History UsefulNotes / ErwinRommel

-->-- '''UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill''', British Prime Minster, military dilettante, and non-logistician, [[UnreliableNarrator ''The Second World War, Vol. 3: The Grand Alliance (1950)'', p. 177]]

-->-- '''UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill''', British Prime Minster, military dilettante, and non-logistician, [[UnreliableNarrator "The Second World War, Vol. 3: The Grand Alliance" (1950), p. 177]]

[[AsYouKnow Of course]], the German military voluntarily killed a dozen million civilians in 'national security' and 'foraging' measures of its own volition with no input from or in partnership with other state organizations. Far from being blissfully unaware of Germany's genocidal programs, it carried them out in several countries including Belarus and France. The German Army's regulations on 'foraging', the treatment (immediate execution) of communist party officials, and collective retaliation in the form of mass-enslavement or execution for communities in the vicinity of partisan attacks broke most of TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar to which Germany had agreed. Every German Army commander of Corps level (in charge of 30-60,000 troops)and above - except for a few individuals - could have been charged with war crimes and hanged.

[[AsYouKnow Of course]], the German military voluntarily killed a dozen million civilians in 'national security' and 'foraging' measures of its own volition with no input from or in partnership with other state organizations. Far from being blissfully unaware of Germany's genocidal programs, it carried them out in several countries including Belarus and France. The German Army's regulations on 'foraging', the treatment (immediate execution) of communist party officials, and collective retaliation in the form of mass-enslavement or execution for communities in the vicinity of partisan attacks broke most of TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar to which Germany had agreed. Every German Army commander of Corps level (in charge of 30-60,000 troops) and above could have been charged with war crimes and hanged.

->''"He was a splendid military gambler, dominating the problems of supply and scornful of opposition [...] His ardor and daring inflicted grievous disasters upon us, but he deserves the salute which I made him — and not without some reproaches from the public — in the House of Commons in January 1942, when I said of him, 'We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general.' He also deserves our respect because, although a loyal German soldier, [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation he came to hate Hitler and all his works, and took part in the conspiracy to rescue Germany by displacing the maniac and tyrant]]. For this, he paid the forfeit of his life. In the sombre wars of modern democracy, chivalry finds no place [...] Still, I do not regret or retract the tribute I paid to Rommel, unfashionable though it was judged.''
-->-- '''UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill''', [[UnreliableNarrator "The Second World War, Vol. 3: The Grand Alliance" (1950), p. 177]]

->''"We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general."''
-->-- '''UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill''', January 1942 speech

To understand the myth of Rommel's [[NobleDemon chivalry and honour]], we must understand what the German and Anglo-American publics were told about why they were fighting. In Nazi Germany the war was considered:

Whereas in the UK and USA the war was thought to be:

[[AsYouKnow Of course]], what is missing from these portrayals of the war effort is UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust. In wartime Germany the genocides were a dirty OpenSecret. In Britain and the USA, the genocides were an inconvenient truth which they tried to avoid drawing attention to. To cut a long story short, interfering with or publicising Germany's genocidal activities would have created a number of problems for the UK & US governments and so they did neither (further details in the article on UsefulNotes/TheHolocaust). Anglo-American national self-interest continued to predominate in the postwar trials process, which was used to sate domestic demands for 'justice' rather than identify and punish wrongdoers.

To understand the myth of Rommel's [[NobleDemon chivalry and honour]], we must understand what the German and Anglo-American publics were told about why they were fighting. In Nazi Germany/1950s-70s West Germany the war was considered:

In 1943, he flew back to Germany on his own initiative to try and convince Hitler of the situation in Africa. Hitler refused to listen, and soon after, a quarter of a million Axis troops surrendered in Tunisia (including Rommel's remaining 100,000 Afrika Korps combat- and logistics-troops). He was transferred to the ''B''-front in Greece (one of the five eastern fronts), where an Allied invasion was expected thanks to a British deception operation. When it became clear that the Germans had been fooled (the British and Americans instead invaded Sicily), Rommel and Army Group B were transferred to France in expectation of D-Day. He oversaw a massive expansion of the Atlantic Wall, turning it from a token propaganda fortress to a major thorn in the side of Allied planners. Despite this, he was fooled with the rest of the German staff into believing that the Allied invasion would come through the Pas-de-Calais.[[note]]This is not surprising, as it was with good reason considered insane ''not'' to land at Calais, as a major amphibious assault without a harbor is virtually impossible. Neither Rommel nor any other German staff realized that the Allies would do something so audacious as ''building an artificial harbor while in the middle of the landing''.[[/note]] Correctly, however, Rommel knew that wherever the invasion did come, it could only be resisted by hitting it immediately with overwhelming force and smothering it at birth. However, due to Germany's devastating panzer-losses in the Ukrainian campaigns during the winter of 1943-44, very little forces were available for this and those that were available were generally 'green'. Worse, the command system remained highly fragmented with Rommel and the ''Heer'' commanding the bulk of the land forces but the paratroops and flak troops under ''Luftwaffe'' control - the command-situation was even worse in the eastern theatre, where the Luftwaffe actually had field-''divisions'' numbering some 200,000 combat troops (a tenth of the total). There was even a battalion of Marines and the crews of most of the heavy defensive guns under command of the Navy (which at least made a bit of sense, as those guns were essentially battleship main guns mounted in bunkers or on special railroad carriages)- and this is before the prime battle formations of the ''Waffen-SS'' and the ''Panzer Lehr'' under Hitler's direct command.

When awareness of The Holocaust became widespread in Germany, America, and lastly Britain in the late 1980s it created an interesting act of SelectiveObliviousness with regard to the 'honour' of Rommel and his colleagues. Rather than conceding that Nazi Germany's military officers known of their country's genocidal policies and either been indifferent to or had approved of them, admirers [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation reasoned that they somehow 'must not have known' about Nazi Germany's war goals or else they would not have fought for it.]] Rommel is far from the worst example of this kind of wishful thinking about ''Wehrmacht'' personnel. That dubious honour almost certainly goes to the convicted War Criminal and conductor of Crimes Against Humanity [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_Manstein Erich von Manstein]], whose 'politics' have been elided as recently as a 2010 biography (Mungo Melvin).

