Drive to Nowhere: The Myth of the Afrika Korps, 1941-43

A new look at Field Marshal Rommel and his North African campaigns.

Robert Citino, 06/14, 2018

There is no more evocative phrase to emerge from World War II than Afrika Korps. The name conjures up a unique theater of war, a hauntingly beautiful empty quarter where armies could roam free, liberated from towns and hills, choke points and blocking positions, and especially those pesky civilians. It calls forth a war of near-absolute mobility, where tanks could operate very much like ships at sea, “sailing” where they wished, setting out on bold voyages hundreds of miles into the deep desert, then looping around the enemy flank and emerging like pirates of old to deal devastating blows to an unsuspecting foe. Finally, it implies a bold hero, in this case Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, a noble commander who fought the good fight, who hated Hitler and everything he stood for, and who couldn’t have been farther away from our stereotyped image of the Nazi fanatic. Everything about him attracts us--the manly poses, the out-of-central-casting good looks, even the goggles perched just so. Placing Rommel and his elite Afrika Korps to the fore allows us to view the desert war as a clean fight against a morally worthy opponent. It was war, yes, but almost uniquely in World War II, it was a "war without hate."

It’s an attractive image all around, and it is unfortunate that practically all of it is false. The desert was hardly a haven of beauty or romance. It was a pain, and fighting in it was a nightmare for both sides. Far from letting the respective tank fleets roam free, the desert chained them irresistibly to their supply lines, and a single failed supply convoy or a lost column of trucks could stop an entire offensive dead in its tracks. Contrary to the alleged mobility of desert warfare, both sides would spend far more time in static defensive positions, often quite elaborate, then they would launching tank charges.

That leaves us with Rommel. Here, too, we should challenge the mythology. He was hardly apolitical. His entire career had been based on Hitler's favor, and we might reasonably describe his attitude toward the Führer as worshipful. He was Hitler's fair-haired boy, a young officer repeatedly promoted over more senior candidates. He was a media creation. Nazi propaganda painted him not only as a garden-variety hero, but as a model National Socialist and Aryan, a man who could overcome stronger enemies through the sheer force of his will. He was not merely a passive bystander to the hype; he was an active accomplice. He loved nothing better than having a camera crew along with him on campaign, and he would regularly order scenes to be reshot if his posture was insufficiently heroic or the lighting had not shown him to best advantage. As is often the case, his relationship to the media was both self-serving and self-destructive. During the years of victory, the German propaganda machine used him as an example to the nation. When things went sour, he became a diversion from the increasingly bad news on other fronts. Finally, when he was no longer useful for any purpose at all, the regime dropped him altogether and eventually killed him.

Yes, the reader might respond, but surely we are on firmer ground with regard to his military skill! After all, no less a figure than British Prime Minister Winston Churchill called him “a great general” on the floor of the House of Commons. Even here, it is possible to make a counterargument. Rommel’s daring exploits at the head of the Afrika Korps (later enlarged and renamed Panzerarmee Afrika) were exciting, to be sure, but many officers in his own army reckoned them as an ultimately valueless sideshow. His disinterest in the dreary science of logistics, his “bias for action,” his tendency to fly off wherever the fighting was hottest are qualities that may make for an exciting movie, but they are problematic in an army commander under modern conditions, and they all contributed materially to the disaster that ultimately befell him and his army in the desert.

With these thoughts in mind, let us take a short operational tour of the Afrika Korps at war. The point is not to smash any particular idols, but rather to restore some balance to a discussion that has been sorely in need of it.

When Rommel arrived in Africa, he brought with him a fully realized art of war. He’d won a Pour le Mérite (the famed “Blue Max”) for a series of nail-biting mountain exploits in the 1917 Caporetto campaign; he had been a very popular tactical instructor at the Dresden Infantry School between the wars; he had commanded one of the army’s precious Panzer divisions (the 7th) during the 1940 campaign in the West. In France, Rommel had behaved more like an 18th century hussar cut loose on a raiding mission than a divisional commander. He led from the front, braved enemy fire on numerous occasions, and turned off his radio from time to time rather than risk receiving orders to rein himself in. He drove forward so rapidly that the 7th Panzer became known as the “ghost division” for its tendency to drop off the situation maps and reappear where least expected. There were many in the German high command, including the chief of the General Staff Franz Halder, who didn't much appreciate Rommel running amok, but as one analyst put it, “it was impossible to court martial such a successful general, so Rommel instead got the Ritterkreuz."

