by Unknown
How was it that Rommel could thus resume his career and was not driven into joining the Free Corps, that refuge of so many unemployed, disgruntled and truculent ex-regular officers, who knew no other trade but war and did not much care against whom they fought? It was because in spite of the debacle of November, 1918, and the civil war which followed it, the German Army never ceased to exist, nor was the intention of expanding it at the earliest possible opportunity ever for a moment abandoned. Article 160 of the Versailles Treaty laid down that “by a date which must not be later than March 31, 1920, the German Army must not comprise more than seven divisions of infantry and three divisions of cavalry. After that date the total number of effectives... must not exceed 100,000 men, including officers and establishment of depots.... The total effective strength of officers... must not exceed 4,000.”
The intention was to allow Germany a sufficient force for the maintenance of internal order. The effect was to provide the Commander-in-Chief, General Hans von Seeckt, “the man who made the next war,” with a hard core of professionals round which he could lay the foundations of the army of the future. They were the reinforcement, the steel frame, on to which the concrete of conscripts could quickly be poured, if and when it became possible to reintroduce con- scription, as was done by Hitler in March, 1935. For such employment Rommel, with his Pour le Merite and his reputation as a regimental officer, was a “natural.” Though he did not know General von Seeckt personally and, indeed, never met him except once or twice on parade, he was exactly the type of man that von Seeckt wanted, a serious-minded young soldier (he was still four days short of twenty-seven at the armistice), and not of the swashbuckling sort which may be effective in war but does not take kindly either to discipline or to the dull grind of training in peace.
For Rommel himself there was really no other choice, even if he had wished for one The Army was his career and since be was married and had little or no private means, he was lucky to be able to pursue it. Moreover, he did not find it dull. He was a thinking soldier and liked to fight his battles over again, not in any spirit of nostalgia for war, but to draw from them the correct tactical lessons He also enjoyed drill and training, as did Montgomery.
That he was perfectly well acquainted with the details and purpose of the vast conspiracy which General von Seeckt set on foot to enlarge and conceal the strength of the army, there is not the slightest reason to doubt. Every one of the four thousand selected officers must have known that his mission was not merely the maintenance of internal security but the creation and training of a new and more formidable force out of the debris of the old. They must all have taken a great deal of pleasure, as we should have done in their place, in the extraordinary ingenuity and persistence with which the object was pursued. I remember reading, in the library of the Rand Club in Johannesburg, the article in theQuarterly Review for October, 1924, in which Brigadier-General J. H. Morgan, a member of the Disarmament Commission described the innumerable subterfuges by which its efforts were being defeated and the whole machinery of mobilisation kept as nearly as possible intact under cover of Demobilisation, Welfare, Pensions Centres and so on. It was as exciting as an Agatha Christie novel and a good deal more alarming. It was a pity that it did not have as large a circulation. For those who were taking an active part in the deception it must have been as thrilling a game as it was possible to play. “If I were a German and a patriotic one,” said Morgan himself, “I should bow my head before General von Seeckt as the greatest Roman of them all.” Scharnhorst, who turned the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Tilsit to the discomfiture of Napoleon (and incidentally enabled us to win the battle of Waterloo), was a small man in comparison, for the corresponding clauses of the Treaty of Versailles were drawn with much more care." Regimental soldiering in Germany in the years immediately following the 1914-18 war was not so barren and unprofitable an occupation for a German officer as might have been supposed.
To be stationed in Stuttgart, an agreeable city in his own part of the country, where his family lived, was another piece of luck for Rommel. Thus, although he had to wait until 1933 for his promotion to major, he was far from unhappy. In 1927 he went on leave with his wife to Italy and revisited the scene of his exploits at Longarone, where Frau Rommel discovered in the local cemetery the graves of the Molino family, from which her own family of Mollin was reputed to be descended. (Their exploration of the battlefield was cut short because the Italians of Longarone resented an obviously German officer prowling about a spot which seemed to have agreeable associ- ations for him.)
