Rommel: The Myth, The General, The Conspirator

On the fifteenth of February 1941, a German combat unit arrived in the city of Tripoli, Libya. Its commander was about to receive an unprecedented glory. Soon, millions of people were watching early footage from the battlefield in North Africa on newsreels, and documentary television programmes are still showing it today.

Goebbels wanted to elevate him to the status of a folk hero, but he was difficult to approach. The footage showed him as one of the soldiers, a general having a meal with his men. But official propaganda can be misleading, that is, after all, its job. Rommel really pushed himself to the limits. Soldiers said that in battle he was always in the front ranks. But this could also mean that he had lost his sense of reality.

So was he really a military genius or just one of many mediocre officers?

There is still a shimmer of mystery surrounding Rommel, but one thing is certain: he became the most popular German general in the Second World War – and a legend.

The Warrior

Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel was born on 15 November 1891 in Heidenheim an der Brenz, the third of five children of Helene and Erwin, who was a schoolmaster. As a boy, he was impressed by the zeppelin works at Lake Constance and wanted to become an aeronautical engineer, but his father sent him to the military academy.

By the age of 20, he was a lieutenant and training infantry cadets in the small town of Weingarten in southern Germany. The young officer had a girlfriend, Walburga Steiner. In 1913 she became pregnant. In December 1913, an illegitimate daughter, Gertrude, was born. The young officer had to choose between a military career and marriage. He chose the former.

In August 1914, the First World War began. Rommel wrote to his sister. “If I die, I have only one wish, and that is to know that poor Trudel and Walburga will be taken care of. I love them more than I love myself and I want to make amends for the wrong I have done them.”

Rommel became a fighter. He fought in France and Romania. He was always in the middle of the action and was wounded several times. He was promoted and decorated. In September 1915, he was transferred as a company commander to the newly formed Royal Württemberg Mountain Battalion of the Alpine Corps, which was considered one of the best units of the German army among the Allies. In November 1916, during a respite between battles, he married Lucia Maria Mollin, whom he had met while studying at the cadet school.

In September 1917, the Alpine Corps was sent to the Soča front. The highest German decoration, the “pour le Mérite”, was reserved for the capture of Matajur. Rommel wanted to earn it. After two days of fighting, he took its summit on 27 October at the head of his 150 men in a counter-attack. They captured 81 guns and 9000 Italian soldiers, including 150 officers, while they themselves had six dead and 30 wounded.

But the medal went to someone else. Rommel felt robbed of a well-deserved prize. He complained. He then had to wait several weeks before he found out that his appeal had been granted. The fear of being ignored haunted him all his life.

After the defeat and the Versailles Agreement, the German army was reduced to just one hundred thousand men. These were bad times for a professional soldier. Rommel gave up the thought of a glorious career and instead of training as a general staff officer, volunteered for service in a rural garrison. He wanted to be with the soldiers.

In 1929 he became a lecturer at the Infantry Training School in Dresden. He now had a son and retired to private life. Germany no longer needed soldiers like him.

Then, on 30 January 1933, Adolf Hitler took power. That was the end of democracy. Military officers were not allowed to be political, but the new Chancellor openly courted them. On 14 September 1934, Hitler visited Goslar on the occasion of the harvest festival. The newly appointed garrison commander, Erwin Rommel, presented his troops.

He was promoted. He became a lecturer in tactical warfare at the military academy in Potsdam. In 1937, his book Infanterie greift an (Infantry Attack) was published, in which he described his experiences in the First World War. It became a bestseller and Adolf Hitler was one of the many who owned it.

In 1938, after the annexation of Austria, Rommel was promoted again. He became head of the military academy in Wiener Neustadt. Now, here too, the appalling nature of the regime became apparent. Rommel, like many others, considered the Jewish question, although negative, to be of minor importance compared with Germany’s achievements in other areas.

In March 1939 Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia. Rommel was appointed his Chief of Staff. It was more a question of appearance than military reasons. For a short time, Rommel belonged to Hitler’s inner circle, but he did not know that Hitler was planning war. He told friends and relatives: “As long as my generation, which lived through the world war, is alive, you can be sure that there will not be another.”

He was wrong; on 1 September 1939, Germany invaded Poland.

Rommel was promoted to Major-General. He was responsible for Hitler’s security. He now knew the dictator better and he wrote to his wife: “I am often with the firer, even in the most confidential meetings. This confidence gives me pleasure, even more than my rank as a general.

We always have a long meeting in the evening and sometimes he asks my opinion. It is wonderful to witness the clarity with which he solves problems. Last night I was allowed to sit next to him. Finally, the soldiers are appreciated again.” He honoured the dictator.

And Hitler liked Rommel too. He did not show the usual contempt for him as he did for the General Staff. Rommel was different from most officers. He was a self-taught man and a man of action, just like Hitler.

He was immediately assigned to a panzer division, which was unusual for an infantry officer. It was a sign of Hitler’s favour and Rommel was able to prove himself when France was attacked. As in the First World War, he penetrated across the country at the head of his men.