It would be the same in Africa. Rommel arrived in February 1941 with fairly mundane orders to act as a Sperrband, a “blocker” to bolster the Italians after their mauling at Beda Fomm. The force he led was appropriately tiny:  the reconnaissance battalion and an antitank detachment of the 5th Light Division (soon renamed the 21st Panzer Division). The rest of the division was still en route to Africa, and a second division, the 15th Panzer, would not arrive completely until the end of May.

Rommel had his orders, but he had ignored orders in the past and been decorated for it. With British forces stripped to fight an exceedingly ill-advised campaign in Greece, he carried out a quick personal reconnaissance in his trusty little Fieseler Storch airplane, then launched an offensive in concert with his Italian partners (Ariete armored division and the infantry divisions of X Corps, Bologna and Pavia). He penetrated British defenses at El Agheila on March 24th, then drove on to Mersa el Brega on March 31st, pausing only long enough to take (and ignore) a number of radio messages from Berlin and Rome warning him not to do anything rash. Finally, he smashed the British defenders at Agedabia (elements of the green 2nd Armoured Division, equipped partially with captured Italian M13/40 tanks), pinning them in front with the infantry of 5th Light Division while dispatching his Panzers on a ride around the open desert flank to the south, the first use of a tactic that would become his signature move.

These three tiny encounters, none of them exceeding regimental strength, were enough to unhinge the entire British defensive position in Cyrenaica. Rommel now expanded his "reconnaissance in force" into a general offensive, although the forces involved were still minuscule. One column headed up the coast road towards Benghazi, while two more sliced across the Cyrenaican bulge, scooping up a mountain of British supplies at Msus and Mechili. The British rear was in chaos. On April 6th, a German motorcycle patrol actually captured the British commander in Cyrenaica, General Philip Neame, as well as General Richard O'Connor, the victor of Beda Fomm. By April 11th, the Germans had surrounded the coastal fortress of Tobruk while smaller formations pressed on to the east, taking Bardia and reaching the Egyptian border at Sollum and Ft. Capuzzo.

This was top speed maneuver, and the distances were vast, with the Afrika Korps covering over 600 miles in less than two weeks. An amazing feat, to be sure, but may we not legitimately ask, Six-hundred miles to where? Rommel had lunged from central Libya to the Egyptian border in a great bound, but now he had an unconquered fortress sitting in his rear, a serious threat to his lines of communication and supply. Two hastily marshaled attempts to storm Tobruk went badly wrong. In the "Easter battle" (April 10th-14th) and the "battle of the Salient" (April 30th-May 4th), the defenders of the 9th Australian Division hung tough. Minefields channeled the German attacks, while direct fire from artillery, antitank guns, and supporting tanks shot up the assault forces quite badly and killed General Heinrich von Prittwitz, commander of 15th Panzer Division.

The very presence of an unconquered Tobruk rendered the drive across the desert pointless. Indeed, for all the fame it had brought Rommel in the world press, this first campaign won him few friends among command echelons in Berlin. General Halder was especially unimpressed. Rommel, he wrote, “storms around all day long with formations strewn all over the place.” The man had apparently “gone insane.” There was some justice to the complaint. A German division-plus had overrun territory--a vast wasteland, to be precise--but it hadn't really won anything. There had been no battle of annihilation, no Kesselschlacht, nor could there have been. The Afrika Korps had come a long way, but now sat precariously on the edge of nowhere. Although Rommel and his command had shown a satisfying level of aggression, something the entire officer corps understood, most of them saw his drive to the Egyptian border as a misfire.

