Desert Fox

Discussions on High Command, strategy and the Armed Forces (Wehrmacht) in general.
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panzertruppe2001
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Desert Fox

#1

Post by panzertruppe2001 » 24 Apr 2004, 20:53

I know that Rommel was a mytical German general. The North Africa is considered one important operations theatre today. But.....

During the war. Did Hitler considered Africa an important place? I suppose no. In 1941, 1942, 1943 Hitler was more worried about Russia than Africa
Who nicknamed Rommel the Desert Fox? Goebbels? the British propaganda?

I think that the myth of Rommel was created by the brits in a year 1941 in which their most important operations theatre was North Africa. Because in this year for the Germans their most important front was Russia.

I await their answers

Thanks

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Eightball
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#2

Post by Eightball » 25 Apr 2004, 01:19

I'm sorry, but what 'myth' are you referring to? He was indeed a prominent commander, I don't think that's a myth really.


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ViKinG
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#3

Post by ViKinG » 25 Apr 2004, 02:23

Rommel was nicknammed the Desert Fox because of his ability to outfox his opponents in the desert at the time. I'm not too sure who gave him this name..my guess would be the british. His ability to command was certainly not a myth though, if you consider that he made Churchill cry out once....What else matters but beating him!!

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#4

Post by Nucleicacidman » 25 Apr 2004, 05:26

[1] No, Hitler did not see North Africa as the most important sector of war. This is seen by his obvious retainment of troops and material, and the lack of supplies which ultimately caused Rommel to lose at Alamein (also due to the thorn in his side..Malta).

[2] The British gave him the nick name. He was indeed good...but not the best. His abilities came with the green commanders the British used. However, he was, indeed, one of the best. Although I much prefer Manstein to him as the best German, or in fact WWII, general of the war.

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#5

Post by Eightball » 25 Apr 2004, 11:52

Nucleicacidman wrote: [2] The British gave him the nick name. He was indeed good...but not the best. His abilities came with the green commanders the British used. However, he was, indeed, one of the best. Although I much prefer Manstein to him as the best German, or in fact WWII, general of the war.
The first opponent to Rommel was General Archibald Wavell, he had just pushed the Italians some 800km back from their positions pre 13th. September, 1940.
The man replacing Wavell was Claude Auchinleck, this man had commanded troops in Norway, 1940, and had also combat experience from earlier years, his counterattack, Operation Crusader, pushed the Axis forces as far back as Wavell had done.
If I'm not mistaken, the next one to command Eight Army was Montgomery who ultimately defeated the Axis in N. Africa.
So calling the British Generals 'green' is an invalid point IMO.

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#6

Post by Gwynn Compton » 25 Apr 2004, 12:21

The British Generals weren't well adapted to mobile warfare however. And to a certain extent, Montgomery wasn't either when he took charge. However he appreciated that his primary strength over Rommel was his superiority in quantity of material, and thus he didn't repeat the earlier mistakes made by Wavell and Auchinleck in overstretching their supply lines.

Rommel certainly was a operational and tactical genius. The experience he gained operating in conditions of complete enemy air superiority and against massive enemy material conditions meant that he had an appreciation of the way the Allies waged war that was lost to history due to the division of forces at Normandy, and the fact that other German commanders had far more forces and supplies than Rommel had to achieve his victories.

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DrG
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#7

Post by DrG » 25 Apr 2004, 16:12

On the issue of Sept.Oct. 1997 of Military Review there was an interesting article about Rommel:

The Rommel Myth
by Colonel James R. Robinson, US Army Reserve


Field Marshal Erwin Rommel rode across North Africa onto the pages of history. His legend secure, Rommel will be forever thought of as a military genius who, but for bad fortune and the faults of others, might have changed the course of World War II. His noble nature was crowned tragically by his involvement in the failed attempt on Adolf Hitler's life and his subsequent forced suicide. Legends, however, offer little in the way of direction for students of operational art. Those students must learn, directly or indirectly, from lessons locked in plans, maps, technical comparisons and analyses of others. It is through the disciplined application of critical analysis that campaigns of the past are transmuted into lessons for the future.

