http://www.psionguild.org/forums/ima...es/welcome.gif

Thanks for the welcome again. I long like to play cat and mouse games between u-boats and warships.

My feeling about the movie can best be summed up by this reviewer who points out not only Rommel's family was enraged, but one of the historians hired for the film resigned in disgust over the film relying so much on the history written by a Holocaust denier.

As one can guess my main focus is learning and teaching history. It was nice to be able to include a picture of a guided missile destroyer in construction in my first post on a historical matter. Here was the finished product... it met its end in 1999 after a few decades of service.

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Obviously, its hard for people living today who have only a general view of the things Rommel did during the war to understand the man and why he isn't a post war creation and a 'myth' as the makers of this film and other people today say he was.

His biggest contribution to Germany though failing to end the war in 1944 under more favorable conditions for his country was he treated the French very well as occupation commander at a very critical time compared to German occupation commanders elsewhere. Becase he refused to treat the French as slaves and made a massive stink to prevent future massacres like the SS carried out against the French in 1944 killing over 600 civilians he avoided a French uprising at that critical time like the Poles did in 1944. German forces in response would have followed Hitler's orders to burn down French cities and the relationship between France and Germany would have been cold as ice for decades after the war. The French would probably delay the creation of West Germany for many years and then do all they can to veto West Germany being allowed to have a military. It would have effected French and German relations for generations.

Instead you have a military occupation commander who actually was nice enough to the French people after his car was shot up the French resistance found him and brought him to a French doctor who saved his life... at least for a couple months until he was suicided by his own government.

After his death even in the middle of the most ugly war Europe has had since the 30 years war the Western Allies from Churchill, to American commanders, to Rommel's main British opponent paid tribute to him publicly.

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The problem people in Germany and elsewhere have today with him is they unlike the people then didn't see the things Rommel was doing throughout the war to protect civilians and to keep it from becoming a war with hate like the war in the East became by burning Hitler's illegal orders and doing everything he could to minimize and leash the number of Waffen SS forces in his areas of operations.

Its hard from a modern context to understand how a man who got his Iron Cross in WW1 for out of fear of his troops being boxed in leading a fanatical bayonet attack on French forces, personally bayonetting two soldiers, shooting two others with his side arm and then getting shot in the leg running away could also be fanatically opposed to killing POWs and civilians. The only way to think about it in my view is that he had an iron clad sense of what is right and wrong in war and was not going to let anyone get him to do things he didn't believe were morally acceptable in a time of war. His reaction to recieving Hitler's Commando Order is an example of that.

Rommel was one of the 12 recipients of Hitler's infamous, illegal Commando Order issued on 18th October 1942. This order to senior commanders ordered the immediate execution of all Allied Commando troops irrespective of circumstances of combat or capture. On receipt of the order Rommel called his Staff Officers together and invited them to each individually read the order. He then took it and instructed them that under no circumstances was this order ever to be put into effect by men under his command, he then burnt the order in front of them commenting as he did so - "And thus, in such a fashion is infamy dealt with".

The other 11 recipients of the had no problem with following it. And, that sums up the difference between Rommel and other German commanders during the war. He did what he could to keep it a clean war against the Americans and British unlike the Generals in the East who followed Hitler's illegal orders and helped to turn it into a very dirty war. He also did what he could to protect Jews and civilians in general in his area of operations and he did care more about Germany and its future then his own life. Rommel being too liked by the Anglo-Americans helped Himmler convince Hitler that he was a traitor who needed to die so he paid a high price for being too nice.

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So what was he a hero or villain? I think people should view him as just a man who served his country in two World Wars and tried to do what he thought was best for his country and what he believed was honorable and right during two horrible world wars no matter what the cost to himself.

Right now I feel bad for Manfred Rommel over this whole conflict with the film. The man served his country all his life in and out of politics, he knew what kind of man his father was and was told all his life no matter where he went be it England, France, the U.S., or even Israel about how his father treated them and their POWs or civilians with honor during the war and protected them. Now at the end of his life as he is dying of Parkinson's his own people decide to turn the image of his father upside down and depict him as either a coward, a puppet or a monster.