Subsequent operations deserve the same cold eye. Both sides spent the summer rebuilding, replacing, and reinforcing, but by and large, the British were able to do it more rapidly. In November 1941, British 8th Army (General Alan Cunningham), launched Operation Crusader, a relief attempt of Tobruk (although to say that the tiny port was “under siege” is yet another example of myth-making in the desert war). Crusader led to hard fighting with heavy losses on both sides. Rommel’s bold decision to break contact and surge deep into the British rear (the “drive to the wire” on the Egyptian border) was an exciting moment, to be sure. In the course of this wild ride the Panzers  overran, in quick succession, the headquarters of the XXX Corps, 7th Armoured Division, 1st South African Division, and the 7th Armoured Brigade, unleashing panic as he went.15 Ultimately, however, the drive to the wire was yet another drive to nowhere, and had little impact on the operational situation. With his tank strength near zero and his (largely Italian) infantry well blooded, he had no choice but to retreat back to where he had start-ed, El Agheila.     

By now, the dynamic of the desert war was well established. There was an iron logic at work, and neither side could escape its grip. Long advances did not simply take you away from your railhead, they took you entire time zones from it. Supply became not just a problem, but the problem. Rommel was far more dangerous at El Agheila, relatively close to Tripoli, than he was on the Egyptian wire, six-hundred miles to the east. Likewise, the British were never more dangerous than when they were fighting with Egypt at their back, and never more helpless than when they had just overrun Cyrenaica.

It should not be surprising, then, that Rommel soon turned the tables on the Allies once again. In January 1942, after spending a few short weeks regrouping his forces after their long retreat, Rommel was back on the offensive. Again, in an eerie repeat of the 1941 campaign, the British had stripped their front before him. Last year it had been the Balkans; this year it was to shore up Britain's collapsing position in the Far East, then reeling under a series of Japanese hammer blows. For both sides, it seemed, there was always someplace more important than Africa.

Rommel's second offensive bore quick fruit. Once again, there was a green unit in his path, the 1st Armoured Division. Rommel's opening blow tied it in knots. A regimental-sized task force, Group Marcks, got around its right flank near the coast, while the mass of Afrika Korps looped around the left. Having German Panzers prowling around in the rear was enough to send 1st Armoured reeling back. In the next two weeks Rommel reconquered Cyrenaica. It was even easier than the first time, perhaps the greatest hussar raid of all time. This was low-intensity fighting of the Kampfgruppen variety, without a fully formed division in sight. It included few battles and generated minimal casualties, and by February 6th, Rommel stood on the Gazala line, just east of the Cyrenaican bulge and thirty-five miles west of Tobruk.

Here, the hyper-movement of the desert war ground to a halt. Both sides had wasted themselves racing back and forth and were, for the moment, incapable of further action. For nearly four months, the opponents sat, dug in, and glowered at one another. The Gazala position came to bear all the hallmarks of Stellungskrieg, or static warfare: trenches and rifle pits, barbed wire and machine gun nests. For the British, fortified "box-es," dense 360-degree concentrations of tank obstacles and mines, came to dominate the front, with the gaps between them protected by great "mine marshes."

Here, on the Gazala line, Rommel would finally win a real victory, not the meaningless to-and-fro of the "Benghazi sweepstakes." On May 26th, 1942, Panzerarmee Afrika went over to the offensive, a frontal assault by the Italian infantry divisions to pin the British in place. Once that had taken effect, Rommel carried out the most audacious move of his career, launching his entire mechanized force--five full divisions, thousands of vehicles, and virtually every Axis tank in the order of battle--on a deep end run around the British flank. It was a solid block of armor nearly fifteen miles on a side stood on the British flank. The "armored phalanx" is a cliché of military history, but this was the real thing: Italian XX Motorized Corps, the Afrika Korps, and the 90th Light Division.