What did Rommel accomplish in North Africa, and how should those accomplishments be judged? Is he one of the "Great Captains," or is he more legend than genius, more image than substance? Exploring these issues is germane to future strategists, as it illuminates the tasks, skills and responsibilities at the heart of the operational level of war. Examining Rommel's North African campaigns under the scope of operational art requires not just revisiting battles, but identifying and analyzing the critical elements that constitute campaigns. Of particular importance to current operational-level thinking are lessons that teach us the oft-hidden effects of political, psychological and social factors on a campaign's purpose and execution.

Analyzing Operational Art
The renaissance in US military thought about the operational level of war provides an enhanced means to examine military efforts-past, present and future -that pursue political or strategic goals. Operational art is the planning and execution of military efforts to achieve political aims. It correlates political needs and military power. Operational art should be defined by its military-political scope, not by force size, scale of operations or degree of effort. Likewise, operational art provides theory and skills, and the operational level permits doctrinal structure and process.

While the emerging corpus of operational art and the establishment of an operational level of war are relatively new, operational art has existed throughout recorded history. Nations have long pursued political goals through military actions, and campaigns of any period can be examined from the existential perspective of operational art. Although a broadly accepted primer of operational art is yet to be written, current schools of thought share the fundamental view that military success can be measured only in the attainment of political-strategic aims. This is, in its broadest sense, a truism, valid for all wars in all times.

Operational art comprises four essential elements: time, space, means and purpose. Each element is found in greater complexity at the operational level than at the tactical or strategic level. This is true, in part, because operational art must consider and incorporate more of the strategic and tactical levels than those levels must absorb from the operational level. Although much can be gained by examining the four elements independently, it is only when they are viewed together that operational art reveals its intricate fabric.

The challenge of operational art is to establish a four-element equilibrium that permits the optimal generation and application of military power in achieving the political goal. Viewing time, space, means and purpose as a whole requires great skill in organizing, weighing and envisioning masses of complex, often contradictory factors. These factors often exist for extended periods, over great distances and with churning mixes of players, systems and beliefs, pursuing political goals which may or may not be clear, cogent or settled. Meanwhile, an enemy seeks to create options beyond our thoughts. Compounding factors from other dimensions of power create further, and inestimable, ambiguity and chance.

Mission analysis. The operational-level strategist possesses numerous tools to frame and guide his thinking, but chief among these are mission analysis and end state. Mission analysis answers the question "What is to be accomplished?" Through mission analysis, the operational-level planner fuses political aims and military objectives. In so doing, the planner determines what application of military force will create military power to achieve the political purpose. Subordinate processes here include defining objectives and centers of gravity, but excessive dependence on analytical mechanisms can create false security. The final test rewards success, not the quality of the argument. Conversely, we cannot hope to "feel" our way to victory-complexity demands an integration of thought and structure. A prime challenge to operational-level strategists is to strike a balance between mechanisms and intellect. Too much or little of either reduces the possibility of equilibrium over time and, with it, success.

End state. The end state answers the question "What will constitute success?" The campaign end state is not merely a visualization of the military goal. It also establishes a touchstone for the tactical, operational and strategic levels, along with other dimensions of power. The end state crystalizes the intended results of military power and exposes any limitations. Indeed, an achievable end state may require employment of nonmilitary elements of national power. As such, it recognizes that military power alone may not be capable of attaining political success. The flesh and blood of the military effort are the campaign plan and its execution, but at its soul must be the satisfaction of political goals as defined by the end state.

