Once Rommel's tanks were written down, the British 70th Infantry Division would break out of Tobruk to link up with XXX Corps. The Axis forces retook Benghazi on 29 January and Timimi on 3 February, with the Allies pulling back to a defensive line just before the Tobruk area south of the coastal town of Gazala. For this and his actions at Matajur, he received the order of Pour le Mérite. The Grant tanks proved to be impossible to knock out except at close range. [644][645] Rommel, no matter how hard the situation was, made a deliberate effort at always spending some time with soldiers and patients, his own and POWs alike, which contributed greatly to his reputation of not only being a great commander but also "a decent chap" among the troops. However, Hitler viewed the North African campaign primarily as a way to assist his Italian allies, not as an objective in and of itself. Depending on the case, Hitler manipulated or exacerbated the situation in order to benefit himself,[402][716][N 28] although he originally had no intent of pushing Rommel to the point of destruction. Although they got basic wages, the workers complained because it was too little and there was no heavy equipment. Among his British adversaries he had a reputation for chivalry, and his phrase "war without hate" has been used to describe the North African campaign. After losing 52 tanks, Rommel called off the assault. They trudged to the top and descended, and honour was satisfied, but the 41-year-old commander led his officers up and down the slope twice more before he let them fall out. [707] Rommel's relationship to the Nazi elites, other than Hitler and Goebbels, was mostly hostile, although even powerful people like Bormann[708] and Himmler had to tread carefully around Rommel. "[775][776] Ariel Sharon deemed the German military model used by Rommel to be superior to the British model used by Montgomery. By the third day Rommel and the advance elements of his division, together with a detachment of the 5th Panzer Division under Colonel Hermann Werner, had reached the Meuse, where they found the bridges had already been destroyed (Guderian and Reinhardt reached the river on the same day). [64] He was then posted to the Ruhr, where a red army was responsible for fomenting unrest. [626][627], At the beginning, although Hitler and Goebbels took particular notice of Rommel, the Nazi elites had no intent to create one major war symbol (partly out of fear that he would offset Hitler[628][629]), generating huge propaganda campaigns for not only Rommel but also Gerd von Rundstedt, Walther von Brauchitsch, Eduard Dietl, Sepp Dietrich (the latter two were party members and also strongly supported by Hitler), etc. [139], On 6 February 1941, Rommel was appointed commander of the new Deutsches Afrika Korps (DAK), consisting of the 5th Light Division (later renamed 21st Panzer Division) and of the 15th Panzer Division. [304][305], By mid-July the German position was crumbling. 1950 folgte die Berichterstattung vom ersten Nachkriegs-Länderspiel der Fußballnationalmannschaft. [103] Rommel received a promotion to a general's rank from Hitler ahead of more senior officers. [344][345][312][346] Von Rundstedt encouraged Rommel to carry out his plans but refused to do anything himself, remarking that it had to be a man who was still young and loved by the people,[347][348] while von Manstein was also approached by Rommel but categorically refused, although he did not report them to Hitler either. This order was not open to interpretation, and Rommel had no choice but to comply. [735], At the same time, the Western Allies, and particularly the British, depicted Rommel as the "good German". [576], According to Yad Vashem's International School for Holocaust Studies, the Jews were deported in 1940 and 1941 to concentration camps and forced labour camps by the Italian authorities. [214][N 2], Following his success at Gazala and Tobruk, Rommel wanted to seize the moment and not allow 8th Army a chance to regroup. [765] Hansen counters that Rommel was hardly naive, always judged military and political situations with cold objectivity, and shared a lot of characteristics with Hitler,[766] an opinion shared by psychoanalyst and historian Geoffrey Cocks who writes that Rommel "embodies the modern synergy of technical expertise and self-promotion ... arriviste, ... professionally ambitious, adept at cultivating a mass media image ... like Hitler". [55][56] He played no role in the early adoption of Blitzkrieg in World War II though. [788] Lieb remarks that Rommel displayed real mental agility, but the lack of an energetic commander, together with other problems, caused the battle largely not to be conducted in his concept (which is the