Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel

by Butler, Daniel Allen

  On February 19, Rommel reported in person to Hitler in Berlin, where he was invited to a private dinner party with the Führer and a few other guests, among them Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, the chief of the O.K.W. and effectively Germany’s Minister of War; Colonel General Alfred Jodl, the O.K.W. Chief of Staff; and Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, chief of the SS and the Gestapo. The topics of the ensuing table talk ranged widely, but to Rommel’s discomfiture, became increasingly banal and unrealistic, most memorably a long diatribe of abuse heaped on Churchill by Hitler. It was not the nature of Hitler’s commentary which disturbed Rommel—he would have hardly been surprised to learn that Churchill on occasion returned the compliment—but rather the sheer pointlessness of it all; he was even more surprised when Hitler’s senior adjutant murmured to him in passing to take no note of it, as it was always thus at every meal.

  Rommel was grateful to escape back to Wiener Neustadt the following day; he had secured a somewhat equivocal blessing from Hitler for his next offensive against the British—rather than encouraging Rommel to drive hard to take Suez, Hitler had merely enjoined him to tie down as many British divisions as possible in North Africa—along with a promise that Operation Hercules, an airborne attack on Malta, à la Operation Mercury on Crete in early 1941, would be staged as soon as it was practicable. With that he could now leave Berlin behind and enjoy three weeks together with his wife and son. Manfred, now 13, was going through a growth spurt and would soon, it appeared, be topping out his father. Lucie was thrilled and flattered by all of the attention being showered on her husband in the German press, and related to him how a recent radio concert had featured a series of six classical music selections whose composers’ initials, the announcer explained, “spelled out the name of our popular hero, Colonel General Rommel.” He enjoyed every moment spent in their company, but when the middle of March approached, he was ready to return to Africa—there was too much to do and now it seemed that there might not be enough time.

  Back in Mechili on March 19, Rommel announced that the attack on the Gazala Line would begin at the end of May. The gleanings from his “little fellers” convinced him that Eighth Army’s preparations were such that it would not be ready to begin its own offensive until sometime in late June, although there were intermittent reports from other sources that the attack would come much sooner, one putting the start date as Easter Monday, April 6. Rommel, certain that this was in error, went out on a personal reconnaissance that morning, taking only a single Panzer III as an escort. He heard the sound of distant artillery fire, but saw nothing—that is, until shells suddenly started bursting around his command vehicle. The unknown British gunners came within fractions of an inch of ending the Desert Fox’s career then and there, as one shell exploded very close by and a splinter struck Rommel square in the midriff. Fortunately for him it was mostly spent, although he was left with a severe bruise the size of a soup plate. In a letter to Lucie written a few days later, he told her about the incident, remarking “It was finally stopped by my trousers! The luck of the devil!” It’s doubtful Frau Rommel found it amusing.158

  Nevertheless, his little foray to the front convinced him that no British attack was pending—his fingerspitzengefühl, the “feeling in his fingertips,” that uncanny combat sense which he possessed, told him that the British were still far from ready. Even so, the uncertainty as they waited was a source of ever-growing anxiety for Rommel and his staff, for they were well aware that every additional day gave the British more time to prepare the Gazala defenses; Rommel’s Ic, his intelligence officer, estimated that the British had already emplaced a half-million mines around the defensive boxes they were setting up along the Gazala Line.

  The waiting grated on everyone’s nerves, and Rommel sought distraction in the smallest doings back home in Wiener Neustadt. A less-than-stellar school report from Manfred’s teachers earned them a broadside from the young man’s father, the general. “This pupil does not make the slightest effort to cooperate in the physical exercises. He talks out loud and lacks discipline.” Rommel, incensed, fired back: “You expect these teachers to have a grain of common sense. The school ought to be pleased and proud that it can number a son of mine among its pupils.” Manfred did not get off scot-free, however: “Your teachers have had cause to complain about you. You must do your duty in all your subjects and behave properly. That is your main task in this war. I’m particularly pleased to hear that your Hitler Youth duty is to your liking. It will be of great value to you in later life.” Upon turning 13 Manfred had undergone the mandatory enrollment in the Hitler Jugend; too young to understand the policies of National Socialism, he was more enthusiastic about his new uniform than any other part of the program.159

  Meanwhile, General Crüwell returned from his convalescence about this time, but although he was reasonably healthy in body, in spirit he was a near-broken man. His young wife, just 34, died quite suddenly just days before he was to leave for Libya, and when he paid a courtesy visit to Frau Rommel before departing, he had, she informed her husband, the look of a man who had no longer had anything to live for save the next battle. Rommel did his best to keep Crüwell constructively occupied, but he, like the rest of Panzerarmee Afrika, had to play the waiting game.