Operational-level strategists must continually inventory and weigh time, space, means and purpose, extrapolating from them outcomes and probabilities. To accomplish this, practitioners need both skill and theory, experience and knowledge. At the operational level, skills and experience must usually be developed indirectly, through formal training, military history and wargaming. Success at the tactical level is no guarantee of success at the operational level, because there is no natural transition. Without a strong grounding in the theory and application of operational art, a successful tactician has little hope of making the demanding leap from tactics-mastery of operational art demands strategic skills. The operational-level strategist must see clearly and expansively from the foxhole into the corridors of national or coalition authority. In particular, there is a real, but unwritten, requirement for operational-level strategists to consider the plausibility and coherence of strategic aims, national will and the players who decide them. Successful operational art charts a clear, unbroken path from the individual soldier's efforts to the state or coalition's goals.

Factors in viewing World War II. Several factors affect any operational-art examination of Rommel's North Africa efforts. First, the Germans did not use the operational level as a formal doctrinal concept in World War II. While operational art was known within the German forces, its awareness and practice was limited principally to general staff-trained officers. As stated before, the existential na-ture of operational art means that examining Rommel's efforts against political aims is valid irrespective of the doctrine or structures of the period. In this, operational art's elements-time, space, means and purpose-illuminate thoughts and actions of any era, regardless of the prevailing doctrine or structure.

A different challenge is faced in addressing, under any framework, portions of the World War II epoch. World War II's sheer size, scale and complexity create a historical mass possessing its own relativity. It is impossible to separate and examine a sizable segment of the war without seeing that examination "bent" by the weight of other considerations, views, factors and potentialities. It is not just the military dimension that skews the image; the political, economic, social and psychological dimensions are as firmly entwined here as in any conflict in history. Moreover, retrospective "what ifs," while fundamental to analysis and learning, suffer much from an inability to reach conclusions amid an almost incomprehensible array of facts, figures, actors and chaos. These factors challenge not just efforts to "what if" the North Africa efforts, but those who seek to establish truth.

Interests and Aims
The arrival of German forces in North Africa was precipitated by a political need to bolster the sagging fortunes of Italy's fascist leadership. In 1940, the British quickly swept the Italians from the air and drove them back to Tripoli on the ground. Except for delays caused by regrouping and resupplying, then diverting forces to the doomed Balkan effort, the British would likely have defeated the Italians, taken North Africa and forestalled a German entry. Hitler feared an Italian defeat in North Africa could cause a political collapse in Italy, leading that nation to a separate peace. Hitler was unwilling, however, to pay a great price for propping up the Italians. North Africa was to be an economy of force effort, a sideshow to Hitler's upcoming Russian campaign.

An alternative, larger aim offered by some historians sees a German "pincer" strategy, whereby Germany would proceed several thousand miles around the Mediterranean, across the Middle East and link up with victorious German forces near the Caucases. Access to oil is seen as the primary goal of this strategy.1 But the pincer strategy is specious, for it greatly exceeded strategic or operational-level feasibility or rationality. The axis lacked means to man, equip and sustain additional armies, fleets and air corps needed to seize and maintain the enormous territory envisaged. Moreover, a second, exposed corridor to Russian and Middle East oil, operating on far-external lines, was unneeded. A German victory in Russia, essential to the pincer strategy, would provide secure internal lines, required no additional effort and would free up huge forces for further strategic schemes.

British interests in North Africa related to strategic freedom of movement, while the German interests were to steady a faltering ally. The relative importance of each nation's interests are debatable. The British were not as overextended as the Germans were, given the demands of Russia. The British could, with extensive US materiel support, fight the Germans and defend their interests. Moreover, battling the Germans in North Africa fit within the Brit-ish "peripheral" strategy, in which Britain hoped to attack and weaken the Germans by engagement along the continental Europe perimeter, and avoid what the British felt would be a more costly direct attack via invasion. This plan was later abandoned after US rejection. After the invasion of Russia, that country urged the British (and later the Americans) to relieve pressure from the Eastern Front by engaging German forces wherever possible. Time, space, means and purpose combined in an odd weighting in North Africa, a good reason these elements should always be considered together.

