by David Irving
When, as often happened, events went against him, self-pity swamped Rommel’s writings. His letters home to Lucie appealed for her compassion and sympathy. He blamed everybody else for his predicament, and never once himself—as well he might have—for having in 1941 thumbed his nose at Franz Halder’s dark warnings about the likely supply difficulties, or for overreaching the stop lines dictated to him by Berlin and Rome. His hostility toward men like Halder and especially General Alfred Jodl, one of Germany’s most perceptive strategic thinkers, revealed Rommel’s poor judgment of character; so did his praise for generals like the weak Cherbourg commandant General von Schlieben.
Yet for all these shortcomings, Rommel’s ability was undeniable. As Hesse said, “He was extremely hard, not only with others but with himself as well. There was a dynamo within him that never stopped humming, and because he was capable of great feats he expected a lot from his subordinates as well, and didn’t recognize that normal human beings do have their physical and mental limits.” We can remember Rommel’s genius for the unexpected, his mechanical gifts, his original tactical devices. Combat troops are not fools, they can sift the charlatans from the great commanders. Without exception, Rommel’s troops—of whatever nationality—adored him.
History will not forget that for two years he withstood the weight of the British Empire on the only battlefield where it was then engaged, with only two panzer divisions and a handful of other ill-armed and undernourished forces under his command. He was a twentieth-century Hannibal—there is no doubt of it. Hannibal too was clean, upright, beloved by his troops. He too triumphed by cunning, and by his deadly and accurate assessment of the numerically superior enemy’s intentions; he too fought on distant battlefields, bereft of adequate support from home. Just as Hannibal had used the ancient Gauls to hold the center at Cannae, and his African cavalry to encircle the Romans, Rommel stationed his long-suffering Italian allies in the front line, while his mechanized panzer elite outflanked the enemy. Both warriors fought their last great battles on almost the same ground—Hannibal at Zama, Rommel at Kasserine. And Hannibal too was forced to swallow poison by his enraged compatriots.
What monuments now stand to Rommel? There is a bare wooden cross above the grave that holds his ashes. And there is a stone memorial at Kilometer 31 before Tobruk on the Via Balbia, commanding the graves of all his fallen soldiers, the “Africans” of whom he was so proud—Prittwitz, Ponath, Sümmer-mann, Neumann-Silkow, Bismarck and so many more. Once a year survivors come to greet them in his name, and that is his other monument: he lives on in their memory. And when the hot storm blows, and the skies cloud over with red, flying sand, and the ghibli begins to howl, perhaps they hear once more a Swabian voice rasping in their ears: “Angreifen!” “Attack!” And then a fainter cry: “Mount up!” And then the thunder of the panzer columns starting engines and rolling off eastward against the enemy.
Acknowledgments
ERWIN ROMMEL would have been approaching his ninetieth year if he were still alive when I first set out on his trail. So even if he had been a man of many friends—which he was not—their number would be dwindling. Any biographer of Rommel is forced, therefore, to rely more heavily on the documents and less on the human memory; and the documents are deposited in towns no less widely dispersed than the surviving few who with justifiable pride call themselves his friends.
Without exception, however, the archives’ staffs have made my repeated visits really enjoyable. I will mention first the West German Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv at Freiburg—where the Rommel Papers are deposited in duplicate, under severe access limitations imposed by the family—and the Bundesarchiv-Zentralnachweisstelle at Cornelimünster and the Bundesarchiv itself at Koblenz. The Cabinet Office Historical Section in London provided me with German papers on Rommel not seen before, and I am thankful to Clifton Child and Mrs. Nan Taylor for them. Equally, Lieutenant Commander Mal J. Collet, USNR, provided great hospitality and assistance at the archives of The Citadel, the famous military academy at Charleston, South Carolina.
The staffs of the National Archives in Washington and the Imperial War Museum in London bore my several visits with much fortitude, and I have reason to be grateful to Professor Messerschmidt of the West German defense ministry’s Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt as well. Finally, the later chapters of this book rely heavily on materials disclosed to me by the Institut für Zeitgeschichte in Munich, where the Sammlung Irving—as they are generous enough to call the section of their vaults housing my documents collection—has accordingly been enhanced by approximately six cubic feet of the documents and diaries I assembled for the writing of this book.
