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Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel
(Audio|De-Erwin_Rommel-pronunciation.ogg|li
sten) (November 15, 1891 – October 14, 1944)
was one of the most distinguished Germany|German
Generalfeldmarschall|Field Marshals and commander
of the Deutsches Afrika Korps in World War II.  He
is also known by his nickname The Desert Fox
(Wüstenfuchs,
Audio|De-Wüstenfuchs-pronunciation.ogg|lis
ten), for the skillful military campaigns he waged
on behalf of the Wehrmacht|German Army in North
Africa. He is often remembered not only for his
remarkable military prowess, but also for his
chivalry towards his adversaries.

==Early life and career==
Rommel was born in Heidenheim, approximately 50
kilometre|km from Ulm, in the state of
Württemberg.  The second son of a
Protestantism|Protestant Headmaster of the
secondary school at Aalen, Erwin Rommel the elder
and Helene von Luz, a daughter of a prominent
local dignitary. The couple also had three more
children, two sons, Karl and Gerhard, and a
daughter, Helene. Later recalling his childhood,
Rommel wrote that "my early years passed very
happily". At the age of 14 Rommel, with a friend,
built a full-scale glider that flew, although not
far. Young Erwin considered becoming an
aeronautical engineering|engineer, but on his
father's insistence joined the local 124th
Württemberg Infantry Regiment as an officer cadet
in 1910, and was soon sent to the Officer Cadet
School in Gdansk|Danzig.


There, in 1911, Rommel met his future wife, Lucie
Maria Mollin, whom he married in 1916. In 1928,
they had a son, Manfred Rommel|Manfred, later the
mayor of Stuttgart. Scholars John Bierman|Bierman
and Colin Smith|Smith argue that during this time
Rommel also had an affair with Walburga Stemmer in
1912 and that relationship produced a daughter
named Gertrud (The Battle of Alamein: Turning
Point, World War II|1 p. 56). Graduating from
school in November 1911, Rommel was commissioned
as a Lieutenant January 1912. 

===World War I===
During World War I, Rommel served in France, as
well as on the Romania|Romanian and Italy|Italian
fronts, during which time he was wounded three
times and awarded the Iron Cross|Iron Cross -
First and Second Class. He also became the
youngest recipient of Prussia's highest medal, the
Pour le Mérite, an honor traditionally reserved
for generals only and which he received after
fighting in the mountains of north-east Italy,
specifically at the Battle of Longarone, and the
capture of Mount Matajur and its defenders,
numbering 150 Italian officers, 7000 men and 81
artillery guns. His batallion also played a key
role in the Battle of Caporetto, a decisive German
victory over the Italian Army.

===Inter-War years===

After the war Rommel held battalion commands, and
was instructor at the Dresden Infantry School
(1929-1933) and the Potsdam War Academy
(1935-1938). His war diaries, Infanterie greift an
(Infantry Attacks), published in 1937, became a
major textbook, which also attracted the attention
of Adolf Hitler, who commissioned him the training
of the Hitler Jugend the same year, while
retaining his place at Postdam. In 1938, Rommel,
now a colonel, was appointed commandant of the War
Academy at Wiener Neustadt. Here he started his
followup to Infantry Attacks, Panzer greift an
(Tank Attacks sometimes translated as The Tank In
Attack ).   He was removed after a short time,
however, and placed in command of Adolf Hitler's
personal protection battalion
(Führer-Begleitbattalion).

==World War II==

===Poland 1939===
In the fall of 1938 Hitler selected Rommel to be
in charge of the Wehrmacht unit assigned to
protect him during his visits in occupied
Czechoslovakia. Just prior to the invasion of
Poland he was promoted to Major General and made
commander of the Führer-Begleitbattalion,
responsible for the safety of Adolf Hitler's
mobile headquarters during the campaign.