Rommel at the Operational Level
Rommel was ill-prepared by training, experience or temperament to lead an operational-level German effort in North Africa. World War I treaties limited Germany to a small army of 100,000 soldiers and reduced its officer corps from 35,000 to 4,000. However, the remaining officers were the creme de la creme, a significant number of whom were vaunted general staff members. Further, the German army circumvented the treaty restrictions against training and retaining the general staff, thereby continuing Germany's cultural commitment to this concept. Rommel's brilliant, aggressive small-unit actions in World War I secured for him a position in the post-war army, but he was never invited to attend the multi-year training of, or serve on, the general staff. Rommel was autodidactic, but little is known of his specific studies of the higher levels of war. His disdain for the general staff and its mental trappings is clear. Except for a brief, unhappy stint on a corps staff during World War I, Rommel did not serve in a division or higher headquarters until he commanded the 7th Panzer Division in 1940.2

This lack of higher staff responsibility stands in marked contrast to his contemporaries, many of whom came from the general staff ranks. Their interwar years were marked by service on higher staffs, to include extensive wargaming and brief interludes of command.3 Rommel's impetuosity and dynamism were often at odds with his peers' more disciplined, controlled approach. General staff training and service had at its core a commitment to knowledge, logic, detailed analysis and a shared, almost interchangeable, approach.4 Against this Rommel presented an antipodal approach, one that saw battle as not merely flowing from strategy but often leading it. Rommel was not without support in this line of reasoning. A famous quote from Count Helmuth von Moltke, the renowned 19th-century German strategist, offers that "The demands of strategy grow silent in the face of a tactical victory."5

Rommel's impetuosity and brilliance continued to serve him well as a division commander in 1940 France, although even there his actions began to betray his weaknesses. There were disturbing faults in staff procedures, time-phasing, communications and battlespace, but these were lost in the victory and in Rommel's growing persona.6

When Rommel stepped onto Africa, he seized the mantle of operational art, and in that world tactical brilliance alone would not suffice. Much has been said of the miserable German-Italian command structure for the theater, but the simple matter is Rommel took hold of the operational-level controls and never let go. The German Armed Forces Command's initial guidance to Rommel was clear and followed the strategic plan to defend the Italians. Rommel was to help hold Libya and not exceed an operational depth of 300 miles. Rommel quickly mounted an attack on the British which, given the situation, was entirely justified. This early seizing of the initiative amounted to a tactical offensive in support of an operational-level defense. But Rommel did not stop there. With his forces disembarking piecemeal, Rommel drove on to Egypt, greatly overextending his operational depth, to say nothing of his military aim.

From the initiation of his First Offensive campaign until the withdrawal from El Alamein two years later, Rommel never offered an operational plan that pointed to achievable aims and balanced the four elements. Rather, he proceeded into an extended series of battles, unencumbered by an achievable sequencing of operations and means and disregarding the limited aims given him. There was no pretense of the supremacy of strategy over tactics. Rommel simply pushed his forces forward, pulling behind him like so much unnecessary baggage a century of German strategic thought and practice.

After the war, Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, elder statesman of the German generals and quintessential product of the general staff system, said of Rommel, "He was a brave man, and a very capable commander in small operations, but not really qualified for high command."7 Rommel did what he knew-tactics. He failed to do what he did not know-operational art. Rommel reveals his limitations in his own words. In an 8 April 1941 letter to his wife, Rommel makes what must be one of the oddest admissions of any operational-level commander: "I've no idea whether the date [of the letter] is right. We've been attacking for days now in the endless desert and have lost all idea of space or time."8

On 17 January 1942, Rommel writes his wife of his approach: "I work out my plans early each morning, and how often, during the past year and in France, have they been put into effect within a matter of hours? That's how it should be and is going to be in [the] future."9