  Rommel had no choice but to wait, if his supply situation was to improve to the point where he could not only launch but also sustain a major attack. There was a noticeable betterment in that area after his return from leave: en route back to North Africa he had met with Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, the Luftwaffe’s Commander-in-Chief South, who directed the German air force’s operations throughout the Mediterranean, to discuss the island of Malta. Sitting squarely between Italy and Tripolitania, it served as a base for Royal Navy cruisers, destroyers, and submarines, along with Royal Air Force bombers that wreaked havoc on the Italian supply convoys. Unless Malta was suppressed Panzerarmee Afrika could do no more than live hand-to-mouth; there would be no summer offensive.

  Kesselring agreed, and soon German and Italian bombers set to with a will, hammering Malta daily, severely curtailing British naval and air operations from the island; almost immediately the number of supply ships reaching Tripoli began to rise, while the much smaller ports of Derna and Benghazi were put to use whenever possible. The Afrika Korps’ supply dumps began to grow, though to nothing like the size which Rommel and his logistics staff would have preferred. For the remainder of March and all through April and early May, Rommel’s letters to Lucie tell of an endless round of meetings, conferences, and planning sessions: there is a sense of “much sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Rommel thoroughly enjoyed seeing his second African spring blossom: for little more than one month each year, the Libyan countryside in the Jebel Akhdar explodes in a profusion of color which has few equals anywhere in the world—such was its beauty that Rommel felt moved to capture it on film and shot several rolls of color movies, which he sent along to Lucie. But by the end of April, it had begun to fade, and the Western Desert again returned to its usual dun, buff, and gray hues. The clock was winding down now, and a sense of anticipation began to come over Rommel and his staff. Rommel himself gave voice to it in a short but thoughtful letter to Lucie written on May 12:

  Dearest Lu,

  Nothing much to report. Heat and lots of dust. The main road is a sea of pot-holes with the amount of traffic on it.

  There’s a certain nervousness on our front. The British are expecting us and we them. One day the two forces will measure their strength. You’ll hear about soon enough from the papers. We’re all hoping that we’ll be able to bring the war to an end this year. It will soon have lasted three full years.160

  On the other side of the hill, Lieutenant General Neil Ritchie, officer commanding, Eighth Army, had problems and anxious moments of his own. The “Gazala Line” wasn’t really a line as such, in that it was not a continuous series of trenches, dugouts, strongpoints, and bunkers. Rather, it was a series of “boxes” set up around brigade-streng
th formations organized for allround defense, with the approaches to each covered by lengthy—and deep—barbwire entanglements and extensive minefields. The tactical concept was the each “box” would be manned with sufficient infantry and artillery, including antitank guns, to be able to hold off an attacker long enough for mobile reserves—armor and motorized infantry—to arrive and drive off the enemy. The wire and minefields were sited so as to channel any attacker toward these defensive boxes, denying him the opportunity to merely pass them by. In theory it was a sound concept, but to work in practice it required a degree of cooperation between armor and infantry that Eighth Army had yet to master—something the British Army would, in fact, never quite accomplish before the war’s end. The right of the line was occupied by the 1st South African Division, while the 50th (Northumbrian) Infantry Division was positioned in the center. The Free French Brigade, which included a detachment of the French Foreign Legion, occupied the southernmost box in the line, at the oasis of Bir Hakim. Behind the line stood the 1st and 7th Armoured Divisions, with the 5th Indian Infantry Division in reserve, and the 2nd South African Division garrisoned Tobruk.