Rommel was not the only German military leader mythologised by the British and American governments after the war, but he came to outshine the others because of the prominence of their Crimes. During the war, Gerd von Rundstedt and Albert Kesselring had been as famous as Rommel in The Anglosphere as a result of their service in France and Italy. Yet Gerd von Rundstedt was guilty of such a long and well-substatiated laundry list of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity that the British were only able to save him from execution by claiming that he was too ill to stand trial in the first place. The wealth of evidence of Kesselring's War Crimes against Italian civilians (to prevent Partisan attacks) was also thoroughly damning, so much so that a British military tribunal was forced to find him guilty and sentenced him to death - though they managed to commute this to imprisonment, and in 1952 had him released from prison on health grounds. Attempts to claim that the fundamentally 'honourable' nature of both men was proven by their 'clean' conduct of combat operations against British troops and good treatment of British POW, were eventually undermined by the truth's sheer obviousness.

Rommel was not the only German military leader mythologised by the British and American governments after the war, but he came to outshine the others because of the prominence of their Crimes. During the war, Gerd von Rundstedt and Albert Kesselring had been as famous as Rommel in The Anglosphere as a result of their service in France and Italy. Yet Gerd von Rundstedt was guilty of such a long and well-substatiated laundry list of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity that the British were only able to save him from execution by claiming that he was too ill to stand trial in the first place. The wealth of evidence of Kesselring's War Crimes against Italian civilians (to prevent Partisan attacks) was also thoroughly damning, so much so that a British military tribunal was forced to find him guilty and sentenced him to death - though they managed to commute this to imprisonment, and later had him released from prison on health grounds. Attempts to claim that the fundamentally 'honourable' nature of both men was proven by their 'clean' conduct of combat operations against British troops and good treatment of British POW, were eventually undermined by the truth's sheer obviousness.

Rommel was not the only German military leader mythologised by the British and American governments after the war, but he came to outshine the others because of the prominence of their Crimes. During the war, Gerd von Rundstedt and Albert Kesselring had been as famous as Rommel in The Anglosphere as a result of their service in France and Italy. Yet Gerd von Rundstedt was guilty of such a long and well-substatiated laundry list of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity that the British were only able to save him from execution by claiming that he was too ill to stand trial in the first place. The wealth of evidence of Kesselring's War Crimes against Italian civilians (to prevent Partisan attacks) was also thoroughly damning, so much so that a British military tribunal was forced to find him guilty and sentenced him to death - though they managed to commute this to imprisonment, and later had him released from prison on health grounds.

Today, Rommel is remembered as a chivalrous, capable armored officer. He is known for his resistance to Hitler, and his refusal to carry out the illegal Commando Order and Night and Fog Decrees, as well as paying the forced laborers who helped him build his Atlantic Wall. He was one of just two Axis soldiers targeted for assassination by the Western Allies (Soviet attempts are ''still'' classified), so afraid were the Western Allies of him (the other was Isokoru Yamamoto). After his death Churchill paid him fulsome tribute, and even more so when he discovered the truth of the July Plot. His writings on his experiences in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII were edited and published after the war as ''The Rommel Papers'' by the military theorist Captain Liddel Hart (supporter of the notable military theorist JFC Fuller). Association with Rommel and other surviving generals including Heinz Guderian and Erich von Manstein (who used Hart to promote themselves and the myth of the Wehrmacht as a 'clean' institution untainted by racism and War Crimes) catapulted Hart to fame. The title Rommel had planned for them was ''Krieg ohne Hass'': "''War without Hate''".

Rommel was also a much more useful symbol to West Germany in particular because he could be portrayed as an opponent of the regime, unlike von Rundstedt and Kesselring. This portrayal hinged around the circumstances of his death, as a victim of the regime he had hitherto served so loyally and which had rewarded him so richly. Rommel had been wrongly convicted of participation in the 20th July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler and install a military dictatorship, and had committed suicide rather than be executed. The Anglo-American governments and sympathisers were able to portray his conviction as 'proof' that Rommel ''had'' wanted kill Hitler and had opposed Nazism. Today we know that although Rommel was aware of the plot, and how he stood to benefit from it, he neither reported it nor participated in it. His well-established desire for power and fame does suggest that he hoped to benefit from the plot if it succeeded and avoid punishment if it failed, but there is no definitive proof for this or any other conclusion.

Rommel was not the only German military leader mythologised by the British and American governments after the war, but he came to outshine the others because of the prominence of their Crimes and the circumstances of his death.

Gerd von Rundstedt was probably the best living symbol of the Prussian Officer-Aristocracy to which Rommel (the son of a Württemberger schoolteacher) had been an outsider, and both von Runstedt and Albert von Kesselring were as famous as Rommel in The Anglosphere as a result of their service in France and Italy. Sadly, the Soviets demanded that von Rundstedt be put on trial for various things such as the extermination of the Ukrainian Jews and the Italians demanded that von Kesselring be tried for the (perfectly ordinary) enslavement or slaughter of 100 Italian civilians for every dead German and 50 Italian civilians for every wounded German to discourage partisan attacks. Despite the undeniable chivalry and honour of von Rundstedt and von Kesselring's behaviour regarding British POW, Britain folded to Italo-Soviet demands. Despite glowing testimonials from British military figures and Churchill himself they were convicted and imprisoned for several years before Churchill was arranged to have them released illegaly.

Rommel, on the other hand, had committed suicide rather than being executed after he was wrongly convicted of participation in the 20th July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler and install a military dictatorship. It was not difficult for the Anglo-American governments and sympathisers to portray this act of wasteful paranoia on the part of the military tribunal, of which von Rundstedt had been a member, as 'proof' that Rommel ''had'' wanted kill Hitler and had opposed Nazism. Today we know that although Rommel was aware of the plot to kill Hitler, he neither reported it nor participated in it. His well-established desire for power and fame does suggest that he had hoped to benefit from the plot if it succeeded and avoid the consequences if it failed, but there is no definitive proof for this or any other conclusion.