On 18 June 1940, the day France capitulated, Mussolini arrived in Munich. Only a week earlier he had declared war on France and Britain. Now the Duce was counting himself among the victors and he wanted more.

Libya was then an Italian colony. In September, Mussolini’s troops in Libya attacked British forces in Egypt. The desert war began. The offensive penetrated only 90 kilometres. There were no reinforcements. The Italian forces were exhausted. In December, the British forces in Egypt counter-attacked. Within eight weeks, the Italian army in Libya was destroyed. The colony appeared to be lost. Mussolini appealed to his ally for help.

The Desert Fox

It took an unusual man to fight a desert war. Rommel was sent from occupied France to North Africa. It was the chance of a lifetime.

Gerd Schmückle, who was with him as a lieutenant in occupied France, later recalled: “I said to him: ‘Sir, I think you will find two things in the desert, first God and then destruction.’ Rommel replied: ‘Schmückle, perhaps I will find both.’”

The first German tanks arrived in Tripoli, the capital of Libya, on 12 March 1941. Rommel, now commander of German forces in Africa, personally came to the port to supervise the landing. His mission was to stop the British advance. But he was in anything but an enviable position. He therefore resorted to cunning to show himself strong. He ordered the tank drivers to drive around the buildings and line up again for a pass.

Immediately after the parade, he sent his troops into the desert to fight the British. And again he came up with a trick. “In the desert you saw clouds of dust rising mile after mile. It looked as if long columns of vehicles were advancing,” recounted Melchior von Schlippenbach, Rommel’s staff officer. “It was Rommel’s idea. He had a propeller engine mounted on the back of the Volkswagon, which kicked up clouds of dust. He sent three Volkswagens so converted out into the desert, and the enemy’s scouts thought they were penetrating a whole regiment.”

But Rommel did not know that his tricks were unnecessary. British forces were being moved into Greece. Finally, after 900 kilometres of advance, at the desert fortress of El Agheila, the first clash with the enemy took place. One of the assault units was led by Lieutenant Winrich Behr.

“I went with a small detachment on foot along the coast. It was at night. We took the fort, but it soon became apparent that there were no British soldiers there, apart from thousands of fleas. It was only in the morning mist that they came with some reconnaissance vehicles.

We destroyed them and that was that. That was the first major encounter with the English. Because it was of strategic importance, the German newspapers wrote about it as if the fortress of El Agheila was a kind of Verdun and we were going to achieve a great victory. In reality, it was a child’s play between the cowboys and the Indians.”

Rommel did not object to being used for propaganda. He became the star of the newsreels. Now he could no longer be overlooked. A myth was being born. “We felt it especially when we were on leave,” recalled Count Hubert Neippberg, Rommel’s staff officer in Africa. “People were only interested in Rommel. Do you know Rommel? Have you seen Rommel? It was crazy. Everything revolved around him.”

In just two weeks, Rommel retook Cirenaica and advanced all the way to the Egyptian border. There was only one place he could not take – Tobruk. Rommel did not know that the Italians had turned it into a heavily fortified stronghold. This port city was surrounded by 126 perfectly camouflaged bunkers, barbed wire, minefields and tank traps. Now the British elite troops were waiting in readiness. Unbeknown to them, the first German soldiers had penetrated the fortress. They came under terrible fire. Rommel wanted Tobruk at any cost. His soldiers paid the price. 1240 men were killed, wounded and captured.

In Berlin, more and more complaints were heard about the behaviour of the autocratic general. He was accused of not having a complete overview of events and of treating his men too harshly, recklessly and even insultingly. In May 1941, the Chief of the General Staff of the German Army, Franz Halder, tried to get rid of “this mad soldier”, as he was called.

Hitler, however, did not want to hear anything about it. He needed a man like Rommel for Africa, someone who could achieve a lot with modest means.

Rommel was only interested in his war. His Chief of Staff later described him as “an unyielding, hard and impersonal man”. Nevertheless, his greatness was acknowledged above all by the soldiers who often saw him at the front in the middle of battle, so close that a bullet could hit him as well as them.

At dawn on 18 November 1941, Australian troops made a sortie from their base at Tobruk. This marked the beginning of the British counter-offensive. Three weeks later, Rommel had no choice but to retreat. Nine months after that, the Afrika Korps was back where it started its breakthrough, at El Agheila. German dominance in North Africa seemed to be over.

Then, on 5 January 1942, for the first time in a long time, a naval convoy arrived without any losses, bringing 54 new tanks. Rommel pushed ahead again. Successfully, on 29 January the Germans took Benghazi for a second time.

From a military point of view, it was a trivial victory, but Hitler, speaking the next day in Berlin’s Sportpalast, desperately needed it. His wartime conquests in Russia had stalled, so Rommel’s victory was used to distract the public from the disasters on the Eastern Front. “There is no doubt that Rommel was used as a hero by Hitler and Goebbels, and, if I may be critical, he did not object,” said General Staff Officer Ulrich de Mazière.

