Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel

by Butler, Daniel Allen

  Awareness of the importance of example was something Rommel brought to the command of his soldiers as well. Addressing officer cadets, he would exhort them to

  Be an example to your men, in your duty and in private life. Never spare yourself, and let the troops see that you don’t in your endurance of fatigue and privation. Always be tactful and well-mannered and teach your subordinates to do the same. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness of voice, which usually indicates the man who has shortcomings of his own to hide.

  That Rommel was setting an excellent example himself is borne out in the fitness reports on him submitted by his superiors. The most telling was written at the beginning of September 1929 –it is notable because it was prepared just before Rommel took the next significant step in his military career. The evaluating officer noted that Rommel was possessed of a “quiet, sterling character, always tactful and modest in his manners. . . . He has already demonstrated in the war that he is an exemplary combat commander. He has shown very good results training and drilling his company. There is more to this officer than meets the eye.” The report also remarked on Rommel’s talent for evaluating terrain, one of his “very great military gifts.” The report concluded with the recommendation that Rommel was well suited to serve as a military instructor.43

  That next rung up the professional ladder for Rommel came a month later, on October 1, when he was posted to the Reichswehr’s Infantry Training School in Dresden. There he would have a four-year tenure and begin to make his mark, however minor at the time, upon the German army. He was given the task of teaching small-unit infantry tactics to junior officers, a textbook case of fitting a round peg into a round hole. Energetic, animated, Rommel often spoke without notes, relying on his excellent memory instead, frequently—and justifiably—drawing on his own experiences in the Great War to drive home hard-won truths. Rommel had always had a fondness for drawing, and was in fact quite good at it: he put that talent to good use in his lectures, frequently dashing off a sketch or diagram to clarify or emphasize a particular point or detail. He also had a knack for a pithy turn of phrase that summed up great insight in a few words, one of the most popular being “Shed sweat, not blood.”44 It was a posting from which Rommel derived tremendous satisfaction, some years later confiding to a friend, “I was never happier than when working with young soldiers.”

  It was also good for his ego; peace did nothing to diminish Erwin Rommel’s vanity, and the professional validation that accompanied his appointment as an instructor at the Infantry School had to have been profound. Rommel was not—nor would he ever be—a graduate of the War Academy, nor was he ever recruited for a General Staff appointment. While there are clear indications in remarks he made in passing to friends, or confided in letters, that he resented what he took to be deliberate slights on the part of the artillerymen and aristocrats who dominated the General Staff, he was able to take a perverse pride in what he regarded as his first priority at the Infantry School: “I want to teach them first how to save lives!”45

  Rommel was, for the most part, exceedingly content with life in the Reichswehr. He was useful, fulfilled, and was given a strong sense of purpose; in this he was distinct from the millions of men, German, French, British, Austrian, Italian, American, who found themselves part of what Gertrude Stein would christen “the Lost Generation.” As with most wars, the Great War was the defining moment of the lives of the men who fought it: it had imparted to most of them a narrow, intense purpose during those years, unlike any they had ever known before, whether they saw it as a great crusade to defeat an enemy, or simply day-to-day survival in an environment which was usually indifferent to their continued existence and often actively hostile to it. The abrupt yet ambiguous end to which the Armistice brought the war left the victors with little real sense of having won anything, while the vanquished felt a greater sense of betrayal than they did defeat. The moral exhaustion created by the war did not occur in the trenches, it manifested itself when the soldiers returned home and found nothing awaiting them that required the same manner of commitment, the same degree of intensity that they had known at the front. At the end of the Second World War, victorious Allied soldiers, sailors, and airmen were able to rebuild their countries, or build them anew; the Germans and the Japanese were presented with the opportunity to work toward redemption. In November 1918, peace offered only a sense of business unfinished and destinies unfulfilled.