By the end of their approach march, all of them were perched on the British left flank, and the opening of the attack came as near to the Platonic ideal of “surprise” as any operation in the war. At 0700 hrs, this immense force crashed into the fortified box at Retma. It was an amazing scene. Sitting out in the sunshine of a lovely May morning, the defenders looked on with curiosity as a dust cloud appeared on the horizon. By now, they’d all seen strange weather patterns and storms blow up out of nowhere. This one, however, suddenly clarified itself into something worse:  tanks, tanks, and more tanks, vehicles of every description, sailing out of the dust. It was, one of them said, “the whole of Rommel's command in full cry straight for us.” The same thing happened on both flanks of Retma. To the east, near Bir Gubi, lay the 7th Motorised Brigade. Half the unit had been given some well-earned rest and recreation and the men were swimming in Tobruk harbor that fateful morning. West of Retma, 3rd Indian Brigade was caught equally unprepared. Its commander, General A. A. E. Filose, radioed that there was “a whole bloody German armored division” bearing down on him. He was actually seeing Italian tanks of the Ariete division, but it was early in the morning so we can forgive Fi-lose his imprecision. Both brigades, along with the Retma box, were overrun with hardly any fighting in the opening minutes. The final entry in 3rd Indian’s war diary was chilling: “Positions completely overrun,” it said, “with enemy tanks in the box.” Next came the turn of 4th Armoured Brigade. Strewn all over the battle area, it rushed to the aid of 7th Motorised Brigade, and was overrun by the onrushing 15th Panzer Division. Then, 22nd Armoured Brigade rode to the relief of 4th Armoured, and it too went down in flames. By noon, the British left wing in the desert was in shreds.

Once past the initial shock, however, 8th Army dug in its heels. By now, the British finally had an adequate tank, the M3 Grant (courtesy of U.S. Lend-Lease). Treated cavalierly by World War II historians, it was far superior to anything 8th Army had yet fielded. Sure, it was ungainly and clumsy, and yes, it really did present a monstrous 9-foot, 3-inch tall target profile to German fire. On the plus side, however, its thick armor made it impervious to just about anything but a direct hit from an 88 mm antiaircraft gun. It was also one of the most heavily armed tanks of the day, packing two forms of main armament:  a short-barreled 75 mm gun in a fixed mounting (or "sponson") in the hull and a 37 mm gun in the turret. Within minutes of the German eruption onto the British flanks, one Panzer after another was being drilled at seemingly impossible ranges, and soon, Rommel’s attack had come to a standstill.

By the end of the first day, the Panzers had formed up into a laager behind the British lines, and in the next days, Rommel had them launching an attack backwards, i.e. towards their own starting positions, in order to open up a supply line. It was a marvelous improvisation, and enough to flummox the British, who preferred to fight on one front at a time rather than three. Soon the Panzers had broken out, fighting a swirling action around the nondescript terrain feature known as “Knightsbridge” and driving on Tobruk. Last year’s “fortress” was now virtually undefended, and the Panzers overran it in a sin-gle day, slicing the unfortunate 2nd South African Division to ribbons. A few days previously it had been holding a position in the “rear area,” but now suddenly found itself defending the “front.” The young divisional commander, General H. B. Klopper, actually radioed back the understatement of the century: "Situation not in hand," he said.

No, it certainly wasn’t. The Gazala-Tobruk sequence was the greatest victory of Rommel’s career, not merely a triumph on the tactical level, but an operational level win, a victory that even General Halder could love. Call it Rommel’s Rule #1, which is still a recipe for success today:  “Be sure to erupt into your opponent’s rear with an entire Panzer army in the opening moments of the battle.”

Even here, however, let us be honest. Smashing 8th Army at Gazala and taking tens of thousands of prisoners at Tobruk did little to solve the strategic problem. Unless the British were destroyed altogether, they would reinforce to a level the Axis could not match. Many later analysts argue that the Panzerarmee should have paused now, waited until some sort of combined airborne-naval operation had been launched against Malta to improve the logistics, and only then acted. Such arguments ignore the dynamic of the desert battle, however; they ignore the morale imperative of keeping a victorious army in motion; above all they ignore the personality of Rommel himself.

Pause?  Halt?  Wait? Anyone who expected Rommel to ease up on the throttle clearly hadn’t been paying attention. Instead, the Panzerarmee vaulted across the border into Egypt with virtually no preparation. To Rommel, to his men, and even to Hitler and Mussolini, it must have looked like a great victory lay just over the next horizon: Cairo, Alexandria, the Suez Canal, the British Empire itself.

