In a copy of a three-page affidavit, the list of missing items included the only samurai sword awarded for bravery in the German Army by the Japanese emperor.
Among the other items missing were a collection of the coats of arms of different cities, a two-burner electric field kitchen, two gold watches, kitchen and bed linens, and carved wooden dishes. The list went on and on. It was particularly irksome to Mrs. Rommel that some of the plundered goods did not even belong to her, but to a niece, a sister-in-law, and a woman friend in Berlin.
By the time of this visit, the house had been occupied successively by three different American units. The first had left the house and contents largely undisturbed. Not so the second and third occupants.
Mrs. Rommel asked me to try to get the items back and gave me a receipt signed by a Lieutenant Colonel A. P. Quirk, who had supposedly authorized the seizure of Rommel's camera and effects. I promised to see if I could do anything to have them returned.
After my arrival in the States I contacted the War Department for Quirk's address, and wrote Quirk asking him about the disappearance of Rommel's camera and effects. It brought this reply:
Dear Mr. Marshall:
1 am quite mystified by your letter of October 2, 1946, about the Rommel family and their missing camera.
Although there was a lot of looting in Germany by combat troops and later on by official visitors, /feel as you do: namely, that no gentleman would ever indulge in looting activities in Germany. I do not know the Rommel familY, nor do I recognize the names of the two towns mentioned in your letter, except that I have heard of a "Duren " between Aschen and Cologne. That was in 12th Army Group Territory, but I was not in that sector after October 1944.
I believe that what man have happened was that someone attached to my unit, and using a pass which 1 had issued bearing my name and the name of my unit, may have taken this camera. If you can find out further details, such as where Duren is, and the description (if possible) of the person or persons who took the camera, I will he glad to do what I can to help you locate it.
For your information, / did not pick up a Leica camera during the war-do not own one-and do not have one now.
Sincerely,
A. P. Quirk
After several hours of conversation, during which I again found Mrs. Rommel to be an unusually interesting and forceful woman, and during which I made a dozen pages of notes, we visited her husband's grave in the cemetery of the local church in Herrlingen. Before we left her home, she showed me the artists' sketches of Hitler's proposal for a grandiose marble monument to mark the site, which she had ignored. I had nevertheless expected to see a somewhat impressive gravestone. [ was therefore a bit surprised to find only a simple wooden cross hewn in the form of the Iron Cross. The inscription read "Generalfeldmarsehall Erwin Rommel, 1891-1944." Carved between the two dates were Germany's highest decoration of World War I, the Pour le Merite (For Merit), awarded for gallantry in action. Its French name dated back to the order's founding by Frederick the Great in 1740, a time when the language of the royal courts of Europe was French.
Also between the dates was carved Germany's second highest award of World War 11, the Ritterkreuz mit Eichenlaub and Schwerten (Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords). The highest decoration of World War II, which Rommel also held, was not carved into the cross. Being encrusted with diamonds, it did not lend itself to reproduction. After the capture of Herrlingen, an ambitious American-installed Buergermeister chiselled out the swastika in the World War II medal.
The grave of the Desert Fox photographed by the author while visiting the cemetery with Mrs. Rommel and General Speidel in May 1946. The cross, hewn out of oak, is in the shape of the Iron Cross, the German military decoration. Photo by author.
To my comment on the modesty of the burial marker, particularly in contrast to Hitler's proposal, she said, "That's all he would have wanted."
Speidel nodded agreement.
At the end of our visit, Mrs. Rommel agreed to let me see her again in a few days, and I drove back to Freudenstadt with the Speidels and their guest.