===France 1940===
In 1940, only 3 months prior to the invasion,
Rommel was given command of the German 7th Panzer
Division|7th Panzer Division, later nicknamed
Gespenster-Division ( the "Ghost Division", due to
the speed and surprise it was consistently able to
achieve, to the point that even the German High
Command lost track of where it was), for Fall
Gelb, the invasion of France and the Low
Countries. Remarkably, this was Rommel's first
command of a Panzer unit. He showed considerable
skill in this operation, repulsing a
counter-attack by the British Expeditionary
Force|BEF at Battle of Arras (1940)|Arras. 7th
Panzer was one of the first German units to reach
the English Channel (on 10 June) and would capture
the vital port of Cherbourg (19 June). As a reward
Rommel was promoted and appointed commander of the
German 5th Light Division|5th Light Division
(later reorganized and redesignated as the 21st
Panzer) and of the German 15th Panzer
Division|15th Panzer Division, which were sent to
Libya in early 1941 to aid the defeated and
demoralized Italian troops, forming the Deutsches
Afrika Korps 
(Audio|De-Deutsches_Afrikakorps-pronunciation.ogg|
listen). It was in Africa where Rommel
achieved his greatest fame as a commander.

===Africa 1941-43===
Rommel spent most of 1941 building his
organization and re-forming the shattered Italian
units, who had suffered a string of defeats at the
hands of British Commonwealth forces under Major
General Richard O'Connor. An offensive pushed the
Allied forces back out of Libya, but it stalled a
relatively short way into Egypt, and the important
port of Siege of Tobruk|Tobruk, although
surrounded, was still held by Allied forces under
an Australian General, Leslie Morshead. The Allied
Commander-in-Chief, General Archibald Wavell made
two unsuccessful attempts to relieve  the seige (
Operation Brevity and Operation Battleaxe ). 

In a classic blitzkrieg, Rommel outflanked the
British  at Battle of Gazala|Gazala, surrounded
and reduced the strongpoint at Battle of Bir
Hakeim|Bir Hakeim and forced the British to
quickly retreat, in the so-called "Gazala Gallop",
to avoid being completely cut off. Tobruk,
isolated and alone, was now all that stood between
the Afrika Korps and Egypt. On 21 June 1942, after
a swift, coordinated and fierce combined arms
assault, the city surrendered along with its
33,000 defenders. Only at the fall of Singapore,
earlier that year, had more British and
Commonwealth of Nations|Commonwealth troops been
captured. Allied forces were comprehensively
beaten. Within weeks they had been pushed back far
into Egypt. 

Rommel's offensive was eventually stopped at the
small railway town of El Alamein, just 60 miles
from Cairo. The First Battle of El Alamein was
lost by Rommel due to a combination of supply
problems and improved Allied tactics. The Allies,
with their backs against the wall, were very close
to their supplies and had fresh troops on hand to
reinforce their positions. Auchinleck's tactics of
continually attacking the weaker Italian forces
during the battle forced Rommel to use the
Deutsches Afrika Korps in a "Fire Brigade" role
and placed the initiative in Allied hands. Rommel
tried again to break through the Allied lines
during the Battle of Alam Halfa. He was decisively
stopped by the newly arrived Allied commander,
Lieutenant General Bernard Montgomery; mainly due
to the fact that the allies had devised a machine
capable of deciphering German communications, thus
alerting them to Rommel's battle plan prior to the
battle.  This was known as the "Ultra".



With Allied forces from Malta interdicting his
supplies at sea, and the massive distances they
had to cover in the desert, Rommel could not hold
the El Alamein position forever. Still, it took a
large set piece battle, the Second Battle of El
Alamein, to force his troops back. After the
defeat at El Alamein, despite urgings from Hitler
and Mussolini, Rommel's forces did not again stand
and fight until they had entered Tunisia. Even
then, their first battle was not against the
British Eighth Army, but against the U.S. II
Corps. Rommel inflicted a sharp reversal on the
American forces at the Battle of the Kasserine
Pass.

Turning once again to face the British
Commonwealth forces in the old French border
defences of the Mareth Line, Rommel could only
delay the inevitable. Ultra was a major factor
that led to the defeat of his forces.  He left
Africa after falling sick, and the men of his
former command eventually became prisoners of war.
 

Some historians believe Rommel's withdrawal of his
army back to Tunisia against Hitler's dreams to be
a much greater success than his capture of Tobruk
(in sharp contrast to the fate suffered by the
German 6th Army at the Battle of Stalingrad under
the command of Friedrich Paulus).