In reality, it is possible today to see what the great Prussian philosopher of war Karl von Clausewitz once called the “culmination point”--that moment in every campaign when the offensive begins to lose steam, run down, and eventually stop altogether. The Panzerarmee was exhausted, its equipment was worn out and in desperate need of repair. Captured British stores and vehicles had become its life-blood, Canadian Ford trucks in particular. The manpower was breaking down. A chronic shortage of potable water had put thousands of soldiers on the sick rolls. Colonel Siegfried Westphal, the Panzerarmee’s operations chief (the “Ia,” in German parlance), was yellow with jaundice. The army’s intelligence chief (the “Ic”), Colonel Friedrich Wilhelm von Mellenthin, was wasting away with amoebic dysentery. Rommel had a little of both, as well as a serious blood-pressure problem (no doubt stress-induced) and a chronic and bothersome sinusitis condition. While it would be easy to view all these illnesses as simple bad luck, they were, in fact, the price Rommel and all the rest of them were paying for fighting an overseas expeditionary campaign with inadequate resources.

The same might be said for the rest of the campaign. The Panzerarmee made an ad hoc attempt to break thought the British bottleneck at El Alamein in July. It failed, coming to grief against British defenses on the Ruweisat ridge. There was a second, more deliberate, attempt in August. After an initial breakthrough, it crashed into strong British defenses at Alam Halfa ridge and it, too, failed. After yet another long pause, a “third battle of El Alamein” began in late October. This time, it was the well supplied British on the attack, however, and they managed to smash through the Panzerarmee and drive Rommel and company back, not hundreds of miles, but more than a thousand, out of the desert altogether and into Tunisia. There was still fighting to be done in Africa, but the “desert war” was over.

It isn’t easy, but we must strip this entire operational sequence of the romance and legend in which we have wrapped it. In North Africa, a hard-driving commander and a handful of German divisions who yielded to no one in terms of “fighting strength” (Kampfpkraft)  became enmeshed in a campaign for which they were singularly unsuited:  one that was far-flung, logistics-heavy, and reliant on naval supply (an unreliable foreign navy, at that). That they had their successes at first should surprise no one; the Wehrmacht was still undefeated against the British army at this point in the war. That they would eventually succumb in the long run to two world empires--one (the British) waning, one (the Americans) just beginning to wax--should equally surprise no one. At Gazala, those American Grant tanks had been the margin of survival for the British 8th Army, even after the awful shock of the opening. At “Third Alamein,” General Bernard Law Montgomery spearheaded his decisive offensive with another technological marvel, at least by desert standards, the U.S. M4 Sherman. Later analysts malign the Sherman for its performance in the European theater; such a negative assessment would have been surprising to those frantic German and Italian tankers facing the Sherman at Alamein. The Wehrmacht would boast of its Kampfkraft until the end of the war, but it would look increasingly hapless in the face of the materiel and logistical superiority of its combined enemies.

During the war, Rommel and the Afrika Korps acquired a reputation for invincibility. Article after article in the German press equated Rommel with the great Prussian- German captains of the past: Friedrich Wilhelm von Seydlitz, Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, Paul von Hindenburg. We understand this process today, and it’s fair enough. Josef Goebbels and his propaganda machine had a job to do. Nearly seventy years after the crushing German defeat at El Alamein, however, it is time to free ourselves from the grip of Dr. Goebbels. While we all love our legends, we should admit that Rommel and the Afrika Korps came much closer to a decisive victory in fantasy than they did in fact.

This piece originally appeared in MHQ magazine, Summer 2012.

The Rommel Myth: Fact or Fiction?

