein to Tunisia given a militarily superior force.
Italy. After being recalled, shortly before the Axis forces capitulated in Tunisia – 120,000 veteran German troops Rommel felt could have been used elsewhere, a horrendous waste – Rommel was loosely involved with the Italian dilemma. Mussolini had been captured, and the top Italian brass was trying to weasel out a peace with the Allies. The Germans wanted to pour men into Italy and had to dicker around with all sorts of political bullshit. Rommel never ended up in command of any forces there; Kesselring was given that job.
Normandy. Instead, they put Rommel in charge of developing the Atlantic Wall, Germany’s ambitious attempt to close off the coast of Europe to an Allied invasion they knew would be coming – not if, but when…and where. This uncertainty meant that huge stretches of coastline, along the Atlantic, the English Channel, up near Calais, and even along the Belgian and Dutch coasts, had to be fortified somehow, and lots of valuable manpower spread throughout France. They focused most of the attention near Calais, which is the closest point between France and England, but as this was also the most obvious landing point, it made it that much less likely the Allies would land there. The major issue was the debate on how best to stop the invasion. Rommel was convinced that it had to be stopped on the beaches. Give the enemy enough of a beachhead and he will land a huge army and be impossible to stop. His superiors, including Hitler, were convinced of the opposite: forces had to be held back, away from the coast, because they didn’t know where the landing would take place, and couldn’t commit forces to any sector until it was clear that was the Allies’ target. With an absolute inferiority of air cover, bringing forces to the landing area from somewhere else was a difficult, if not impossible task. The Allies would mercilessly bomb any forces coming up in any appreciable strength, including bombing rail lines and roads going through towns. At this point the Germans were the only country on Earth with any sort of superhighway system (the Autobahn – Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway system, inspired by his impression of Germany’s Autobahn, wasn’t to arrive until the 1950s) so all the French had were two lane roads all of which went through, not around, any major cities with no bypasses. In addition to this logistical issue, there was also the persistent shortage of petrol. Ultimately all movement had to take place at night to avoid Allied air attacks. Finally, Rommel was not given any command authority to move forces around – Hitler had to OK any such orders – so even if, by some miracle, he could figure out who needed to go where and could manage to actually send them there, he still needed permission from Berlin to do anything. The ultimate irony in all this was that, collectively in France the Germans had enough men and tanks to throw the Allies back into the sea, but there was no way to gather them all together in Normandy at the right time to do so.
The Desert Fox. This is the 1951 film with James Mason as Rommel. It’s based on a book by a British general who wanted to get to the bottom of Rommel’s mysterious death in 1944. There is some coverage of the war in Africa and his work building the Atlantic Wall, and his frustration at not being able to adequately defend against the Normandy invasion once it was underway. But it focuses primarily on the circumstances behind his fall from favor with Hitler and his implication in the Stauffenberg plot (as seen in the movie “Valkyrie” with Tom Cruise). The movie paints Rommel as completely at odds with the conspiracy and nowhere close to any involvement beyond associating with the mayor of Stuttgart, Strolin – and even there he told Strolin he wanted no part in the plot.
His own papers were likewise edited by himself and his staff, as best they could, to remove any incriminating evidence – for obvious reasons. What survives in the Rommel Papers are various entries which show the following:
1. Hitler was aware, in 1943, that the war was going to be lost, and shared this candid assessment with Rommel. At this point he was still somewhat clearheaded and had not yet degenerated into delusional madness.
2. Later on, Hitler developed a perverse conviction that if the war would be lost, he would see to it that Germany would be destroyed in the process.
3. A separate peace with the Allies would be desirable. This would allow the Germans to send their Western armies eastward and give them a fighting chance of defeating the Russians. There was some speculation on Rommel’s part that the Allies were sufficiently at odds with Stalin that they would even consider a separate peace with Germany, for precisely this reason. But in any case, this required successful defeat of the Normandy invasion. Once the invasion was successful, the Allies were no longer inclined to accept any sort of conditional surrender.
4. For his part, Rommel had phenomenal admiration for the US. Not only did the Americans quickly grasp and learn mobile warfare, they were stunning at logistics and supply. Here was an enemy which could easily outproduce the Germans by several orders of magnitude AND were well capable of taking full advantage of these material advantages. As far as he was concerned, so long as the Americans were involved in the war against them, defeat was a foregone conclusion.
5. By contrast, the Russians were brutal. Soviet military doctrine appeared to be: overwhelm the opponent by sheer weight of numbers of tanks, artillery, and manpower. The Soviets had an almost inexhaustible supply of men and no reservations about feeding them into the meat grinder.
6. Hitler spoke of his “special, secret weapons” (jet fighters, V1 and V2 rockets – but absolutely no mention of any nuclear weapons) but Rommel considered these to be nonsense. Any such weapons, to the extent they had any, were too few to make a difference and their only substantial role was to act as a form of false hope to boost the morale of the soldiers.
The End. In October 1944, implicated in the plot to kill Hitler, Rommel was blackmailed into committing suicide. He was Germany’s biggest hero and most famous general, so the publicity associated with a public trial would be unthinkable. The Nazis threatened to torture and murder his widow and son Manfred if he insisted on a trial – which would end up in his conviction anyway – so he had no choice but to take poison. His son Manfred notes, in the Rommel diaries, the bitter anger he felt reading the “heartfelt condolences” sent to him and his mother by Hitler, Goering, and Goebbels regarding Rommel’s death – by those who were fully aware of the circumstances thereof.
Strategy. From the very beginning in 1914 to his last active command in Tunisia in 1943, Rommel was always a very audacious and bold commander. He notes that his fellow generals accused him of being reckless and gambling, but he counters in the following manner: “I always had a backup plan, some idea of what I was going to do if my plan didn’t work as I expected – I left myself a way out. For this reason, I was not really gambling in the true sense of the word.” In WWII he had the benefit of mobile forces and the knowledge on how to use them. His opponents in France in 1940 couldn’t really grasp the principles of mobile warfare, but by North Africa he finally ran up against opponents who could, particularly the Americans, who learned quickly – too quickly. His audacity was successful because he understood exactly how much he could get away with, he understood the limitations of his forces, a subtle advantage which his academic, staff-bound colleagues back in Berlin could not really grasp either. His papers in WWII frequently express distaste for these armchair officers and generals who never visit the front, and who in turn look down on field officers with mud on their boots and dust on their uniforms. Another problem he had was, once he developed a reputation for skillfully defeating a numerically superior enemy using only a skeleton army, his superiors expected him to produce results consistently without having anything more supplied to him – “I’m a victim of my own reputation.” Once he ran up against an enemy which could actually exploit its military superiority – as he found by El Alamein – defeat was inevitable so long as no further supplies or reinforcements would be provided.
Reading his WWII papers gives fresh thought for various “what if” scenarios so popular in alternate history books, not the least of which are Rommel’s plans for conquest of the Middle East and the possible outcome of a successful Normandy defense, a separate peace with the Allies, and subsequent revitalization of the German effort against the Soviets.