===France 1943-1944===

Back in Germany, Rommel was for some time
virtually "unemployed". However, when the tide of
war shifted against Germany, Hitler made Rommel
the commander of Army Group B, responsible for
defending the French coast against a possible
Allied invasion. Dismayed with the situation he
found, the slow building pace and realizing he had
just months before an invasion, Rommel invigorated
the whole fortification effort along the Atlantic
coast, under his direction work was significantly
speeded up, millions of mines laid, and thousands
of tank traps and obstacles were set up on beaches
and throughout the countryside.

After his battles in Africa, Rommel concluded that
any offensive movements would be impossible due to
the overwhelming Allied air superiority. He argued
that the tank forces should be dispersed in small
units and kept in heavily fortified positions
located as close to the front as possible, so they
wouldn't have to move far and enmasse when the
invasion started. He wanted the invasion stopped
right on the beaches. However his commander, Gerd
von Rundstedt, felt that there was no way to stop
the invasion near the beaches due to the equally
overwhelming firepower of the Royal Navy. He felt
the tanks should be formed into large units well
inland near Paris, where they could allow the
Allies to extend into France and then be cut off.
When asked to pick a plan, Hitler then vacillated
and placed them in the middle, far enough to be
useless to Rommel, not far enough to watch the
fight for von Rundstedt. Rommel's plan nearly came
to fruition anyway. 

During D-Day several tank units, notably the 12th
SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend|12th SS Panzer
Division, were near enough to the beaches and
created serious havoc. The overwhelming Allied
numbers and Hitler's refusal to release the Panzer
reserves in time made any success unlikely,
however, and soon the beachhead was secure.

===The plot against Hitler===

On July 17, 1944 his Charley Fox|staff car was
strafed by an Royal Canadian Air Force|RCAF
Supermarine Spitfire|Spitfire, and Rommel was
hospitalized with major head injuries. In the
meantime, after the failed July 20 Plot against
Adolf Hitler a major crackdown was conducted
throughout the Wehrmacht. As the investigation
proceeded, numerous connections started appearing
that tied Rommel with the conspiracy, in which
many of his closest aides were deeply involved. At
the same time, local Nazi party officials reported
on Rommel's extensive and scornful criticism of
Nazi leadership during the time he was
hospitalized. Martin Bormann|Bormann was certain
of Rommel's involvement, Goebbels was not. 

The true extent of Rommel's knowledge of, or
involvement with, the plot is still unclear. After
the war, however, his wife maintained that Rommel
had been against the plot as it was carried out.
It has been stated that Rommel wanted to avoid
giving future generations of Germans the
perception that the war was lost because of a
backstab, the infamous Dolchstoßlegende, as it
was commonly believed by some Germans following
WWI. Instead, he favored a coup where Hitler would
be taken alive and made to stand trial before the
public.  

Due to Rommel's popularity with the German people,
Hitler gave him an option to commit suicide with
cyanide or face a humiliating sham trial before
Roland Freisler's "Volksgerichtshof|People's
Court" and retaliation against his family and
staff. Rommel ended his own life on October 14,
1944, and was buried with full military honours.
After the war his diary was published as The
Rommel Papers. He is the only member of the Third
Reich establishment to have a museum dedicated to
his person and his career.

==Battles of Erwin Rommel==
*Battle of Arras (1940)
*Siege of Tobruk (1941)
*Battle of Gazala (1942)
*Battle of Bir Hakeim (1942)
*First Battle of El Alamein (1942)
*Battle of Alam Halfa (1942)
*Second Battle of El Alamein (1942)
*Battle of the Kasserine Pass (1943)
*Battle of Normandy (1944)

==Quotes==
 
*The British Parliament considered a censure vote
against Winston Churchill, for his failure to
defeat Rommel. The vote failed, but in the course
of the debate, Churchill would say:
**"We have a very daring and skillful opponent
against us, and, may I say across the havoc of
war, a great General."
*Theodor Werner was an officer who, during World
War I, served under Rommel.
**"Anybody who came under the spell of his
personality turned into a real soldier. He seemed
to know what the enemy were like and how they
would react."
*Attributed to General George S. Patton in North
Africa (referring to "The Tank In Attack")
**"Rommel, you magnificent bastard! I read your
book!"