On 25 January 1942, Rommel wrote to his wife: “Dearest Lu. Isn’t it wonderful that I can work for the firer, for the nation and for a new idea. Your Erwin.”

The Firer presented Colonel-General Rommel with a medal: oak leaves with swords for the Knight’s Cross and the Iron Cross. He was only the sixth officer to receive it.

Meanwhile, in the East, Hitler was fighting a war of total annihilation. Rommel did not yet know about the mass killings of Jewish men, women and children behind the front. His battlefield was far away. “I must point out something, and I must point it out with great respect and responsibility: as far as I knew the Afrika Korps, there was never any anti-Jewish reference or hint,” even Rabbi Isaac Levy, who served as a military chaplain in the British army in Africa and was captured by the Germans, admitted. Rommel was a soldier, he refused to accept Hitler’s racial mania.

In May, he began to advance again with the intention of taking Tobruk. Bir Hacheim was south of the British position in Gazala. There were 3,600 troops dug in – the British were joined by the French under General de Gaulle. Among them were members of the Foreign Legion. Pierre Messme, a French officer of the Foreign Legion in Bir Hacheim, said: ‘We had Poles, Serbs, Croats and even Austrians. They joined the Foreign Legion after the Anschluss because they refused to be annexed by Hitler.”

News of the Germans and Austrians in the Foreign Legion also reached Hitler’s staff and on 9 June Rommel was ordered to deal with them with the utmost severity. They were to be killed without mercy. “Rommel was shocked that we should shoot people who were only doing their duty as we were. He said: ‘That will not happen. I can’t be responsible for this’,” recalled Friedrich Hauber, a guide in Rommel’s staff.

On 11 June, the Germans took Bir Hacheim; 2,619 so-called Free French fled, 500 were captured. Under the peace agreement with France, they were considered guerrillas and also faced the death penalty. But Rommel insisted that they should not execute men who were fighting a regular battle and wearing a uniform. His duplicity is also evident in this case: he resisted the orders to execute him, but he has not yet examined his conscience because he is serving a criminal regime.

Nevertheless, the desert war was as murderous as any other, and Rommel put himself in harm’s way again and again. During the attack on Gazala, a shell hit his car. His first staff officer, General Siegfried Westphal, was wounded. Rommel’s second staff officer Melchior von Schlippenbach described the incident:

“Rommel, myself and the driver Leipzig were all fine, but Westphal was wounded in the back. He was bleeding all over. Rommel said, ‘Schlippenbach, Leipzig, we have to get out of here.’ I was in a quandary. I understood that Rommel could not stay, it was too dangerous, but on the other hand I was astonished that he expected me to go with him and leave Westphal there. I told Leipzig to take the Field Marshal back and I would stay.”

Schlippenbach rescued Colonel Westphal and three days later, while visiting the wounded, Rommel met a man he was sure was dead. “He later said something to me that seemed very reasonable even at the time,” Schlippenbach said. “He said: ‘As a commander, you are responsible for thousands of lives, so you cannot get involved in the fate of an individual. If you do that, you lose sight of the big picture and you can no longer act responsibly.’ That seemed wise to me.”

On 20 June 1942, in the early hours of the morning, Rommel’s forces finally broke through the outer defences of Fort Tobruk. Victory was now within reach.

At dawn, the last obstacle – the tank traps – had been removed and the way into the fortress was clear.

In the early hours of 21 June 1942, the British forces at Fort Tobruk in Libya surrendered. 33,000 British soldiers fell prisoner. Rommel led German and Italian troops in North Africa for more than 16 months.

“I think we heard on the news at about 11pm that Rommel had been promoted to Field Marshal,” recalled Rommel’s chauffeur Helmut von Leipzig. “Gunter and I decided to wake the old man up and tell him. He was asleep at the time. We woke him up and said: ‘It gives us great pleasure to announce that you have been promoted to Field Marshal.’ He sat up in bed for a moment and said: ‘Thank you very much, but the war goes on.’”

Tobruk was the pinnacle of Erwin Rommel’s career. But he did not know that on the same day he lost the war in North Africa.

Loser

On 2 October 1942, Hitler handed Rommel the Field Marshal’s baton in Berlin. He appeared to be a loyal supporter of the regime, but appearances were deceiving. Rommel no longer believed it was possible to win in North Africa and soon began to doubt Hitler himself.

British Prime Minister Churchill learned of the fall of Tobruk in Washington from US President Roosevelt. “It was the first time in my life that I had seen a Prime Minister tremble with fear,” his Chief of Staff Alan Brooke later wrote in his memoirs.

Roosevelt immediately asked how the US could help and offered a large number of Sherman tanks. Churchill never forgot this generous act. The first supply convoys left the US just ten days after the fall of Tobruk. This sealed the fate of the German forces.