So much for archives. Many of the fine photographs come from negative originals supplied by Hans Asmus Baron von Esebeck, whose father was the famous war reporter on Rommel’s staff; most of the rest—and much of the documentation—comes from Manfred Rommel, Lord Mayor of Stuttgart and son of the field marshal. He himself plans one day to write about his father, and I know what qualms he must have overcome before letting me use his precious documents and photographs before he does. I am happy to place on record my indebtedness to Manfred Rommel’s generosity and Frau Lilo Rommel’s hospitality. I spoke twice with Lucie Rommel before she died; it is to her that I owe my good fortune in obtaining access to the Rommel correspondence, which otherwise remains sealed for many decades to come.
Hellmuth Lang donated to me large portions of the 1944 Rommel diary and other papers, and many of the photographs are from his collection. Vice Admiral Friedrich Ruge lent me his transcripts of his own shorthand diaries—and allowed me to check them where necessary against the Gabelsberg stenography of the original—and Lieutenant Colonel Adalbert von Taysen allowed me to read his own official history of Tobruk 1941 in manuscript form before publication. Lastly, I must thank Wilfried Armbruster, of Milan, for lending me his entire diaries, written while he was Rommel’s interpreter from 1941 to 1943, although he, like Manfred Rommel, was originally thinking of publishing something himself one day.
Of those who rendered personal recollections or assistance I will single out only these: Alistair Bannerman, for permission to quote his extraordinary D day diary; K. H. von Barsewisch; Hans-Otto Behrendt; Antonie Böttcher; Peter von Bredow (Guderian’s adjutant in 1944); Anthony Cave-Brown, for the papers on the 1944 attempt on Rommel’s life; Ernst H. Dahlke; the Deutsches Zentralarchiv, Potsdam, East Germany, for information on Hofacker’s trial; Hans Dümmler; Anton Ehrnsperger; Gotthard Baron von Falkenhausen; Oskar Farny; Fridolin Fröhlich for the hunting license valid in occupied France in 1944; Heinz-Günther Guderian, son of the famous panzer general and a leading Bundeswehr tank commander in his own right; Wolfgang Hagemann; Kurt Heilmann; the late Professor Kurt Hesse, for access to the papers he had collected for his own biography of Rommel before a dispute with Lucie stifled the project. Also Eberhard von Hofacker; Arthur Holtermann; Anton Hoch; W. M. James, of North Carolina, another would-be Rommel biographer who found the subject one of such sheer immensity that he was glad to make his own invaluable collection available to me instead; Ernst Jünger, for permission to quote from his diaries; David Kahn, for material on Colonel Bonner Fellers; Hildegard Kirchheim, for excerpts from her husband’s papers; Gerhard Lademann; Hans Lattmann; Ronald Lewin—himself author of accomplished books on Rommel and the Afrika Korps—for casting a professional eye over early drafts of this book. Also Rudolf Loistl; Ernst Maisel; Johanna Martin—who gave me the fine autographed Rommel portrait that forms the frontispiece; Fritz Memminger; Wilhelm Meyer-Detring; Egon Morasch; Konstantin Baron von Neurath; Winston G. Ramsey, editor of After the Battle magazine; Hellmuth Reinhardt; Hans Roschmann; Fabian von Schlabrendorff; Gerhard Count von Schwerin; Hans Seitz; Hans Speidel, for extracts from a still unpublished 1945 manuscript he wrote about his period of Gestapo interrogation and subsequent fortress arrest. Also Anton Staubwasser, for patiently explaining again and again how Army Group B arrived at its intelligence estimates in 1944; Johannes Str
eich; Ernst Streicher, Rommel’s adjutant, for photographs and combat reports dated 1917; Hans-Georg von Tempelhoff; Elmar Warning; Siegfried Westphal; Konrad Baron von Woellwarth—one of Guderian’s 1944 staff—and Eberhard Wolfram.
Finally, I am grateful to Carla Venchiarutti for her work in the archives and interpretation of the Italian documents; and all historians, not just I myself, owe a debt to Jutta Thomas for her patient deciphering of the shorthand Rommel diaries.
DAVID IRVING
London, June 1977
The Sources
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
BA-MA
Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv, the West German military archives at Freiburg.
CO
Cabinet Office file, now in Imperial War Museum, London.
CSDIC
Combined Services Detailed Interrogation Center.
IfZ
Institut für Zeitgeschichte (Institute of Contemporary History), Munich.
MGFA
Militär-Geschichtliches Forschungsamt, the research branch for military history of the German defense ministry, Freiburg.
MR
Marine Rundschau, journal.
NA
National Archives, Washington, D.C.
OCMH
Office of Chief of Military History. Its files of German military studies (MS) are now in the NA.
SI
Sammlung Irving, the collection of David Irving’s research documents archived at the IfZ, open to all researchers (occasionally subject to donor restrictions).
T- NA
microfilm serial number.