[[AsYouKnow Of course]], the German military voluntarily killed a dozen million civilians in 'national security' and 'foraging' measures of its own volition with no input from or in partnership with other state organizations. Far from being blissfully unaware of Germany's genocidal programs, it carried them out in several countries including Belarus and France. The German Army's regulations on 'foraging', the treatment (immediate execution) of communist party officials, and collective retaliation in the form of mass-enslavement or execution for communities in the vicinity of partisan attacks broke most of TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar to which Germany had agreed. Every German Army commander of Corps level (in charge of 30-60,000 troops) and above could (and should) have been charged with war crimes and hanged.

For the better part of two years, the only two German generals known to the British public were Gerd von Runstedt and Erwin Rommel - the latter of which inflicted repeated defeats upon British Commonwealth forces despite numerical parity or inferiority in most battles. On the German side, for the better part of two years the only German general known to be fighting forces of relatively equal racial-cultural status ('the English') was Rommel. When the Americans entered the war, Rommel was their first and greatest foe in North Africa (1942-3) and the western part of the Normandy Front (mid-1944) - and the inexperienced US Army repeatedly failed to defeat him. Between these three media machines, Rommel's abilities was hyped to mythical proportions. Among all three combatant countries, he attained a reputation as a god of war incarnate.

Gerd von Runstedt and Albert von Kesselring were comparably famous given their commands in France and Italy, had been lauded as competent and honourable by the British in particular, and von Runstedt in particular was probably the best living symbol of the Prussian Officer-Aristocracy to which Rommel (the son of a Württemberger schoolteacher) had been an outsider. Sadly, the Soviets demanded that von Runstedt be put on trial for various things including killing Jews, and the Italians demanded that von Kesselring be tried for (perfectly ordinary) indiscriminate killing of civilians to discourage partisan attacks. Britain folded, and despite glowing testimonials from British military figures and Churchill himself they were convicted and imprisoned for several years before Churchill was able to have them illegally released.

Rommel, on the other hand, had committed suicide rather than being executed after he was wrongly convicted of participation in the 20th July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler and install a military dictatorship. It was not difficult to portray this act of wasteful paranoia on the part of the military tribunal, of which von Runstedt had been a member, as 'proof' that Rommel ''had'' wanted kill Hitler and had opposed Nazism. Today we know that although Rommel was aware of the plot to kill Hitler, he neither reported it nor participated in it. His desire for power and fame does suggest that he hoped to benefit from the plot's success and avoid the consequences of its failure, but there is no definitive proof for this or any other conclusion.

Rommel was not the only German military leader mythologised by the British and American governments after the war, but he came to outshine the others because of the prominence of their Crimes and the circumstances of his death. Gerd von Runstedt and Albert von Kesselring were comparably famous given their commands in France and Italy, had been lauded as competent and honourable by the British in particular, and von Runstedt in particular was probably the best living symbol of the Prussian Officer-Aristocracy to which Rommel (the son of a Württemberger schoolteacher) had been an outsider. Sadly, the Soviets demanded that von Runstedt be put on trial for various things including killing Jews, and the Italians demanded that von Kesselring be tried for (perfectly ordinary) indiscriminate killing of civilians to discourage partisan attacks. Britain folded, and despite glowing testimonials from British military figures and Churchill himself they were convicted and imprisoned for several years before Churchill was able to have them illegally released. Rommel, on the other hand, had committed suicide rather than being executed after he was wrongly convicted of participation in the 20th July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler and install a military dictatorship. It was not difficult to portray this act of wasteful paranoia on the part of the military tribunal, of which von Runstedt had been a member, as 'proof' that Rommel ''had'' wanted kill Hitler and had opposed Nazism.

Within Germany itself, the wafer-thin-Nazi-layer theory was quickly accepted as a polite fiction. This self-deception was useful because it allowed German citizens to feel that they and the German military had been blameless for the regime's 'secret' crimes. This was important because many people had been fully aware and supportive of the regime's atrocities, and they found it difficult to reconcile this support with the image of themselves as good people. Over time, the cumulative effects of self-serving bias and memory distortion enabled many Germans who had not personally committed atrocities to come to genuinely believe that the ''Wehrmacht'' in which so many of them had served had been an 'honorable' institution. While it was generally accepted that the ''Wehrmacht'' might have had committed some minor indiscretions 'in the east', these were of course just a response to the savagery of their Asiatic Communist opponents - who 'forced' them to adopt 'extreme' measures against their goodhearted nature to survive - and were not representative of the institution or its character as a whole.

In all three countries 'Rommel' was a household name, and his forces had not needed to conduct significant anti-partisan or national security (anti-communist, Gypsy, Jew, etc) operations. During the war itself he had been lauded as an 'honorable' man by the likes of UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill and UsefulNotes/BernardLawMontgomery. It did not take much to imply that Rommel's 'honorable' conduct had been representative of the German military as a whole, and that all the German commanders that British and American people had never heard of (von Mellenthin, Guderian, Hoth, Balck, Kluge, von Bock, von Manstein, Model, etc) were every bit as 'honorable' as he had been. The US public was already familiar with the concept of a 'good' man and a 'good' military serving evil in the form of [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar Robert Lee, the Confederate Army general and a key figure in the 'Lost Cause' mythology]] (another scumbag) and so took the concept to heart fairly readily.

Rommel was not the only German military leader mythologised by the British and American governments after the war, but he came to outshine the others because of the prominence of their Crimes and the circumstances of his death. Gerd von Runstedt and Albert von Kesselring were comparably famous given their commands in France and Italy, had been lauded as competent and honourable by the British in particular, and von Runstedt in particular was probably the best living symbol of the Prussian Officer-Aristocracy to which Rommel had been a newcomer (and some would say an outsider) to it. Sadly, the Soviets demanded that von Runstedt be put on trial for various things including killing Jews, and the Italians demanded that von Kesselring be tried for (perfectly ordinary) indiscriminate killing of civilians to discourage partisan attacks. Britain folded, and despite glowing testimonials from British military figures and Churchill himself they were convicted and imprisoned for several years before Churchill was able to have them illegally released. Rommel, on the other hand, committed suicide rather than being executed after he was wrongly convicted of participation in the 20th July 1944 plot to assassinate Hitler and install a military dictatorship. It was not difficult to portray this act of wasteful paranoia on the part of the military tribunal, of whom von Runstedt had been a member, as 'proof' that Rommel ''had'' wanted kill Hitler and had opposed Nazism.