  While there remained something to be desired in armor and infantry cooperation, Eighth Army had made great strides in improving the fire coordination between the infantry brigades and the Royal Artillery batteries that supported them. Likewise, Air Vice-Marshal Arthur Coningham, commander of the Desert Air Force, introduced new, more effective methods of calling in air support for ground units. American-built Curtis P-40 Kittyhawks were replacing worn out Hawker Hurricanes, much to the detriment of Fliegerkorps X’s pilots and aircraft. Finally, Eighth Army had a nasty surprise for Rommel and the Afrika Korps: the British armored divisions started to re-equip with American-built M-3 “General Grant” tanks, which had a 75mm main gun which was more powerful than even the 75mm gun mounted on the Panzer IV.

  Unlike Rommel, General Auchinleck was under considerable political pressure to get his attack underway as soon as possible. For once Churchill wasn’t simply meddling in military affairs: it was imperative that Eighth Army drive the Germans and Italians out of Cyrenaica in order to gain some relief for Malta, which was reeling under Kesselring’s aerial onslaught. Legitimate doubts were being raised as to whether the island could continue to hold out or would be forced to capitulate—with dreadful consequences for the Allies. The Prime Minister was blunt with Auchinleck, telling him in a cable from London that the loss of Malta “. . . would be a disaster of the first magnitude to the British Empire, and probably fatal in the long run to the defense of the Nile delta.” Strategically, should Malta fall, the Germans and Italians would gain absolute aerial and naval supremacy, turning the Mediterranean into an Axis lake. Auchinleck understood this all too well; at the same time he also knew that beginning his own offensive prematurely could easily result in a disaster equal in magnitude to that of the loss of Malta. He pressed General Ritchie and Eighth Army as hard as he could, but he refused to go off half-cocked.161

  ON MAY 26, 1942 the waiting came to an end when Rommel struck first. Before setting out, he dashed off an intriguing letter to Lucie, one that contained a touch of fatalism, a sense of destiny, and his love for her.

  Dearest Lu,

  By the time you get this letter you will have long heard from the Wehrmacht communiqués about events here. We’re launching a decisive attack today. It will be hard, but I have full confidence that my army will win it. After all, they all know what battle means. There is no need to tell you how I will go into it. I intend to demand of myself the same as I expect from each of my officers and men. My thoughts, especially in these hours of decision, are often with you.162

  At 2:00 P.M., four Italian infantry divisions, along with one brigade of German infantry and a handful of tanks, began moving toward the center of the Gazala Line. The advance was careful and deliberate, giving every indication of being a major attack, while the tanks scurried hither and yon, churning up as much dust as they could. Behind them, out of sight of the British, spare aircraft engines mounted on truck beds fanned up even larger clouds of dust, which resembled nothing so much as an armored column on the move. It was all, of course, elaborate theater, staged for the benefit of General Ritchie, in an effort to persuade him to draw forces away from the southern end of the line, where on the morrow Rommel’s real attack would go in.

  Rommel’s plan was to stage this feint in the center, then send the Afrika Korps on a long flanking maneuver south of the Bir Hakim oasis and its fortified box; the tanks of the Ariete Division would screen Bir Hakim as the 15th and 21st Panzer Divisions turned to the north to engage the British armored formations and cut off the whole of the Gazala Line from its base in Tobruk. Simultaneously, 90th Light Division was to move northeast, into its old stomping grounds around El Adem, and from there block any enemy effort to reinforce or resupply the British units in the Gazala position. While all of this was taking place, the Trieste Division would clear a route through the minefield north of Bir Hakim in order to open a supply route for the Axis armor. Once that had been accomplished, the combined German and Italian armored strength would take Ed Duda and Sidi Rezegh. The lion’s share of Eighth Army would be cut off and trapped, and then could be defeated in detail. It was an ambitious plan, though not as complicated as at first it might sound, with a good probability of success.

  A fascinating game of think–counterthink was about to be played out, as between them Auchinleck and Ritchie had decided that Rommel’s plan would be the exact opposite of what in fact it was: they believed that any movement in the south would be a diversion while the main Axis attack would come in the center. Ritchie was not as thoroughly sanguine about this conclusion as was Auchinleck, however, and as a precaution he kept the 4th and 22nd Armored Brigades positioned so that they could support each other if in fact the Afrika Korps did make a major offensive move from the south, a decision that would catch Rommel off-guard and put him on his mettle as no one had ever done before.