Oliver – Year 11 Student, THEGSALJOURNAL, 06/02/20

Editor’s Note: Oliver Y11 writes expertly on Rommel, general and military theorist. He examines the validity of the ‘Rommel Myth’, addressing his prowess in battle and beyond, and answering the question at the crux of the myth: was Rommel a Nazi? Mei – Chief Editor, Humanities Journal

Erwin Rommel is described in a plethora of ways. To many, despite his role in the Second World War as one of Hitler’s leading officers, he was ‘a good German’, a man whom even Winston Churchill described as a great general. In Germany, the twenty-two ‘Rommel’ streets and two army barracks named after him show the deep admiration still present for the ‘Desert Fox’. His victories, and even his defeats, are still examined in military compounds around the world. Historians and politicians alike praise his supposed morals, and he has been immortalised in not one, but two Hollywood films.

Evidently, the question is not whether Rommel has had an impact upon society, but whether this said impact is supported by fact or fiction. Known as the ‘The Rommel myth’, it essentially involves three elements: firstly, that the Field Marshall was a military genius. Secondly, that the war fought in North Africa was a ‘clean war’ and finally, that Rommel was not a Nazi. Created by a number of prominent Allied military officers and politicians, spread through film and literature, it ultimately aimed to help reconcile West Germany with Britain and America after World War Two; not an easy task, though nonetheless one it has succeeded in. However, after decades of invincibility, the character of Rommel is under investigation once more, not only in this essay, but globally. Disputes among the German government are surfacing over the Field Marshall’s role as the poster boy of the Bundeswehr (the German army), his association with a genocidal regime, and even his long acknowledged military genius is under scrutiny. This essay will aim to both shed light upon the complex nature of one of the Second World War’s icons, and to decide to what extent he can be considered a humane soldier, a great general, and a devoted Nazi.  

Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel was born in November 1891 to a family of five. By all accounts, he was more fascinated with mechanics than war; nevertheless, he joined the military in 1912 aged 18. His service in WW1, which involved service in Romania and Italy, was very successful and he made a name for himself with his characteristically fast-paced maneuvers. As recognition of his service, he received the ‘Pour Le Mérite’, the highest decoration available in Germany at the time. Having said this, he was still a relatively obscure figure as the war drew to a close in 1918. Although what historians refer to as the ‘Rommel Myth’ had not yet begun, it would appear that his military genius still reared its head. So far, that part of the legend at least is intact.

Subsequently, 1919 marked the conception of Rommel’s chivalrous reputation. He was ordered to Friedrichshafen, Lake Constance, a region in Germany tortured by unrest and radical sentiment. Having subdued his rebellious troops through ‘sheer force of personality’, he was directed to Lindau. This town had been overrun by revolutionary communists, and it appeared that it would meet a bloody fate, just like the numerous other rebellions flaring up across Bavaria at the time. Incredibly, Rommel managed to negotiate a peaceful surrender of the town without any casualties. For those who would now consider Rommel a Nazi, the fact that he spared a town of communists, regarded as Hitler’s greatest enemies, curiously appears to avoid scrutiny. We can imagine the impact that this turbulent period had on Rommel, with an enfeebled Germany tearing itself apart. This might have caused resentment as it did with Hitler, yet the incidents at Constance appear to suggest otherwise.

It was not until 1934 that Rommel met Hitler for the first time. The ultimate mystery of Rommel is the extent of his fascist beliefs, and whilst there is a paucity of evidence from this period, the fact that Hitler appointed him commander of the ‘Führerbegleitbatallion’, his personal guard, suggests that the two men had cordial relations. However, conflict over the level of training Hitler Youth Members should receive (1937) suggests that he was not a lackey of the Nazi government. It was in 1937 that Rommel published his most famous book, ‘Infanterie greiftan’, or ‘Infantry Attacks’; it became an immediate best seller, and Hitler himself owned a copy. Military historians often refer to this work as ‘Blitzkrieg for the Infantry’, and whilst controversial at the time, it displays many of the innovative tactics that Rommel had theorised. Whilst being a flawed general, Rommel had a certain talent for thinking outside the box – it must be remembered that as Rommel imagined the war of movement that would define the Second World War, the Allied commanders in 1940 were preparing for a re-run of WW1.