I was now alerted that my orders to return to the States would soon be coming through. That day being indeterminate, and aware of the Army's "hurry up and wait" method of operation, I continued diligently to supervise the intelligence functions in the camps in the Ludwigsburg, Karlsruhe, and Bad Mergentheim areas. These were the camps in the southern half of the Seventh Army zone. Day after day I moved from one stronghold to another observing the procedures employed and evaluating them, trying always to eliminate redundant steps, standardize methods, and speed up the entire process of interrogation and disposition of the imprisoned. One of these camps was the War Crimes Camp in Ludwigsburg near Stuttgart. In riffling through the files there one afternoon I discovered that two of the prisoners were Field Marshal von Weichs, whom I had interrogated shortly before the war's end, and Hitler's personal physician, Dr. Theodor Morell. I had both of them called in and talked to each for an hour.
Weichs was glad to see me and remembered me well. In place of the robust, smartly dressed general staff officer I had before me a year earlier, I was now faced with a man in obviously poor health. There were boils on his unshaven face, his hands and feet were swollen, his field marshal's uniform had been replaced with some nondescript clothing, and his shoes had cord for shoelaces.
When I asked how he was being treated, he refused to complain. I strongly suggested to the camp administrator that he be given medical attention.
I supposed he would be delivered to the Yugoslav government, as he expected, and that would mean his execution. To me he appeared a gentleman and a scholar. In discussing him with General Speidel, he described the marshal as "a very fair man, a very fine character." That he had to lead an army that had to constantly fight guerrillas and take harsh measures was his misfortune. I was reminded of this quotation: "A man is a product of his times and his circumstances." And surely, I thought, Weichs must have pondered the unpredictability of fate. As events transpired, he was neither turned over to the Yugoslav government nor was he put on trial at Nuremberg, but instead was released from prison in 1948.
The meeting with Hitler's doctor was also unforgettable. A bald, near sighted man of about sixty, stooped, heavy set, and with a white beard having only a few dark hairs, he was so dark complexioned as to project an almost sinister appearance. He, too, was ill.
Morell's medical career had begun in the merchant marine, where he became a specialist in treating venereal disease. He developed his own pharmaceutical company, and one of its products was a lice powder named "Russia," used exclusively by the military services.
He talked freely and volunteered information. He said the stories circulated in the Allied press that the Fuhrer fell to the floor and bit the rug when angry were false. When he was angry, said Morell, the Fuhrer would raise his voice to a furious shout. But when he was absolutely quiet, or when he turned pale, then he was really angry.
The doctor examined Hitler every two days and travelled with him, seeing him for the last time only a few days before his death. For nine years he gave Hitler grape sugar injections and toward the end also heart injections. If he also injected the Fiihrer with drugs laced with atropine and strychnine, as has been said, he did not confide this to me.
The bomb explosion during the attempted July 20 putsch caused Hitler a lacerated right arm, right shinbone, and two ruptured eardrums, the right bleeding badly for a while. Hitler was leaning over the map table as the bomb went off and the top of the table blew upward, injuring his right arm. Thereafter, said Morell, his right hand shook uncontrollably.
I was reminded of this a few years ago when there was a "sensational find" in Germany of Hitler's diaries. Some esteemed scholars, particularly British historians, were certain the diaries were genuine. When I saw photographs of handwritten extracts from the diaries, with no sign of a tremor, I was able to predict they were forgeries, based on the remembrance of my talk with Morell
.
Morell, it has since been said, was a morphine addict. This I do not know of my own experience, but he was an obviously sick man when I saw him that day on May 20, 1946.
While ordinarily not an autograph collector, I pasted the signatures of these two men in my journal. The next day I had an appointment with Mrs. Rommel.
May 21: Visited Mrs. Rommel. Arrived at 10:30 in the morning and we talked until I the next morning. The result was several more pages of material and a number of pictures, including a special portrait of Rommel made br Hitler's photographer Heinrich Hoffmann.
She is extremely bitter about her treatment by the American occupational forces. She has had several unpleasant experiences and does not appreciate my subtle reminders that German soldiers often acted similarly. She says that of all the Americans she has met, she liked only four, and that I am the only one she ever invited to dinner.
I returned the telegrams she gave me and have an appointment with her for Saturday.