  Rommel got his panzer divisions moving at 9:00 P.M. on May 26, and just around dawn on the 27th, he took personal command of the Afrika Korps, just as it was meeting the first screen of British armored cars south of Bir Hakim. A signal flashed through Panzerarmee Afrika: “Rommel an der Spitze!”—“Rommel is taking the point!” The British scout cars raced to get out of the way of the advancing German tanks, one of them frantically signalling “Enemy tank columns moving toward us. It looks like it’s the whole damned Afrika Korps!” Rommel’s attack—Fall Venezia—was off to a good start. It was also the last part of the operation that went according to plan.163

  Things started going awry almost immediately after the first contact with the British screening units. The 3rd Indian Motor Brigade, part of the 7th Armoured Division, had, without anyone on the Axis side of the lines noticing, moved into a position 4 miles southeast of Bir Hakim, and proceeded to dig in. Three precious hours were spent overrunning the brigade, which immobilized more than 50 panzers before it was finished, destroying 23 of them. The tanks of the Ariete Division got bogged down in the minefields around the Bir Hakim box, and the artillery of Free French Brigade, some 54 still-potent French 75s, began taking a heavy toll of them. The Ariete’s commanding officer, General Giuseppe de Stefanis, continued to push his division forward, however, and drove off elements of the 4th Armoured Brigade and 7th Motorized, completing the encirclement of Bir Hakim. The Free French, who were well supplied with food and ammunition, would hold the oasis for 15 days until, subject to near constant aerial and artillery bombardment, and under attack by no fewer than four Axis divisions, a breakout would be planned for the night of June 10. Most of the Free French Brigade would escape, a significant moral victory, but far too late to influence the ultimate outcome of the larger battle.

  While the battle around Bir Hakim was brewing up, the 15th Panzer, which was on the far right of the Afrika Korps’ column, ran headlong into the 4th Armoured Brigade, and suffered a nasty shock when unfamiliar-looking British
tanks began knocking out panzers at ranges from which the German tanks couldn’t begin to reply. This was the Afrika Korps’ first experience with the new Grant tanks armed with 75mm guns; they immediately proved to be highly unpopular with the German tank crews. The superior tactical flexibility of the panzer formations allowed the 15th Panzer to envelope the 4th Armoured Brigade, which was able to withdraw in good order nonetheless, falling back to El Adem, where it would spend the rest of the day.

  By noon the Afrika Korps had advanced more than 25 miles, but when it ran into the 1st Armoured Division, it was halted in its tracks. The 1st Armoured was no longer the hopelessly green unit Rommel had so badly mauled back in January, and its tank crews fought like the seasoned veterans they now were. The Grant tanks continued to be problematic, as at medium-to-long ranges it was all but impervious to the main guns of the Panzer IIIs and IVs, save for the handful of the latter that were armed with new, longer-barreled high-velocity 75mm cannons. The Germans’ company and platoon tactics were superior to those of the British, which allowed them to offset somewhat the disparity in firepower and protection, but losses were heavy on both sides in this encounter, and for the moment Rommel’s attack was stalled.

  Echeloned back and to the right of the 15th Panzer was the 90th Light Division, which as the panzers turned northward, headed northeast toward El Adem, only to meet the 7th Motorised Brigade at Retma. It was a “diamond-cut-diamond” moment, as neither unit had any tanks or tracked vehicles, but both possessed enormous firepower. After a short but sharp fight, the 7th Motorised fell back on Bir el Gubi, and the 90th Light continued its advance. Not long afterward it encountered the headquarters section of the 7th Armoured Division, capturing some of its officers and scattering the rest, leaving the division essentially without leadership for two days until its commander, Brigadier Frank Messervy, could regroup his staff. Carrying on, the 90th Light reached El Adem that same day, captured a number of supply dumps, and set up housekeeping, as it were, waiting to drive off any reinforcements that might be coming out of Egypt. The next day, however, the 4th Armoured Brigade tumbled the 90th Light out of El Adem, which retired to the southwest, where it awaited further orders from Rommel.