Rommel never grasped the extended dimensions of his challenge and never comprehended the elements of time, space, means and purpose in any framework. Often, he merely rationalized or dismissed them, particularly when he addressed logistics. As Martin van Creveld has noted, Rommel failed to recognize the nature of his logistic challenges and incorporate them in his plans. He blamed logistics for not giving him all he wanted, where and when he wanted it-for not hewing to his battle desires.10 In this, he failed to grasp that, as Joint Chiefs of Staff Publication 1, Joint Warfare of the US Armed Forces, so succinctly puts it, "Logistics sets the campaign's operational limits."11 Instead, Rommel attributed even huge logistic shortfalls to failures in attitude and initiative at various levels. He blamed the Italians, the German general staffs and his own logisticians.12 It was as though the gallons, the tons and the overextended and exposed supply lines could be reduced to issues of human will.

A striking irony is that, had the British correctly identified and addressed Rommel's logistic vulnerability, they could have greatly reduced his successes. As it was, the British were a major provider of Rommel's operational depth. The British displayed a remarkably unfortunate propensity to surrender to the Germans all manners of supplies, often at key points in the campaign. Particularly startling are the vast quantities of trucks and fuel that fell into German hands. Amazingly, captured British trucks formed the bulk of German ground transport assets and were essential to maintaining German operational depth. That, of course, made them high-priority air targets, thereby incurring for the British the cost of destroying their own trucks. The great failure at Tobruk was not the fall of the town itself, for Rommel could not have maintained, at that point, his forces against rapidly increasing British air and ground power. The true failure was permitting the large stores of supplies and equipment in Tobruk to be captured by the Germans, for without those supplies, the Germans could not have gone on to El Alamein.

Time after time, Rommel's initial and ongoing mission analyses were limited to bringing the enemy to battle and defeating it. There was little linkage to operational aims-or concern for their absence-or to a feasible sequence to attain them. Some of his greatest tactical victories offered no decision, contained no feasible branches or sequels and held no true logic. These truths were lost to the world audience and to the German and British people and their leaders. The sounds of guns drowned out thoughts of strategy. All that was seen was victory, glory and national joy or sorrow. Rommel gave brilliant tactical performances. He consistently stayed within the British decision cycle by combining attacks, counterattacks, deceptions and risk taking. In this, he was aided by weaknesses in British command and tactics, particularly the British tendency to split heavy forces and offer them up to Rommel piecemeal. Nevertheless, Rommel's impulsiveness, surprise, improvisation and daring made him one of the most brilliant tactical leaders of the modern age.

Rommel knew that German strategic needs elsewhere would not permit sufficient reinforcements in North Africa, even if ways could be found to land them, move them to the front and sustain them once they were there. Colonel General Franz Halder, the German Army Staff chief, was one of many who attempted to open Rommel's eyes to the futility of his efforts in North Africa. On one occasion, Rommel told Halder he would need additional armored forces to capture Cairo, the Suez and swing into East Africa. Halder asked how, even if Germany could provide them, would those large formations be resupplied? Rommel replied that this was someone else's problem. No wonder Halder, in his war diary, referred to Rommel as "this soldier gone stark mad."13

Rommel-and to an extent his foes-confused the campaign's nature. Tactical brilliance and public emotions reinforced the participants' beliefs that this was a theater where maneuver and individual battles could or would be decisive. In fact, North Africa became a theater of materialschlacht (battle of materiel) where the rhythms of war confused its participants, but where the inputs of war-weapons, manpower and supplies-determined the outcome. Tactical brilliance offered little hope for a decisive German victory, in no small part because that victory was never realistically defined. What if, in 1942 after Tobruk, the Germans took Alexandria, Cairo and even the Suez? No plausible German sequel can be construed. Time had run out for Rommel: his operational depth was hopelessly overextended; the enemy's means far exceeded his; and his purpose was now delusional. British gains in air- and sea-dimensional superiority were increasingly dominating the Axis forces throughout the theater battlespace, while ground force reserves in Egypt were building rapidly.

