Discovering the Rommel Murder

by Charles F. Marshall

  March 22: Something is going on again upfront. It seems I arrived at the right moment. Going up forward with Gause.

  March 25: I am very busy since our present mission has been changed according to my wish. It is absolutely necessaryfor us not to stay put, but to take aggressive action against the enemy even if it is only patrol activity.

  March 31: Moved yesterday and I'm pleased to be closer to the front and not have to spend so much time traveling. Before retreating the British wrote on the door of my new house: "Keep clean! We'll soon be back!" We'll see about that.

  April 2: We are having a lot of trouble because the gentlemen in Rome are afraid of defending Cyrenaica with all available forces. They would like to make a half-hearted stand at its western edge and have taken an entire corps from me. But 6,000 to 8,000 allies of that kind don't matter. When things get rough we are on our own anyway.

  He reported to his wife the receipt of many Easter parcels and a flock of amorous letters from sundry females plus a not-so-amorous shell splinter that came through his window, went through his overcoat, jacket and trousers, but left him with "only a bruise the size of a plate. The luck of the devil!"

  The next letters described the British readying an attack; complained that there had been no improvement in the supply situation since his trips to Rome and Berlin; expressed elation overthe American capitulation in the Phillipines; and emphasized again his difficulties with the Italians. A letter written in the last week of April indicates Rommel's dislike of the Italians was heartily reciprocated:

  Yesterday I had two animated conferences with General Barbasetti, Cantarra's successor as chief of staff of the North African High Command. It is rumored that the latter was dismissed after having made a statement to a circle of officers to the effect that he would like to remain here until he has the privilege of leading an Italian army against us Germans. What a fool!

  Two days later the Fox reported that he was to be awarded his third Italian decoration, the Colonial Order with Sash, and added: "I am not very keen about it. I would much rather get more troops."

  Rommel conferring in April 1942 with Italian Marshal Ettore Bastico (left), nominally commander of the North African forces, and Field Marshal Albert Kesselring (right), commander of Theater South and Rommel's superior. To Rommel's staff the pompous Bastico was known as "Bombastico." Kesselring, a perennial optimist, was known to the staff as "Smiling Albert." Photo from Mrs. Rommel.

  The next day Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, commander in chief of Theater South and Rommel's superior, visited and told him about the many plans made in Rome. Rommel, however, was skeptical that many would be fulfilled. He was also visited by Marshal Ettore Bastico, chief of the North African High Command, and presented the decoration. Wrote Rommel about the event:

  Bastico's visit was very ceremonial. He awarded me the Colonial Order by command of the king. A big silver star, bigger than the last one, and a red sash with small emblems. I've really got enough of that stuff now.

  Subsequent letters picture Rommel delighted with the Japanese victories in Burma, expecting India to revolt and wondering how the French will react to the British landings on Madagascar. They report his supply system working and tell of his preparations for a big push. His target was the fort at Bir Hacheim, sixty miles south of Tobruk.

  May 26: We're launching the decisive attack today. It will be difficult, but I have unbounded confidence in oursoldiers, especially the German, and I am sure we will win the battle. The troops realize its significance. You know my attitude: I will do my job bravely, as I expect every one of my officers and men to do his. In hours of decision like this my thoughts are often with you.

  Rommel confers with two unidentified Italian generals in preparation for the assault on Tobruk. His opinion of the Italian officer corps was low. He felt it lacked a military tradition, was too reliant on Epicurean meals and creature comforts, and did not sufficiently concern itself with the welfare of the rank and file. Photo taken by a German war correspondent and from Mrs. Rommel.

