Erwin Rommel was a German general, famous for his victories in the desert during World War II. Enlisted in the army in 1910, he was quickly spotted by his instructors for his personal qualities and his aptitude for command. Rewarded many times for his bravery during the First World War, he became close to Hitler and the Nazis from 1933. In 1942, he was given command of the Afrikakorps. A legend will be born, that of the myth of the "Desert Fox".
Erwin Rommel, German soldier
Unlike so many big names in the Heer (German Army) he is neither of aristocratic nor Prussian origin. Born in 1891 in Swabia, he will always keep the accent of his region. He comes from a relatively cultured middle-class background since his father is a secondary school mathematics teacher. A dreamer and attracted to the great outdoors, he developed a passion for skiing and aviation very early on. At the age of 18, he joined an infantry regiment in Württemberg, pushed by his father who until then had despaired of finding him a suitable career.
Rommel soon turns out to be an excellent soldier. He compensates for his relative physical weakness (he is indeed small and of fragile constitution) with a strong will, coupled with a rare energy. Zealous and courageous, Lieutenant Rommel can hope to one day reach the rank of Major. No one could foresee the formidable rise that will lead him to the marshalship.
It was with undisguised enthusiasm that Rommel participated in the Great War. From the first weeks of the conflict, he distinguished himself by a spirit of initiative and an unusual audacity. After being noticed in France, at the end of 1915 he joined the royal mountain battalion of Württemberg. This elite unit will soon shine in the Carpathians against Romanian troops. In the fall of 1917 this battalion was assigned like other German units to the Alpenkorps , German expeditionary force sent to reinforce the Austrian troops against the Italians. It's there in the area of Caporetto , that Rommel the future savior of Italian Libya will begin to write his legend.
Already devoured by ambition, the Swabian officer is ready to do anything to win the most prestigious decorations. He succeeded, after many reckless attacks, on December 18, 1917 when he was awarded the medal 'Pour le Mérite ’ , the most famous German decoration. A well-deserved decoration, since he had taken prisoner 8000 Italian soldiers a month earlier, losing only 14 men. When the guns fell silent in November 1918, Rommel was a captain, a captain certainly covered in glory but utterly appalled by the collapse of his country.
Like many German officers, Rommel was unwilling or unable to understand the reasons for the German defeat. He totally agrees with the idea of the "stab in the back and therefore hardly carries the Weimar Republic in his heart. Taking refuge in the convenient myth of an apolitical army, he still expects the day when a savior will come to restore the greatness of the country.
In 1933, Major Rommel has been chomping at the bit for a few years. A military instructor in an infantry school in Saxony, he tries to instil in his students the values and tactics he was able to develop during the Great War. However, his career stagnated...the Nazis' coming to power gave him a tremendous boost.
The meeting with Hitler
Dynamic leader of a Chasseurs battalion (Alpine infantry) in October 1933, Rommel met Hitler September 30, 1934, on the occasion of a military ceremony. The "love at first sight" is reciprocal and immediate. The young officer is already fully committed to the National Socialist program and he is overwhelmed by the dictator's charisma. As for the latter, just like Goebbels also present on this occasion, he perceived in this proud and young officer covered with medals the incarnation of the new Germanic hero that the Third Reich wanted to promote.
6 months later, Rommel is a lieutenant colonel and soon to be a senior instructor at the Potsdam War School. Extremely popular, enjoying the support of the regime, Colonel Rommel stood out as a brilliant, charismatic and innovative officer. His tactics manual “The Infantry Attacks (Infantry greift an ) is a real bestseller (500,000 copies) and one of the Führer's favorite works.
Rommel's rise continues from there. Colonel in July 37, liaison officer with the head of the Hitler Youth, he was chosen to command Hitler's personal guard battalion during the Sudetenland crisis (September 1938)...that is to say if the dictator's confidence in him . Devoured by ambition, the Swabian officer takes advantage of his proximity to the Führer to advance his own cause. On August 23, 1939, he was appointed head of the Nazi leader's personal headquarters with the rank of Major-General. It is together that the two men will experience the Polish campaign, without Rommel expressing any reservations as to the political program which underlies it.
Rommel and the French countryside
The young general was able to see during the fighting the effectiveness of the new armored divisions (Panzer-Divisionen ). Convinced that they are the future of the army, he does not hesitate to ask his boss to take command of one of them. On February 6, 1940, it was done. Rommel, the photogenic light infantry specialist, takes command of the 7th Armored Division. He intends to command his tanks like his infantry during the Great War, in assault troops.
After intensive training, the 7th Armored Division entered Belgium on May 10, 1940. From the first day of the campaign, Rommel, often accompanied by photographers, imposed a command style of a rare dynamism. Always at the forefront of the front, whether on specialized tanks or descending from his Fieseler Storch (a small reconnaissance plane that he pilots himself), he leads his campaign at a hellish pace. On May 13, after hard fighting against French troops, he managed to cross the Meuse near Dinant. Without air support and on more difficult terrain, he does better than Guderian the great German armored specialist…
May 21 Rommel is in Arras and somehow stops a British tank counterattack. Devoured by ambition, the general exposed his troops to often extreme combat conditions and the state of his division suffered. It is then and by far the Panzer-Division which suffered the most losses during the campaign. Rommel, himself often at the forefront of the fights, was very close to being killed several times...but he doesn't care the audacity pays, again and again.
During the rest of the June 1940 campaign, his division advanced so quickly, appeared so often in the rear of enemy troops, that it was given the name "Ghost Division ". At the signing of the Franco-German armistice, it will have taken approximately 100,000 prisoners (sic.) and put more than 400 armored vehicles out of action. In the pantheon of the Wehrmacht (German armed forces), Rommel already distinguished himself, admirably served by the propaganda of Goebbels.
The Desert Fox
In February 1941, Rommel is a 49-year-old general emblematic of a new type of officer put forward by the National Socialist regime. Noted for his sense of tactics, he was promoted to lieutenant general the following year and given command of the Afrikakorps in North Africa. Great tactician of military art in the desert, which earned him the nickname "desert fox", recognized and admired by international military experts, he led his army to El Alamein in June 1942, but was repelled by Montgomery and had to surrender Egypt, Cyrenaica and Tripolitania to British forces. The battle of El-Alamein was a turning point:forced to retreat to Tunis, Rommel joined Germany in March 1943 before the final surrender of the Afrikakorps.
Having been promoted to field marshal in 1942, Rommel was assigned to northern Italy and then to the inspection of the Atlantic Wall. Appointed in January 1944 at the head of Army Group B in France, he became convinced of the inevitable defeat of the German army. In this context, he participated in the preparation of the conspiracy against Hitler, having himself to ensure the interim at the head of the State after the fall of the Führer. Wounded during the battle following the Normandy landings in June 1944, he did not participate directly in the attack of July 20, 1944, but he was accused of complicity by the Gestapo. On October 14, 1944, on Hitler's orders, he poisoned himself rather than being sentenced to death, and a state funeral was held for him. His notebooks were published under the title The War Without Hate (1953).
Bibliography
- - Benoit Lemay , Erwin Rommel, Perrin, 2009
- - Dominique Lormier , Rommel:the end of a myth, Le Cherche Midi, 2003
- - Benoît Rondeau, Rommel, a biography. Perrin, 2018.