Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel

by Butler, Daniel Allen

  Rommel was immensely popular with the German people, and photographs such as this one, which bears his signature, were highly prized.

  A rather stiffly-posed propaganda photo of Rommel inspecting a defensive position somewhere along the Atlantic Wall. When Rommel took command of the Channel coast defenses in 1943, the Atlantic Wall was little more than a joke; six months later it almost stopped the Allied invasion.

  Rommel and the staff of Army Group B inspecting the Atlantic Wall defenses in April 1944. This photograph gives an excellent sense of how extensive were the anti-landing obstacles built along the French coast; at least five distinct types of obstacle are visible.

  Rommel along with his chief of staff, General Hans Speidel, in late spring 1944. Behind them is Rommel’s adjutant, Captain Helmuth Lang.

  Rommel with his driver Daniel in the spring of 1944, in Rommel’s Horsch sedan. Rommel habitually rode in the front seat to read maps for Daniel. After the invasion began, two or more officers rode with the Field Marshal to act as lookouts for enemy fighter-bombers.

  Rommel on his return to his home in Herlingen, August 15, 1944. It can be clearly seen that his left eye is swollen shut—what is not readily visible is the deep depression in his left forehead, caused by the impact when his Horsch crashed after being strafed by Royal Air Force fighters.

  Rommel’s funeral cortege, his coffin carried on the trail of a 105mm howitzer; his field marshal’s baton lies atop the coffin. The stiff-armed Hitlergrüsse (Hitler salute) became mandatory for all military as well as civilian personnel in the wake of the attempt on Hitler’s life on July 20, 1944.

  Erwin Rommel’s death mask. Some observers have commented on the Field Marshal’s expression of fatigue, resignation, and despair. His son Manfred regarded the expression as one of contempt.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  TOBRUK

  Gentlemen, you have fought like lions and been led by donkeys.

  —ERWIN ROMMEL, to Commonwealth officers captured at Tobruk

  R ommel’s hopes of taking Tobruk “on the bounce” were thoroughly dashed by the death of von Prittwitz; when that effort failed, the fortress ceaselessly baffled his attempts to take it.108 Tobruk—or more specifically, its harbor—was the great strategic prize along the Cyrenaican coast, the only port of any size other than Benghazi between Tripoli and Alexandria. Royal Air Force bombers had so badly damaged the harbor, docks, and cranes at Benghazi that the port could unload at best 750 tons of cargo a day, less than a third of its prewar capacity, while the sheer distance that supplies had to be moved from Tripoli created its own logistical nightmares for the Axis supply officers. (At one point Rommel’s staff reckoned that for every liter of gasoline brought to the front, at least one liter was expended by the vehicles carrying it.) While at its best the capacity of Tobruk’s port facilities was barely 1,500 tons a day, should the Afrika Korps take the port, the Axis supply lines would be shortened by almost 1,000 miles, eliminating the need (and waste) created by moving its supplies all the way from Tripoli. Not only would this have transformed the fuel situation for an army that seemed to be perpetually running on the ragged edge of fuel starvation, it would have eased immensely the strain on the Afrika Korps’ motor pools and machine shops, which had to work round the clock to ensure that the endless truck convoys which carried the fuel, food, and ammunition to the troops continued to roll. Just as vital was the reduction in the amount of time Axis supply ships spent on the open sea between Italian and North African ports, exposed to British submarines, destroyers, and torpedo boats, as well as marauding RAF bombers and fighters. So narrow were the margins in the Axis supply situation between operational requirements and actual stocks of materiel on hand that the loss of a single cargo ship or tanker could cancel a planned operation, the destruction of a convoy could be catastrophic. It is no exaggeration, then, to say that Rommel had to take Tobruk, while it was equally imperative to the Allies that they hold it.

  In addition to the transformation of his supply situation taking Tobruk would accomplish, Rommel was also well aware, as were General Wavell in Alexandria and Major General Morshead in Tobruk itself, that as long as the fortress remained in British hands, its garrison would remain a standing threat to the Afrika Korps’ flank and rear, menacing Rommel’s supply lines should he decide to move further east to threaten Cairo and Alexandria. This made taking Tobruk an imperative: time was not on Rommel’s side, for even though the 15th Panzer Division was arriving as promised, there would be no further reinforcement from Germany, and while additional Italian units added to his numbers, they were mostly infantry divisions that lacked motor transport, and the poor quality of the tanks in the sole Italian armored division, Ariete, severely reduced the unit’s effectiveness.