  In the last days of May Rommel destroyed over 400 tanks and captured 200 guns and 5,000 prisoners. Among his own losses were several generals. Gustav von Vaerst, commander of the 15th Panzer Division, was wounded and forced from the battlefield, as was Chief of Staff Alfred Gause. Added to the casualty list was Siegfried Westphal, the operations officer, but worst of all was the loss of General Cruewell, who was shot down in his Storch. Cruewell was highly valued by Rommel although he often argued with the Fox about his orders, sometimes bending them to his own thinking. But Rommel found many admirable qualities in the man and particularly his skill on the battlefield. The high regard was reciprocated. And when his captors pointed out the famous Shepheard's Hotel in Cairo, the indominatable general remarked that "it will make a grand headquarters for Rommel."

  Adding to Rommel's woes was the British introduction of the new American Grant tank.

  May 31: The main crisis of the battle has passed and we have done well so far. But I expect stiff fighting for the next few days. Unfortunately Cruewell and his Storch fell into enemy hands, but I hope to find a way to liberate him.

  In the course of the battle, while moving between units, his staff and protection force, although not having much fire power, spotted and captured a British battery on the move. Shortly after, Tommy gunners sighted Rommel's group, and in the shelling one of his command trucks had its windshield demolished. Then, while returning to his command post, the group had a brush with a British unit and another with an Italian unit that mistook him forenemy.

  Throughout June the general played his grand slam, and his letters tell the story.

  June 5: The battle is still raging and the situation is developing in our favor. The supply system is working. I am on the go from morning till night.

  "He was aggressive, a fighter." The German commander, in his armored car, leading the successful battle for Tobruk in June 1942. Photo from Mrs. Rommel.

  June 8: The last two days were particularly eventful, but also successful. The fighting will last another fortnight, but / hope to get over the worst.

  He wrote his wife that during the heat of a tank battle on June 6. her birthday, he thought of her and hoped his birthday greeting had arrived punctually on that day.

  June 9: Yesterday was a day of heated battle for strong fortifications. They have not fallen yet, but / hope to take them today.

  The fortifications around Bir Hacheim were indeed strong. Skillfully engineered, there were among other defenses 1,200 nests and combat positions for infantry and heavy weapons, many well concealed and all designed to be invulnerable.

  Despite several days of waves of attacks by Stuka planes, Bir Hacheim refused to capitulate, although the defenders, including the wounded, were dying of thirst. It was largely defended by 4,000 Free French aided by a Jewish brigade. Upon hearing of the Jewish participation, Hitler sent Rommel an order saying that the Jews not killed in battle should be shot when taken prisoner. It further instructed the general that his order was not to be communicated in writing. This order was against Rommel's personal code, so he did not pass it down either in writing or orally.

  After several more days of heavy fighting, the Germans came out on top.

  June 15: The battle is won and the enemy disintegrating. Encircled remnants are being annihilated. You can imagine my joy over this turn of events. This time we have cleaned up quite thoroughly. Naturally, the victory had to be bought at the price of heavy losses.

  Five hundred Free French, most of them wounded, surrendered with the fall of the fortress, but the length of the battle had also caused a drain in the strength of the Luftwaffe. The loss of forty dive-bombers in one day alone angered Marshal Kesselring. He had words with Rommel, who had expected to have Bir Hacheim in his control by June 9, not expecting the tenacious defense that mandated the lengthy siege. The marshal's air force had other battles to fight and could not afford the losses.

  June 17: The hardest part of the battl
e has been won, the enemy is in retreat. Nine hundred square miles of fortified country are in our possession; the enemy's armored formations are almost destroyed. It's not all over yet, though.

  Among British documents captured during the battle were secret instructions to interrogators not to give Axis prisoners food, water, or rest until after questioning, since they would be more forthcoming while still traumatized by their capture. Rommel's staff forwarded the text to Berlin, which reciprocated with a similarorderto be in effect until the British order was rescinded. The British rescinded it.

  The enemy supply dump east of Tobruk had fallen to the Afrika Korps and its men revelled in the booty. There were supplies for 30,000 men for three months, including the much-desired succulent Argentine beef. Only the gasoline escaped capture, the Brits succeeding in setting fire to it.

  Tobruk was now in Rommel's sights.