When awareness of The Holocaust became widespread in Germany, America, and lastly Britain in the late 1980s it created an interesting act of SelectiveObliviousness with regard to the 'honor' of Rommel and his colleagues. Rather than conceding that they understood what Germany was fighting for and were either indifferent to or approved of their country's genocidal policies, admirers [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation reasoned that they somehow 'must not have known' about Nazi Germany's war goals or else they would not have fought for it.]] Rommel is far from the worst example of this kind of wishful thinking about ''Wehrmacht'' personnel. That dubious honour almost certainly goes to the convicted War Criminal and conductor of Crimes Against Humanity [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_Manstein Erich von Manstein]], whose 'politics' have been elided as recently as a 2010 biography (Mungo Melvin).

Rommel returned to his family home in Ulm at the end of his convalescence, expecting to be sent back into combat. However, it was not to be. On July 20th, the anti-Nazi officer Claus von Stauffenberg detonated a bomb in Hitler's headquarters in East Prussia. After the bomb failed to kill Hitler and the conspirators failed to take over the country, Gestapo revenge was swift. Rommel was implicated (while Rommel didn't necessarily assist the plotters, he certainly knew about the whole thing and didn't bother to tell anybody). Rather than allow a decorated hero to be dragged before the People's Court and wreck national morale, Hitler instead dispatched General Wilhelm Burgdorf with a vial of cyanide and the threat that, if Rommel did not commit suicide, he would be punished. The coward accepted, and Rommel soon said goodbye to his wife and son. Manfred asked if the family should not stand and fight. Erwin replied that it was [[DirtyCoward better for only him to die than suffer.]] "Besides," he said, "we've no ammunition." A few minutes later, he bit on the vial, killing himself. He was 52 years old.

In 1970, the German ''Bundeswehr'' named a ''Lutjens''-class destroyer for him. He always wore a braided scarf knitted for him by Gertrud. Because of this, even he has sometimes been given a HistoricalHeroUpgrade and HistoricalBadassUpgrade beyond what the historical record supports, especially since he was one of the German commanders to most consistently fight the Western Allies and (supposedly) WeAllLiveInAmerica or the rest of the West. Most portrayals correctly show he was no blood soaked ghoul, incompetent, or Nazi true believer; it is just that many also overlook how he supported [[UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany two less]] [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany than savory]] governments and saw his own skill undermined by the FatalFlaw duo of arrogance, incompetence and failure to play well with others, whether it was [[ManipulativeBastard refusing Hitler's orders to execute Commandos and Jews]] or [[KickTheDog ignoring or insulting his Italian allies in North Africa.]] Suffice it to say he was not perfect, but he was an archtypical NobleDemon who "fought for the wrong side" and did nothing to stop the genocidal regime.

To understand the myth of Rommel's martial omnipotence (in contrast to the reality of his martial incompetence), we must first understand what media outlets can and cannot say about military operations. They can:

For the better part of two years, the only German general known to the British public was Rommel - who inflicted repeated defeats upon British Commonwealth forces despite numerical parity or inferiority in most battles. On the German side, for the better part of two years the only German general known to be fighting forces of relatively equal racial-cultural status ('the English') was Rommel. When the Americans entered the war, Rommel was their first and greatest foe in North Africa (1942-3) and the western part of the Normandy Front (mid-1944) - and the inexperienced US Army repeatedly failed to defeat him. Between these three media machines, Rommel's abilities was hyped to mythical proportions. Among all three combatant countries, he attained a reputation as a god of war incarnate.

In reality, although Rommel was very far from being a modest man, or even a competent man. Regardless, he ''was'' a man of very modest abilities. He was a decent tactician, but he was unable to conceptualize warfare at a level larger than his immediate line of sight - the so called ''Operational level of warfare''. He also did not understand how the logistics of a line-of-sight battlefield was a ''very'' different beast to that conducted over many dozens or even hundreds of kilometres. His refusal of initiative to his subordinates and his constant touring of the front lines meant that when he was promoted to Operational-level command, the bulk of his forces went only semi-commanded and semi-informed (or not at all) for many hours or even days at a time. This meant that while the five-kilometre section of the front lines that Rommel was on at any given moment was relatively well-run, the other twenty-to-two-hundred were (appreciably) less so than under most contemporary German operational commanders.

The postwar trials were used to promote a useful image of Nazi German society in Britain and America: a wafer-thin layer of Nazis who had used a 'totalitarian' state to terrorize an otherwise perfectly nice mass of Germans into submission through monolithic organsiations of state terror, 'the Gestapo' and 'the SS'. This image was useful because it encouraged their citizens to believe that normal Germans and the German military had been blameless for the regime's 'secret' crimes. This was very important as many people feared that 'the German race' was somehow inherently militaristic and obsessed with conquest, which made it seem like pure folly to allow Germany to have a military again (as 'of course' they would turn upon France, Britain, and the USA at the first chance they got). Praising the ''Wehrmacht'' as an 'honourable' institution during the trials process was not just a continuity from Anglo-American wartime propaganda, but was also a way of helping people accept the recreation of the (West) German military and the Germans' status as a valuable new ally against their former ally - the Soviet Union.

Within Germany itself, the wafer-thin-Nazi-layer theory was quickly accepted as a polite fiction. This self-deception was useful because it allowed German citizens to feel that they and the German military had been blameless for the regime's 'secret' crimes. This was important because many people had been fully aware and supportive of the regime's atrocities, and they found it difficult to reconcile this support with the image of themselves as good people. Over time, the cumulative effects of self-serving bias and memory distortion enabled many Germans who had not personally committed atrocities to come to genuinely believe that the ''Wehrmacht'' in which so many of them had served had been an 'honorable' institution. While it was generally accepted that the ''Wehrmacht'' might have had committed some minor indiscretions 'in the east', these were of course just a response to the savagery of their Asiatic Communist opponents - who 'forced' them to adopt 'extreme' measures against their goodhearted nature to survive - and were not representative of the institution or its character as a whole. In short, Rommel should have hung with his Nazi brethren.

