Desmond Young - Rommel, The Desert Fox

by Unknown

  There is no profit in following Rommel's retreat or the advance of the Eighth Army through Tripolitania. With his 25,000 Italians, his 10,000 Germans and his sixty tanks, he was steadily and relentlessly pushed back. All the way he made the most skilful use of mines, road demolitions and booby-traps to slow up his enemy. Often his German rear guards had to fight desperately to extricate themselves, for this time he sent the Italians on ahead. Temptingly strong defensive positions had to be abandoned because he had not the troops to hold them. Ninetieth Light Division made a stand outside Tripoli itself, but Rommel's old victims at St. Valery, 51st Highland Division, riding in on the back of tanks, turned them out in a moonlight attack. Tripoli was occupied without any further resistance. On January 23rd, the nth Hussars, who had struck the first blow across the frontier wire when Italy came into the war, drove into the city at dawn.

  There is no greater test of troops or a commander than a long retreat, nothing which so quickly breaks the spirit as the knowledge that one must fight only to be able to withdraw. Rommel was sick at heart as well as in body. It was during the retreat that he learnt how loyalty to his F�hrer was rewarded. At the end of November he was summoned home for an interview. Hitler treated him, for the first time, to one of his famous scenes. Rommel had told him that the position in North Africa was hopeless and that it would be better to sacrifice what was left of the material and get the Afrika Korps out to fight again in Italy. Hitler said that he was a defeatist and that he and his troops were cowards. Generals who had made the same sort of suggestion in Russia had been put up against the wall and shot. He would not yet do that to Rommel but Rommel had better be careful. As for Tripoli, it was to be held at all costs for otherwise the Italians would make a separate peace. Rommel asked him whether it was better to lose Tripoli or the Afrika Korps. Hitler shouted that the Afrika Korps did not matter. For the first time, Rommel told his family, he realised Hitler's contempt for the whole German people and the fact that he cared nothing for the men who fought for him. Nevertheless he answered back. Let Hitler come out to Africa and see for himself or let him send some of his entourage to show them how to do it. “Go!” screamed Hitler, “I have other things to do than talk to you.” Rommel saluted and turned on his heel. After he had shut the door, Hitler came running after him and put his arm on his shoulder. “You must excuse me,” he said, “I'm in a very nervous state. But everything is going to be all right. Come and see me to-morrow and we will talk about it calmly. It is impossible to think of the Afrika Korps being destroyed.” Rommel saw him next day, with Goering. “Do anything you like,” said Hitler to Goering, “but see that the Afrika Korps is supplied with all that Rommel needs.”

  “You can build houses on me,” said Goering in the German phrase. “I am going to attend to it myself.”

  The Reichsmarschall took Rommel with him in his special train to Rome and invited Frau Rommel to go with them.

  When they met at Munich station Goering was wearing a grey semi-civilian suit with grey silk lapels. His tie was secured by a large emerald clip. The case of his watch was studded with emeralds. On one of his fingers, to Rommel's horror, was a ring with an enormous diamond. More horrifying still, his nails were varnished. Goering displayed the ring to Frau Rommel at the first opportunity. “You will be interested in this,” he said, “it is one of the most valuable stones in the world.” This was the first time Frau Rommel had met the Reichsmarschall. She, too, was startled. In the train he spoke only of pictures. “They call me the Maecenas of the Third Reich,” he said and described how Balbo had sent him a statue of Aphrodite from Cirene. North Africa was not otherwise mentioned during the journey, and Goering resisted all Rommel's attempts to turn the conversation from statues to supplies. However, he gave Rommel theFlugzeugf�hrerabzeichen , the Air Force pilot's cross, in diamonds, and seemed to think that that should satisfy him.

  In Rome, where they stopped at the Excelsior, it was the same story. “Goering did nothing but look for pictures and sculpture,” said Rommel with profound contempt. “He was planning how to fill his train with them. He never tried to see any one on business or to do anything for me.” To Frau Rommel, Goering remarked that her husband seemed very depressed. “He is not normally so,” she replied. “As a rule he is very optimistic. But he takes a very realistic view.” “Ah!” said Goering, “he does not comprehend the whole situation as I do. We are going to look after him, we are going to do everything for him.” He then went off into a long and boastful monologue about his own achievements, past, present and future. He appeared to Frau Rommel to be on the verge of megalomania. Contrasting this extraordinary figure with the shrewd and capable Goering who appeared before the judges at Nuremberg one wonders whether, at this period, he had not gone back to morphia. Apart from art, his only interest seemed to be his model railway. He was photographed in a guard's uniform with a green flag. The story was all over Rome that he had gone to a party dressed in a toga. Rommel put up with it for three days. Then he said: “I'm doing no good over here-only losing my temper: I'd better get back to the Afrika Korps.”

  He flew off next day, convinced that Goering was mad and Hitler not much better. It was the second stage of his disillusionment.