  The strategic situation, then, that obtained in North Africa in the first week of May 1941 was fundamentally a stalemate: given their current dispositions and strengths, at the moment neither the Axis nor the British were capable of forcing a decision. The Axis positions to the east of Tobruk, around Fort Capuzzo, Sollum, and especially Halfaya Pass just across the Egyptian frontier, were well-nigh impregnable, albeit thinly stretched, denying Wavell any chance—with the forces at his disposal at that moment—of attacking up the coast road to relieve the garrison at Tobruk. The strength of the Tobruk garrison, on the other hand, meant that Rommel could never risk withdrawing sufficient strength from around the fortress to renew his offensive into Egypt and drive on Cairo without inviting it to fall on his rear, cutting off his supplies and any possible line of retreat. Hence the stalemate. But Rommel knew that stalemate would only work in favor of his enemies, whose strength would grow, as Great Britain brought to North Africa not only more of her own army but Commonwealth forces as well. Eventually the Afrika Korps and the Italians would be overwhelmed by sheer weight of numbers if nothing else, while the best Rommel could hope for was merely to maintain his force levels. For his daring attack across Cyrenaica to be anything more than a glorified raid, he must take Tobruk.

  Tobruk was going to be a tough nut to crack, however: in the 30 years they had occupied the town, the Italians had built an impressive defensive system. It was bounded east and west by rugged, rocky terrain, marked by no roads and few tracks; to the south the ground was flatter, more sand than rock. The Italians had done a textbook job in creating the fortifications that ringed Tobruk in no fewer than three concentric lines or belts. Strongpoints and bunkers were sited so that their fields of fire interlocked, and dug so that their tops were level with the surrounding ground, the better to not give away their location; the antitank gun and machine-gun emplacements were connected by tunnels rather than trenches, which made them difficult to spot even via aerial reconnaissance. Firing ports faced to the sides and rear, but not the front, reducing the vulnerability of each bunker to direct enemy fire; all were covered by antitank obstacles and deep barbwire entanglements. The perimeter, known as the Red Line, was defined by a broad antitank ditch, with sides too steep to be scaled by tracked vehicles, wire, and a double row of strongpoints, 150 in all, that included concrete bunkers for machine guns, infantry dugouts, and gun pits for artillery and mortars. Inside this perimeter were extensive minefields thickly sown with antitank and antipersonnel mines, and then two further defensive lines, the Blue (intermediate) Line, and the Green (innermost) Line.

  All of these the Australians gladly co-opted for their own use, improving where and when they had the means, which meant building additional obstacles, laying minefields, and running additional lengths of barbwire. The defensive frontage that Morshead’s Australians had to cover stretched for 31 miles; Morshead divided it into three sectors, assigning one of his infantry brigades to each. The 26th was given the western sector, the 20th Brigade the south, and the 24th the east. The fourth Australian brigade inside Tobruk, the 18th, was placed in reserve; it also did a measure of double-duty by manning the harbor defenses. Morshead ordered the entire telephone network installed by the Italian refurbished, and new wire
laid as necessary: he wanted to be certain of an immediate and reliable flow of information and orders whenever and where the Germans attacked. Realizing that the best-laid plans—and wires—“gang aft aglee,” he also instructed runner stations to be set up along the perimeter, manned around the clock. General Wavell told Morshead to expect to have to hold on to Tobruk for a minimum of eight weeks; Morshead planned and acted as if he would have to hold the town until hell froze over.109