May 25: Visited Mrs. Rommel and met her son Manfred, a seventeen-year-old, tall, well-built boy with horn-rimmed glasses, objective and smart, familiar to the last detail with his father's career. He seems to remember every word his father ever said. I got considerably more data....
Smoked two cigarettes, which I enjoyed. They were the crown prince's private brand and had been given to Rommel as a gift. Apparently he did not know that Rommel did not smoke. They were a little shorter than the regular cigarette and had a reed stem. [The crown prince was the oldest son of Kaiser Wilhelm II, who had abdicated at the end of the First World War. The prince was the heir apparent to the throne, should the monarchy be restored. The cigarettes, made of Egyptian tobacco, were a mild smoke.]
Mrs. Rommel gave me several more pictures of her husband and loaned me others to have reproduced.
She remarked once again that she had met only fourAmericans whom she liked, and of the four I was her favorite. She appeared sincere.
Her impression of Americans would have been better. I felt, had it not been so largely based on the rapacious souvenir-seeking of the GIs.
As we pored over photographs and assorted memorabilia covering the dining room table, she watched me read over and over Hitler's hypocritical telegram of condolence, with each reading shaking my head in disbelief. "This leaves me speechless," I finally said.
"Yes," she sighed, and offered me the historic document.
The next day I picked up Mrs. Rommel and Manfred, and we drove to the Speidels home. Having disposed of the BMW in preparation for my return to the States, the trip was made in a jeep and was a bit unpleasant because it rained most of the way. The visit, however, was enjoyable and the time went all too fast. Manfred and I took pictures, and I agreed with the Rommels and Speidels to stay in touch.
Left to right: Mrs. Rommel, General Speidel, Mrs. Speidel and daughter Christa, Mr. and Mrs. Firnhauer (friends of the author), and Manfred Rommel. Photo taken bY author on Mar 26, 1946.
Returning I had midnight supper with the Rommels and arrived home at 5 A.M.
Colonel Smith's letters to Professor Kurt Hesse, the military historian, lay on my desk for three weeks before I found an opportunity to drive the 110 miles to Oberursel, a suburb of Frankfurt, where Hesse lived. He was writing for the Historical Division of Military Government in Frankfurt.
A tall, slender man of distinguished mien, fine featured, about fifty-seven, with a magnetism that I felt must instantly captivate an audience, he received me graciously. His wife, equally welcoming, was an attractive woman, prematurely gray and considerably younger. I was soon to observe that Hesse's eyesight was extremely bad (due to an eye disease he had contracted in the East, he told me) and that his wife doubled as his secretary and reader.
They were delighted to receive Smith's letters and much interested in hearing about my many visits to Speidel and my several visits with Mrs. Rommel. Hesse was especially intrigued by my curiosity about the field marshal since he was himself engaged in gathering material on Rommel, his work to be Rommel's authorized biography.
Invited to stay for dinner, we discussed Rommel at great length while Mrs. Hesse made copious notes for us. Hesse offered to prepare data for me on Rommel's disillusionment with the Nazi Party. He showed me some of his work in progress, and l noted a gift for smooth-flowing, insightful, and punchy writing. I felt the biography would be a classic. Like me, he viewed Rommel's rise and fall as a great tragi-drama of Shakespearean dimensions. Like Speidel an acute observer, he was well suited to provide trenchant insights into the character and career of Rommel.
A prolific writer, the author of twenty-one books and tracts and hundreds of articles, he was, through his lectures on military history at the University of Berlin and at army staff schools, known by reputation to all the chief military leaders in Germany, to many personally. Hesse was also well known in France and Switzerland. In the United States some of his work had been translated by the Army and Navy Journal.
Widely read in Germany were The Psychology of Generalship and his psychological study of his company commander in World War I, My Captain.
Never a member of the Nazi Party or any of its affiliates, he was, until April 1941, the press chief of the German Army until forced out by conflicts with Propaganda Minister Goebbels and prohibited from further publishing. After his capture (he was a colonel in a staff job in France) he was flown to London and then Washington for high-level interrogation.