  Rommel knew none of that: he had established himself as a distinguished soldier and leader of men in wartime, now he was proving that he could be equally proficient in the duties of a peacetime instructor, teaching, not merely drilling, creating leaders, not cannon fodder. He fully embraced General von Seeckt’s professional philosophy, with its emphasis on professionalism, whereby enlisted men as well as officers were trained not only for their current postings, but were simultaneously being prepared for higher levels of command. It only made sense that the Reichswehr would someday be the cadre of a much larger German army, though it was generally accepted that any such expansion would be the result of a national emergency rather than a peacetime program. For Rommel, that was sufficient, he felt no need to know more, to look too closely at what the men who commanded the Reichswehr were doing behind closed doors. Had he done so, he certainly would have been startled, he might well have been shocked.

  From the day the Reichswehr was established, von Seeckt had been dedicated to two bedrock principles: the first was an unshakable commitment to Germany’s eventual rearmament; the second was an adamant insistence that the officers and other ranks be apolitical, that they be “überparteilichkeit”—that is, above party politics. Indeed, from various incidents and public pronouncements, it was unmistakable that von Seeckt ideally hoped for a Reichswehr that was above the state, or at least above any national government, its ultimate loyalty given only to Germany.

  That was a dangerous concept, for it implied that the Republic was irrelevant, that von Seeckt, or his successors as commanding officer of the Reichswehr, possessed the authority to arbitrarily decide what would be the rightful form of government for Germany, as well as who would and would not be permitted to govern. It was a belief that was at best ethically ambiguous, as it arrogated to the commander of the Reichswehr an authority that had never been, explicitly or implicitly, legally acceded to him. In short, it was a very thinly disguised prætorianism. And while there may have been nothing inherently immoral about von Seeckt’s goals, the means he chose to accomplish them and the consequences of those choices tainted the character of not only the German Army, but the whole of Germany’s leadership, civil and military, as well.

  It began more-or-less innocently enough, depending on how broadly “innocence” is defined, in 1921, when, at von Seeckt’s direction, a special secret department was created in the Reichswehr, Sondergruppe (Special Group) R; the R stood for Russland—Russia. Sondergruppe R’s primary mission was clandestine cooperation and coordination with the government of the Soviet Union in the development of tanks, heavy artillery, poison gas, and aircraft, as well as creating and refining tactical and operation doctrines for their employment, all of it in clear violation of the Treaty of Versailles. Though its existence was never made public at the time, Sondergruppe R and its mission were no secret to the highest levels of the German Republic: the minister of defense, Otto Gessler, actively participated in its creation and oversaw its ongoing activities. Responsibility for the detailed operations of the group was given to Generalmajor Kurt von Schleicher, Major Eugen Ott, and Generalmajor Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord.

  To protect the secrets and secrecy of Sondergruppe R, another organization was created, this one styled the Arbeits-Kommandos (Work Commandos), under the command of Major Ernst von Buchrucker. Ostensibly a sort of public-works undertaking whereby Reichswehr soldiers were organized into labor companies which would assist with civilian construction projects, they were, in fact, assassination squads working under the direction of Sondergruppe R, charged with
the elimination of German citizens who passed information to the Allied Control Commission. The Control Commission was the oversight body created to ensure Germany’s compliance with the disarmament clauses of the Versailles treaty; Arbeits-Kommandos branded as traitors anyone who went to the commission with information about forbidden activities. Also targeted were known or suspected socialists and communists, or simply anyone that von Seeckt or the triumvirate of officers directing Sondergruppe R deemed treasonous. Collectively Sondergruppe R and the Arbeits-Kommandos became known as the “Black Reichswehr”; historians generally agree that between 1920 and 1923 over 350 political murders were carried out by the Arbeits-Kommandos.