  The nickname “Ming” was given to Morshead by his Australian troops, who regarded him—with a mix of annoyance and affection—as something of a martinet, albeit one who was fair and who had a genuine regard for the welfare of his men and who was economical with their lives. The name was a play on the autocratic Emperor Ming “the Merciless” from the prewar Flash Gordon cinema serials: in addition to his authoritarian nature, Morshead bore a passing resemblance to Charles B. Middleton, the actor who played the fictitious tyrant. Two years Erwin Rommel’s senior, Morshead, born in Ballarat, Victoria, in the extreme southeast of Australia, was not a professional soldier, a fact which, despite his courageous and distinguished service in the Great War, his superior, Lieutenant General Sir Thomas Blamey, commander of the Second Australian Imperial Force, irrationally regarded as a handicap. Morshead had been working as a teacher in Melbourne when Australia declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary on August 5, 1914, and within days resigned his position, enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, and was commissioned a second lieutenant within six weeks. He first saw action on the Gallipoli peninsula in April 1915, was wounded there, and invalided back to Australia; when he recovered, he took command of an infantry battalion posted to the Western Front, where he found himself and his unit in the thick of the battles at Messines, Passchendaele, Villers-Bretonneux and Amiens. By the end of the war, Morshead had been Mentioned in Despatches four times, named to the Order of St. Michael and St. George, and awarded the Distinguished Service Order. Here was a fighting soldier worthy of Rommel’s mettle.

  Between the wars, rather than return to teaching, Morshead became a businessman, working for the Orient Line, a steamship company, until 1939. Having remained active in the Australian militia, he was recalled to the colors when Australia declared war on Germany in September of that year, and given command of the 18th Infantry Brigade of the 6th Division in the Second Australian Imperial Force. The division was sent to the Middle East in early 1940, and January 1941 formed the infantry component of the Western Desert Force that tumbled the Italians out of Cyrenaica, taking Tobruk in the process. Two days after the fortress fell, Morshead was given command of the newly formed and half-trained 9th Division, which was almost immediately called upon to cover the British retreat when Rommel began his daring advance out of Mersa el Brega. Despite the division’s lack of combat experience, Morshead’s men fell back on Tobruk in good order, and when Lieutenant General John Lavarack, Morshead’s immediate superior, was summoned to Cairo, he was utterly confident that he was leaving the defense of the vital port in good hands.

  The death of von Prittwitz had had a sobering effect on Rommel who—at least privately—acknowledged that he was in for a fight if he was to take Tobruk. The original Italian bunkers and dugouts in which the Australians now sheltered had been well-sited and concealed, and during the short months in which the British held Tobruk, the Tommies had worked hard to improve them; now the Diggers were taking advantage of that labor. Rommel lacked detailed maps of the Italian positions—General Gariboldi insisted that they were nowhere to be found—and so good was the defenses’ overhead camouflage, aerial reconnaissance yielded little useful information. The upshot was that the German and Italian soldiers tasked with assaulting the Tobruk perimeter had to conduct probing attacks to learn the strengths and weakenesses of each sector.

  The first of the probing attacks began just after noon on April 11, 1941. The 5th Panzer Regiment advanced, trying to draw fire, toward a section of the front just west of the El Adem road, which was held by the 20th Australian Infantry Brigade. It was a costly effort, five difficult-to-replace panzers left burning in front of the Australian lines before the German tanks withdrew. Two hours later, two companies of German infantry tried to infiltrate the Australian line in almost the exact same place, only to be met by ferocious small-arms fire. The Germans hastily withdrew, taking their dead and wounded with them; no Australian casualties were recorded for this action.110

  The Germans got luckier, at least initially, on their next attempt, made the following day. Believing they now had the measure of the Australian defenses, Major Ponath’s 8th Machine-Gun Battalion, totaling just over 600 men, began advancing on a section of the Aussie lines that seemed to be somewhat thinly held, exposed, and isolated. That position was held by a single platoon of Australian infantry, who saw the Germans begin moving forward just after 4:00 P.M. The defenders’ arsenal was limited to a few score Lee-Enfield rifles, a pair of light machine guns, and some light antitank guns; their prospects for staging a successful stand against the Afrika Korps looked dim. But here the extensive preparations made by General Morshead paid their first dividend. Using the refurbished telephone network, the Australians were quickly able to, in their parlance, “whistle up” a few artillery batteries for fire support. Within minutes the ubiquitous British 25-pounder guns were dropping shells among the advancing Germans with frightening accuracy—most of the defenders’ artillery units had registered their guns when they dug in, another product of Morshead’s bag of tactical tricks.