Professor Dr. Kurt Hesse and Mrs. Hesse. The widely read German military historian was planning the official biography of Rommel at the time of the author's visit in May 1946. Photo by author.
Hesse was a friend of long standing of Colonel Smith and General Speidel and had known Rommel himself very well for fifteen years, from the time he was a captain. He had had much social intercourse with Rommel, having had the opportunity to observe him closely when the marshal was inspection officer at the Dresden Military Academy (1931) and where he later acted as a tactics teacher.
"At that time," said Hesse, "I was often together with him, heard his lectures, and visited him at his home. Later Rommel was assigned to my headquarters, the Inspectorate of Training in the High Command of the Army, as so-called director of courses at the Potsdam Military Academy and simultaneously liaison officer to the Hitler Youth, and later yet as commandant of the Military Academy at Wiener Neustadt. I also knew him when he was adjutant to the Fi hrer and later when he was an army commander.
"In the summer of 1942," continued Hesse, "when Rommel was in Africa, we agreed that in the event of his death, I would write his official biography. And when he was wounded in France, I visited him in the hospital at Le Vesinet near Paris and there Rommel reaffirmed the agreement that I would be his official biographer." As I was preparing to leave, Hesse asked me to translate his book on Rommel into English when he finished it.
We arranged to exchange information on Rommel, and I told him I would bring him my manuscript in a few days and he was free to borrow anything from it that he wished.
May 27: 1 leave for the United States tomorrow....
The next days were spent in Marburg being processed for repatriation. During one break in the procedure I looked up the German naval historian, Admiral Gladisch, who lived in the Frankfurt area, hoping he could give me some information on Rommel's supplies in North Africa, but he couldn't. During other breaks I several times visited Hesse for lengthy discussions about Rommel, always returning with more data to be incorporated in the work. Leaving my manuscript for his inspection, I returned two days later to retrieve it, half expecting a cold and murderous criticism of it by this popular professional writer. Instead, he told me had found the story "gripping from beginning to end," and asked me again to translate his book when it was done.
With my day of departure from Marburg scheduled for June 5, my search for Rommel, the true Rommel, hadcome to an end. I had deliberately refrained from reading any of the pap about him churned out by the Goebbels propaganda machine in the heyday
of his successes in North Africa. Also, I had ignored the twaddle in much of the American media, wisely. it developed, for upon my return to the States I was to find in the usually reliable New York Times over twenty errors of fact in his obituary.
I was glad that I had instead sought out the sources who really knew him, who could go beyond the public persona, who could provide the insights into the inner man and bring to light the reasons why this one-time adherent of National Socialism had come to lose his faith in the Fiihrer.
WHY I)ID HITLER WANT ROMMEL DEAD? THERE WAS A PARTING OF THE ways as each lost faith in the other.
Until 1942 Rommel had firmly believed in the Nazi leader. After the miscarriage of the African campaign in the winter of 1942-43, which he felt was due to all the broken promises of supplies and reinforcements, his faith was seriously eroded. By May of 1943, while Rommel was at the Fiihrer's headquarters with no particular assignment but with considerable opportunity to observe Hitler at close hand, crisis after crisis followed for the Germans. Three-quarters of Paulus's Sixth Army of 320.000 at Stalingrad had been killed and the other quarter taken prisoner. In Tunisia a similar disaster was in the offing for what was left of the troops Rommel had commanded. In Italy the government was on the verge of collapse.
In a lengthy talk Rommel had with Hitler at this time, and which he recounted to his wife, the Fuhrer said he was aware that there was little chance of Germany winning the war, that he had not wanted war with the West, but that it was the West who wanted it and now would have it to the bitter end. Later, in July, in another conversation with Rommel, the Fuhrer said that if the German people were incapable of winning the war, "they can rot." A great people had to die heroically. He would make the enemy fight for every single house.
Discovering the Rommel Murder Page 27