opposite of the German doctrine), although the result was still better than Geyr's plan. Neurath and Strölin suggested opening immediate surrender negotiations in the West, and, according to Speidel, Rommel agreed to further discussions and preparations. [511][512] By the time these labour camps were in operation, according to Ben H. Shepherd, Rommel had already been retreating and there is no proof of his contact with the Einsatzkommando. He is a National Socialist; he is a troop leader with a gift for improvisation, personally courageous and extraordinarily inventive. [34][35][36][37], At age 18 Rommel joined the Württemberg Infantry Regiment No. These instructions were partly devised by the Generalfeldmarschall himself and were accompanied by sketches drawn by him. Er hat den Ball – verloren diesmal, gegen Schäfer. [523] He also refused to comply with Hitler's order to execute Jewish POWs. [762] German historian Wolfgang Proske states that Rommel's chivalry only showed itself to opponents that Nazi ideology viewed as Aryan; in other cases he followed the racist principles of Nazis[580], According to some modern scholars, he was much more complex than the figure that has been firmly established in post-war reputation. These tactics were still effective on the Eastern Front, where control of the air was important but did not dominate the action. Amid growing doubts and differences, he would remain eager for Rommel's calls (they had almost daily, hour-long, highly animated conversations, with the preferred topic being technical innovations[681]): he once almost grabbed the telephone out of Linge's hand. 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. [577] Maurice Roumani writes that: "German influence in Libya had been felt since 1938. Während des Zweiten Weltkriegs nahm Zimmermann als Offizier und Panzerkommandant am Westfeldzug und am Deutsch-Sowjetischen Krieg teil. [26][63] This was followed by his defence of Schwäbisch Gmünd, again bloodless. The anti-tank teams and tank crews performed with courage and caused serious losses." The driver sped up and attempted to get off the main roadway, but a 20 mm round shattered his left arm, causing the vehicle to veer off of the road and crash into trees. [637] Rommel's victories in 1941 were played up by the Nazi propaganda, even though his successes in North Africa were achieved in arguably one of Germany's least strategically important theaters of World War II. Rommel himself, while showing support to some facets of the Nazi ideology[371] and enjoying the propaganda the Nazi machine built around him, was enraged by the Nazi media's effort to portray him as an early Party member and son of a mason, forcing them to correct this misinformation. Stream Babert - Boogie Oogie (Original Mix) by L.O.Dee from desktop or your mobile device. Gertrude was referred to as Rommel's niece, a fiction that went unquestioned because of the enormous number of women widowed during the war. He notes, though, that "Perhaps Rommel failed to enforce the order to discharge half-Jews because he was unaware of it". Journalist Alain Aka states simply that he was executed by one of Rommel's soldiers and his body was driven over by tank. [439] Rommel's direct and abrasive manner did nothing to smooth these issues. [80] This unit accompanied Hitler whenever he travelled outside of Germany. Les crimes nazis lors de la libération de la France (1944–1945) Dominique Lormier 2014. )[539][540][541] Lieb reports that Rommel felt pity when he saw the suffering of the French in his inspection tour and probably helped to save the lives of thousands of locals. [620][621] Claudia Hecht also explains that although the Stuttgart and Ulm authorities did arrange for the Rommel family to use a villa whose Jewish owners had been forced out two years earlier, for a brief period after their own house had been destroyed by Allied bombing, ownership of it was never transferred to them. More than 2,500 Tunisian Jews died in six months of German rule, and the regular army was also involved in executions. Thus, although he had no direct hand in the atrocities, Rommel made himself complicit in war crimes by failing to point out that international laws of war strictly prohibited certain forms of retaliation. Rommel's grave is located in Herrlingen, a short distance west of Ulm. Ministerstwa Obrony Narodowej, 1964, page 254. Some authors argues that his enemies were often less organised, second-rate, or depleted, and his tactics were less effective against adequately led, trained and supplied opponents and proved insufficient in the later years of the war. Finden Sie hier Traueranzeigen, Todesanzeigen und Beileidsbekundungen aus Ihrer Tageszeitung oder passende Hilfe im Trauerfall. Knowing