Several days after El Alamein, the US Torch landings occurred in Northwest Africa, leaving the Germans little choice but to withdraw from Egypt or dramatically reinforce Libya. Hence, it was confirmed that tactical initiative is no guarantee of operational success. Rommel's overextension and pointless quest for battle played little part in theater decisions. Tobruk and El Alamein, far from the major events portrayed then and now, were virtually epilogues of the Second Offensive campaign, as by then the pendulum of military power had swung away from the Germans, never to swing back.

German thinking was disinterested with an expanded strategic purpose in North Africa and Rommel knew it. The Nazi strategic focus was Russia, where Germany's fate would be decided. In fact, each German North Africa offense surprised Hitler and the German Armed Forces High Command. Even as late as January 1942, Rommel's Second Offensive was unexpected. Not until the end of April was a strategy meeting held with the Italians-one which produced sloppy, confused thinking, resolved nothing and set no future course.14 "What to do in Africa?" was Italy's and Germany's continuing refrain.

Factors. Despite the dramatic sense of vast open areas, the North Africa campaigns were actually conducted on a long, narrow strip that followed the coast, rarely exceeding 50 miles in width. Ground combat in North Africa followed this long lane, limiting campaign efforts to linear, sequential warfare. Forces fought battle after battle, town to town, with no real operational-level maneuver. Tactical maneuver abounded but did nothing to break the string of sequential battles or the back-and-forth investment in destruction of lives and materiel.

Technology impacted time, space and means but never hoped to resolve the absence of purpose. The Germans entered a theater where the British and Italians had fought at limited ranges with rickety planes and outdated ordnance. The Germans immediately upped the technological ante with battle-proven, high-performance airplanes and far superior weapons. On the ground, the German 88 millimeter dual-purpose antiaircraft/antitank gun proved insurmountable to the British. The 88's effective range, killing power and accuracy terrorized the British ranks. It was not until 1942, when British air superiority permitted air-ground efforts targeting the 88s, that the weapon's battlefield supremacy was diminished. The Germans maintained, albeit to an ever diminishing degree, tank technological superiority throughout the North Africa campaigns. Germany showed a strong capability to upgrade existing models to meet new challenges. However, over time, British gains in quantity and quality, provided principally by the United States, attenuated earlier German advantages. The combination of two technologies-radio intercept and code breaking-were of major importance throughout the campaigns, but they require separate examination.

Myth and Meaning
Contemporary photographs and newsreel clips of Rommel are familiar even to those born decades later. Rommel is almost always depicted as a bronzed, handsome man, projecting transcendent wisdom and courage. His daring and valor earned him Germany's highest military medals in World Wars I and II. No 20th-century military foe approaches the enduring fame awarded Rommel by English-speaking peoples.

In truth, Rommel was and is a myth, crafted during his life by friend and foe alike to satisfy various political, social and psychological needs. It was a myth created from an admixture of truth, fiction and emotion, ever enshrined in popular culture and military history. Rommel's myth was used to explain events, to promote beliefs and to entertain, just as myths have done throughout the ages.

Rommel achieved some measure of fame in World War I and in the 1940 Battle of France, but North Africa forms the bulk of his legend. During the war, his deeds were trumpeted in countless newsreels, books and articles around the world. His fame in Germany was enormous. Shortly after the war, B.H. Liddell-Hart, one of this century's best-known military theorists and historians, proposed Rommel for entry into the pantheon of "Great Captains."15 Most views of Rommel offer similar songs of praise. Martin Blumenson, the distinguished World War II chronicler, could hardly contain himself in a 1989 piece, claiming that Rommel "is increasingly regarded as a soldier who had a clear and compelling view of strategy and logistics and a sound and balanced touch for grand operations."16

Rommel's myth was shaped not just by the Germans, but by his enemies as well. Rommel's brilliance mitigated for the British their defeats in North Africa. Rommel became a demigod of war, even to his enemies. During one period of the "Desert Fox's" successes, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill made his now-famous speech before the House of Commons, saying, "We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general . . ."17 No doubt Churchill meant his words; but little doubt can exist either that by acknowledging Rommel's putative genius, Churchill helped excuse British errors, thereby deflecting political criticism of his government.