  While the effrontery—as well as the chilling ruthlessness—of such an organization and its activities might be startling, it pales in comparison with the sheer gall of Sondergruppe R’s operations in Russia. In late 1921, at von Seeckt’s direction, von Schleicher met Leonid Krasin, the Soviet Union’s People’s Commissar for Transport, and arranged German financial and technological aid for the development of the Soviet arms industry in exchange for Soviet support in helping German efforts to evade the disarmament clauses of the Treaty of Versailles. All told, some 75 million Reichmarks (nearly $19 million, equal to $250 million in 2015) was directed into the Soviet arms industry through the Reichswehr. What makes this noteworthy is that it was done with the active participation of the government of the German Republic: in 1919 and 1920, cabinet laws, which roughly corresponded to an American president’s Executive Orders, were passed by the Ebert government which specifically permitted clandestine and illegal armament programs by the Reichswehr as well as German industries.

  This is where the great riddle of the Weimar Republic originates: just what was the breadth and depth of the government’s collusion in evading the spirit and the letter of the Versailles treaty, despite the repeated public assurances by every one of the Republic’s chancellors that the treaty was an integral part of the law of the land? The answer remains a mystery eight decades later, one that is likely never to be solved: obviously, millions of Reichsmarks were expended over several years, but just how many remains unknown, as everyone involved was keeping more than one set of books. But even more baffling is the degree of complicity between the government and a Reichswehr which was at best openly indifferent to the Republic’s continued existence, and would, under the right circumstances, be actively hostile to it. While Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson may once have opined that the United States’ Constitution “was not a suicide pact,” evidently the Weimar Constitution was. History is hard-pressed to offer up an example of a government so willingly complicit in its own dissolution.

  Even so, regardless of how absurd the idea might seem to a rational mind, there was nothing illegal or immoral about a government facilitating its own demise. What permanently besmirched the Reichswehr’s honor was its sponsorship of the femen who carried out political murders at the behest of the “Black Reichswehr”; what thoroughly discredited the integrity of the German Republic was the systematic and methodical deception of the German people as well as of the Allies by the men who created it, when they offered repeated reassurances of the Republic’s commitment to disarmament while it was in the very act of creating the weapons and doctrines with which the next war would be fought. It is a truism that all governments lie: they lie to each other, they lie to their own people, they frequently lie to themselves. But a fundamental premise of functional government is that such deception, at least on such a monumental scale, must be an exception rather than a norm: to rule effectively, a government must be able to maintain at least a minimum level of credibility; by the same token, it must inevitably fail when it chooses to function on plausible deniability alone. Adolf Hitler might have been the master of the Big Lie, but his whoppers would not have been as successful by half had not the German people already been prepared for them by the Republic.

  It can be little wonder then that by the end of the 1920s, with the industrialized world in the iron grip of the worst economic depression in history, nearly one out of every three German workers unemployed, inflation so severe that “rampant” and “runaway” do not even begin to describe the debacle, and the Allied powers still demanding that Germany make good on her reparations payments, the German government came to be increasingly regarded by the German people as irrelevant—or at least hopelessly dysfunctional. To the Volk, the politicians, having so distorted the truth for so long that they became unable to recognize reality for what it was, had more interest in playing an endless game of ministerial musical chairs in the Reichstag and the Chancellery than in working to bring Germany out of her nightmare. It could hardly be surprising then that when a stirring, eloquent, charismatic outsider presented himself, declaring that he had solutions to Germany’s problems, he would be widely regarded as a savior. While the Reichstag deputies engaged in round after round of meaningless committee meetings and empty resolutions, the German people turned to someone who was prepared to act. They had never before in their history sought a man on horseback, but never since the Thirty Years War had Germany been brought to such dire straits. Through a combination of circumstance, guile, violence, bluff, shrewd political maneuvering, and public acceptance, Adolf Hitler secured his appointment as the chancellor of the German Republic.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE THIRD REICH

  Power resides only where men believe it resides. . . a shadow on the wall, yet shadows can kill. And ofttimes a very small man can cast a very large shadow.