On another leave, he and Frau Rommel took canoes down the Rhine to Lake Constance. Both expert skiers, mountaineers and swimmers, both good riders, fond of horses and dogs and much preferring country to town life, they got out of Stuttgart whenever they could. They both liked to dance, indeed, but neither was much interested in the theatre or the cinema nor did they care for “parties.”
At home, Rommel played the violin in an amateurish fashion but was otherwise easy to live with. He drank very little, never more than a couple of glasses of wine, did not smoke and was not particular about his food. He was extraordinarily handy about the house, could make or mend anything and, when he bought a motor-bicycle, started by taking it entirely to pieces and putting it together again, without, as he said with satisfaction, a nut or a screw left over.
While at Stuttgart, Rommel formed, with Hartmann and Aldinger, an Old Comrades Association of the Wurttemberg battalion to which they had all belonged. In it there was no distinction of rank. This was one of Rommel's main interests and he spent much of his spare time getting in touch by personal letters with all who had served in the battalion and trying to help those who were having a hard time in post-war Germany. An annual meeting and parade was organised and in 1935, when Rommel was a Lieutenant-Colonel commanding a battalion at Goslar, he returned to Stuttgart for it. General von Soden came to take the salute and invited Rommel to join him at the saluting-base. It was typical of Rommel that he said that he would prefer to march past with his old company.
Thus the years passed pleasantly and uneventfully enough for the Rommels, the main incident being the birth of. their only child, Manfred, on Christmas Eve, 1928, after twelve years of marriage.
Except for the scars of his wounds, war, says his widow, seemed to have left no trace upon Rommel. When he referred to it, which he seldom did at home, it was as a stupid and brutal business, which no sane man would wish to see repeated. But he did not dream at nights, nor did he appear to feel, as did so many young soldiers of all armies after 1918, either that those four years were some strange and bloody hallucination or, conversely, that they alone were real. He remained a serious-minded but good-tempered man of simple tastes, who enjoyed a quiet life and, for the rest, was wrapped up in his profession. That his profession was preparation for war is a seeming contradiction which professional soldiers will more readily resolve than civilians.
On October 1st, 1929, Rommel was posted as an instructor to the Infantry School at Dresden where he remained for exactly four years. His lectures at the school resulted in the publication of his book,Infanterie Greift An (Infantry Attacks), based on personal experiences in Belgium, the Argonne, the Vosges, the Carpathians and Italy during the war. It is an excellent little manual of infantry tactics, in which minor operations are vividly described with good sketch-maps and the tactical lessons clearly drawn. It became a textbook in. the Swiss Army, whose officers presented Rommel with a gold watch, suitably inscribed. But it also caught the attention of another reader nearer home, with far-reaching effects upon his fortunes.
On October 10th, 1933, Rommel, now a major, was given command of the 3rd Battalion of Infantry Regiment 17, a Jaeger or mountain battalion, in which all ranks were, or were supposed to be, expert skiers. The battalion was at Goslar, there was good snow near-by and, on the day after he took over, the officers suggested that they should all go out together. No doubt they wished to see whether their middle-aged C.O. w
as up to commanding a battalion of athletes. There was no ski-lift and they toiled up to the highest point. Here they were about to settle down for a drink, a smoke and a rest when Rominel remarked: “I think, gentlemen, that we should be starting down.” The descent was made at speed. At the bottom it was acknowledged that the C.O. could ski. “That was very nice, gentlemen,” said Rommel, “let's try it again.” This was regarded as a sporting effort. But there was very little enthusiasm when he proposed yet a third ascent. By the time they reached the foot of the slope for the third time everyone had had rather more than enough -- except Rommel, who observed that the slalom slopes looked good and that they might spend another half-hour or so there. In a British battalion one can often notice officers sliding unobtrusively out of the anteroom when it is a question of making up a four at bridge with the colonel. In the Jaeger battalion, I was told, volunteers for skiing expeditions with the C.O. had to be detailed.