After the fall of Tobruk, the British 8th Army withdrew. Rommel had no choice but to use the advantage he had. If he wanted to defeat the British, he had to pursue them. He ordered an advance into Egypt, where most of the British forces were stationed. His hunting instinct told him that once he had driven the enemy to flight, he must not leave them alone. Whatever the situation, he wanted to pursue without waiting for reinforcements.

“Not only Rommel, but the whole staff was filled with endless optimism,” von Schlippenbach recalled. “We had already seen each other in Cairo. We were thinking about which hotel to go to and where to have our headquarters. We were overwhelmed with excitement. We discussed meeting in Palestine with the groups that were infiltrating from the Caucasus. We would come across the Suez Canal from the south and the Caucasus troops from the north and we would meet there. That was the plan.”

The British were retreating along the coast road towards Egypt. On the twenty-ninth of June, Marsa Matruh fell. It was now only 150 kilometres to Alexandria, where the Royal Navy had already evacuated the port. In Cairo, staff at British HQ were burning archives. On the same day, Mussolini landed in Libya. He did not want to miss the German-Italian victory parade in Alexandria.

But this time Rommel went too far. He demanded too much of his men. A hitherto completely unknown place marked a turning point in the war in North Africa – and in Rommel’s career. British war reporter Dennis Johnston described it thus: “A small railway station with nothing for hundreds of miles around it. This is El Alamein.”

A hundred kilometres outside the gates of Alexandria, General Auchinleck, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces in the Middle East, erected an improvised last line of defence.

This was the narrowest point between the coast and the impassable Qatar Depression – and the tank units had to go through there. In early July 1942, heavy fighting at El Alamein halted Rommel’s advance.

“On arriving at El Alamein, I saw the ridiculously few tanks and other vehicles we had available. I also realised how exhausted the soldiers were. I realised that it could not go on like this,” von Leipzig recalled his feelings. Rolf Munninger, Rommel’s telegraph operator, was of a similar opinion: “I can still see Rommel now. He was furious. He couldn’t understand what had happened at three or four kilometres. I realised that we had reached a point from which we could go no further.”

At the same time, for the first time, British airmen achieved dominance of the skies over North Africa. Their airfields were close and the reinforcement system worked well. The tide of war was turning. Rommel’s position at El Alamein was becoming more critical by the day.

On 18 July he wrote to his wife: “Dearest Lu. It cannot go on like this or the front will fall apart. These are the most difficult days of my military life. You know that I am a relentless optimist, but there are times when everything is completely gloomy. Your Erwin.” Now he only showed confidence in front of the cameras.

On 8 August 1942, Churchill visited British troops in North Africa. He was accompanied by Rommel’s new opponent, Lieutenant-General Bernhard Law Montgomery. He had a reputation as a man with a head of his own. He wore the black beret of an ordinary tank driver. This was to endear him to his men. But he was also marked by an unyielding determination.

“There will be no more retreat. I have ordered the burning of all plans for further retreat. Our men will destroy the Axis forces in North Africa. We can and will achieve this,” Montgomery declared with conviction on 14 August 1942.

At Bletchley Park, the British Secret Service had been trying for years to crack the German Enigma code, and in the second half of 1942 they began to succeed. This was Operation Ultra. The Germans still thought their code was perfectly secure, but now the British Secret Service was listening in, and Montgomery was one of the first to benefit from this new weapon. He was now aware of Rommel’s intentions.

He hung a picture of Rommel on the wall of his headquarters, as if to help him read his mind. “This was another myth that Monty exploited,” said Lord Michael Carver, Montgomery’s staff officer, “He read Rommel’s mind not from his picture but because of Operation Ultra. But he had a good grasp of public relations and he made sure they were good. For a general, that’s very useful.”

With each day that passed, the British gained more strength. Rommel’s supply situation, however, did not improve. He needed everything – spare parts, ammunition, fuel.

Mussolini and Hitler urged him to attack, but he hesitated. To top it all, he began to feel unwell and on 24 August 1942 he was examined at the military hospital in Marsa Matruh. He had already asked Hitler for a replacement. His doctor wrote: “His present condition is due to extreme physical and mental strain.”

But Rommel had no choice. He was not well, but he had to launch one last great offensive. The morning before the attack, he told his doctor: “Professor, the decision to attack today is the most difficult of my life. Either we succeed in taking Grozny in Russia and reach the Suez Canal here in Africa, or …”

On 30 August 1942, his troops were in position. His opponent, Montgomery, knew every detail of the plan, thanks to his deciphering of the German codes. Rommel’s last offensive began in the evening. His men marched towards destruction.

“The word was that the Germans were going to break through. We were ordered not to shoot at them but to let them through. When the trucks arrived with infantry and supplies, we were to destroy them. The Germans got through with about 50 tanks and we smashed the infantry,” recalled Alf Davies, a British soldier in Africa.