  —GEORGE R.R. MARTIN

  The rise of the Nazi Party, its leader and his apostles from wide-eyed fanatical splinter party to the absolute masters of Germany is the most thoroughly chronicled political phenomenon of the twentieth century. Explanations of and apologists for how it came about are rife, and there is hardly room, let alone need, for yet another accounting of those events, although it should always be borne in mind that the phenomenon which was Adolf Hitler came about not through a coincidence and confluence of exceptional economic, social, and political circumstances which will likely never again recur, but rather because a sufficiently ruthless individual possessing a genuine will to power—a true Nitzschean Wille zur Macht—can always exploit a people who, feeling betrayed by their institutions and bereft of leadership, will be willing to embrace a demogogue who offers what appear to be answers and solutions to their fears and problems.

  For Erwin Rommel, the Nazis were fundamentally irrelevant to him, personally and professionally, until January 30, 1933; at noon that day, Adolf Hitler took the oath of office as chancellor of the German Republic. Prior to that moment, the irrelevance of both Hitler and the Nazis to Rommel was not due to any postured disdain for or inherent disapproval of the National Socialists or their leader; instead it was the product of Rommel’s dedication to being the perfect non-political Reichswehr officer, as conceived of by von Seeckt.

  This is not to say that Rommel was unaware of Hitler, or that he held no political views or opinions whatsoever; either idea is patently absurd. But until Hitler became chancellor, he was only the leader of a political party, one that was, admittedly, rising and which was, month by month, exercising greater and greater influence over the German people as well as the government’s policies; but Hitler remained a party leader without office nonetheless. Elevation to the chancellorship meant that, at whatever remove it might be, Adolf Hitler would now be an influence on Erwin Rommel’s career and life. If the rumors were true, and Hitler was prepared to combine the office of the Reichskanzler with that of the Reichspräsident upon the death of the clearly ailing and failing Paul von Hindenburg, Hitler’s influence would grow even more direct.

  That Hitler only became relevant to Rommel upon taking office shades the entire relationship which would spring up between the two men. It would be in the main a relationship—to call it a friendship would be unrealistic—of expedience, for the most part mutually beneficial, but ultimately doomed to falter and fail in acrimony. In
order to comprehend how that relationship came about, its nature and its limits, it is essential to have an understanding of Erwin Rommel’s politics, such as they were and what there were of them—no simple undertaking where the person in question was not known for being introspective or openly philosophical.

  At core, Erwin and Lucie Rommel were quintessential middle-class Germans, and their political views reflected this—intellectuals, socialists and Marxists would have seen them as hopelessly bourgeoisie. Erwin tended to lean a little to the left of center in his attitudes, essentially reflecting the politics of Erwin Rommel, Sr. Had he been required to identify himself with any one party, it would have most likely been the Social Democrats. This should come as a surprise to no one, given the younger Rommel’s extroverted, intellectually unassuming nature. As he approached adulthood, he had merely adopted his father’s political views as his own and never found sufficient cause to change them as he grew older. All evidence goes against the idea that Rommel ever embraced or endorsed any sort of right-wing political dogma or doctrine. There is nothing in any of Rommel’s correspondence, or in any recollections or records of his conversations, for example, to indicate that he ever favored the sort of proscriptions on individual rights and liberties which are so dear to the hearts of totalitarian regimes, or would have even regarded such as necessary if unwelcome evils. At the same time, it can be said that it is highly unlikely that Rommel ever gave more than a passing thought to such concepts: the works of Rousseau, Burke, Paine, and Jefferson would never have been found on his night-stand. Because, outside of the profession of arms, Rommel was not a great abstract thinker, there was the strong tendency within him to dismiss whatever did not touch him, his family, or his immediate circle of friends and colleagues as being somewhat less than valid. If the excesses of the Third Reich did not happen to him personally, or to someone he knew, then, in a way, they hadn’t really happened. In this, Rommel was unarguably naive; he was also hardly alone.