But of course they weren't. And that is why Rommel was so very useful to the British, Americans, and West Germans after the war.

In all three countries Rommel was a household name, and his forces had not needed to conduct significant anti-partisan or national security (anti-communist, Gypsy, Jew, etc) operations. During the war itself he had been lauded as an 'honorable' man by the likes of UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill and UsefulNotes/BernardLawMontgomery. It did not take much to imply that Rommel's 'honorable' conduct had been representative of the German military as a whole, and that all the German commanders that British and American people had never heard of (von Mellenthin, Guderian, Hoth, Balck, Kluge, von Bock, von Manstein, Model, von Rundstedt, etc) were every bit as 'honorable' as he had been. The US public was already familiar with the concept of a 'good' man and a 'good' military serving evil in the form of [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar Robert Lee, the Confederate Army general and a key figure in the 'Lost Cause' mythology]] (another scumbag) and so took the concept to heart fairly readily.

When awareness of The Holocaust became widespread in Germany, America, and lastly Britain in the late 1980s it created an interesting act of SelectiveObliviousness with regard to the 'honor' of Rommel. Rather than acknowledging the obvious truth that he had known fine well what Germany was fighting for and either didn't care or thought they were good things, admirers of Rommel [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation reasoned that he 'must not have known' about Nazi Germany's war goals or else he would not have fought for it.]] Rommel is far from the worst example of this kind of wishful thinking about ''Wehrmacht'' personnel. That dubious honour almost certainly goes to the convicted War Criminal and conductor of Crimes Against Humanity [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_Manstein Erich von Manstein]], whose 'politics' have been elided as recently as a 2010 biography (Mungo Melvin).

To understand the myth of Rommel's martial omnipotence, we must first understand what media outlets can and cannot say about military operations. They can:

In reality, although Rommel was very far from being a modest man he ''was'' a man of very modest abilities. He was a good tactician, but he was unable to conceptualise warfare at a level larger than his immediate line of sight - the so-callled ''Operational level of warfare''. He also did not understand how the logistics of a line-of-sight battlefield was a ''very'' different beast to that conducted over many dozens or even hundreds of kilometres. His refusal of initiative to his subordinates and his constant touring of the front lines meant that when he was promoted to Operational-level command, the bulk of his forces went only semi-commanded and semi-informed (or not at all) for many hours or even days at a time. This meant that while the five-kilometre section of the front lines that Rommel was on at any given moment was relatively well-run, the other twenty-to-two-hundred were (appreciably) less so than under most contemporary German operational commanders.

The postwar trials were used to promote a useful image of Nazi German society in Britain and America: a wafer-thin layer of Nazis who had used a 'totalitarian' state to terrorise an otherwise perfectly nice mass of Germans into submission through monolithic organsiations of state terror, 'the Gestapo' and 'the SS'. This image was useful because it encouraged their citizens to believe that normal Germans and the German military had been blameless for the regime's 'secret' crimes. This was very important as many people feared that 'the German race' was somehow inherently militaristic and obsessed with conquest, which made it seem like pure folly to allow Germany to have a military again (as 'of course' they would turn upon France, Britain, and the USA at the first chance they got). Praising the ''Wehrmacht'' as an 'honourable' institution during the trials process was not just a continuity from Anglo-American wartime propaganda, but was also a way of helping people accept the recreation of the (West) German military and the Germans' status as a valuable new ally against their former ally - the Soviet Union.

Within Germany itself, the wafer-thin-Nazi-layer theory was quickly accepted as a polite fiction. This self-deception was useful because it allowed German citizens to feel that they and the German military had been blameless for the regime's 'secret' crimes. This was important because many people had been fully aware and supportive of the regime's atrocities, and they found it difficult to reconcile this support with the image of themselves as good people. Over time, the cumulative effects of self-serving bias and memory distortion enabled many Germans who had not personally committed atrocities to come to genuinely believe that the ''Wehrmacht'' in which so many of them had served had been an 'honourable' institution. While it was generally accepted that the ''Wehrmacht'' might have had committed some minor indiscretions 'in the east', these were of course just a response to the savagery of their Asiatic Communist opponents - who 'forced' them to adopt 'extreme' measures against their goodhearted nature to survive - and were not representative of the institution or its character as a whole.

[[AsYouKnow Of course]], the German military voluntarily killed a dozen million civilians in 'national security' and 'foraging' measures of its own volition with no input from or in partnership with other state organisations. Far from being blissfully unaware of Germany's genocidal programmes, it carried them out in several countries including Belarus and France. The German Army's regulations on 'foraging', the treatment (immediate execution) of communist party officials, and collective retaliation in the form of mass-enslavement or execution for communities in the vicinity of partisan attacks broke most of TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar to which Germany had agreed. Every German Army commander of Corps level (in charge of 30-60,000 troops) and above could have been charged with war crimes and hanged.

In all three countries Rommel was a household name, and his forces had not needed to conduct significant anti-partisan or national security (anti-communist, Gypsy, Jew, etc) operations. During the war itself he had been lauded as an 'honourable' man by the likes of UsefulNotes/WinstonChurchill and UsefulNotes/BernardLawMontgomery. It did not take much to imply that Rommel's 'honourable' conduct had been representative of the German military as a whole, and that all the German commanders that British and American people had never heard of (von Mellenthin, Guderian, Hoth, Balck, Kluge, von Bock, von Manstein, Model, von Rundstedt, etc) were every bit as 'honourable' as he had been. The US public was already familiar with the concept of a 'good' man and a 'good' military serving evil in the form of [[UsefulNotes/AmericanCivilWar Robert Lee, the Confederate Army general and a key figure in the 'Lost Cause' mythology]] and so took the concept to heart fairly readily.

