Erwin Rommel

Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944), also known as the Desert Fox (Wüstenfuchs), was a German field marshal, career officer, and veteran of both World Wars.

Life

Early Life

Rommel was born on 15 November 1891 to Erwin Rommel, Sr. and Helene von Luz at Heidenheim an der Brenz. His father was an army man turned headmaster, and his mother was the daughter of a civil servant.

First World War and the Interwar Period

In 1910, Rommel joined an infantry regiment of the Army of Württemberg. From 1914 to 1917, he fought in Romania, Slovenia (then part of Austria–Hungary), and France, earning the Pour le Mérite for his successes against the Italians. During the early Interwar Period, when there was a genuine threat of Communist revolution, Rommel put down protests (usually organised by disgruntled soldiers) all throughout Baden via peaceful means. In addition, he served as an instructor at various military schools in Dresden and Potsdam for six years. In 1937, he published a book, Infanterie greift an, discussing infantry tactics and his personal experience in the Great War.

Rommel first met Adolf Hitler in September 1934. Whether Rommel did or did not support Hitler is still a contentious issue. His son Manfred stated that although Rommel refused to let him join the Waffen-SS, he still turned a blind eye to what Nazi thugs were doing to Jews in the streets, and repeatedly pressed for proof that his daughter's Italian boyfriend was of "Aryan descent."

World War II

During the occupation of the Sudetenland in 1938 and the subsequent invasion of Poland in 1939, Rommel was tasked with leading Hitler's personal escort battalion. During the Fall of France in 1940, he was appointed commander of the 7th Panzer Division, nicknamed the "Ghost Division" (Gespensterdivision) due to the fact that oftentimes it was so quick that even the German High Command didn't know where he was.

During the North African campaign of the Second World War, Rommel was given command of the Afrika Korps. Despite the "war without hate" myth that was propagated by Allied historians after the war, his Afrika Korps were infamous among the local population for plundering homes, murdering innocent folk (particularly in Benghazi), making use of slave labour, and deporting thousands of Jews to Italy (where they were murdered in the Holocaust).

In November 1943, Rommel was transferred to Nazi-occupied France to supervise the Atlantic Wall, as there was genuine fear of the Western Allies launching a naval invasion in Western Europe. Although most of the German High Command expected such an invasion to take place at the Pas-de-Calais in Hauts-de-France, Rommel thought that a more likely target would be the beaches of Normandy. As such, he began heavily fortifying the region, setting up concrete bunkers, anti-aircraft guns, anti-tank guns, pillboxes, foxholes, machine gun nests, barbed wire fences, landmines, and more. Over a million 4-to-5-metre poles, designed to injure or kill paratroopers, were constructed (these later became known as Rommelspargel, or "Rommel's asparagus"). In addition, he flooded low-lying areas, particularly fields and forests, to make any airborne landing difficult for paratroopers.

Rommel's conviction that the Allies would choose to land in Normandy rather than at the Pas-de-Calais was correct. However, Rommel wouldn't be there to witness it, as the day that the Allies chose to launch the D-Day Invasion also happened to be his wife's birthday. So while the Americans, British, Free French, and Canadians were launching the largest naval invasion in human history, Rommel was away in Germany, celebrating with his wife.

On 17 July 1944 at around 16:00 in Sainte-Foy-de-Montgommery, Normandy, not long after Rommel had visited the 1st SS Panzer Corps' headquarters in Brussels, an RAF fighter plane began strafing his vehicle. The driver (Feldwebel Karl Daniel) was shot in the arm, causing the car to swerve off the road, hit a tree stump, and land in a ditch. Rommel was thrown out of the car as it turned over, knocking him unconscious. Rommel suffered serious, almost fatal injuries to his head from the attack. His aide-de-camp, Hauptmann Hellmuth Lang, and Feldwebel Holke (neither of whom were injured) immediately rushed Rommel's body to a nearby cottage, where they determined that Rommel was already dead. It turned out, however, Rommel wasn't dead. After being briefly hospitalised, he returned to his home in Blaustein (then Herrlingen) to recover.

Death

On 20 July 1944, several conspirators within the German military apparatus, led primarily by Major General Henning von Tresckow and Field Marshal Erwin von Witzleben, organised to assassinate Hitler at his headquarters in East Prussia. This plot (which later became known as the 20 July plot), had it succeeded, would have made Rommel a potential candidate for Reich President, according to a Cabinet list written by Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, an important member of the plot. During interrogations, Rommel's name came up several times, implicating him, and the decision was made by Chief of the NSDAP Chancellery Martin Bormann as well as the devil himself, Adolf Hitler, to remove Rommel from the equation.

Initially, Rommel was placed under surveillance by the Gestapo. Soon after, on 14 October 1944, the prominent general Wilhelm Burgdorf along with Generalleutnant Ernst Maisel visited Rommel's home in Herrlingen, informing him of his charges and delivering an ultimatum: 1) Rommel could defend himself to Hitler, 2) he could be tried at Roland Freiser's People's Court (which almost always sided with the prosecutor), or 3) Rommel could commit suicide. Rommel opted for the third option, as the Nazis promised to bury him with full military honours and his family would receive full pension payments.

Rommel explained the situation to his wife and son before the SS drove him and Burgdorf out beyond the town limits of Herrlingen, where Rommel committed suicide via using a cyanide tablet. Officially, Rommel had died of complications related to the injuries which he'd sustained during earlier in June, and was given a full state funeral in Ulm. Erwin Rommel was buried at Blaustein, where his body remains to this day.