That according to his daughter has really effected him emotionally as he nears death (he can't walk anymore) as that isn't the man that tought him about what is right and wrong, kept him from joining the Waffen SS, was willing to kill himself against his Catholic beliefs to keep him and his mom from going to a concentraton camp or the person who taught him to ride a bicycle or took him to the beach.

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f1...isc/Rommel.jpg

If I could tell Manfred something before he dies it would be that a few wars are etched in the collective memory of civilization for all time (and I am certain WW2 will be one of those wars) and certain leaders in those wars are remembered for thousands of years. The wars that ended the Roman Republic are an example of that with Pompey, Caesar, Anthony, Cleopatra and Augustus being remembered around the world to this day.

500 years from now or hell even 2000 years from now after we are long dead, unless humanity wipes itself out there is no doubt in my mind that three Germans from the war will be etched into the collective memory of civilization. Hitler of course, Himmler as Germany's warrior for genocide and mass murder and Rommel as Germany's respected honorable warrior. Only few military or political leaders get the honor or infamy of being etched in history and I would tell Manfred that his father I believe will be one of those leaders and regardless of what people in Germany are saying about him now and showing him as today it won't be what people are saying about him and showing him as a hundred years from now.

I like this guy. He can stay.

The quality of your research and your presentation is remarkable. Well done that man. :yep:

Agreed. Excellent reading jmc247. :up:

You know I found that Ruskies
 

You know I found that Ruskies feel that Rommel was way over rated by the West. They basically chased my butt off a forum they held in about 2002. But I always liked the way Rommel fought in North Africa (in the early part) on a shoestring and captured British supplies. I liked the way he was always at the front much of the time (like some SS Brigadeführer or something). He was also quite an officer from WWI as you all know.

I suppose my real favorite was Erich von Manstein. There were times - after the Stalingrad pocket fell to the Russians, that Manstein was able to hold a very thinly held front in the face of 6 to 8 odds against his 1. And these were real combat odds, not just a larger number of soldiers and material. Of course he had to fight Hitler to do what he was doing. Manstein did his feat while maintaining true fluid Panzer tactics. Of course Hitler wanted his soldiers to hold static villages and towns as fortresses while fighting to the last bullet and drop of blood. But somehow Manstein did what he did best - in spite of big fights with his Boss.

Of course another reason I liked Manstein, I only read his book about 3 years ago. But prior to that I had issued my V-Mod for SH3 in early 2006. In V-Mod I had the Germans win the war so that I could generate new reasons for spreading their bases all over the World (such as in Chile). I did this by having Hitler invade England in spite of losses - treating the invasion as he later treated Russian fronts. It also gave me an excuse to revamp the German strategy from hitting British Supply convoys to mainly going after war ships, as well as making humongous patrols from southern Chile to Alaska and back.

Manstein did a small aside in his book (maybe two pages) to speak about what theoretically would have happened had Hitler been gutsy and invaded England. Nearly everything Manstein outlines - such as for example the Brits falling back to Canada to harass Germany's hold on European sea lanes with Britain's Navy in hit and run attacks - were things I described as a backdrop for V-Mod. I am egotistical enough to have changed my most favored WWII German officer from Rommel to Manstein just because of that.

Personally I doubt that 2000 years from now anyone will give Himmler a second thought. There were many butchers in history and few ever make memory lane for the average Joe. And while short empires like that of Alexander the Great are well remembered, the 12 year empire of Hitler will not be well recalled since he left no cities named: Hitlerzandria.

In my humble opinion Karl Donitz may be remembered along with his use of U-boats as a major historical event in warfare.

Rommel was a true soldiers general he was always leading from the front line
like a true general should.He was a true professional and being an officer was what he did best.That being said he did not enjoy warfare unlike many other famous generals like Patton or Montgomery.

If I where a nations leader I would want a general like Rommel a man unafraid to disobey foolish orders.

I disagree that Hitler or any major person connected to him will be forgotten anytime soon.

@jmc247! Interesting Articles, :up:

They certainly are :yep:

hey jmc, impressive first posts! I actually read through all of it. Also welcome :salute: glad to see there are still people who use this crazy concept of sources. :)

Can't tell much about the film, as I haven't seen it yet. Just a little personal anecdote. My old neighbor was a vet who first served on the Eastern Front, later served in North Africa and France. He became a pacifist after his WW2 experiences, pretty understandable in my eyes. He never said anything bad about Rommel - though he had much contempt for most of the rest of the leadership.