When awareness of The Holocaust became widespread in Germany, America, and lastly Britain in the late 1980s it created an interesting act of SelectiveObliviousness with regard to the 'honour' of Rommel. Rather than acknowleding the obvious truth that he had known fine well what Germany was fighting for and either didn't care or thought they were good things, admirers of Rommel [[AlternateCharacterInterpretation reasoned that he 'must not have known' about Nazi Germany's war goals or else he would not have fought for it.]] Rommel is far from the worst example of this kind of wishful thinking about ''Wehrmacht'' personnel. That dubious honour almost certainly goes to the convicted War Criminal and conductor of Crimes Against Humanity [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_Manstein Erich von Manstein]], whose 'politics' have been elided as recently as a 2010 biography (Mungo Melvin).

Rommel returned to his family home in Ulm at the end of his convalescence, expecting to be sent back into combat. However, it was not to be. On July 20th, the anti-Nazi officer Claus von Stauffenberg detonated a bomb in Hitler's headquarters in East Prussia. After the bomb failed to kill Hitler and the conspirators failed to take over the country, Gestapo revenge was swift. Rommel was implicated (while Rommel didn't necessarily assist the plotters, he certainly knew about the whole thing and didn't bother to tell anybody). Rather than allow a decorated hero to be dragged before the People's Court and wreck national morale, Hitler instead dispatched General Wilhelm Burgdorf with a vial of cyanide and the threat that, if Rommel did not commit suicide, his family would be punished. Rommel said goodbye to his wife and son. Manfred asked if the family should not stand and fight. Erwin replied that it was [[HeroicSacrifice better for only him to die than for the whole family.]] "Besides," he said, "we've no ammunition." A few minutes later, he bit on the vial, killing himself. He was 52 years old.

Today, Rommel is remembered as a chivalrous, capable armored officer. He is known for his resistance to Hitler, and his refusal to carry out the illegal Commando Order and Night and Fog Decrees, as well as paying the forced labourers who helped him build his Atlantic Wall. He was one of just two Axis soldiers targeted for assassination by the Western Allies (Soviet attempts are ''still'' classified), so afraid were the Western Allies of him (the other was Isokoru Yamamoto). After his death Churchill paid him fulsome tribute, and even more so when he discovered the truth of the July Plot. His writings on his experiences in UsefulNotes/WorldWarII were edited and published after the war as ''The Rommel Papers'' by the military theorist Captain Liddel Hart (supporter of the notable military theorist JFC Fuller). Association with Rommel and other surviving generals including Heinz Guderian and Erich von Manstein (who used Hart to promote themselves and the myth of the Wehrmacht as a 'clean' institution untainted by racism and War Crimes) catapaulted Hart to fame. The title Rommel had planned for them was ''Krieg ohne Hass'': "''War without Hate''".

In 1970, the German ''Bundeswehr'' named a ''Lutjens''-class destroyer for him. He always wore a braided scarf knitted for him by Gertrud. Because of this, even he has sometimes been given a HistoricalHeroUpgrade and HistoricalBadassUpgrade beyond what the historical record supports, especially since he was one of the German commanders to most consistently fight the Western Allies and (supposedly) WeAllLiveInAmerica or the rest of the West. Most portrayals correctly show he was no blood soaked ghoul, incompetent, or Nazi true believer; it is just that many also overlook how he supported [[UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany two less]] [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany than savory]] governments and saw his own skill undermined by the FatalFlaw duo of arrogance and failure to play well with others, whether it was [[PetTheDog refusing Hitler's orders to execute Commandos and Jews]] or [[KickTheDog ignoring or insulting his Italian allies in North Africa.]] Suffice it to say he was not perfect, but he was an archtypical NobleDemon and MagnificentBastard who "fought for the wrong side" but did not sink down to its level.

* The 1951 film ''Film/TheDesertFox: The Story of Rommel'', starring James Mason in the title role, portrayed him sympathetically. Mason played a Rommel a second time in ''The Desert Rats'', where he's a WorthyOpponent to the Anglo-Australian protagonists.

* Ernst Joachim Eugen Rommel from [[Anime/StrikeWitches Strike Witches Operation Victory Arrow vol.2]] is based from him, and more younger than real Rommel.

* The 1951 film ''Film/TheDesertFox: The Story of Rommel'', starring James Mason in the title role portrayed him sympathetically. Mason played a Rommel a second time in ''The Desert Rats'', where he's a WorthyOpponent to the Anglo-Australian protagonists.
* He was also portrayed by Werner Hinz in ''Film/TheLongestDay'', with this famous speech:

* He appears in ''Film/AtlanticWall'' (1970), played by Johannes "John" Eppler. The second story arc of the movie revolves around a fictional plot of the British Allies to assassinate him on June 5th 1944, one day before the Normandy landings. What's most interesting about this one is that Eppler, before becoming an actor, was actually one of the spies Rommel himself sent in Egypt for Operation Salaam during the war.

* He appears in ''Film/AtlanticWall'' (1970), played by Johannes "John" Eppler. What's most interesting about this one is that Eppler, before becoming an actor, was actually one of the spies Rommel himself sent in Egypt for Operation Salaam during the war.

* He has a brief appearance in the French comedy film ''The Atlantic Wall'' where he's played by John Eppler. The second story arc of the movie revolves around a fictional plot of the British Allies to assassinate him on June 5th 1944, one day before the Normandy landings.