VfZ
Vierteljahrshefte fiir Zeitgeschichte, quarterly published by IfZ.
WR
Wehrwissenschaftlicher Rundschau, journal.
ZS
Document series at IfZ.
The records collected for this Rommel biography have been microflmed and are available from Microform Academic Publishers Ltd, Main Street, East Ardsley, Wakefeld, West Yorkshire, WF3 2AT, England; phone 0044 1924 825 700, fax 871 005, email: [email protected]. The flms are well catalogued and provide material for the study of the fghting in North Africa (1941-1943) and Normandy (1944). See the review of this Irving microflm collection in Microform Reviews, vol. 7, no. 6, pp. 351–3. The films include DJ.150: Rommel’s personnel file; 1917–44 combat reports, and interpreter’s diary, 1941-43. DJ.151: Vice-Admiral Ruge’s diary, 1943–44; Meyer-Detring (Rundstedt’s G-2) diary. DJ.152: Documents and interviews on Erwin Rommel, 1944. DJ.153: Salmuth diaries; papers on Hans Speidel. DJ.154–57: Rommel’s career, 1917–44. DJ.158: Rommel diaries, 1941–1942. DJ.159 160: Rommel diaries, 1942–44.
BASIC DOCUMENTS
The very earliest records are in Rommel’s personnel files. Two folders exist, CO, AL.451; and BA-MA, Pers.6/5 (also an OCMH photocopy in NA, X-672/3). These contain summaries of his combat experience. From Ernst Streicher I obtained carbon copies of Major Theodor Sproesser’s battalion action reports for the period of October 24 to December 9,1917. They can be compared with Rommel’s own manuscript history (T84/277, /278), the official history published years later by the Reichsarchiv, volumes 12a and 12b, and the supplement that Rommel prevailed upon them to print, Nachtrag zu den Bänden 12a und b. Additionally, there exist a number of letters written between the war years by Rommel to his family and friends.
Apart from his letters, the main source on his period as commandant of the Führer’s headquarters is its war diary (T77/858). I also drew on the diary and letters of Colonel Nikolaus von Vormann, one of Hitler’s liaison officers at that time. Extensive records on the French campaign in 1940 exist; I used particularly Rommel’s own manuscripts (T84/275 to /277, later published in part by Basil Liddell Hart as The Rommel Papers), the war diary of the Seventh Panzer Division and the manuscripts of one of his panzer battalion officers, Lieutenant Ulrich Schroeder (BA-MA, N 20/2). Rommel’s exploits in this campaign also generated, of course, countless articles in the Nazi newspapers—Das Reich, Völkischer Beobachter, Signal and Die Wehrmacht, to list only four.
Any historian writing on the North African fighting between February 1941 and March 1943 is confronted by an embarrassing mountain of documentation. Again, Rommel’s own papers (T84/276 and /277) serve as a starting point, as well as his own letters. At the highest level are the files of the OKW (German High Command). I also used Helmuth Greiner’s pencil draft of its war diary, items on microfilm T77/780, and General Staff files (T78/324 to /326). I referred extensively to the Naval High Command’s war diary and its special appendixes on the Mediterranean, supply problems, coalition warfare and Italy (BA-MA, files PG/31780,31747,32212,32446,32447,33102,33316,39971,45044,45056,45098,45133,45134,45137). The German army records also exist in abundance: the war diaries of the Afrika Korps (T314/2, /15, /16, /18, /21, /23 and BA-MA, RH 24-200/77); of Panzer Group Afrika (T313/423 and /430); of Panzer Army Afrika (T313/423, /430 and /467, /471 to /475 and /480), with many duplicates—the OCMH files X-714 to X-729 at the NA, and CO files AL.743, AL.866 and AL.500 at the Imperial War Museum, and in Rommel’s own papers (T84/279). The war diary of Army Group Afrika exists only in Rommel’s papers (T84/273, /276 and /282). For the last stages of the campaign, material was also derived from the war diary of Arnim’s Fifth Panzer Army (T313/416).
Extensive documentation survives from the German divisions under Rommel’s command in Africa: the war diaries of the Ninetieth Light (T315/1155 to /1159), the Fifteenth Panzer (T315/664 to /667) and the Twenty-first Panzer (T315/767 to /769). The war diary of the Fifth Light Division (early 1941) was also recently retrieved and is now in BA-MA (file RH 27-21/52.) Some records of the Italian units fell into German—and subsequently into American—hands, and will be found on NA microcopy T821; they include the records of the Ariete Armored Division at El Alamein, General Messe’s account of the Battle of Mareth and similar items. I also used the records of the Italian High Command (Comando Supremo) on microfilms T821/125 and /252, and General Ambrosio’s diary (T821/144). The messages sent by the liaison officer, Konstantin von Neurath, to Berlin will be found in German foreign ministry files (the files of the Secretary of State and the Undersecretary of State relating to the war in Africa). Too late for use in this book, General Kirchheim’s widow also found his handwritten 1941 North Africa diary, a copy of which is in my collection.