After three days, Rommel had to stop. It was all over. There was despondency in his headquarters. Colonel Westphal said, “If we do not take El Alamein, Africa is lost.” The Chief of Staff, Friedrich Hauber, added, quietly, so that only Westphal could hear him, “No, sir, the war is lost.”

Rommel left Africa on 23 September. He was to go for medical treatment. When he recovered, Hitler wanted to send him to the East, but as he was leaving, Rommel promised, “If fighting breaks out, I will stop the treatment and go straight back to Africa.”

Six days later, he arrived in Berlin. Hitler wanted to give him the Field Marshal’s baton in person. He was received by the Goebbels family. The Propaganda Minister offered him a room for the night.

In Berlin, they could no longer turn a blind eye to the crimes against the Jews. Not even Rommel, when his former staff officer Melchior von Schlippenbach got married. “He asked me where I wanted to live. I said probably Berlin, and he promised me a letter of recommendation for Minister Speer.”

Von Schlippenbach did not know that Speer shared the flats that belonged to the deported Jews. “My wife and I drove to the flat,” he described. “It was not empty. There was a woman with a Star of David and two children in it. I was shocked. I apologised, saying that I must have made a mistake. I went back to the Ministry, to Councillor Sommer – you never forget the names of these rotters. I told him that he had put me in an embarrassing position. I said that the flat was not empty. He said: ‘How, have they not been picked up yet? Do you like the flat? I will make sure they are taken away in the morning. Then all you have to do is disinfect the apartment and you can move in.’”

Von Schlippenbach refused the offer. “When I told Rommel that probably all the flats Speer shares are owned by Jews, he said he didn’t think Speer knew that. I think he was sure of it. I may be a little naïve, but I am sure that he sincerely believed that Minister Speer did not know that. That was his reaction.”

Goebbels, meanwhile, continued to use Rommel for propaganda purposes. On 1 October, a press conference was called. Although the situation in North Africa looked almost hopeless, Rommel seemed optimistic. He said: “Today we are 100 kilometres from Alexandria and Cairo. The gates of Egypt are in sight. We intend to be successful.” But even he no longer believed his own words.

Meanwhile, in El Alamein, Montgomery was preparing for the decisive battle. “From our observation post we could see the British. They were going into position, tanks were deploying, guns were being mounted. So we had an idea of what was coming as early as September,” said Helmuth Orschiedt, a German captain at El Alamein.

On 21 October 1942, Montgomery had 200,000 troops, more than a thousand tanks and 1,500 aircraft at El Alamein. This was three times more than the Germans and Italians combined.

The British attack began on 23 October at 21.40 sharp.

Rolf Völker, a German soldier at El Alamein, recalled: ‘There is no way to describe it. Even though you’re in cover, you think you’re going to get hit any minute. It was a miracle that they didn’t kill us all. The artillery actually fired on individual soldiers. Not a foot of sand was left untouched.”

Montgomery stirred up vengeance in his soldiers. “All, absolutely all, must be imbued with a burning desire to kill Germans,” he instructed.

Despite heavy casualties, the Germans and Italians managed to withstand the first attack. Rommel’s successor in Africa, General Stumme, wanted to go to the front to get an overview of the situation. Colonel Westphal advised him against it, saying he did not know the terrain. But he insisted and went with Colonel Buchting, the head of intelligence.

After a few kilometres, Stumme came under enemy shelling. He suffered a fatal heart attack and his body was left in the desert. “The driver returned without his commander, General. It was a catastrophe,” recalled Stumme’s intelligence officer Heinz Plümacher. “The British were attacking and we were left without a commander-in-chief.”

On the twenty-fourth of October 1942, Rommel was in Wiener Neustadt. He was still unaware of Stumme’s death. His daughter Gertrude was visiting him. “My mother told me that they had called from Firer’s headquarters,” said Josef Pan, Rommel’s grandson. “The firer was on the line and asked for Field Marshal Rommel. Hitler personally told him to go to Vienna, catch a plane to Naples and on to Africa because the British had attacked at El Alamein.”

Twenty-four hours later, Rommel was back in Africa. British forces were attacking his defensive lines without respite. Now it was only a matter of time before they broke through. On the fourth day of the attack, at 21.15, Colonel Westphal, the first staff officer, informed Rommel that the British had broken through the 125th Armoured Regiment’s positions and asked what they should do.

Westphal asked if they were to be ready at 06.00 the next morning, and Rommel said, “No, tonight at 23.00.”

News of Rommel’s withdrawal reached Hitler’s headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia, in the early hours of 3 November 1942. When Hitler learned of the retreat in the morning, he shouted, “Treason!” At 4 p.m., Rommel received a wireless message from his headquarters. Hitler ordered him to stop the retreat and hold his position. “You can only lead your men to victory or to death. Signed: Adolf Hitler.”

Rommel obeyed the order and stopped the retreat. He later wrote: “We all felt as if we had been slapped. For the first time since the fighting began in Africa, I didn’t know what to do.”