When UsefulNotes/WorldWarI broke out in 1914, Rommel served in France with the 6th, however, seeking action, he transferred to the elite German ''Alpenkorps''. He quickly began to display some of the same skills and flaws that would both make his legend and help his downfall. After quickly acquiring a track record as a brave, resourceful officer who had excellent tactical judgement and a cool head under pressure, he won a 2nd class Iron Cross in 1914 and a 1st class one in 1915. For his service in Italy at the Battle of the Isonzo in 1917, in which he captured an Italian fortification of 7000 men with a force of only 100, he was awarded the ''Pour le Merite'', UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany's highest military honour. His account of that battle and his service in France and Romania was published as ''Infanterie Greift an'', or ''Infantry Attacks''[[note]][[Film/{{Patton}} General George Patton]] would like it to be known that he [[MagnificentBastard HAS READ THIS BOOK!]][[/note]] in 1937. It is still considered a valuable primer in infantry tactics, but it included some of his flaws, including his escape from an Italian attack that all but destroyed his command staff. He managed to make his way back to imperial lines [[BadAss on his own]], [[AesopAmnesia still convinced that the Italian military was sub-par]] 'and' [[HarsherInHindsight without considering he might need to adapt his strategy.]] When WWI ended, Rommel remained in the newly formed ''Reichswehr''. His Swabian heritage and accent initially caused him career problems in a service dominated by Prussian aristocrats, leading Rommel to refuse promotion to the "Troops Office" - the [[BlatantLies completely-harmless-and-totally-non-threatening-human-resources-office-that-definitely-isn't-the-General-Staff-Germany-wasn't-allowed-under-the-Versailles-Treaty.]] Instead, he became Colonel of an ''Alpenkorps'' Battalion, and later held several teaching posts in the German Army. During one occasion, he refused to allow SS units to parade before his battalion in front of Hitler and Goebbels. They backed down. Later, Hitler appointed him Colonel of the ''Führerbegleitbataillon'', his personal protection brigade. During this time, Rommel had a spat with a Nazi newspaper, ''Das Reich'', which had written a fictitious biography of him as an ardent Nazi and early Party supporter. He had a son, Manfred, born in 1928

Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel was born on the 15th of November 1891 in Heidenheim, Baden-Württemburg, then part of [[UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany the German Empire.]] His father, Erin Rommel Sr, had been an artillery lieutenant and was by this point the headmaster of the local school. His mother, Helene, was an aristocrat, though from the minor von Luz family. Rommel, with characteristic terseness, said his childhood was "quite happy". As a young man, he displayed astounding technical aptitude, building a working full-scale glider with a friend at the age of 14, and later buying a motorbike to tinker with in his bedroom. He also developed an illicit relationship with a local fruitseller, Walburga Stemmer, who bore his child. He later broke off the relationship, though he continued to support and remained very close to his "niece", Getrud. Despite an ambition to become an engineer, his father insisted that he gain some military experience first, so the 19 year old Rommel took a ''Fähnrich'''s commission in the 124th Württemberg Infantry Regiment. During his time at the Officer Cadet School in Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), he met Lucia Mollin, commonly called Lucie, who would become his wife. He graduated from the Danzing Officer Cadet School on his 20th birthday, in 1911, becoming a ''Leutnant'' in the 6th Württemburg the following year.

Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel was born on the 15th of November 1891 in Heidenheim, Badem-Wuerttemburg, then part of [[UsefulNotes/ImperialGermany the German Empire.]] His father, Erin Rommel Sr, had been an artillery lieutenant and was by this point the headmaster of the local school. His mother, Helene, was an aristocrat, though from the minor von Luz family. Rommel, with characteristic terseness, said his childhood was "quite happy". As a young man, he displayed astounding technical aptitude, building a working full-scale glider with a friend at the age of 14, and later buying a motorbike to tinker with in his bedroom. He also developed an illicit relationship with a local fruitseller, Walburga Stemmer, who bore his child. He later broke off the relationship, though he continued to support and remained very close to his "niece", Getrud. Despite an ambition to become an engineer, his father insisted that he gain some military experience first, so the 19 year old Rommel took a ''Fähnrich'''s commission in the 124th Württemberg Infantry Regiment. During his time at the Officer Cadet School in Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), he met Lucia Mollin, commonly called Lucie, who would become his wife. He graduated from the Danzing Officer Cadet School on his 20th birthday, in 1911, becoming a ''Leutnant'' in the 6th Württemburg the following year.

Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel was born on the 15th of November 1891 in Heidenheim, Badem-Wuerttemburg, then part of [[ImperialGermany the German Empire.]] His father, Erin Rommel Sr, had been an artillery lieutenant and was by this point the headmaster of the local school. His mother, Helene, was an aristocrat, though from the minor von Luz family. Rommel, with characteristic terseness, said his childhood was "quite happy". As a young man, he displayed astounding technical aptitude, building a working full-scale glider with a friend at the age of 14, and later buying a motorbike to tinker with in his bedroom. He also developed an illicit relationship with a local fruitseller, Walburga Stemmer, who bore his child. He later broke off the relationship, though he continued to support and remained very close to his "niece", Getrud. Despite an ambition to become an engineer, his father insisted that he gain some military experience first, so the 19 year old Rommel took a ''Fähnrich'''s commission in the 124th Württemberg Infantry Regiment. During his time at the Officer Cadet School in Danzig (now Gdansk, Poland), he met Lucia Mollin, commonly called Lucie, who would become his wife. He graduated from the Danzing Officer Cadet School on his 20th birthday, in 1911, becoming a ''Leutnant'' in the 6th Württemburg the following year.

When UsefulNotes/WorldWarI broke out in 1914, Rommel served in France with the 6th, however, seeking action, he transferred to the elite German ''Alpenkorps''. He quickly began to display some of the same skills and flaws that would both make his legend and help his downfall. After quickly acquiring a track record as a brave, resourceful officer who had excellent tactical judgement and a cool head under pressure, he won a 2nd class Iron Cross in 1914 and a 1st class one in 1915. For his service in Italy at the Battle of the Isonzo in 1917, in which he captured an Italian fortification of 7000 men with a force of only 100, he was awarded the ''Pour le Merite'', ImperialGermany's highest military honour. His account of that battle and his service in France and Romania was published as ''Infanterie Greift an'', or ''Infantry Attacks''[[note]][[Film/{{Patton}} General George Patton]] would like it to be known that he [[MagnificentBastard HAS READ THIS BOOK!]][[/note]] in 1937. It is still considered a valuable primer in infantry tactics, but it included some of his flaws, including his escape from an Italian attack that all but destroyed his command staff. He managed to make his way back to imperial lines [[BadAss on his own]], [[AesopAmnesia still convinced that the Italian military was sub-par]] 'and' [[HarsherInHindsight without considering he might need to adapt his strategy.]] When WWI ended, Rommel remained in the newly formed ''Reichswehr''. His Swabian heritage and accent initially caused him career problems in a service dominated by Prussian aristocrats, leading Rommel to refuse promotion to the "Troops Office" - the [[BlatantLies completely-harmless-and-totally-non-threatening-human-resources-office-that-definitely-isn't-the-General-Staff-Germany-wasn't-allowed-under-the-Versailles-Treaty.]] Instead, he became Colonel of an ''Alpenkorps'' Battalion, and later held several teaching posts in the German Army. During one occasion, he refused to allow SS units to parade before his battalion in front of Hitler and Goebbels. They backed down. Later, Hitler appointed him Colonel of the ''Führerbegleitbataillon'', his personal protection brigade. During this time, Rommel had a spat with a Nazi newspaper, ''Das Reich'', which had written a fictitious biography of him as an ardent Nazi and early Party supporter. He had a son, Manfred, born in 1928