  Though Tripoli fell in defiance of the F�hrer's wishes, this was not the end of Rommel in North Africa. His title had changed three times during 1942. Up to January 21st he was still commander of the Panzer Group Africa. Then he became supreme commander of the Panzer Army in Africa and held this appointment until October 24th. On his return to El Alamein on Stumme's death he arrived with the title of supreme commander of the German-Italian Panzer Army. On February 22nd the Army Group Africa was formed and he was given command of it. It consisted of 5th Panzer Army, under General von Arnim, composed of the new forces which had been rushed to Tunisia, and of 1st (Italian) Army under General Messe, comprising the two Italian Corps, 20th and 2 rst, and the Afrika Korps, which had been driven out of Libya. The 1st Italian Army was, in fact, the German-Italian Panzer Army under a new name. Thus, instead of being “put up against a wall and shot,” he was promoted to command all the Axis forces in Tunisia. The German High Command still believed that it would be possible to retain a bridgehead around Tunis and Bizerta and keep a large Allied army immobilized, as at Salonica in the first war. It is surprising that the command should have been given to Rommel, who believed nothing of the sort.

  Nevertheless, even before being gazetted to his new appointment, he showed a real flash of his old form. From Tripoli he had retired to the Mareth Line. This was an immensely strong position, another but more elaborately prepared El Alamein. The French, who had fortified it as an African Maginot Line against any Italian advance from Libya, considered it impregnable by frontal attack. It could not be turned, they said, because the going to the west was “incroyable.” In any case, to outflank it meant a turning movement of 150 miles. Rommel rightly judged that General Montgomery would need time to think this over. Since he never lost the offensive spirit for long and did not propose to sit down and wait to be attacked, he looked round for something to undertake meanwhile. It need not necessarily be against the Eighth Army: there was also the Allied First Army, which would doubtless come in on his rear as soon as he was again at grips with General Montgomery.

  He chose precisely the most vulnerable spot. In the southern sector of the First Army front, across the Faid plain between Gafsa and Fondouk, lay the American 2nd Corps. Behind it was the Kasserine Pass. Defensive positions had been only sketchily prepared. The U.S. 1st Armoured Division was dispersed behind the front, half of it north towards Fondouk, where Intelligence was convinced that any attack must fall. Though they lacked nothing in courage and were quick to learn, the troops at this time were green and untried, under commanders who had as yet had no experience of modern war.

  This was Rommel's meat. He had already pulled out his faithful 21st Panzer Division and rearmed it with the tanks of an independent tank battalion sent to reinforce Tunisia. With abou
t a hundred tanks, supported by Stukas, he fell upon the American Armoured Division on February I4th. The forward positions were quickly overrun and Rommel pushed on with his armour through the hastily-constructed defences of the Kasserine Pass. The mixture of American, British and French troops added to the confusion. There was “no co-ordinated plan of defence and definite uncertainty as to command.” A big salient had been driven into the Allied lines. With his forces almost intact, Rommel had open country in front of him and few natural obstacles to an advance northwards. He might very well turn the whole front in Tunisia and bring on a general withdrawal, if not a disaster. It was the Gazala Line over again.

  Such was the situation when General Alexander came up to command. “It was clear to me,” he writes, “that although Rommel's original intention had been merely to give such a blow to 2nd Corps as would leave his right rear secure while he prepared to meet Eighth Army, he now had much bigger ideas. From previous experience I knew him to be a man who would always exploit success by every possible means, to the limit of rashness, and there now glittered before him the prospect of a tactical victory.”

  On February 2oth things looked so black that General Alexander had to wire to General Montgomery to do something to make a diversion. The latter at once agreed and said what he would do. “We will soon have Rommel running about between us like a wet hen,” he added. Thanks largely to good generalship by General Alexander, who rightly predicted that Rommel would turn north, where the glittering prize lay, the German thrust was stopped two days later. Rommel withdrew in good order, leaving behind him only nine tanks, plenty of mines to discourage pursuit and some very shaken initiates to war in North Africa.

  “The Battle of Kasserine had given me many anxious moments,” says Field-Marshal Alexander in his dispatch. “As in his advance to El Alamein, Rommel had over-exploited a considerable initial success to leave himself in a worse position than before; he can hardly be blamed for his attempt to snatch a great victory, for on both occasions he came very near it, but the result was equally disastrous to him.” The commitment of substantial American forces to battle for the first time in this area was certainly “bad news” to Rommel. In his own papers he wrote:

  From the moment that the overwhelming industrial capacity of the United States could make itself felt in any theatre of war, there was no longer a chance of ultimate victory there. Even if we had overrun the whole African continent-as long as a small bridgehead remained offering good operational possibilities, and provided the Americans were able to bring in their material-we were bound to lose it in the end. Tactical skill could only postpone the collapse, it could not avert the ultimate fate of this theatre of war.

  Speaking about the battles around Thala on February 22, 1943 and Rommel's controversy with Kesselring and Colonel-General von Arnim, Rommel wrote:

  Irrespective of his actual merits, Field-Marshal Kesselring had not the slightest idea of the tactical and operational conditions in the African theatre. He saw it all through rose-coloured spectacles and created illusions for himself concerning the significance of our victory over the Americans. In particular, he thought that many more such opportunities would occur and that the fighting value of the Americans was low. Although they could not yet be compared with the core of the Eighth Army-veterans of many battles-yet this lack of experience was made up for by their far better and more plentiful equipment and by their tactically more flexible command.

