February 7: Dr. Horster came to see me yesterday and advised me to start my cure as soon as possible. Everything in me revolts against leaving the scene of battle so long as I can still. stand upright.
The following day aide Aldinger wrote to Mrs. Rommel to inform her that they would be home in eight or ten days and that the marshal's doctor believed Rommel's health had been negatively affected by his depression, that he was seeing things darker than they really were.
The days ground by slowly and torturously. On the second anniversary of his arrival in Africa, his enemies had the wily Fox at bay and were closing in for the coup de grace. By now much of the German artillery consisted of obsolete Italian guns, which were inferior to the British weapons, which outranged them. Therefore, the Tommy gunners could bombard the Germans with little risk to themselves.
With his genius for improvisation and for doing much with little, Rommel had postponed the inevitable, but even for a genius, time had run out. Now, as the Axis forces squirmed in the Allied pincers, gone was elation, gone his enthusiasm and confidence in victory. No longer did he visualize a film entitled Victory in Africa. Instead he wrote his wife:
February 12: It is two years today that /first set foot on African soil. Two years of heavy and tough fighting, most of the time against a superior enemy. On this day my thoughts center about the brave troops under my command who to the last have been doing their duty for the Fatherland and who had confidence in my leadership. We must do our utmost to ward off the mortal danger that is threatening us. Unfortunately, it's basically a question of supplies. I hope I shall be granted my request to remain with my troops to the end. / am sure you will understand my point of view, dearest wife. As a soldier I cannot act differently.
February 19: Upon orders, lam starting on one more mission today. Will 1 have the energy to carry it out? I will fight till I drop.
Though ill, racked with chills and fever and sometimes bedridden, there was to be no immediate rest for the weary wizard of the wastes. Scheduled to leave for Germany on February 20, he found a chance the day before to conduct a mobile operation against the Americans at Kasserine Pass, where his veterans severely mauled the inexperienced Americans with the help of the recently developed and highly effective Nebelwerfer weapon, a multiplerocket projector. As he surveyed the aftermath, the ever-present Arabs had stripped some of the fallen of their belongings and even their uniforms. Grave diggers were burying the dead and captured half-tracks carried GIs on the first leg of their trip to PW camps in Germany. Of the 30,000 Americans he had engaged, his forces had killed 300 and taken 4,000 prisoner. Of their tanks he had knocked out over 200 and captured 60.
February 23: Only today have I been able to get around to writing again. lam fairly well after the hard fighting. Unfortunately we will not be able to hold the territory we gained.
The marshal received notice from the Duce's Commando Supremo that in view of the necessity for a unified command in Tunisia, Army Group Afrika was to be formed under his command. There was little exultation over his increased responsibilities because he felt that would leave him in the position of whipping boy for the Fdhrer's headquarters, the Commando Supremo, and the Luftwaffe.
February 24: / have been moved up a step in the chain of command and have, therefore, turned over command of my army. Bayerlein will remain my chief of staff. I wonder if this could be a permanent solution.
February 26: If we could only achieve a great decisive victory overhere. I rack my brain day and night to that end. Sadly, the means are lacking. Everything depends on supplies-has been, for years. My health has held up so far. Heart, nerves, and rheumatism are giving me a lot of trouble, but I will bear it as long as humanly possible.
On the same day Alfred Berndt, Rommel's liaison officer to the F0hrer's headquarters, and recently promoted to captain, wrote a letter to the marshal's wife without his knowledge.
Dear Mrs. Rommel:
I should like to report to you chronologically. Your husband's physical and mental condition developed at the beginning of February to a point where Professor Horster considered a cure of at least eight weeks as an absolute necessity. February 20 was the date given to the Fuhrer's headquarters as the latest date of departure.
The tense military situation also had an aggravating effect on your husband's condition. The Italian High Command had sent a successor without giving official notice and without notice from the German side that he was being recalled. They waited for him to report sick. And he said, and rightly so-and which I passed onthat he would never report sick. He belonged to his soldiers. If he himself had to determine the time of his departure and if something happened a few days later, he would be reproached f ►r not having foreseen the events and for having left a few days too early.