When the invasion of Poland began on September the 1^st, Rommel, as commander of Hitler’s security, followed him everywhere. Since the Fuhrer insisted on travelling close to the front in his armoured train, the general was frequently able to observe Panzer divisions in action. When the Poland campaign drew to a close in early October, Rommel began to lobby for command of one of them, having witnessed the power of its formations – it is worth noting that at this point only ten existed. It is a testament to the deep admiration Hitler had for Rommel that his request was accepted, despite the protests of several officers of superior rank within the German Army. Thus, by May 1940, Rommel was in command of the Seventh Panzer division, and his exploits were to captivate the German people.

At dawn on May 10^th, ‘Fall Gelb’ began. As German units marched into the Low Countries, the Seventh Panzer Division entered the Ardennes, a heavily-wooded area of hills, which the French High Command considered impassable for tanks. Rommel initially followed orders, but six days into the invasion of France, ignored all the pleas of the OKW (German High Command) and pushed on over the next six weeks towards the English Channel, encircling the British Expeditionary Force. By the following morning, the entire French Second Army Corps had been completely shattered, and Rommel had lost a mere thirty-six men. During this period, his unit had disappeared from the view of the OKW, a recurring theme that earned it the name ‘Ghost Division’. Panzer divisions Following the Battle of France, although Rommel was awarded the Knight’s Cross in recognition of his service, his actions and those of the other Panzer commanders had stunned most German generals, and with good reason. While military strategists tend to look back at what is named ‘Blitzkrieg’ with admiration, Rommel had taken huge risks with little consideration of the logistical problems attached to his advance. The majority of the German Army still relied on horses for supplies, and could not hope to keep up with the rapid Panzers. Having said this, The Major General probably recognized the confusion that riddled French soldiers following the attack through the Ardennes, and it was certainly right to exploit it. Furthermore, Rommel was reportedly everywhere at once – he directed river crossings, observed surrenders and moved with his vanguard. By doing so, he showed his peers that he could lead from the front and proved his prowess as an operational General. As France capitulated soon after Rommel reached the Channel coast, his reputation as a military genius was assured.

Yet there is more to be said about the other aspects of the ‘Rommel myth’. There are various reports of atrocities committed by Rommel’s troops that could tarnish his reputation for chivalry. Some historians claim that the Seventh Panzer division executed Colonial French troops. Others sugguest that human shields were created using other POWs, although none of these incidents can be traced directly back to Rommel. Furthermore, certain historians argue that the large numbers of fanatic Nazi officers present in his formation made these atrocities inevitable. However, one controversy can certainly be traced to Rommel. The German personally ordered the execution of a French officer who refused to cooperate, having been taken prisoner thrice. Some historians argue that this was a viable legal option, others that it was a war crime; the fact that the officer wasn’t armed makes the action unchivalrous at best, even if not technically a war crime. Regardless, it must be remembered that Rommel would have been under the most tremendous pressure at this time, and that this appears to have been an isolated incident.

Rommel’s success in France, combined with the disastrous Italian assault into Egypt (June 1940), influenced Hitler to assign him head of the ‘Afrika Korps’, a mere two divisions that were supposed to stiffen the Italian army in Libya. Upon arrival, Rommel, although subordinate to the Italian officers, defied all orders and began a limited offensive against British positions in the desert. Taking Commonwealth forces by complete surprise, what started as a minor offensive turned into a semi-rout, as the Allies were pushed back into Egypt, with the exception of those holed up in Tobruk. It would appear that this confirms Rommel’s military genius, with this operation being one of his many decisive victories in North Africa. He seems to be a general capable of ruthless exploitation of opportunity, and many argue that his eventual defeat there was not his fault. However, the North African campaign revealed what was probably the Field Marshall’s greatest strategic flaw: Rommel seemed to have no consideration for logistics.

The Axis effort in North Africa was marred by supply problems throughout, many caused by the RAF’s interference from their strategic island base on Malta. However, many more were caused by Rommel himself; for his reckless advances, whilst apparently successful, always met an eventual end when German and Italian forces ran out of fuel and ammunition. Whilst many suggest that his advances were worthwhile regardless, I would argue that the decisive Allied victory at El Alamein, which began a colossal retreat by his army (which to his credit was conducted very efficiently) and ultimate defeat in Africa, was caused more by the exhaustion of his own troops rather than the skill of Allied forces. Either way, most, if not all, of Rommel’s defeats were caused by logistical faults that could have, and perhaps should have, been prevented.