By the way if one was interested in some naval facts in regards to the Africa campaign. Rommel was of course highly dependent on the Italian Navy for supplies. They kept telling him to take bigger and more secure ports with Alexandria obviously the biggest of them all in North Africa. He made the lunge for Egypt knowing it was an extremely high risk, high reward mission because taking Egypt and the port of Alexandria would put him in a good position to wage a two front war as he knew the Americans would soon be landing to his west and he would be caught in the middle of two large armies. Egypt would have been the best place in North Africa for him to fight a two front war if he managed to drive the British out and into the Middle East.

The thing is the Italian supply ships kept being sunk one after the other. He was getting desperate for supplies and would ask when the next supply ship is coming in and immediately because the British broke their codes the ships would be tracked and very often sunk. Rommel according to his son had trouble believing the Allied mathematicians were good enough to break the complex code they were using and found it easier to believe at the time that some officer in the Italian Navy had been bribed by the Americans or the British to tell them about the supply ships departing from Italy.

Rommel personally opposed the attack on the Soviet Union and believed Germany should have focused its resources on a Mediterranean centric strategy to knock the British out of the war, which would have included far more resources devoted to the German Navy.

Yes, I read a wide number of sources when learning about a topic and what I have found is most modern books and movies outright ignore the primary sources so very often.

The two biggest issues using primary sources was why did his enemies like him so much during the war and one can't find that out without digging into the primary sources. The other issue is why did something that was known about and totally accepted at the time pre-Cold War that Rommel did want Hitler killed toward the end changed when the Cold War started to he just wanted him put on trial. I mean the surviving members of the July 20th plot who had far from a cozy relationship with him testified in the Nuremberg Trials that he did and the press was unabashed at reporting he did until the Cold War started.

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It doesn't make much sense unless one understands how divided Germans were in the early Cold War about the plot to kill their leader. Going with the notion he supported overthrowing the Nazi Party and putting Hitler on trial was a better middle ground option at the time to promote him as a unifying German military figure in post war West Germany.

If future generations want to figure out who Rommel was as a person and a general they are going to have to go back to the primary sources like I did. But, I suspect that won't happen until Rommel as a historical figure becomes less politicized.

Its sort of sad, but a man I knew very well at the local gym just died this month who served in Stalingrad and in the West. He was one of the toughest persons I have ever met.

Basically he took the view that ignoring the coup plot Rommel always acted in such a way during the war to try to further the interests of Germany long term so he hoped there might be a Germany after the war even if they lost. That is no small thing in his view as none of the commanders in the East that could have done so had the spine to do so in his view and allowed it to become a very dirty war.

Basically, his view is only a very very few German generals were willing to put what they believed was morally right and good for Germany in the long run ahead of the risks that doing so would bring to them and potentally their family... of course the punishment for treason was the consignment of ones whole family to a concentration camp. But, there was alot the generals in the East could have done short of high treason to keep the war there from becoming so ugly.

By the way to get into a bit about Rommel the man. Lets just say he had a bigger family then commonly known. He had zipper issues of the kind that reciently brought down General Petraeus, but back then lets just say contraception options were far more limited then they are today.

He had an illegitimate daughter Gertude or 'little mouse' as he called her. She lived a significant amount of time with his legitimite family.

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That is his wife and illegitimite daughter.

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That is his son Manfred and Gertude above.

She may have been born to another woman, but she was fully accepted as part of Rommel's family by both his wife and his son. Though Manfred had been told that she was his cousin when he was young and only later told she was his half sister.

By the time Rommel was killed he already had a grandson from Gertude. The difference is back then ones private life and ones public life were viewed as seperate things with only his public actions fair game for the media to discuss and that includes the Allied media at the time. Imagine the scandal it would be today in the U.S. for a general or admiral to have an illegitimite daughter living with his family. The media would go wild.

Great thread. :up::up: Very informative and interesting.

"Zipper issues" love that.

Magic

@jmc247 very good again,:salute:

Very impressive early posts jmc247 :sunny: