Discovering the Rommel Murder

by Charles F. Marshall

  In Britain Churchill was eager for a dramatic victory to bolster home morale. The spirits of the English, particularly the Londoners who were forced to seek their safety from nightly Luftwaffe poundings in the shelter of the Underground, and who stoically contributed their blood, sweat, and tears, were in need of a lift.

  Churchill now demanded, several times, that Montgomery attack El Alamein, only to have his general adamantly refuse while he meticulously prepared his battle plan, filled out his troop rosters, and awaited the arrival of more American armor. Finally, on the night of October 23, he opened the battle with an artillery barrage by 1,200 guns, jerking the war out of its temporary torpor. The cacophony of explosions could be heard seventy miles away in Alexandria. Hour after hour there was a constant thunder of detonations. The battle, which would turn the tide of war in North Africa against Germany, had begun.

  Later, in response to a newsman's question, Montgomery was to say, "I am not a bit anxious about my battles. If I am anxious, I don't fight them. I wait until I am ready."

  Waiting until he was ready was not a luxury in which the Fox could indulge. In rehabilitation only three weeks, far from recovered, he was called on the telephone by Field Marshal Keitel, chief of the High Command. The British had launched abig offensive, he said, and it was believed that General Stumme had been captured or killed. At dinner that evening Hitler was on the telephone. Stumme was dead. Was Rommel well enough to reassume command?

  "Jawohl!" replied Rommel.

  The ill Swabian flew back.

  October 26: Arrived back here at 1830 last night. Situation tense. Much work! It's not easy to again get used to the different surroundings and the present job after the beautiful weeks at home. The difference is too great!

  Taking up the reins again, he found his army in flight. The 300 Italian tanks were old and decrepit, with little fighting value. British tanks outnumbered the German five to one and were now using newly developed and highly effective armor-piercing shells, which, when penetrating a tank, ricocheted around inside, often killing the entire crew. Causing him further dismay was the discovery that during his absence the on-again-off-again supply system had failed to such a point that his army was critically short of ammunition and had only a three-day supply of gasoline, and a third of his troops were disabled by illness.

  The Eighth Army's new commander had set his sights high and Rommel knew it. What he did not know was that Montgomery was the beneficiary of Ultra messages. These were digests of the wireless Enigma machine enciphered messages, thought by the Germans to be proof against enemy decoding and used by their upper commands to communicate top-secret matters. These messages were intercepted and deciphered by the British, who had successfully built a replica of the machine, one of the Allies' most closely guarded secrets. At the battle for El Alamein and the subsequent retreat, Rommel labored under the handicap of this superior British intelligence. He did not know, and never learned that in addition to the overwhelming odds with which he had fought Montgomery, the British commander was being supplied by Ultra with vital intelligence about the German's strength, supply situation, and plans-about akin in a poker game to knowing four of the five cards held by the opponent.

  During most of the war the messages transmitted by Hitler to his field commanders were sent out on the Enigma coding machines. Consequently, the Allies suffered few nasty surprises, the commanders being forewarned of the German plans by Ultra messages.

  October 27: Engaged in heavy fighting ! Nobody can appreciate the heavy burden I bear. Once more everything is at stake, and the conditions under which this battle is being fought are particularly unfavorable. You know that I am giving my last.

  An Italian tanker, on which he had based his hopes for some easing of his gasoline situation, was bombed and sunk by the British as it approached Tobruk. Because of the intercepted Ultra messages, British intelligence knew where and when the Italian tankers would arrive.

  With his fuel supply harrowingly crimped, Rommel was compelled to issue to all divisions the watchword: "As little movement as possible."

  For the first time he came up against the American-built Sherman tank and found it far superior to anything the Germans had.

  The morning of October 28: Who knows whether during the next few days I'll have a chance to sit down quietly to write you. I have an opportunity now to do so. The battle rages and perhaps we shall survive despite all the adverse conditions; or perhaps we shall fail, in which case the entire course of the war will be unfavorably influenced. In the latter event North Africa would fall into the hands of the British in a few days, practically without a fight. We are doing our utmost to succeed. The enemy's superiority is tremendous and our own means very meager. If we fail, whether or not I survive the battle will be in the hands of the Lord. Life is hard to bear for a vanquished man. I have a good conscience, for I have done everything to gain victory and have not spared my own person. Should I remain on the battlefield, I would like to thank you and the boy for all the love and joy you have given me during my life.

  That evening: By the time you get this letter it will have been decided whether or not we were able to hold out. Not much hope remains. At night I lie awake with open eyes. During the day I am tired to death.

  October 30: Situation somewhat quieter. I slept for a change and am in good spirits. I hope yet to succeed.

  The following noon he received the stunning blow that the tanker sent to replace the one sunk earlier at Tobruk had also been sunk. Ultra again.

  October 31: Situation quite serious again. Otherwise, lam well personally. A week ago I was at home in seventh heaven.

  November 1: A week of very bitterfighting lies behind us. The situation was often so desperate that I did not know whether we could hold out. So fur we have always pulled through, though not without sad losses. I move about a great deal to step in where there is trouble.

  In the first days of November the ailing German, his troop strength dwarfed by Montgomery's, knew his days were numbered. His outgeneralling a string of successive opponents was no longer enough. He lacked reinforcements, tanks, munitions, supplies. In situations where saturation fire was demanded, he could allow only harassing fire. His quartermaster could supply only onetenth the gasoline he required. The immense Allied air superiority bedeviled his forces by breaking up approach marches and assemblies, restricting them to the hours of darkness. There were days when the Allies flew twenty sorties for every one the Axis powers could put into the sky. He had long ago learned that the side controlling the air could conduct a war of attrition. It could give its ground commanders complete aerial reconnaissance reports. It could monitor and destroy, or at least impede, the enemy's supply lines, limiting its supply operations to the nighttime hours. He was finding, as he was later to note, that the Anglo-American air arms were the deciding factor in the later battles in Africa. This lesson he never forgot and was later to refer to it innumerable times in arguing with Field Marshal Karl Rudolf Gerd von Rundstedt and the High Command when the defense tactics to be employed in Normandy were under discussion.

  November 2: Very, very heavy fighting again and not in our favor. Slowly but surely the enemy is heaving us out of this position with his superiority and that will be the end. You can imagine how I feel. It's air raid after air raid after air raid!

  Rommel felt that despite his clear, unvarnished reports to the High Command, they did not draw the proper conclusions. They did not appreciate the desperateness of the situation. He sent his liaison officer, Berndt, to Hitler's headquarters with instructions to make the situation clear to the Fiihrer and seek a revocation of his order. The British were trying to overpower, surround, and destroy him. He was in critical need of air cover, men, munitions, guns, and materiel. He planned to fight delaying actions in successive positions in an effort to salvage the bulk of his army, sacrificing only the covering force. The first stage in his plans was a sixty-mile retreat from El Alamein to defense positions at Fuka.

  Romme
l's letter of November 3 was delivered by Berndt to Mrs. Rommel in Wiener Neustadt, the marshal's home at the time, in the course of his mission.

  The battle still rages with undiminished fury. I can believe no longer, or scarcely any longer, in its favorable outcome. Berndt is flying to the Fuhrer to report. I enclose 25,000 lire that I have saved. Ourfate is in the hands of God. P.S. AskAppel [apparently a banker] to exchange the lire. Currency regulations!

  To his dismay, instead of help he received in the early afternoon an order from Hitler to "stand fast, yield not a yard of ground and throw every man and every gun into battle.... As to your troops, you can show them no other road than that to victory or death."

  Up to this time he had freedom of action in the direction of his army, but since he had always demanded unconditional obedience from his men and officers, he felt he too must obey unconditionally. Against his better judgment he passed down the Fiihrer's order, which resulted in unnecessary losses.

  Later the same day: The scales of battle are tipping against us. The enemy masses simply smother us. I am making an attempt to salvage elements of the army. I wonder whether I will succeed. At night I lie with open eyes and rack my brain for a way out of this disaster for our troops. Difficult days lie ahead of us, perhaps the most difficult for any man to live through. I envy the dead; for them it's all over.

  That night he agonized over the order he had passed down. To continue it in effect would mean the quick destruction of his army. He debated with himself where his duty lay. Was it blind obedience to the Fiihrer or was it to save his men's lives?

  The "victory or death" order with its detrimental consequences sorely embittered the marshal. For the first time, as he paced outside his van with a member of his staff, he expressed the view that the Fiihrer was crazy. After the African fighting ended, he was to say that obeying that order was his one big mistake of the campaign. Thereafter, to save the army from destruction, he circumvented ill-conceived orders from the Fiihrer or the Duce. The next day Montgomery broke through the German's lines at El Alamein, giving Churchill the opportunity to create a British hero, a counterpart to Rommel. With the cooperation of the media, "Monty" was anointed the savior, only further adding, said his detractors, to his insufferability.

  Rommel, hopelessly outmanned and outgunned, and with the world crashing about his ears, radioed the overlord for help. The message reached the Fiihrer's headquarters late in the evening, and the major who received it held it for Hitler until morning. When the Fuhrer saw it, it was too late for another Sieg oder Todt (victory or death) order. Rommel was already racing westward. Furious, Hitler vented his wrath on the major, demoting him on the spot to private.

  In the retreat the bulk of the Italian infantry, lacking transport and short of water and ammunition, was lost. The German units were also in bad shape. The 21st Panzer Division was forced to destroy those of its tanks that ran out of gas.

  For two days there was some respite for the Fox when heavy downpours slowed his pursuers. By then his forces were in the area of Sollum, 300 miles east of Fuka.

  Five thousand tons of gasoline arrived for him, but far behind the front, in Benghazi, 400 miles away. Of that the British bombers quickly blew up half.

  Soon the marshal had another headache. An Allied force of 100,000, mostly American, had landed in his rear on the shores of Algeria and Morocco with only token resistance from the Vichy-controlled French. He found no time to write his wife. Finally, on November 9, a clerk typed on a postcard, "I am well. Best regards." And underneath, in his bold but almost indecipherable hand, Rommel scribbled a hasty "Erwin."

  November 10: Since the enemy breakthrough atAlamein 1 have had no chance to write. I want to send you a few lines today. When an enemy has broken through an arm v, that army is in bad shape. One has to fight one's way through and in the process one loses whatever striking power still remained. We can 't go on much longer because a superior enemy is chasing us.

  November 11: We are still in a bad way and no end is in sight for a long time to come. Just like last year it seems to be our fate once more to be forced back with the only difference that very, very little of my Army is left this time. Emotionally I am slowly calming down. It is not my fault that it has come to this. So far as 1 was able, I did my part.

  November 12: Another black day lies behind us. I moved around all day yesterday with the terrible feeling of not being able to salvage anything any more. Everything has turned out exactly the opposite of my hopes and all the work in this theaterofwarseems to have been in vain. It is true that 1 have accomplished the almost superhuman, but this end is too bitter.

  By November 15 the French in North Africa re-entered the war to join the Allies.

  EL ALAMEIN WAS THE DECISIVE BATTLE IN AFRICA, COSTING ROMMEL the loss of most of his infantry and motorized forces. He was furious that in official German and Italian quarters the defeat was attributed to the men and his leadership and not to where it belonged: the failure to get supplies to him, the mastery of the skies by the Allied air forces, and the overwhelming superiority of the enemy in numbers of men, tanks, and artillery. He raged at the scurrilous comment that his troops had thrown away their weapons. He felt he was being subjected to reckless calumny by deskbound dimwits who became old soldiers by remaining far from the battlefields. He referred to the deskbound wonders at higher headquarters with the barb: Weit vom Schuss gibt alte Krieger. (Staying far from the battle makes for old soldiers.) It caused him later to reflect contemptuously upon the relative merits of the intellectually qualified chairborne officer and the field commander with little staff or academic training who must carry out the order.