  June 20: Two hours of sleep between yesterday and today. Today is the most decisive day. Let's hope that fortune will remain faithful to us.

  To the sun-bronzed troops, many bare chested and wearing only shorts and boots, they were days of glory. Rommel was anxious to cash in on this spirit, and, conversely, after Bir Hacheim, on the depression and confusion of the enemy. He set about to speedily attack Tobruk, one of the strongest fortresses in North Africa, and one he considered had been built with laudable technical skill. The year before it had been the scene of heavy fighting, so intense that Rommel was later to say, "much of its outerperimeter had literally been soaked in blood.... To every man of us Tobruk was a symbol of British resistance, and we were now going to finish it for good."

  In preparation for the battle, the master of improvisation employed a ruse. To simulate the presence of huge tank forces in its area, the 90th Light Division was equipped with trucks mounted with plane engines with propellers so as to kick up large quantities of dust and suggest the approach of strong tank forces.

  At dawn on the 20th, Rommel launched a full-scale attack, in the process sinking a gunboat and half a dozen ships trying to flee the port with troops. By dark most of the fortress area was in German hands.

  The following morning the Swabian drove into the town to find it flattened, a mass of rubble, and hours later the commanding general of the 2nd South African Infantry Division and commandant of Tobruk announced the surrender.

  June 2 1: Tobruk! The battle was magnificent. I must now get a few hours sleep after all this.

  With billows of black clouds from burning oil dumps sweeping over its harbor, and studded with the masts of sunken ships, Tobruk surrendered with its 25,000 British defenders, raising the total count of prisoners taken in the battle to 45,000. Added to this were the destruction or capture of 1,000 armored fighting vehicles, 400 guns, foodstuffs, and materiel.

  British and American military circles were in shock.

  The Desert Fox was later to consider that day the high point of the African war, and he issued an Order of the Day commending his soldiers for the conquest of Tobruk and calling upon them for one more great effort to finish off the British Eighth Army.

  THE FALL OF TOBRUK ENABLED HITLER TO ANNOUNCE WITH MUCH fanfare Rommel's promotion to field marshal, the first non-General Staff Corps officer in two wars to attain that status. Rommel was later to remark, "It would have been better had Hitler instead sent me another division."

  His shoulder insignia showing his new rank was two crossed batons. In the press of his work he forgot to switch insignia.

  June 23: We are moving up and hope to strike the next blow soon. Speed is essential now. The news that I was promoted to field marshal came like a dream. In fact all the events of the last weeks are like a dream.

  This time in the battle for the valiantly defended Tobruk there had been no long weeks of digging in in the barren terrain, which lacked water holes and shelter from the bursting British shells, the broiling sun, and the evertormenting swarming flies. This battle had been one after Rommel's heartswift. Some of the tinned goods that the Arabs had looted from his depots during his retreat in December, they now thought wise to return.

  The spirits of his men were high. Once again they were, as they called it, "Rommel ing along." They had crossed the frontier and were now in Egypt.

  June 26: We advanced over quite a distance in the last few days, and we hope to make contact for the attack on the final remnants of the enemy forces. For days I camped in the car. Food was always good, washing was omitted.

  June 27: We are still advancing and hope to keep going right to the final objective. It takes a great toll from one, but the opportunity is unique. The enemy is defending desperate/v with his air force.

  Before getting to his final objective, Rommel had to capture the fortress port of Mersa Matruh. It was a tough battle fought on a moonless night. In the midst of the confusion in the dark, his headquarters guarding unit was involved in a wild melee. British fired upon British and Germans upon Germans.

  June 29: The battle for M M - was finally fought. Our advanced elements are 120 miles from Alexandria. A few more battles will have to be fought before we reach the objective. The hardest part, however, lies behind us. Personally I am well. Some engagements demand application to physical exhaustion, but then there are hours again during which one can relax. We are already 300 miles east of Tobruk, which fell on June 2 /. The British road and rail net is in excellent shape.