  And speaking of the African battles in retrospect:

  What was really amazing was the speed with which the Americans adapted themselves to modern warfare. They were assisted in this by their tremendous practical and material sense and by their lack of all understanding for tradition and useless theories.

  That the retreat had not broken Rommel's nerve nor changed his habits in battle is shown by an incident which occurred about this time. The authority for it is Dr. Loeffler, one of the German counsel at the Nuremberg Trials, who was serving in tanks in Tunisia and was an eye-witness. Under heavy fire, Rommel drove up in his staff car to the commander of a tank battalion who was sitting inside his tank with the lid closed, at the entrance to a village. Rommel rapped on it.

  “What are you doing?” he asked the battalion commander when he opened up. “It is impossible to get on,” replied that officer. At the same moment a salvo from a British battery burst all round the tank. The lid was hastily closed and the battalion commander imagined that Rommel must be dead.

  Ten minutes later there was another rap on the lid. It was Rommel, who had driven forward into the village and now returned. “You are quite right,” he said, “there are four anti-tank guns at the other end of the street. Another time you might go and get that sort of information for yourself.”

  This was Rommel's last battle but one in Africa. The last was Medenine, on March 5th. Rommel was too late by a few days to catch Montgomery off balance. When 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions went in to the attack, a strong force was waiting for them. The battle of Alam-el-Halfa was repeated. “The infantry held their positions against strong infantry and tank attacks with no wire and few mines to protect them,” says Major-General de Guingand, Chief of Staff of the Eighth Army. “The anti-tank guns were sited to kill tanks and not to protect the infantry. The effect of the concentrated use of our artillery was devastating.... It was the perfectly fought defensive battle.... Rommel completely failed even to penetrate our positions.” He left 52 of the 140 tanks with which he started on the battlefield. The British casualties were 130 all ranks killed and wounded. No tanks were lost. General de Guingand says that prisoners reported that Rommel had gone round trying to whip up enthusiasm and to impress upon the troops the importance of the battle but was obviously a very sick man, with his throat bandaged and his face covered with desert sores. An eye-witness quoted by General Alexander relates that he told a party which stopped near him that unless they won this battle the last hope in Africa was gone.

  A week later he left for Germany. Various explanations have been given for his abrupt departure before the battle of the Mareth Line. For example, General Eisenhower writes:

  “Rommel himself escaped before the final debacle, apparently foreseeing the inevitable and earnestly desiring to save his own skin.” He did, indeed, foresee the inevitable. But no one who has followed his career up to this point will believe that consideration for his own skin ever influenced any action of Rommel's from the day that he became a soldier. It has been said that the Italians demanded his withdrawal, but I can find no evidence of this. More plausibly, ill-health and the need for further treatment have been given as the reasons for his return. It has been said that Hitler ordered him out because of the effect upon German morale if he were captured. Since Hitler had not yet begun to realise that all was lost in Tunisia and was still contemplating an offensive against Casablanca, this is improbable. It was not, indeed, until May 8th that the High Command issued the order that Africa would now be abandoned and that the German and Italian forces would be withdrawn by sea. By that time, like so many of Hitler's orders, it could no longer be obeyed. The capitulation followed four days afterwards.

  The explanation given by Rommel's family, which came first-hand from him, is that he flew out on his own initiative and without orders, to beg Hitler again that he be allowed to save the German troops at the sacrifice of the material. He was again refused and again called a defeatist and a coward. When he then proposed to go back and see it through with them, permission was refused. I see no reason to doubt their story.

  The Afrika Korps did not forget him. Until the end his old divisions fought as stubbornly as under his leadership. Nor did his memory fade at once from the minds of his opponents. InOperation Victory General de Guingand mentions that he left Africa before the battle of the Mareth Line. Nevertheless he continues to refer, perhaps subconsciously, to “Rommel's troops.”

  After the fall of Tunis, Rommel was summoned toWolfsschanze , the “wolf's lair,” the code name for Hitler's head- quarter
s near Rastenburg in East Prussia. Hitler seemed desperate but was in a more reasonable mood. “I should have listened to you earlier,” he said. “Africa is lost now.” Rommel spoke of the general position of the German forces and suddenly asked the F�hrer: “Do you really think we can have the complete victory we aim at?” “No!” answered Hitler. Rommel pressed him. “Do you realise the consequences of defeat?” he asked. “Yes,” Hitler replied, “I know it is necessary to make peace with one side or the other, but no one will make peace with me.” In recounting this interview to Frau Rommel and Manfred, Rommel said that Hitler was a modern Louis XIV and quite unable to distinguish between his own interests and those of the German people. It never occurred to him that he might abdicate if he were the obstacle to peace. Rommel added that it was only when he was completely depressed that it was possible to reason with him. As soon as he was again surrounded by sycophants who assured him that he was on top of the world, he switched round immediately. Rommel had also realised, late in the day, that hatred was the mainspring of Hitler's character. When he hated, his hatred was passionate. He could not govern or control himself: he wished simply to kill. Manfred remembered this conversation later and still remembers it.