Meanwhile, certain operations against the West were necessary and could not be postponed. Troops of both armies were to take part. When he noticed the jealousy prevailing, he relinquished the command in favor of the others. But when the success achieved was not exploited fast enough and the way he thought it should be, he intervened with a very bold proposal, but which was watered down to some extent, and he was given command. He was then finally able to conduct a mobile operation again. That evening he ordered a bottle of champagne and said that he felt like an old cavalry horse that had heard the brass band again. During the following days his condition improved to such an extent that one would have thought he was as fit as he used to be. Professor Horster diagnosed an improved condition and raised no objection to his conducting operations for a few more weeks and delaying his cure till then.
I made a report to that effect to the Fuhrer and Commanding General of TheaterSouth. In the middle of our successful operations we received the answer: Army Group Rommel with both armies under command. It was new and further confirmation of the faith of the Fuhrer and the Duce. I brought this about to prove to him that there was still the greatest confidence in him despite the long retreat. He was always persuading himself to the contrary. Confidence in him could not have been more clearly shown.
The letter goes on to say that whether Rommel would return to Africa after his sick leave would depend on the situation. He would return if the battle could be fought offensively, Berndt believed. If not, then the Fuhrer, "who has described the Marshal as his best offensive general," would give him a major mission elsewhere. And while the greater responsibilities weighed heavily on him at the moment, said the liaison officer, they had also given him the lift that he needed.
Berndt added that it was wonderful to see the joyful reaction of the troops during the last days as her husband drove along the columns and right up to the infantry scouts in front of the tank spearheads, and to see him plunge into the mud among the men when under artillery fire, as he used to. "In what other commander do the troops have such trust?" he asked. He concluded with the prediction that her husband would go home in the latter part of March and hoped his letter had brought her up to date. It ends with "best wishes and Heil Hitler."
Reporting on the results of the Kasserine Pass fighting, the Fox was later to write that he found the Americans "fantastically well equipped" and that the Germans had much to learn from them organizationally. He was particularly impressed by the high quality and standardization of their armor, vehicles, and spare parts.
March 3: Though I am commanding an army group, my troubles have not lessened. Schmundt wrote me a very nice letter. The Fiihrer is worried about me. But I can't get away for the time being. I must go on for a while yet. I wish I would get a different job. I am hindered by Rome in every step I take, yet I have to bear the full responsibility. That is intolerable. Often I think my nerves will .snap. At the moment I pursue a course along the edge of an abyss. In event of a misstep, the consequences will be incalculable. Outside it's spring and there is sunshine. Trees and meadows are blossoming. The world could be so beautiful for all men. Here in Africa with its wide-open spaces there is so much that could be done.
The marshal's ten
ure as supreme commander in North Africa was not of long duration. A few days after his appointment he decided to fly to the Fuhrer's headquarters to lay out for the top brass the operational problems in Tunisia. He handed over Army Group Afrika to Colonel General Hans- Juergen von Arnim as his deputy, boarded his plane, and en route stopped in Rome to see Mussolini. For twenty-five minutes they discussed the African situation. The fall of Tripoli had been a severe blow to Italian morale and the Duce saw serious consequences if Tunis fell. Rommel, his wife told me, laid out the bleak picture. The conversation was conducted in German, in which the Duce was fluent, and began cordially. However, it became acrimonious when Mussolini refused to accept the reality of the situation. Opening a drawer in a table, the Duce swept into it a medal that he had ready to present to Rommel.
Captain Berndt, his liaison officer, later told him that the Duce had planned to present to him the Medaglia d'Oro al Valor Militare (Gold Medal for Military Valor).
In telling me of the incident, Mrs. Rommel said with a little laugh that the general had later ruefully remarked, "It was a beautiful thing, porcelain and gold. Too bad I couldn't have kept my mouth shut a little longer."