  June 30: M Mell vesterday and the Armv kept moving till late at night. We are now more than sixty miles east of that point and only ninety-five miles from Alexandria!

  Supplied and refueled by the mountains of booty taken in Tobruk and Mersa Matruh, the Germans pushed on, 85 percent of their transport consisting of captured enemy vehicles. By the end of the month they were 250 miles inside Egypt, only 95 miles short of the British naval base at Alexandria. Despite the constant disharmony in the Axis forces, Egypt seemed about to fall. Messages were exchanged between the two dictators on whom the new governor of Egypt would be. And why not? Capture of the Suez Canal appeared imminent, only days before a main artery of the British Empire would be cut. The waterway seizure meant the severance of the British lifeline to India and the East.

  The name, fame, and cunning of the attacking German general were known far and wide, and panic swept through Cairo and Alexandria. In London Churchill was under attack and was losing support in his own party. He explained that the defeat of his gallant army was due to the genius of the adversary commander. A state of emergency was declared in the Egyptian capital, and it was put under martial law. Civilians loaded automobiles and carts for flight. General Auchinleck prepared plans for the demolition of all strategic installations. At British headquarters SECRET and Top SECRET documents were hastily burned to prevent their capture. It happened to be a Wednesday, and as the resulting clouds of ashes drifted over the city, some wit dubbed the day "Ash Wednesday."

  Hitler's dream of forming a huge pincers in the Near East by joining Rommel's forces in Africa with the Wehrmacht forces in Russia no longer seemed impossible to realize. The Fox had ousted the British from one fortified area after another. There remained only the final obstacle barring his entrance into Alexandria: El Alamein. His optimism was at a peak. He wrote his wife that it was possible they could meet in Italy in July, and instructed her to get passports. There was also optimism in the highest headquarters. Flying to Libya with an assemblage of Fascist dignitaries, Mussolini waited backstage with his white parade horse for the signal to make his triumphal entry into Egypt.

  But the high tide of the Axis conquest in Africa had been reached. To many a German and Italian soldier perched at the gates to the Nile Valley in the last days of June, a snapshot of himself with the Pyramids in the background appeared extremely probable-and soon. Was not the colossal image of Harmachis, the Egyptian god of the morning, almost within sight?

  The shutters of the Axis cameras were never, however, to click on these scenes. The unhappily married partners lacked the muscle for the final assault. Auchinleck had tak
en over direct command of the Eighth Army from Ritchie and stemmed Rommel's drive at El Alamein, a coastal village sixty miles west of Alexandria, making a stand between the Qattara Depression and the sea. Here the defenders were favored by a defensive complex whose flanks were impenetrable natural obstacles, preventing end runs. To the north was the Mediterranean and to the south was the 700-foot dip of the expansive Qattara Depression, 7,000 square miles of impassable terrain. For the Brits this was the last-ditch defense of Alexandria and Egypt itself.

  Wrote Rommel on July 3: The fighting for the last positions at the approaches to Alexandria is difficult. I was up near the front for several days and lived in my car and sometimes a foxhole. The enemy airforce makes it unpleasant for us. Nevertheless I hope to make it. Schmundt ]Hitler's adjutant] sent me "marshal's batons" for my shoulder straps.

  He had not changed his insignia of rank since his promotion three weeks before. Kesselring during a visit noticed the absence of the marshal's batons and pinned a pair of his own on Rommel.

  He thanked Lucie for her many dear letters and told her that a mass of mail was arriving and he couldn't get to it. His secretary was with the van 450 miles to the west.

  July 4: Unfortunately things don't go as they should. Resistance is very stiff. Our own forces are worn out. Let's hope we can still find a way to reach our goal. I, too, am tired and worn.

  July 5: The present days are extremely critical. But I'm hoping to master them.

  He reported that his chief of staff, General Gause, who had been wounded in May and had recovered, was again a casualty, this time suffering a concussion from a shell burst.