In 1970, the German ''Bundeswehr'' named a ''Lutjens''-class destroyer for him. He always wore a braided scarf knitted for him by Gertrud. Because of this, even he has sometimes been given a HistoricalHeroUpgrade and HistoricalBadassUpgrade beyond what the historical record supports, especially since he was one of the German commanders to most consistently fight the Western Allies and (supposedly) WeAllLiveInAmerica or the rest of the West. Most portrayals correctly show he was no blood soaked ghoul, incompetent, or Nazi true believer; it is just that many also overlook how he supported [[ImperialGermany two less]] [[UsefulNotes/NaziGermany than savory]] governments and saw his own skill undermined by the FatalFlaw duo of arrogance and failure to play well with others, whether it was [[PetTheDog refusing Hitler's orders to execute Commandos and Jews]] or [[KickTheDog ignoring or insulting his Italian allies in North Africa.]] Suffice it to say he was not perfect, but he was an archtypical NobleDemon and MagnificentBastard who "fought for the wrong side" but did not sink down to its level.

''Generalfeldmarschall'' Erwin Rommel, nicknamed ''"[[RedBaron The Desert Fox]]"'' by British (and later German) propagandists, was the commander of German forces in North Africa during UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and held famous commands against the Western Allies. These included one of Germany's ten early-war panzer divisions (the 7th), one of fifty German corps (the Afrika Korps), and one of just seven German Army Groups (Army Group Africa, later Army Group B). The last of these commands gave Rommel command of a full ''tenth'' of Germany's total combat strength, and ''half'' of the combat forces deployed against the Western Allies in France in mid-1944. His son Manfred went on to be a capable and popular mayor of Stuttgart for the CDU (the major conservative party) which may have helped delay the critical assessment of the man behind the myth in Germany. To this day the [[WeAreNotTheWehrmacht Bundeswehr]] uses Erwin Rommel's name and tradition, though - like almost anything the Bundeswehr does - this is not well liked by the political left in Germany.

In 1943, he flew back to Germany on his own initiative to try and convince Hitler of the situation in Africa. Hitler refused to listen, and soon after, a quarter of a million Axis troops surrendered in Tunisia (including Rommel's remaining 100,000 Afrika Korps combat- and logistics-troops). He was transferred to the ''B''-front in Greece (one of the five eastern fronts), where an Allied invasion was expected thanks to a British deception operation. When it became that the Germans had been fooled (the British and Americans instead invaded Sicily), Rommel and Army Group B were transferred to France in expectation of D-Day. He oversaw a massive expansion of the Atlantic Wall, turning it from a token propaganda fortress to a major thorn in the side of Allied planners. Despite this, he was fooled with the rest of the German staff into believing that the Allied invasion would come through the Pas-de-Calais.[[note]]This is not surprising, as it was with good reason considered insane ''not'' to land at Calais, as a major amphibious assault without a harbor is virtually impossible. Neither Rommel nor any other German staff realized that the Allies would do something so audacious as ''building an artificial harbor while in the middle of the landing''.[[/note]] Correctly, however, Rommel knew that wherever the invasion did come, it could only be resisted by hitting it immediately with overwhelming force and smothering it at birth. However, due to Germany's devastating panzer-losses in the Ukrainian campaigns during the winter of 1943-44, very little forces were available for this and those that were available were generally 'green'. Worse, the command system remained highly fragmented with Rommel and the ''Heer'' commanding the bulk of the land forces but the paratroops and flak troops under ''Luftwaffe'' control - the command-situation was even worse in the eastern theatre, where the Luftwaffe actually had field-''divisions'' numbering some 200,000 combat troops (a tenth of the total). There was even a battalion of Marines and the crews of most of the heavy defensive guns under command of the Navy (which at least made a bit of sense, as those guns were essentially battleship main guns mounted in bunkers or on special railroad carriages)- and this is before the prime battle formations of the ''Waffen-SS'' and the ''Panzer Lehr'' under Hitler's direct command.

It was not to be, however. The British harryied German resupplies with their naval forces in the Mediterranean and aircraft from Gibraltar and Malta. British intelligence had also cracked the German codes, and were reading his orders; Rommel guessed the Western Allies had obtained an intelligence breakthrough but- like virtually all German commanders- believed the Enigma machine was impenetrable, meaning he [[MisBlamed assumed it was a result of Italian incompetence one of the rare times it wasn't.]] All of these crucial problems coupled with his trademark aggressiveness began to turn against him. His critical supply situation began to wear him down. At the First Battle of El Alamein, the Allied forces under Claude Auchinleck pulled back and let their superior artillery and airpower wear down Rommel's attack, stopping it without ever engaging the bulk of their own forces. At the Second Battle of El Alamein, UsefulNotes/BernardLawMontgomery inflicted a crushing defeat, reducing his effective armored strength to just 35 tanks and boatloads of poorly-supported infantry who were often run down in the rout. Rommel requested permission to retreat and re-supply. Back came the order from Hitler: "victory or death". Rather than allow himself to be surrounded, he retreated anyway, heading back to Tunisia disgusted with Hitler's lack of concern for his exhausted troops, the lack of support he had received, and with his faith in his ''Führer'' broken. His growing disillusionment with Hitler's callousness, cruelty, and incompetence lead to him lending his support, in February 1944, to the plot against Hitler.