I met Gen. Rommel’s son Manfred, then the Oberbuergermeister of Stuttgart, the first year I was assigned to EUCOM in 1989. He was a really nice guy, and very pro-American.
That isn’t very clean.
Gen. Rommel was admired by his peers on both sides of the war. Though he was a dedicated soldier, he detested Naziism.
Rommel wasn’t a Nazi. In fact he turned against Hitler and was part of the General’s plot to blow Hitler up at the Wolf’s Lair on July 20th 1944.
The Germans knocking this guy for the tweet are like the people we have here who want to remove the statues of confederate generals and soldiers. The left constantly seeks to demonize historical figures of the past (except their own pantheon of heroes, of course).
However, he ignored, or went against, some of the more odious directives from High Command, and was ultimately killed for his involvement in the plots to assassinate Hitler. Accounts that I read said that he chose suicide over trial and reprisals against his family.
Might have been interesting to see what would have happened had the assassination been successful, a settlement reached with US/France/UK, and Rommel was turned against the Russians in the East in mid-1944 while German Industry was at its peak.
No, he wasn't. He had an unsubstantiated allegation made against him by a person who was being tortured and gave up lots of names to try and save himself. Rommel was confronted with the allegation and told that if he were to request a trial, then his family would receive no protection from the Reich.
There have been several movies made showing Rommel in a good light. The only one I can think that did not treat him such was FIVE GRAVES TO CAIRO (1943).
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”.
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.
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.
He was utterly non-political.
It says a lot about the author that Rommel is tarred as a nazi.
(Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, William L. Shirer)