The aspect of the myth that can be confirmed from the war in Africa is Rommel’s reputation for chivalry. Although treatment of African POWs at the hands of Italian guards is reported by some to have been appalling, Rommel would have been in no position to stop it, for his authority over Italian forces extended only to the battlefield. Furthermore, he regularly enquired about the condition of POWs in all camps, although did this with limited success. He seems to have been widely respected by British troops as a humane general, and there are numerous tales from both Allied and Axis troops describing how Rommel ensured that injured Allied soldiers received medical supplies. Perhaps this anecdotal evidence cannot be confirmed. However, veterans of the Allied ‘Desert Rats’ have agreed with Rommel that ‘the war in Africa was the nearest thing to a war without hate’.

Thus, as we enter 1944, with Rommel now posted in Normandy, it would appear that two of the three aspects of the ‘Rommel Myth’ are intact: our subject seems a talented, albeit flawed, military leader, as well as humane a general as circumstance would allow. Yet it is not that simple. For there is still the most important part of the myth to examine: the question of whether Rommel was a Nazi.

Most historians are certain that Rommel admired Hitler and his policies at first. It was only understandable for the German people, having witnessed economic depression, civil strife and the soul-destroying experience of WW1, to desire a new national identity and reclaim ‘Greater Germany’ – although Rommel’s diary entries suggest that he was originally unaware of the full extent of Hitler’s aims. However, there are some claims that Jewish citizens in Tripoli were mistreated throughout the war, though once again, there is no hard evidence to support them. More sinister and clear were Hitler’s intentions in Egypt after a German victory there. The infamous ‘Einsatzgruppen’ that plagued the Eastern Front throughout the war were ready to be sent to Egypt at a moment’s notice in order to ‘cleanse’ the cities of the Nile and Palestine of Jews and ‘other undesirables’. Although these plans were abandoned following the battles of El Alamein, Rommel must have been aware of them as the commanding officer of the proposed ‘Einsatzgruppen Egypt’ was sent to report to him in Africa, though this in itself provides no indication of his personal perspective on the matter.

All of this evidence appears pale in significance when compared to the 1944 July Bomb Plot, the now legendary incident in which conspirators from across the Wehrmacht attempted to assassinate Hitler on the 20^th July for the good of Germany. The ‘Rommel Myth’ created in the 1950s emphasised Rommel’s part in the plot, a claim validated by Rommel’s forced suicide after being implicated by those enduring the mass torture that followed the failed assassination attempt. The idea that Rommel was a conspirator has since been rejected by many, and most historians today believe that although he was sympathetic towards the conspiracy, he was never directly involved. However, evidence unearthed in 2018 suggests a deeper involvement, with a collection of photos, eyewitness accounts and British records all pointing towards a conclusion I personally agree with: that Rommel was a conspirator in the attempt to kill Hitler. This suggests that he cannot be considered a Nazi in terms of the horrors associated with the word – a statement backed up by the fact Rommel never joined the Party itself.

Although we may never truly know the extent to which Rommel can be considered a ‘Nazi’, despite fierce debate over half a century, I believe that most of the legend associated with the ‘Myth’ is valid. Despite his various flaws, Rommel was certainly a talented strategist with a ‘killer instinct’ when it came to war, and his humane treatment of POWs won him the admiration of those who fought against him.

Bibliography

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United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. ‘’Erwin Rommel’’. Holocaust encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/erwin-rommel. Accessed on 06/05/2020
Hoffmann, Karl (2004). Erwin Rommel, 1891–1944. Commanders in Focus. London: Brassey’s.
Pimlott, John, ed. (1994). Rommel: In His Own Words. London: Greenhill Books.

Remy, Maurice Philip (2002). Mythos Rommel (in German). Munich: List Verlag.

Hemmings, Jay. “The WWII POW Who Sank A German Ship With A Milk Tin!”. Warhistoryonline. Retrieved 09/05/2020.
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