[Skybird]

I have seen the film.

Ulrich Tukur is a well-known theatre and movie actor in Germany. He played Rommel, and not badly so. Other roles also had good actors, especially the Generals von Kluge and Speidel took my attention. The acting by Hitler was not good. But that has been remarked in German media as well.

The film sowed only the past weeks of Rommel, and left out all the African glory-catching. At that phase of the war, when Rommel took over the defence of the defence lines at the channel, most Wehrmacht generals knew that the war was lost, and wanted to negotiate a peace in the west in order to focus on the war in the East, which illustrates their irrationality nicely. They allowed to get paralysed by their perceived obligation to obey and stay loyal to the Fuhrer, even if they dispised him. The movie opened with a line by Hanna Arend, which says all that is to be said about this idiotic understanding of loyalty "no matter what what":

We are responsible for our obedience.

The film depicts Rommel as both a victim of situational circumstances beyond his control (regarding why after failed Valkyre his name appeared in the crosshair of investigators), and a naive man who until the end puts loyalty and military codex to obey above reason and own responsibility. He even does not resist at the very end, which would have been a sign of rebellion. Desperate and knowing of the war's end he was. But he drew no consequences, like so many others. When being contacted by the group around Stauffenberg, the film shows a man who seriously considered it possible to get rid of Hitler without needing to kill him.

One should know that the anglosaxon and the German view and perception of Rommel could not be any more different. In America and Britain, he seems to be perceived as a noble knight who deserved respect for both his military competence and the fair treatement of prisoners that his army took in africa. Comfortably one seems to leave it to this perception. In Germany, however, the question on his responsibility of having helped the Nazi regime by his successes, and his naivety and bvlind obedience and loyalty, gets asked much louder than in overseas. I cannot help but remind of another quote by Hanna Arend: "In politics, obedience is active support."

Personally, I see Rommel as politically naive (which many professional militaries seem to be until today, maybe in an effort to justify to their consciousness the object of the profession they have chosen), and militarily obviously competent. He may not have been a Nazi and may not even have liked the Nazis - but by his deeds and his loyalty, he supported their murderous cause. This is what also must be reminded of when talking about Rommel.

I once alked with a historian, who said sometign interesting with which I tend to agree. He said the Americans demonise the Japanese for their "honourless" attack at Pearl Harbour until today becaseu by doing so they can gloss over the fact that the militarily allowed to get sacked and spanked on their bare bottoms by their very own fault. Compatravble to that, the Brits maye glorify Rommel even until today and admire him so much becasue intially he delivered the Allies so severe a spanking. -. And if you get spanked and kicked around, then at least you want to say that you where overwheömed by either a giant three m eters high who brought his big brothers with him, or you turn him into a glorious hero who is of a knighthood that dserves respect even when getting defeated. This might explain why the views of Rommel in Germany and Anglosaxonistan are so very different.

Well. I do not have what it takes to understand such sentiments, it seems. In a war movie on the air battles in WWI (Was it "Der blaue Max?"), there comes this American pilot who is much more to my taste: He arrives in a British squadron and cannot believe how much admiration the English pilots pay to the skill and noble attitude of the Germans - who at that time shot them out of the sky at will. Not respecting these perverted rules of gentleman'S war and fair sportsmanship, he plays dirty and kicks the Germans between the legs at every opportunity. The Brits are shocked, and displeased, whole he wins air duels and kills German pilots. Less Brits get killed, the balance shifts, the Germans lose their dominance. That American pilot knew much more about what counts in war, than all his British colleagues together.

In the end, Rommel may have been a noble man or not, but he was naive, and he definitely played for the wrong team. And by wrong I do not mean just "loosing team", but I mean the moral side of the whole mess that the Nazi regime was. If Wehrmacht generals would have rebelled against Hitler and his regime and would have taken out, both Germany and Europe would have been saved from many more millions of people getting killed and cities destroyed. For not having helped in trying to achieve that, Rommel does not deserve the respect that is being payed to him in other countries.

We are responsible for our obedience. Back then. And in wars of today.