  Even though they were taking heavy casualties, the German soldiers continued to advance as three platoons of German panzers and one of Italian light tanks, some 20 vehicles all told, moved up to add their firepower to that of Ponath’s advancing infantry. Moving through the artillery fire, the tanks came to an abrupt halt when they encountered a deep, broad anti-tank ditch, with sides too steep for any vehicle, wheeled or tracked, to successfully negotiate. This was, in fact, a continuation of the same antitank obstacle that had been fatal to von Prittwitz the previous day: the Italians had failed to inform Rommel that the ditch ran the entire length of the outer perimeter of the Tobruk defenses, and in the handful of aerial photographs he had it appeared to be a far less formidable obstacle than it turned out to be when encountered in person at ground level.

  Now the situation became a case of the biter bit: the German and Italian armor milled about at the edge of the ditch, trying to find some way to negotiate it that didn’t result in their tanks overturning in the attempt, or getting bogged down. As they did so, a quartet of British tanks arrived, heavily armored Matildas with 2-pounder (40mm) main guns that were more than powerful enough to penetrate the German vehicles’ armor, and opened fire. Realizing that they were accomplishing nothing apart from providing the British tank crews with live target practice, the German panzer commanders quickly withdrew out of range. The heavy artillery fire continued, however, pinning the men of the 8th Machine-Gun Battalion in place, where they sought whatever cover they could find and did their best to dig into the rocky ground.

  Grimly, Rommel informed Olbricht that his tanks would have to go “once more unto the breach,” in order to either exploit whatever success Ponath’s machine-gun battalion had in penetrating the enemy defenses, or to cover that unit’s withdrawal. Olbricht bridled at this, and Streich, when he heard of it, refused to countenance any further action by 5th Panzer that was not part of a properly planned and coordinated operation, complete with air and artillery support. Streich understood the machine gunners’ plight, but it was foolishness to throw away even more lives in yet another ad hoc attack—after all, it was just that sort of improvisation that brought the 8th Battalion to this impasse. Rommel, perhaps still stinging from the needless death of von Prittwitz and Streich’s accompanying rebuke, bit off whatever reply he might have been inclined to make. Meanwhile, up in the front lines, the thinly clad German infantrymen were compelled to spend a very uncomfortable night in the open as the fearsome heat of the day gave way t
o near-freezing temperatures when darkness fell.

  At noon the next day, April 13, Ponath extricated himself from his battalion’s rather exposed position, and reported to Rommel in the commanding general’s new mobile headquarters. This was an enormous British AEC armored command van, built with a heavy-duty suspension and riding on huge balloon tires that allowed it to travel off-road, one of three such vehicles captured at Mechili, which Rommel promptly commandeered and christened his “Mammut” (“Mammoth”). Inside this immense windowless bus, Ponath was informed that at 6:00 P.M., six battalions—24 batteries—of artillery would drop a fierce, five-minute “hurricane” barrage on the defenses in front of his battalion, giving cover to two platoons of pionieren, or combat engineers, who would move into the antitank ditch and place demolition charges at several points on both sides of the ditch, collapsing the walls and creating a path for the panzers to exploit. Ponath’s men were tasked with moving across the ditch and creating a bridgehead within the enemy positions through which the German tanks could pass on their way to, hopefully, creating an outright breach in the defenses. Ponath returned to his men in mid-afternoon and did his best to spread the word about the new plan of attack.

  As promised, at exactly 6:00 P.M. the German artillery opened an intense and accurate fire; the commanding officer of the 18th Antiaircraft Battalion, Major Hecht, went so far as to bring his 88mm Flak guns forward to engage the enemy dugouts and bunkers with direct fire. The engineers rushed into the antitank ditch, placed their charges, and set them off in a spectacular sequence of explosions. The 8th Machine-Gun Battalion rushed forward as night was falling, creating a gap in the Australians’ lines roughly 500 yards wide and half that distance deep, then dug in as best they could and prepared to spend yet another night out in the cold. They soon learned that there were other perils in the night besides the cold. The dugouts originally built by the Italians had been constructed flush with the ground, and as such were difficult to see in broad daylight; at night they were invisible. Using the cloak of darkness, small groups of Australians crept out of their bunkers and quietly raided the attackers’ positions, leaving behind them an indeterminate number of dead German soldiers.