At the Fiihrer's headquarters, then in the Ukraine, he had better luck. He was awarded Germany's highest decoration, the Oak Leaves with Swords and Diamonds to the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, the first army officer to be so decorated. He took advantage of the ceremony to plead once more with Hitler for means to combat the Allied forces in Africa.
Adolph Hitler presents the certification of Germany's highest decoration, the Oak Leaves with Swords and Diamonds. For Rommel it was a bitter consolation prize for the troops and supplies he needed, but which the Fuhrer denied him. Photo from Mrs. Rommel.
"Impossible!" exclaimed the Fuhrer.
Rommel then suggested the immediate withdrawal of all troops from across the Mediterranean. It was obvious, he pointed out, that the Allies would attack Italy after conquering Africa.
Hitler flatly refused to consider withdrawal, reaffirming his obligations to the Duce and stressing the loss of prestige if such a course were adopted. "Kesselring's inspection reports." he said, "show no such drastic measures warranted. You see everything too black, Rommel!"
Present at the conference was Goering, who interjected a glib guarantee that the Luftwaffe would evacuate the troops if the situation ever got really desperate. Rommel silently noted the guarantee as in the same league as the Luftwaffe chief's grandiloquent promise to the German people early in the war that if one bomb ever fell on Germany, he would change his name to Meyer. Now as the Allied bombers approached the Fatherland's cities and the populace heard the warning wail of the air raid sirens, they dubbed the devices "Meyer's hunting horns." a sarcastic reference to Goering's penchant for hunting.
To the paunchy air chiefs discomfiture, Rommel bluntly told him that the Luftwaffe was incapable of such rescue action and had proved pathetically inadequate in its support of Axis operations. Goering, aware of his ebbing influence, was not overly pleased to have these opinions aired in the Fiihrer's presence.
Hitler forbade Rommel to return to Africa, even to reclaim his baggage. The marshal protested that he could not leave his men now, that he felt like a captain deserting his sinking ship.
"Your nerves are shot," said Hitler to the sick and physically drained soldier. "I'll send you back later. Start your cure now."
It was a leave well earned. At his departure less than a thousand of Rommel's original "Afrikaners," as they referred to themselves, and only a handful of officers had weathered the two years of grueling desert battles. Left behind were the fallen-9 generals and I0,(XX) of the Fatherland's finest youth.
Aware of the negative effect on the Axis troops the departure of the beloved Rommel would have, and conversely the positive effect knowledge of his leaving would have on the enemy, Hitler dispatched telegrams to Marshal Kesselring and Mussolini to keep secret from the troops and even the commanders the fact that the Fiihrer had sent the ailing Fox on leave.
Rommel never again appeared on the African stage. He was replaced by General Arnim.
The strength of the American economic base and the failure of Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz's submarines to stop the transfer of its products across the ocean, had swung the pendulum of power in the direction of the Allies. The auto plants spewed forth tanks in formidable numbers while increasing fleets of American aircraft gnawed away at the Luftwaffe and cooperated with the RAF and the Royal Navy in sinking ships carrying supplies for the remnants of the German-Italian armies. Of 100 Axis transport planes trying to get supplies to Arnim in Tunisia on April 18, half were shot down by Allied fighters.
The battle of the Atlantic, the Fox was later to remark, determined the winner of the fight for North Africa.
In his assessment of the British generals, his regard for Wavell was highest, finding that only he showed a touch of genius. For the others he had a less elevated opinion. Auchinlech he described as "a very good leader" but faulted him for too often leaving tactical control of operations to subordinates who, he felt, too often reacted rather then initiating action. Cunningham and Ritchie, he thought, were not tank specialists and did not understand how to commit their forces for greatest effect.