Soldier Rommel was internally divided. Should he obey orders or not? 200,000 men deprived of ammunition, fuel and food depended on his decision.

He hesitated for 24 hours, then continued his retreat despite Hitler’s explicit orders. He wrote a farewell letter to his wife. “Dearest Lu. What happens to us is in God’s hands. You and our little boy stay well. I kiss you both. Your Erwin.”

At the same time, German forces in Russia under General Paulus reached the outskirts of Stalingrad. On 19 November 1942, they were surrounded by the Red Army. The Germans had only a few days to break out of the ring. But Paulus hesitated.

Rommel’s staff officer, Melchior Von Schlippenbach, compared the two generals’ defences.

“We can compare El Alamein and Stalingrad and the personalities of Paulus and Rommel. Both knew that their battle would decide the turning point of the war. Both were ordered not to retreat even one metre. One obeyed the order, the other did not. Nothing happened to Rommel. Historians sometimes say that Paulus would have been executed if he had dared to break out of the ring. You know what I say to that? So what! The Field Marshal must risk his life to save the lives of a hundred thousand men.”

By 31 January 1943, 50,000 German soldiers had been killed in Stalingrad and 200,000 had fallen into Russian captivity. Only a few thousand returned home, many years later. Paulus put obedience above the lives of his men. Rommel did not.

Nevertheless, more than 30,000 German and Italian soldiers remained in El Alamein and were taken prisoner. Among them was the German general Wilhelm Knight von Thoma. Montgomery knighted him and invited him to dinner. He won a decisive victory. Rommel’s army was retreating. London breathed a sigh of relief.

“Rommel’s army is defeated. It is broken. As a fighting force it is largely destroyed,” said Winston Churchill in a famous speech on 10 November 1942. “This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is probably the end of the beginning.”

The British intelligence officers at Bletchley Park who cracked the Enigma code were day after day, hour after hour, breaking Rommel’s bitter reports. “The armoured armada is exhausted. We have 24 tanks left. We have 17 tanks left.” And then one day: “We have only eleven tanks left. I could put them on the lawn around my house.”

With Rommel, 70,000 German and 30,000 Italian soldiers were retreating. In his memoirs, he wrote in April 1943: “After all this experience, I can admit only one mistake I made, namely, that I did not break the order ‘victory or death’ 24 hours earlier.”

Hitler reluctantly accepted his insubordination. Rommel was shocked. He said, “I realised that Hitler refused to see the reality of the situation. He was emotionally protecting himself from what reason dictated to him.”

In Alexandria, on 8 November 1942, German and Italian prisoners were marched through the city. On the same day, the Americans landed in Algeria and Morocco. Rommel’s war in North Africa was finally lost.

The Conspirator

The retreat lasted 50 days. Rommel led his troops 1800 kilometres back to Tunisia. They had almost no casualties. The desert fox proved himself one last time. He no longer believed in Hitler’s “final victory”, but he still blamed Hitler’s stubbornness on others who were supposed to have deceived him: Himmler, Göring, Keitel.

Rommel even got used to the idea of becoming a British prisoner of war. In a letter to his wife on 8 December, he wrote: “If you can send me a German-English dictionary by courier, I shall be very grateful. I am sure I shall need it.”

Hitler was not going to let that happen. Another general came to defend Tunisia – Hans-Jürgen von Arnim. Rommel was finally recalled at the beginning of March. They said it was for health reasons. The state propaganda still needed his myth.

His chauffeur, Helmut von Leipzig, took him to the airport. “All the time in North Africa he was my mentor. Now I witnessed how he was replaced by von Arnim, who took over his command. Of course, it was hard for him too. He specifically asked me to take him to the airport. He was not looking forward to going, you could see it on his face. He left with the feeling that everything was over in Africa. He probably already suspected that the final outcome would not be a success either.”

On 9 March 1943, Rommel left Sfax in Tunisia for Africa. Two days earlier he had written to his wife: “Spring is here. The trees are budding, the grass has sprouted and the sun is shining. The world could be so beautiful for everyone. There are endless opportunities for people to be content and happy.”

He was told to return to Wiener Neustadt. He had to live as a civilian in his former command villa. He received news only from the newspapers and the radio. No one in Germany was to know that he had left Africa. State propaganda continued to exploit his myth.

In Tunisia, on 13 May 1943, the German Afrika Korps surrendered; 130,000 German and 180,000 Italian soldiers were taken prisoner. One hundred thousand men lost their lives in the desert war. Von Armin was taken to internment at Camp Clinton in Mississippi, along with 24 other senior German officers.

At the same time, Rommel was summoned to Hitler. He wanted him with him just in case. It looked like Mussolini was going to be overthrown in Italy, and Hitler wanted to prevent a revolution in Italy, so he sent in the armed forces under Rommel’s command.

