Posted on 10/17/2018 10:54:48 AM PDT by C19fan
Why the admiration for Rommel? Much of it was wartime mythologizing by the British, building up Rommel's reputation so as to explain why they kept losing to him for so long in North Africa. Those who knew Rommel best -- the German general staff -- saw him as a Nazi and a loyal Hitler favorite lacking an appreciation of logistics and of the limited strategic importance of his North African campaign.
Yet Rommel deserves credit for avoiding wartime atrocities and for eventually seeing that the war was lost and confronting Hitler over it. On balance, Rommel was ultimately less a Nazi and more a German patriot and a military professional. Had Rommel not been suicided on Hitler's orders, he might have served honorably in the post-war Germany military or in the German government. Rommel's son had a worthy career after the war as a conservative German political figure.
Yep. Any student of WWII would probably view Rommel as a great general. Not all Germans were war criminals.
I used to love playing battlefield board games, like “Afrika Korps”.
I don’t understand what you were trying to say.
I’ve read three of Patton’s biographies. What is striking is the notion of fighting the last war, and how pernicious it is/was.
There was a flying General that was court-martialed over dive bombing and its effectiveness. Of all things I saw this in an airport museum. There was an interpretive display in a room. I want to say it was Doolittle, but I may be wrong.
Col. Billy Mitchell
I don't remember the guy's name but he was a bonafide hero with a strategic grasp of what was important.
Rommel, fought a gentleman’s war in Afrika. No SS units, he refused them. The Afrika Corps prisoners were the best behaved in our stateside PW camps. When he was assigned to the West front defenses, he was doing his job, as any other General would have done. He was admired by his adversaries because he was honorable. There is a story out there about a field hospital in Northern Africa that had both German and English doctors operating at the front together. The best German Generals weren’t the Nazi Perfumed Princes. Even ole man Von Rundtsted when asked by Hitler late in the war what should he do, the answer was; “Make peace you fool!” They were more patriots than Nazis. If we ever go Socialist here, what part of the military will be Patriots? LOL! Then we have CW statues being offensive to generations who had no lineal connection to it. So much to read out there covering the Nazis, but not much about the Commies who were just as bad.
Thank you both!!
Billy Mitchell. These guys took huge risks to revolutionize defense. For as fast as the world seems to be adapting new tech, we really aren’t. Incredible how formidable inertia in thinking is.
Funny how things work out. Hitler prevented Rommel from fighting the definitive battle that would have changed the course of history. If the German army had continued its offensive and surrounded the British army that was mauled and retreating to Dunkirk, the Germans would have taken over 300,000 British prisoners and that would have taken England out of the war. Instead they were not attacked on the ground and were successfully evacuated by sea to Britain. British morale soared, they fought on and the rest is history.
These are the same cast of folks who on this side of the pond hate Robert E Lee and company.
The western allies would have never let Germany turn its attention to Russia because Roosevelt was in Stalin’s pocket and the American government riddled with Stalin’s spies.
You said “Calvary”.
Cavalry = Horses
Calvary - the hill, also known as Golgotha, where Jesus was crucified.
I noticed this because it’s a mistake I made once long ago.
Patton was an observant Christian.
The guy who was court martialed was, as someone else stated, Billy Mitchell.
Doolittle was never in any conflict with the brass as far as I know. He received the first Ph.D in aeronautics issued by MIT in 1925. He was born in Alameda, CA, although raised in Alaska. When he left for the Tokyo raid from the Alameda NAS he was about four or five miles, maybe less, from the house where he was born.
My dad met him in the late 60s or early 70s.
Ah. My bad.
That must have been something. I wonder if we still have it in us as a country - that grit.
We look back, and we know how the war ends.
They didn’t know how it was going to end, or if it would end.
Patton saw ‘carts’ in his dreams. Carriages. The Germans were using horse drawn carts to haul things in and out of battle. That was a sign for him they might be winning.
With regard to atrocities, Rommel had the advantage of not being on the Eastern front.
With regard to armored warfare development, many other soldiers contributed such a Guderian.
Try it on a computer. The Operational Art of War IV. There are several Youtube videos about how to play the game.
By the end of 1942, the Axis were all playing defense. We were going to win. Nothing was going to stop that.
He was utterly non-political.
It says a lot about the author that Rommel is tarred as a nazi.
It’s never been possible for a person to look at their current situation through the lens of hindsight.
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