In his first brush with Montgomery, the Fox was quick to note that his adversary was a cautious man not inclined to take any sort of risk. After his departure from Africa, in a study paper reviewing the campaign, he wrote with perhaps a hint of deprecation: "It was clear tome that Montgomery would never take the risk of striking boldly after us and overrunning us, as he could have done perfectly safely. Indeed, looking at the operations as a whole, such a course would have cost him far smaller casualties than his methodical insistence on overwhelming superiority in each tactical action, at the sacrifice of speed." Echoing the Swabian, General Guenther Blumentritt, Rundstedt's chief of staff, similarly commented after the war that he thought the Englishman a plodder, too timid to have been a great commander, a view also held by Patton and other American commanders. Blumentritt's opinion was based on his experience opposing Montgomery in the subsequent Normandy campaign.
For the Tommy soldier, Rommel had great admiration. Watching a line of prisoners go by, he commented: "I would be proud to lead such men into battle."
Less than two months after the meeting with Hitler, Rommel's successor was faced with the choice of capitulation or annihilation, and in May 1943 history recorded the mass surrender at Tunis of the remnants of the shattered Italian and German armies. A quarter of a million men, three-fifths of them German, began their trip to Allied prisoner of war camps, leaving Rommel to draw comfort from the knowledge that his Afrikaners would be well treated.
The African campaign had ended with victory for the Western Powers. From the Allied brass, who months earlier had shaken in their boots at the mention of Rommel's name, there now came gloating comments to the effect that Rommel had left Africa to save his own skin. His letters home show otherwise.
Allied prisoner of war interrogators had found Rommel's sun-browned soldiers, especially members of the three backbone divisions of the Afrika Korps-the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions and the 90th Light Divisionto be proud, highly skilled fighters, and usually security conscious during interrogation. After a retreat of 2,000 miles they still idolized their harddriving ascetic leader, a fact testified to by the jauntiness with which they marched, singing, into captivity, and by the many letters he received from his officers and enlisted men in British and American prisoner of war camps. Had he been permitted to solicit volunteers for African service, said a German general after the war, the German Army en masse would have marched to his command.
Rommel had hewn the Afrika Korps into a great fighting team by personal example and force of character. Although forty-eight when he arrived and fifty when he left, he was an unusual specimen who wore out men half his age, who was able to survive-one could almost say thrive-on a Spartan existence. His boldness, self-confidence, and inv
incibility rubbed off on men and officers alike. For a time the British had thought his troops were specially selected and trained for desert warfare. They were not. They were just run-of-the-mill soldiers. Of his officers he had demanded loyalty and selflessness, and he set the example. This permeated down through the ranks, so that even in the worst of times there was never a problem of discipline, never a surrender because of fatigue, never a collapse of morale. His was an army with a magnificent esprit de corps even through its darkest hours and to the bitter end.
AFTER ROMMEL'S REMOVAL FROM THE NORTH AFRICAN THEATER, his relations with Hitler cooled. The Fiihrer's refusal to permit him to return to his troops rankled the marshal, who considered his compulsory withdrawal an act that could not be justified in the eyes of the Wehrmacht or the public.
Ill with blood pressure problems and the severe jaundice and facial sores he had contracted in Africa, he went to the hospital in Semmering, a mountain resort near Vienna, to resume the rest and recuperation that had been cut short by his resumption of the African command after General Stumme's quick death. General von Arnim sent him daily reports of the worsening situation in Africa, but from Hitler's headquarters he heard nothing, to his annoyance. To busy himself while in the hospital, he wrote his memoirs of the African campaign. He had a deep sense of history and wanted the after-war record to accurately reflect his thoughts and reasons for his actions. Since not all that he wrote would favorably reflect on Hitler and his circle, he took care to write in secrecy, trusting his drafts to be typewritten only by his wife or one of his aides.
To his son, who visited on weekends, he confided that he was considered by the High Command and by Kesselring and Goering to be a defeatist and concluded he was in disgrace and would not soon get another command. He reviled the High Command and didn't spare the Fiihrer, which troubled the boy, who was an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth.
Discovering the Rommel Murder Page 13