Until Hitler became Chancellor on January 31st, 1933, Rommel had taken little interest in politics. To remain aloof from the “sordid” worlds of politics and commerce had always been the tradition of the German officer class. In the years immediately following the armistice, General von Seeckt set out deliberately to foster it, at the same time that he set out to break down the traditional barriers between officers and men. His purpose was to create a New Model army, but he bad no intention of handing it over to the politicians of the Weimar Republic. It would be for the General Staff to decide when the time had come to use it. Meanwhile its allegiance must be only to its own cloth. Thus his orders prohibiting the army from taking any part in politics and even from voting, whilst doubtless reassuring to the Allies, were, in fact, part of a, long range plan which would certainly have alarmed them had they been fully aware of it.
No prohibition was necessary in Rommel's case. He had been brought up in a non-political society in a small German provincial town; he had been educated as a soldier; he had left for the wars when not yet twenty-three. He had been only too glad, when he returned, to escape from the dissensions of post-war Germany to the one world in which he felt at home. “Coffee-housing” was not among his amusements, he read little and he was not in the least politically minded. The only comment which Frau Rommel remembers him making on the Nazis in the early days was that they “seØmed to be a set of scallywags” and that it was a pity that Hitler had sur- rounded himself with such people. For, like 90 per cent of Germans who had no direct contact with Hitler or his movement, he regarded him as an idealist, a patriot with some sound ideas who might pull Germany together and save her from Communism. This may seem a nave estimate; it was not more nave than that of many people in England who saw him only as a ridiculous little man with a silly moustache.
Both views were founded in wishful thinking. But the Germans, having had a bellyful of defeat and a good taste of Communism, at least had some excuse for believing what they wished to believe. Those who refused to see any danger in that absurd figure, until it was already too late, would not believe what they did not wish to believe, merely because the alternative was too unpleasant to accept.
Moreover, Rommel, though he was a regular officer, was nohochwohlgeboren, snobbish Prussian. The idea that an Austrian corporal might prove the salvation of Germany was not as fantastic to him as it was to many senior officers of theReichswehr: he liked corporals. What he did not like were the Brownshirt bullies of the type of Roehm. He had never met Roehm or any of his associates but he suspected, as did most of the army, that they were trying to set up a rival organisation. Moreover, he had seen the Brownshirts about and their hysteria and lack of discipline disgusted him. He was not, therefore, horrified when he heard that Roehm and the rest had been liquidated on the Night of the Long Knives, June 30th, 1934. He believed the story that they had been plotting to overthrow Hitler and seize power for themselves and thought that they had got their deserts. Frau Rommel and others have also assured me that the whole affair caused less stir, at least in provincial Germany, than it did abroad and that details of the killings only gradually leaked out.
Rommel's own first encounter with National Socialism in operation certainly does not suggest that he had any great sympathy with Nazis. He was commanding his Jaeger battalion at Goslar in 1935 when Goslar was chosen as the scene of a thanksgiving ceremony, to be attended by the F�hrer in person. Everything was to be laid on in style, with bands and banners and peasants from the surrounding districts in their national costumes. Naturally, the battalion would parade. When the details of the parade were being worked out, Rommel was told by a representative of the S.S. that in front of his troops would be a single file of S.S. men, who would be responsible for Hitler's safety. To this he replied that in that case the battalion would not turn out. He was asked to go and see Himmier and Goebbels at the local hotel. They were both exceedingly civil to him and invited him to stay for luncheon. When he explained that he considered the proposed arrangements an insult to himself and his battalion, they agreed that he was quite right. It was just the mistake of an over-careful subordinate. Of course the orders would be cancelled at once. Rommel returned home, having carried his point, to report to his wife that he did not much like the look of Himmler but that Dr. Goebbels was really a very agreeable and interesting man. That nave impression remained. Whenever they met in later years, which was not often, Goebbels went out of his way to be pleasant and to turn on the charm which he undoubtedly had. Rommel was worth winning over; if that were impossible, he was worth keeping sweet. With Hitler, Rommel's first meeting was purely formal. He saluted; he was introduced; he shook hands; his Pour le Merite was observed; he was congratulated on the turn-out of his battalion.