Although Rommel no longer believed in final victory, he was still loyal to Hitler. On 15 July 1943, Mussolini was deposed in Rome. Marshal Badoglio took power. Hitler suspected treason. Seven weeks later, Italy – Germany’s partner in the Axis powers – laid down its arms. German troops moved in. Rommel took command in northern Italy.

The former allies were now enemies. Hitler issued a proclamation that Italian soldiers who resisted disarmament should be shot. This led to massacres in Greece and southern Italy, but they were not carried out by Rommel’s soldiers. Two weeks after the Germans invaded, Italian soldiers still fighting in northern Italy joined the partisans. But despite the declaration, there was no reprisal in the area under Rommel’s command. Even former partisans admitted this, such as Carlo Talamucci, who said:

“We anti-fascists remember Rommel as the man towards whom we felt the least resistance. We know that he was part of National Socialism and therefore part of German history. But he was a soldier and is not known to have done anything cruel against the Italian resistance movement.”

Rommel was transferred again after only two months. He became defence inspector in the west, where the Allied landings were expected to take place. Hitler still held him in high esteem – he was useful in intimidating the enemy.

Rommel took up his new task as if possessed, as if hope had returned. He believed that an Allied landing could be repelled, and many Germans clung to this hope, such as the General Staff officer, Colonel Count Johann von Kielmansegg, who said many years after the end of the war: “I still think today that we would have had this chance if we had had a different leadership. Not only in the West, everywhere we could have held out long enough for the Allies to be willing to negotiate.”

Rommel had long since given up the idea of final victory, hoping only to negotiate an acceptable peace agreement. But the Allies demanded unconditional surrender, and finally he too realised that peace would never be possible under Hitler.

In February 1944, while on leave at his home in Herrlingen, near Ulm, he was visited by a comrade from the First World War, Karl Strölin, Mayor of Stuttgart and one of the first members of the Nazi Party. In the winter of 1941, as the German advance in Russia began to falter, Strölin began to lose confidence in Hitler. Although he was a committed National Socialist, he joined the anti-Hitler resistance movement. Now he was also trying to persuade Rommel to join him. But to no avail.

Rommel’s then 16-year-old son Manfred later recalled the visit: “When Strölin visited my father in 1944, I was there because I could stay at home when my father was on leave. Strölin said in my presence that all would be lost if Hitler was not removed. My father told him that he would be grateful if he had not said such things in front of me.”

Strölin also told Rommel about the murders of Jews in the gas cells. It was the first time Rommel had heard of it. Admiral Friedrich Ruge, one of his staff officers, wrote in his diary Rommel’s remarks: “Justice, the indispensable foundation of the state. High command tragically dirty, slaughter, terrible guilt.”

On 17 May 1944, a meeting on the state of the war was held in Paris. Nobody knew that the Commander-in-Chief in France, Carl Heinrich von Stülpnagel, was a member of the Resistance. His small group of conspirators in France was very close to Stauffenberg.

The conspirators approached Rommel. He refused them, but he did not betray them. He still hoped that Hitler himself would see the consequences of his position, resign and open the way for peace. But as a soldier, Rommel was realistic enough to realise that an Allied invasion could not be prevented, despite all the defences he had put up.

On 5 June 1944, the German Meteorological Service issued the following weather report for the Atlantic coast: “Low cloud cover at 200 to 300 metres. Winds fifth to sixth degree, rough seas fourth to fifth degree.” In such weather, disembarkation was not possible. Rommel took the opportunity to go home to Herrlingen, near Ulm. The next day was his wife’s birthday.

At around 23:00, the first parachute planes took off from British airports. German meteorologists overlooked a brief lull in the bad weather. On 6 June 1944, at half past seven in the morning, the first British and American troops landed on the Normandy coast. It was D-Day.

Rommel was informed of this at his home in Herrlingen by telephone at seven in the morning. Fourteen hours later he was back at his headquarters. By then the Allies had gained a firm bridgehead. After a week, everyone realised that the invasion had been a success.

Rommel met Gert von Rundstedt, the Supreme Commander in the West, in Paris. They wanted to persuade Hitler to end the war in the West. On 27 June, Rommel and Hitler met for the last time, but Hitler would not let his Field Marshal have a word. At that moment, Stauffenberg was already preparing to assassinate Hitler.

Stülpnagel sent an envoy, Caesar von Hofacker, to Rommel, and on 9 July 1944, in La Roche Guyon, he told Rommel that the assassination was imminent. This was one last attempt to get Rommel to remove Hitler. This time he was successful.

Four days later, Rommel wrote one last letter to Hitler: “The soldiers are fighting like heroes, but this unequal struggle is coming to an end. I think we must come to a conclusion about the reality of the situation. As Commander-in-Chief of the Army Group, I feel it is my duty to make this very clear.”

Rommel did not expect a reply. He had a bold plan. He wanted to end the war himself. His son Manfred confirmed it: “He wanted to surrender in France and let the Americans, the British and the French through. He hoped that after the assassination of Hitler in Berlin, the entry of the Allies and the seizure of power would go smoothly.”