Gariboldi could not speak German, Rommel told him the message gave him complete freedom of action. [594] According to Robert Rozett and Georges Bensoussan, from 1938 (when Italian anti-Jewish legislation was introduced), most of the harsher measures against Libyan Jews were prevented because they had a powerful protector in Italo Balbo, the Governor. [510] Historian Haim Saadon, Director of the Center of Research on North African Jewry in WWII, goes further, stating that there was no extermination plan: Rauff's documents show that his foremost concern was helping the Wehrmacht to win, and he came up with the idea of forced labour camps in the process. Rommel would have known this, having commanded Hitler's army protection detail in 1939. In four days of fighting, the Eighth Army lost 530 tanks and Rommel only 100. By giving carte blanche to the Italians, Rommel implicitly condoned, and perhaps even encouraged, their war crimes". Though Messe replaced Rommel, he diplomatically deferred to him, and the two coexisted in what was theoretically the same command. With the Nazis gaining power in Germany, Rommel gradually came to accept the new regime, with historians giving different accounts on the specific period and his motivations. [321], Speidel met with former foreign minister Konstantin von Neurath and Strölin on 27 May in Germany, ostensibly at Rommel's request, although the latter was not present. [68] In September 1935 Rommel was moved to the War Academy at Potsdam as an instructor, for the next three years. [191] The British had retaken almost all of Cyrenaica, but Rommel's retreat dramatically shortened his supply lines. [484] Rommel and the Germans acknowledge the Gurkhas' fighting ability, although their style leaned more towards ferocity. [235][236] Under heavy fire from British artillery and aircraft, and in the face of well prepared positions that Rommel could not hope to outflank for lack of fuel, the attack stalled. [578], According to German historian Wolfgang Proske, Rommel forbade his soldiers to buy anything from the Jewish population of Tripoli, used Jewish slave labour and commanded Jews to clear out minefields by walking on them ahead of his forces. Driving through the night, they were able to reduce the halt to a single day. [666] Rommel's proposals were not always practical: in 1943, he surprised Hitler by proposing that a Jew should be made into a Gauleiter to prove to the world that Germany was innocent of accusations that Rommel had heard from the enemy's propaganda regarding the mistreatment of Jews. This measure was accompanied by shooting, also in Benghazi, of some Jews guilty of having welcomed the British troops, on their arrival, treating them as liberators. [424][425], Rommel spoke German with a pronounced southern German or Swabian accent. On 21 January, Rommel launched the attack. Rommel was thrown from the car, suffering injuries to the left side of his face from glass shards and three fractures to his skull. "[29][9][667][668], Rommel was not a member of the Nazi Party. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. [460][461][462][463][464][465][466][467][468][469] [652][N 21] Instead, the campaign was presented by Berndt, who resumed his role in the Propaganda Ministry, as a ruse to tie down the British Empire while Germany was turning Europe into an impenetrable fortress with Rommel at the helm of this success. The assault on Tobruk began at dawn on 20 June, and Klopper surrendered at dawn the following day. [102] Rommel's successes in World War I were based on surprise and manoeuvre, two elements for which the new panzer units were ideally suited. [787], Some historians take issue with Rommel's absence from Normandy on the day of the Allied invasion, 6 June 1944. )[336][351], On 17 July, Rommel was incapacitated by an Allied air attack, which many authors describe as a fateful event that drastically altered the outcome of the bomb plot. [67] Here he first met Hitler, who inspected his troops on 30 September 1934. Rommel brought up tanks and flak units to provide counter-fire and had nearby houses set on fire to create a smokescreen. Meanwhile, Italian infantry cleared a path through the mines to provide supplies. Schirach appealed directly to Hitler; consequently, Rommel was quietly removed from the project in 1938. [507] The documentary Rommel's War (Rommels Krieg), made by Caron and Müllner with advice from Sönke Neitzel, states that even though it is not clear whether Rommel knew about the crimes (in Africa) or not, "his military success made possible forced labor, torture and robbery. Unable to reach Rommel for several days,[N 1] Rommel's Chief of Staff, Siegfried Westphal, ordered the 21st Panzer Division withdrawn to