Erwin Rommel

Erwin Rommel was a German field marshal of the Second World War, famous as the "Desert Fox" who led German and Italian forces in North Africa. A daring tactician and a favourite of Adolf Hitler, he was later linked to the 1944 plot against Hitler and forced to kill himself. After the war he was widely presented as an apolitical, chivalrous soldier; many historians now treat that picture as the "Rommel myth" and examine his record more critically.

Rommel was born on 15 November 1891 in Heidenheim, in the kingdom of Württemberg, the son of a former artillery officer. He joined an infantry regiment in 1910. In World War I he fought in France, Romania and Italy. At the Battle of Caporetto in October 1917 his mountain troops outflanked Italian positions and, with about 150 men, took some 9,000 prisoners and 81 guns, and in November thousands more surrendered to him at Longarone. These actions won him the Pour le Mérite.

Rommel stayed in the small post-war army, teaching at infantry schools. His book Infantry Attacks (1937), drawn from his war experience, became a bestseller and caught Hitler's eye. He never joined the Nazi Party, yet, as did many officers, he welcomed the regime, and he rose through Hitler's patronage, commanding the dictator's escort battalion from 1938 and during the invasion of Poland in 1939.

Given command of the 7th Panzer Division, Rommel drove it through Belgium and France in May and June 1940 with such speed that it became known as the "ghost division". It crossed the Meuse, smashed through to the Channel coast and took the surrender of Cherbourg. Massacres of black French prisoners occurred in areas where his division operated, though no direct evidence ties him to them.

Sent to Libya in February 1941 to rescue Germany's defeated Italian allies, Rommel attacked at once, retook Cyrenaica and besieged Tobruk. After setbacks late in 1941 he struck again, winning the Battle of Gazala and capturing Tobruk with around 32,000 Commonwealth prisoners in June 1942, for which Hitler made him a field marshal. His advance into Egypt was halted at El Alamein. Short of fuel and outnumbered, he was decisively beaten by Bernard Montgomery's Eighth Army at the second battle there in October and November 1942 and retreated to Tunisia, where he won a final victory over the Americans at Kasserine Pass in February 1943 before leaving Africa in March.

Rommel described the desert campaign as "war without hate", and British opponents admired him. Historians disagree about how far this holds. Some document killings, rapes and forced labour by Axis forces, the persecution of Jews, and his acceptance of harsh Italian reprisals in rear areas. An SS unit was planned to murder Jews if his army reached Egypt and Palestine; it was never activated. Others find no clear evidence that he knew of or ordered specific atrocities. Nazi propaganda built his celebrity deliberately, and he cooperated with it.

From late 1943 Rommel strengthened the Atlantic Wall in France, arguing that an invasion had to be stopped on the beaches. When the Allies landed on 6 June 1944 in the Normandy landings, he was away in Germany, and Hitler refused his later pleas to withdraw or seek peace. On 17 July 1944 his car was strafed by Allied aircraft and he was badly injured. How far he supported the conspirators of the 20 July bomb plot remains disputed, but several were in contact with him and some named him under interrogation.

On 14 October 1944 two generals sent by Hitler visited his home near Ulm and offered him suicide, with protection for his family, instead of a trial. He took poison. The regime announced that he had died of his wounds and gave him a state funeral. After 1945 the image of the decent, anti-Hitler Rommel was useful to Britain and to West Germany's rearmament.

Our 1938 map shows Nazi Germany as he rose under Hitler, and the 1945 map shows the country defeated months after his death.