  With the yielding of Tobruk, miles-long columns were in retreat, repeatedly pounded by flights of RAF bombers. Hundreds of vehicles were in tow because of mechanical trouble orempty gas tanks. To slow down Montgomery's vanguard, Rommel's engineers devised ingenious booby traps.

  November 13: The battle in I French I North Africa is drawing to a close. This heightens the odds against u.s. It is not the fault of this Army, which has given a brilliant account of itself

  November 14: We are on the move west again. Personally, I am well, but you can imagine how my head is spinning. We must be grateful for even- daY the enemy does not catch up with us. /don 't know how far we can get this wa.v. It depends on the gasoline, which must be flown to us.

  How are you both? Even with so much on my mind, I often think of you. How can this war successfully continue if we lose North Africa? What will the end of this war be like? I wish I could rid myself of these terrible thoughts.

  Rommel's retreat continued to be hampered by a shortage of gasoline. He could not take his tanks off the roads. Deploying them across the wastes raised theirfuel consumption and became a tactical luxury he could not afford. When his armor ran out of gas, he dug it in. Yet for his distress the gods of war had compassion. As the British took to the sand to cut him off, a cloudburst transformed the desert into a quagmire. On the other hand, the same gods were also helping his opponent. A fleet of tankers on the way to Benghazi was turned back, and another tanker, with 1(X) tons still to unload, hastily departed Benghazi. To nettle the Swabian further, Marshal Ugo Cavallero transmitted an order from the Duce to stand fast in Cyrenaica for at least another week. It was stressed that this would determine the fate of the Axis forces. Rommel wrote that he wished that the Italian officer had been equally zealous in getting supplies to him during the El Alamein fighting.

  November 16: Retreated for another considerable distance! To make matters worse, it's raining, which makes the moving very difficult. Lack of fuel! It makes you cry. I hope the British have the same bad weather.

  With skillful parries the pauperized Swabian, masterof mobile operations, endeavored to counter the thrusts of Montgomery, who was abundantly supplied with men, armor, gasoline, and munitions and supported by a strong force of British and American planes. Adding to his advantages, he was receiving Ultra messages.

  Rommel's
mood was black. His stream of supplies had been reduced to a trickle, whereas Montgomery's had expanded. From the United States came a flow of Sherman, Grant, and Lee tanks and self-propelled artillery. For the marshal there were few reinforcements and air support was negligible, because the Stuka had long ceased to reign lord of the skies. He had no illusions about the final outcome. Only the Arab still thought the Desert Fox might retrace his steps. He had seen him do it before, and he hedged his bets. He smuggled a rug across the lines to Rommel as a gesture of good will.

  November 24: The communique tells all about our situation. Italian divisions are here, it is true, but their combat efficiency against the very well equipped British divisions is very low. Not much remains of the German troops, but we try to keep a grip on the North African theater. General Fehn has arrived to take command of the Africa Korps. A refreshing personality! I would very much like to report to the Fuhrer personally on the situation and our prospects, but I cannot leave during these critical days. One month ago the enemy offensive began and Stumme was killed. What all I have gone through since!

  The British paused in their pursuit. Concern as to what unorthodox maneuver the Fox might pull out of his bag of tricks and aware of his skill at table-turning ripostes, the timid Montgomery proceeded cautiously. Unlike the agile thrusting Fox, Montgomery was a persevering mechanic who would attack only when all i's were dotted and all is crossed. The German gloomily interpreted this pause as "only the calm that precedes the storm. It is doubtful that we shall survive another battle. It will depend on how much the British throw at us."

  Taking advantage of the lull in the fighting, Rommel put newly arrived General Fehn in charge of the Panzer Army and, without asking Hitler's permission, flew off to the Fuhrer's headquarters. much to Hitler's subsequent irritation. This meeting was described to me by Captain Aldinger after the war.