support the siege of Tobruk. According to the prominent German historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler, the modern consensus agrees with post-war sources that Rommel treated the Allied captives decently, and he personally thinks that the movie Rommel does not overstate his conscience. [542][543] Bewley remarks that the shooting of a prisoner who does not behave as a prisoner is a legal option; however, this act was brutal because the officer did not have a gun. [109] Upon taking command on 10 February 1940, Rommel quickly set his unit to practising the maneuvers they would need in the upcoming campaign. The Rommel Memorial was erected in Heidenheim in 1961. [522] According to Marshall, Rommel sharply protested the Jewish policies and other immoralities and was an opponent of the Gestapo. Rommel was born on 15 November 1891, in Heidenheim, 45 kilometres (28 mi) from Ulm, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, Southern Germany, then part of the German Empire.He was the third of five children to Erwin Rommel Senior (1860–1913) and his wife Helene von Lutz, whose father, Karl von Luz, headed the local government council. [163] Hoping to catch the defenders off-guard, Rommel launched a failed attack on 14 April. [49] 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. Relying upon Jews for goods needed for military activities, they perceived the Jews in Libya as similar to the Muslims, "by the end of their time in Libya". [312][313] One piece of evidence that points to the possibility that Rommel came to support the assassination plan was General Eberbach's confession to his son (eavesdropped on by British agencies) while in British captivity, which stated that Rommel explicitly said to him that Hitler and his close associates had to be killed because this would be the only way out for Germany. They deeply resented Rommel's meteoric rise and had long feared that he would become the Commander-in-Chief. While Rommel was at Kasserine at the end of January 1943, the Italian General Giovanni Messe was appointed commander of Panzer Army Africa, renamed the Italo-German Panzer Army in recognition of the fact that it consisted of one German and three Italian corps. [651], In the wake of the successful British offensive in November 1942 and other military reverses, the Propaganda Ministry directed the media to emphasize Rommel's invincibility. [402][N 8], Rommel is praised by numerous authors as a great leader of men. We would like to show you a description here but the site won’t allow us. Ein weiteres, äußerst populär gewordenes Zitat: „Turek, du bist ein Teufelskerl! [682] Hitler tried to fix the dysfunctional relationship many times without results, with Rommel calling his attempts "Sunlamp Treatment", although later he said that "Once I have loved the Führer, and I still do. "[609], Rick Atkinson criticises Rommel for gaining a looted stamp collection (a bribe from Sepp Dietrich) and a villa taken from Jews. [258] On the evening of the 4th, Rommel finally received word from Hitler authorizing the withdrawal. Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 26(3), 425–446, Die Traditionswürdigkeit Erwin Rommels für die Bundeswehr, Wissenschaftliche Dienste, page 11, 2019, Deutscher Bundestag, sfn error: no target: CITEREFHoffmann2004 (, sfn error: multiple targets (3×): CITEREFSearle2014 (, Rommel: A Reappraisal By Ian F. Beckett page 22. [46] In November 1916 in Danzig, Rommel and Lucia married. "[17] Butler remarks that Rommel was center in his politics, leaning a little to the left in his attitude. [248] Montgomery's intention was to clear a narrow path through the minefield at the northern part of the defenses, at the area called Kidney Ridge, with a feint to the south. [265] The line Rommel was aiming for was 'Gabes gap' in Tunisia. [679] Ruge's diary and Rommel's letters to his wife show his mood fluctuating wildly regarding Hitler: while he showed disgust towards the atrocities and disappointment towards the situation, he was overjoyed to welcome a visit from Hitler, only to return to depression the next day when faced with reality. [50] 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. [2] A number of historians have since rejected the phrase as myth and uncovered numerous examples of war crimes and abuses both towards enemy soldiers and native populations in Africa during the conflict. [220] Rommel knew that delay would only benefit the British, who continued to receive supplies at a faster rate than Rommel could hope to achieve. [237], Montgomery had made preparations to cut the Germans off in their retreat, but in the afternoon of 2 September he visited Corps commander Brian Horrocks and gave orders to allow the Germans to retire.