Interestingly, Rommel kept a special record of signals relating to his 1942 illness (T84/277). Finally, I made some use of the Canaris/Lahousen “fragments” (CO, AL.1933), the war diary of the German army personnel branch (T78/39) and the unpublished diaries of Joseph Goebbels, Erhard Milch, Hoffmann von Waldau, Walther Hewel and Wolfram von Richthofen. My exclusive transcript of the Rommel diaries—dictation taken by Corporal Albert Böttcher between November 1941 and March 1943—is now deposited at the BA-MA. Other items in the same file include hastily written notes of meetings between Rommel and Italian commanders during the summer of 1941.
The main source on Rommel’s command of Army Group B during its preparations for the military occupation of Italy (code names Alarich and Axis) is the Rommel diary, May 9 to September 6,1943. Kept in the first person, the diary exists in virtually illegible photostats in London and Washington (e.g., on T84/283). I have deposited a clean retranscript of the diary in the IfZ, SI. From September 1943 onward, the war diary of Army Group B is intact, in the Rommel Papers (T84/280 et seq.); see too its appendices (T311/276). I also used the war diary of Gruppe Feurstein, later known as the Fifty-first Corps (T314/1263, /1264 and /1270) and the Forty-fourth Infantry Division (T315/2371)—both of which were heavily involved with the military infiltration of northern Italy in the summer of 1943.1 drew also on the records of the Italian High Command and army units confronting the Germans there (T821/21, /248 and /353). The German High Command records of Axis and Alarich are on NA microfilms T77/792 and /893; German naval files on this episode are in the BA-MA, PG/32216 and /32217. Records of Rommel’s several heated conferences with his Italian counterparts will be
found in his diary (see above) and in the Italian files (T821/249 and /252).
While the war diary of Army Group B continues throughout Rommel’s last campaign in France in 1944 (T84/280 to /282) and there are many volumes of important appendices (T311/1, /3, /4, /24 and /278), there is a gap in the Rommel diary after September 1943. From November 21,1943 to February 22,1944, it was kept for him by Lieutenant Hammermann, his one-eyed aide (OCMH file X-501) and from March 5,1944, by Captain Hellmuth Lang. I found carbon copies of Lang’s text—written daily in Rommel’s own language and submitted to him for approval—at Lang’s home in Schwábisch Gmünd and in Charleston, South Carolina; I have deposited them in IfZ, SI. The last entry is June 8,1944. Further appendixes of the Army Group B diary are in CO files AL.1532/7 and AL.1697/3.1 also drew on Heinz Guderian’s records (T78/622), and the files of Fremde Heere West [Foreign Armies West] (T78/451), and particularly its daily brief situation reports (BA-MA, H2/266a).
Above Rommel was Field Marshal von Rundstedt as C in C West. The C in C West files that I relied on include BA-MA, RH 19-IV/8, /9, /10, /11, /27, /31, /33, /35, /39, /88 and /89. Of greatest value are the intelligence records of Meyer-Detring—his invasion summaries (filed in /132 and /133) and his records of telephone conversations from June 6,1944 (/134) and during July 1944 (/142).
Below Rommel were the armies and army corps. I used the war diary of the Fifteenth Army (T312/524) and its appendices (T312/509, /514 and /516), the war diary of the Seventh Army (T312/1564) and its telephone logs during June 1944 (CO, AL.528/1) and July (AL.973/1) and the war diary of the Fifth Panzer Army, formerly Panzer Group West (AL.1901/1) and its appendices (T313/420). For the preinvasion period I found useful information in the war diaries and files of these German corps: the Sixty-seventh (T314/1533), the Eighty-first (T314/1589), the Eighty-second (T314/1601) and the Eighty-eighth (T314/1620). Manfred Rommel lent me several files of “Chefsachen”—special top secret items—from his father’s papers: original drafts, correspondence with Jodl, Hitler, Schmundt and Keitel. I also read the navy’s “Invasion 1944” files (BA-MA, PG/33398, /33399), and made use of the diaries of Vice Admiral Friedrich Ruge, Alfred Jodl, Hans von Salmuth, Karl Roller and lesser officers. (I have deposited copies in the IfZ.)