==Quotes of Erwin Rommel==

*"Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, and brains
saves both."
*"Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed
ideas."
*"The best form of welfare for the troops is
first-rate training."
*"Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything
by winning."
*"In a man-to-man fight, the winner is he who has
one more round in his magazine."
*"Courage which goes against military expediency
is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a
commander, irresponsibility."
*"So long as one isn't carrying ones head under
one's arm, things aren't too bad."
*"A risk is a chance you take; if it fails you can
recover.  A gamble is a chance taken; if it fails,
recovery is impossible."
*"There is one unalterable difference between a
soldier and a civilian: the civilian never does
more than he is paid to do."
*"What difference does it make if you have two
tanks to my one, when you spread them out and let
me smash them in detail?"
*"The best plan is the one made when the battle is
over."
*"In the absence of orders, go find something and
kill it."
*"The officers of a panzer division must learn to
think and act independently within the framework
of the general plan and not wait until they
receive orders."
*"Men are basically smart or dumb and lazy or
ambitious. The dumb and ambitious ones are
dangerous and I get rid of them. The dumb and lazy
ones I give mundane duties. The smart ambitious
ones I put on my staff. The smart and lazy ones I
make my commanders."
*"Be an example to your men, in your duty and in
private life. Never spare yourself, and let the
troops see that you don't in your endurance of
fatigue and privation. Always be tactful and
well-mannered and teach your subordinates to do
the same. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness
of voice, which usually indicates the man who has
shortcomings of his own to hide."
*"The future battle on the ground will be preceded
by battle in the air. This will determine which of
the contestants has to suffer operational and
tactical disadvantages and be forced throughout
the battle into adoption compromise solutions."
*"Anyone who has to fight, even with the most
modern weapons, against an enemy in complete
command of the air, fights like a savage against
modern European troops, under the same handicaps
and with the same chances of success."
*"The art of concentrating strength at one point,
forcing a breakthrough, rolling up and securing
the flanks on either side, and then penetrating
like lightning deep into his rear, before the
enemy has time to react-is Blitzkrieg."

==External link==
*http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/rommel.htm The
Forced Suicide of Field Marshall Rommel, 1944
*http://www.fpp.co.uk/books/Rommel/index.html 
"Rommel: The Trail of the Fox" by David Irving
*http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/blitzkrieg.htm
Excerpts from Rommel's account of the blitzkrieg,
1940

==References==
* The Battle of Alamein: Turning Point, World War
II, by John Bierman|Bierman and Colin Smith|Smith
(2002). ISBN 0670030406
* Rommel's Greatest Victory, by Samuel W. Mitcham,
Samuel Mitcham. ISBN 0891417303 
* Meeting the Fox: The Allied Invasion of Africa,
from Operation Torch to Kasserine Pass to Victory
in Tunisia, by Orr Kelly. ISBN 0471414298
* INSIDE THE AFRIKA KORPS: The Crusader Battles,
1941-1942. ISBN 1853673226 
* Alamein, by Jon Latimer. ISBN 0674010167 
* Tank Combat in North Africa: The Opening Rounds
: Operations Sonnenblume, Brevity, Skorpion and
Battleaxe February 1941-June 1941 (Schiffer
Military History), by Thomas L. Jentz. ISBN
0764302264 
* Rommel's North Africa Campaign: September 1940 -
November 1942, by Jack Greene. ISBN 1580970184
* Tobruk 1941: Rommel's Opening Move (Campaign,
80) by Jon Latimer. ISBN 1841760927 
* 21st Panzer Division: Rommel's Africa Korps
Spearhead (Spearhead Series), by Chris Ellis. ISBN
0711028532 
* Afrikakorps, 1941-1943: The Libya Egypt
Campaign, by Francois De Lannoy. ISBN 2840481529
* With Rommel's Army in Libya by Almasy, Gabriel
Francis Horchler, Janos Kubassek. ISBN 0759616086 
* Generalfeldmarschall Rommel : opperbevelhebber
van Heeresgruppe B bij de voorbereiding van de
verdediging van West-Europa, 5 november 1943 tot 6
juni 1944 by Hans Sakkers (1993). ISBN
90-800900-2-6 text/photobook in Dutch about Rommel
at the Atlantic Wall 1943/44

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