On October 15th, 1935, Rommel, now a Lieutenant-Colonel, was posted as an instructor to the War Academy at Potsdam. It was the first time that he had been near the centre of things. Earlier he had had the chance of taking his Staff College examinations and joining the elect. But he was advised that, with his record and his Pour le M,rite, he stood a better chance of promotion and preferment if he remained with troops. Since he was by temperament a regimental officer, the advice tallied with his own inclination. In Potsdam he and his wife and small son lived quietly near the Academy, mixed very little in Berlin society and had no friends or even acquaintances amongst the top Nazis. Nor did they even meet socially the senior officers of theWehrmacht. As in Stuttgart, their friends were mainly regular officers and their wives of about their own seniority.
Naturally, however, they knew more of what was going on in high places than they had ever known before. They knew, for example, of the growing rivalry between the Nazis and the General Staff. Relying on the fact that Hitler, on the death of Hindenburg, had become Supreme Commander of all the German armed forces and that the officer corps had taken the oath of allegiance to him, the party bosses were bent upon making good Nazis of them and incorporating the Wehrmacht in the “new order.” They saw clearly enough that an independent organisation, with traditions rooted in the past, com- manding the instinctive loyalty of all Germans except the very young, might one day turn upon them and take over. Hitler, who saw it much more clearly, played off the two sides against each other with supreme cunning.
For its part, the Army, preoccupied though it was from March, 1935, with its enormous expansion and grateful to Hitler for giving it the opportunity to expand beyond its wildest dreams, had no thought of subordinating itself to his henchmen. A very few officers of the highest character and ability, like Colonel-General Ludwig Beck, the Chief of Staff, made no distinction between the F�hrer and his followers and, on moral grounds, regarded both National Socialism and its creator as a national calamity. Beck, though he resigned only in 1938, in protest against the proposal to invade. Czechoslovakia, had no illusions - from the first. Others, like Colonel-General Werner von Fritsch, the Commander-in-Chief, also disliked and despised both the Nazis and their leader, but mainly, it would seem, because they threatened the supremacy of the Army and because they were the k
ind of people with whom a German officer really could not associate. Others, again, the Keitels and Jodls, were prepared to sacrifice their professional integrity for promotion, though even they might have hesitated if they had known that the day would soon come when Hitler would treat them as uniformed office-boys.
The attitude of the bulk of the General Staff has been described by General Walter Warlimont: “Gradually the General Staff officer found it necessary to acquire some sort of a stabilising influence and he began to look to Hitler, in contrast to his followers, as the new hope for Germany. In addition to the rearmament programme, the peaceful reoccupation of the Rhineland enhanced Hitler's personal reputation within the officer corps, since this move corresponded to the fundamental policy of the Army.” This was out of the frying-pan into the fire, had they but known it. But it did not seem so stupid then as it sounds now. Was not Hitler some sort of a soldier himself, intensely proud of his service in the war? Had he not backed them against the ambitions of Roehm? Did he not know that it was the Army and the Army alone which had kept the military flame alive during the long years of subjection? His Nazi hooligans had helped him to power but could any one suppose that he really preferred them to German officers of the old school? Was he not biding his time until he could afford to get rid of them and rely upon the real protectors of Germany?
Such was the view of the General Staff. It percolated down to regimental officers, and Rommel, for one, accepted it, in so far as he thought about such matters at all. There was a clear differentiation in his mind between the F�hrer and his followers. Until his own bitter experiences opened his eyes, and that was not until after El Alamein, he admired and respected Hitler but had no use for Nazis.