Erwin Rommel

Well, I believe General Neil Ritchie did remember Rommel all his life. Had Rommel between tanks and mines and waited a bit too long...

Battle of Gazala

Neil Ritchie

 

I think alot of people had respect for rommel also because of his treatment towards prisoners. Rommel never followed nazi brutality and I believe he was praised for that. The man was one of the biggest icons of nazi propoganda and yet never followed nazi values.

 

During Crusader Rommel was actualy attacking further into 'the bag' of Auchinleck's offensive.
Cruwell kept telling Rommel it was madness but it took a while for Rommel to regain his senses and start his retreat.

 

Looking at the AFVs used by both the Germans and British in 1941, the only big difference in tank armament was the ability of the Germans to fire HE, the three main guns used by German tanks were: 20mm L/55 (useless) 50mm L/42 (main gun used) 75mm L/24 (infantry support gun).
The two pounder used by the British was as good as the 50mm L/42 (except for the HE) mounted on the Pz Mk III, which was the major German battle tank around this time, I know that the British tanks were prone to breakdowns, but they must have kept a lot of them running, or the British would not have beem able to mount such large attacks like Crusader. So having said this, I think it was Rommels tactics of placing his ATGs up with the tanks, that broke up major tank attacks by the British, I dont think any Generals from either Britain or USA, had any thought of this tactic in 1941.

 

Posted this one years ago here. Unfortunately no idea of the source:

Africa. Generally speaking the German tanks were inferior to the British in both numbers and quality. The big difference was in their handling as Rommel massed his tanks and used the Shield and Sword tactic continually. The British attack of June 1941 (Operation Battleaxe) ran into thirteen 88’s which were well dug in and concealed. They lost 123 out of their 238 tanks and were almost cut off by a skilful counter-attack by the Afrika Corps panzers. General Messervy of the 4th Indian Division said that the 88’s were the main reason for the failure of Operation Battleaxe but his views were obviously not heeded As it all happened again in Operation Crusader.

In Operation Crusader ( November 1941 ) after 5 days of hard fighting the Germans were down to only 100 tanks from the original 174 German and 146 light Italian . However, the British lost 300 out of 450 Cruiser tanks - mostly to anti-tank guns. In mobile battles where there is no enforced line of approach ( Forest road etc) the trick is to lay mines so that the enemy tanks are forced down a lane onto the Pakfront.

The Sword tactic is important too as Rommel told a captured British Brigadier “ I don’t care how many tanks you British have so long as you keep splitting them up the way you do . I shall continue to destroy them piecemeal”.

 

You explaned it better then me Kai, but we are on the same page.

 

Too true Kai, the British continued to use a "cavalry charge" type of attack against the successful German lines of defence and failing to counter the Sword and Shield counter-attacks, even after observing their superiority as an armored tactic since 1939. Talk about slow on the uptake.

 

The standard of British Officers around this time was bad, many a brave man lost his life because of these fools, and if we did have any they voices would have fell on deaf ears, what makes it worse the Germans used the same tactics in 1940, that Liddle and co had formulated in the 1930s again fell on deaf ears, so there slow on the uptake was made at the cost of men lives.

 

totally agree with petri Rommel was very good at using his forces. Too bad he neglected the role of the air force in his operations. Had he used his air force as effectively as his ground forces he would have been twice as hard to defeat.

 

Not wise to mention the name of Liddell-Hart:he has been proved to be an impostor ,his role before the war was insignificant .

 

That seems a bit extreme. Indeed the best summary I've seen is at:
Clausewitz in English: Chapter 15

 

It is not extreme,it is an understatement .
From :Liddell-Hart and the Weigh of History (by John Mearhower),excerpts available on the web.
1)L-H did not have much influence in Britain during the 1930's
2)He used evidence selectively
3)He made claims and interferences that are at best highly questionable and at worst simply not true (translation:he was lying)
4)He was not above manufacturing evidence to support his case (translation :he was producing false evidences)
There also is
a) the fact that he asked Guderian to commend him as his mentor in the English translation of Panzerleader
b) the fact that he claimed that the idea of Manstein for Sichelschnitt came from one of his ideas
c) the fact that he claimed that Rommel was one of his pupils ,bearing pressure on the Rommel family to proclaim this .
a,b,c, are lies.
d)the fact that in "the German Generals talk" he was spreading the myth that without Hitler's meddling,the German generals (who were of course his pupils!),could have won the war .
My conclusion :L-H was the Baron von Munchhausen of the WWII historians .

 

You seem steadfast over this LjAd, so I will take your word on this, its just that a lot of people will have to change there books and amend stuff if you are correct.

 

Well,I only can advice you to look on the book of Mearsheimer (not Mearsheimer,I can't read my own notes);I had already not much faith in L-H,knowing of his request to Guderian to commend him in Panzerleader,but,I did not know he had the guts to go that farther .Whatever,he finally got,what he wanted :a knighthood .

 

I do believe that Liddel was writing rhetoric and was not insisting that Rommel was his pupil but more that he was using Rommel as an example of his indirect method theories. So in a sense a-c are true. But i would not say he was outright lying. IT is more like the way he writes implies that he is taking more credit than he actually had. But he did haver several ideas during the 20-30's and right he was not that influential at the time, but he did have the ideas. And as far as claim d goes. That is not a lie. Several Germand commanders (more than just a few) all have memoirs and journals during and after the war that say that Hitler and his supporting cast cost Germany any chance they had of avoiding defeat in world war II. Bock, Kluge, Guderian,Rommel, and Paulus to name a few.

 

What the German generals were saying after the war is irrelevant :they needed a culprit for the defeat,and the obvious one was Hitler .
What they (who ? you have some names please ?) were saying during the war,is very dubious :it is implying that,without Hitler,Germany had a chance to avoid defeat,and,IMHO,this is wrong .
Btw for those during the war,Paulus is a bad exemple,because he was POW since end january 1943,and I don't remember that before he was criticizing Hitler .

 

During the war several commanders from low to high ranks wanted Hitler removed from office in an effort to save Germany from defeat starting in late 1940 after the first German defeat in the Battle of Britain, followed by the cancellation of seelow and Hitlers decision to open a multi front war against russia. Many senior officers turned against hitler after those events especially the decision to open a multi front war as most german commanders remembered fighting a multi front war in world war I. As the war continued to drag on and germany became more strained german commanders began to plot against hitler and other commanders knew about these plots and refused to be involved but allowed the plans to continue. Even Kluge who had long supported Hitler began to detour from him. If you need evidence of German Commanders being against Hitler then simply look at the several assasination plots, plans, and dis obeying orders, and other corruption that took place in german command. And btw. The German commanders in these books you speak of dont mention only hitler as being the one its hitler and his supporting cast. (Himmler, Goring, etc.)

 

Him surrendering was probably the ultimate insult to Hitler, by promoting Paulus he made it clear that if he surrendered he would be the first Field Marshall in history to do so and thus would not only disgrace modern day Germany but past as well.

I haven't looked into it much but I often wonder how much information, accounts, documentation, etc was lost following the surrender. Perhaps he was critical of Hitler but those who knew about it weren't able to tell anyone.

 

To me Rommel was above the rest of the German Officer Corps, very intelligent, and understood his craft. Only if he had more resources he could of changed the way North Africa or other battles for German. I understand why he went again Hitler, but what was he thinking when he forced Rommel to kill himself. That caused further pain for the German Army.

 

If you will read(a.o.) "logistics and the desert fox (available on the web),you will agree that your statement is wrong .