That would have been the end of Hitler. “He wanted to do the best for the country in the circumstances. He knew that it was necessary to make peace with the Allies, otherwise the consequences would be catastrophic. If he had succeeded, Dresden would not have been destroyed and hundreds of cities would not have been destroyed.”

He failed, and after 20 July 1944 more German soldiers were killed than before. Rommel went to the front every day. He had to win the trust of his commanders and try to convince them of his plan. “To save his men, he twice acted in such a way that he could have lost his life. At El Alamein, when he withdrew against orders, and the second time when he conspired with the commanders of his troops,” said Rolf Muninger, a scribe in Rommel’s staff.

On 17 July, Rommel visited Sepp Dietrich, the SS’s leading general and Hitler’s confidant. He asked him point-blank whether he would obey his orders if they conflicted with Hitler’s. Dietrich replied, “You are my commander and I will do whatever you tell me to do.”

Just then, the fighters of 602 Squadron of the RAF were taking off on the Island. Their centre of operations was Livarot in Normandy, and the order they received before their flight was “Stop anything approaching Caen”.

At 18:00, they spotted an open car on the road from Livarot to Vimoutiers. One of the pilots was Jacques Remlinger, a Frenchman who had studied in England and joined the RAF after the outbreak of war. “We were shooting at vehicles, tanks, trucks, staff cars, they were just targets for us. We didn’t know who was in them. At 650 kilometres an hour, there’s no time to exchange bullets.”

Remlinger only found out who he had hit after the war. Rommel was seriously wounded and taken to a military hospital. On 20 July 1944, three days after Rommel was wounded, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg detonated a bomb at Hitler’s headquarters in Rastenburg. The assassination attempt failed.

On 24 July, Rommel wrote to his wife from his sickbed: “Apart from the accident, I was particularly shocked by the attack on Hitler. We can only thank God that he escaped safely.” He knew that others were reading his letters.

He slowly recovered, but his left eye remained severely clouded. Two weeks after that, he was sent home. That was the end of his career.

His staff officer, Melchior von Schlippenbach, remained loyal to him. “Every week, someone from the staff would go to his home, report the situation and ask for advice,” he recalled. “I went twice. One day he got angry. He said, ‘Don’t you think it would have been better if 20 July had worked?’”

On 8 August 1944, the trial of the conspirators began. Roland Freisler was the president of the court. The convicts were hanged the same day, one of them being Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben. The Gestapo continued to interrogate people connected with the assassination. Rommel’s name was also mentioned. According to a recently published document by Hitler’s secretary Martin Bormann: “Several of the accused stated that Field Marshal Rommel was present. He said that after a successful attack he would be at the disposal of the new government.”

Rommel knew he was in danger. He discussed with his son what Hitler’s response might be. “My father was convinced that if he had accepted Keitel’s invitation to come to Berlin, he would have been killed quietly and then they would have made something up,” said Manfred Rommel.

Hitler ordered Rommel to die. He had to commit suicide. He was given no other choice. Hitler wanted to avoid at all costs the public revelation that Rommel was part of the conspiracy.

On 14 October 1944, two generals from the firing squad came to Rommel’s house. They had a capsule of cyanide with them. Rommel knew what to expect. The house was surrounded by Gestapo men in civilian clothes. “When I came in the morning to help him at the weekend, my father said to me: ‘I may very well be dead tonight.’ We talked. Then they came. At first it was quite normal. Then they wanted to talk to him on the spot. He knew what was going to happen. It was obvious,” Manfred described the events of that fateful day.

Rommel said to the General: “I liked Firer. And I still do.”

This shows that even in his dying hour he could not completely detach himself from Hitler.

He was given fifteen minutes to say goodbye to his loved ones, and then he left the house. His son escorted him to his car. “I went out and said goodbye to him. He looked at Aldinger and me without saying a word. Then he left and that was that.”

Shortly afterwards, he took the poison. The doctor falsified the death report: heart attack as a result of an accident while serving on the Western Front.

On 18 October 1944, the funeral of Field Marshal Rommel took place in Ulm, near Stuttgart. Although he ordered his death, Hitler elevated the event to a state commemoration. Rommel’s death was also staged for propaganda purposes.

Rommel had come a long way – from the most popular general to Hitler’s enemy. In the end, he was prepared to do the unthinkable. And he paid for it with his life. “It was in keeping with my father’s character,” said Manfred. “If he had survived, he would have been in a terrible quandary. I am sure that in the end, when he had to die, he felt he was on the right side.”

Many years after the war, on the anniversary of Rommel’s death, his former enemies gathered at his grave. To pay tribute to a man who wanted to have a glorious career and who was grateful to his patron and leader right to the end. To pay tribute to a military officer who refused to commit crimes but continued to serve a criminal. He was a man who wanted to get rid of Hitler, but could not completely detach himself from him. Rommel was a man of many contradictions.