Image and Power
Rommel traveled the paths of glory not just on the strength of his record and abilities, but also from his personal relationship with Hitler. Rommel met Hitler briefly in 1934 and again in 1935, but it was Rommel's temporary tours of duty as commander of Hitler's headquarters party for the invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland that cemented the relationship. Hitler read and enjoyed Rommel's book Infantry Attacks, which was based on his exploits in World War I. In 1939, Rommel was promoted to general officer and assigned as the Fuhrer's headquarters full-time commander. Less than three years later, Rommel was a field marshal, surely one of the most meteoric rises in any modern army. Rommel was neither Prussian, an aristocrat nor a member of the general staff, factors greatly increasing his appeal to Hitler. Rommel was, to Hitler, a wholly acceptable ally, one disenfranchised from the army's usual social elite that Hitler detested and distrusted. In 1940, Rommel was assigned 7th Panzer Division command through Hitler's intercession. On arrival at the division, he shocked his new subordinates by using the "Heil Hitler" greeting.18

Rommel clearly was not above increasing and using his political power. Rommel was quick to realize the subtle interactions among public appeal, political value and personal goals. While in North Africa, Rommel often communicated directly or indirectly with Hitler, bypassing his German and Italian higher headquarters. Rommel's aide, SS Lieutenant Alfred Berndt, maintained close ties with his former boss, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.19 Rommel often used Berndt to intercede with Hitler, Goebbels and others. Sometimes these were political or strategic matters but were often more mundane issues.

Goebbels guided the building of Rommel's reputation in Germany. Like Hitler, Goebbels saw the political, social and psychological benefits that accrued to the Nazis from the handsome, dashing Rommel, whose political acceptability was rewarded with extensive press coverage. He was the first division commander to receive the Knight's Cross for efforts in the fall of France, and he received the lion's share of press coverage. Even Goebbels, though, recognized Rommel's unpredictable nature and the risks of his actions. In an April 1941 diary entry, Goebbels wrote, "We have our hands full trying to hold him back."20

For Hitler, the daring headline-making exploits of Rommel were too enticing to give up, even if there was no military-strategic logic behind them. Rommel, for his part, knew and cultivated the rewards of image. Prior to his departure for Africa, Rommel met with Hitler and examined American and British magazines lauding the Italian defeat by the British. Soon, Hitler and the world would see German victories there, and the photogenic Rommel would see his fame expanding. The Desert Fox found time to communicate to Goebbels concerns on the quality of his media coverage. Goebbels reacted, in a diary entry of 7 June 1941, that Rommel "deserves the best presentation we can give him. . ." and later that month wrote that Rommel and his forces "deserve the highest praise and a fame that will go down in history."21 Goebbels lived up to his promise, as Rommel became one of the most highly promoted Third Reich heroes. Thus did fame come to Rommel, and with it power.

In the end, the myth was too powerful for even Hitler to destroy. When Rommel came to terms with the irrationality and horror of the Nazi madman, he joined, in some form, the conspirators who hoped to kill Hitler and overthrow the Third Reich. Ironically, the unsuccessful putsch was organized and predominantly made up of Rommel's longstanding foes, general staff officers. Rommel was forced to commit suicide, but the public, of course, was told only that their hero died of wounds. Only after the war would the world learn the truth, a truth that would magnify the myth. In death as in life, Rommel was a hero.

Ultimately, German efforts in North Africa served only to delay the war's outcome at excessive costs. Rommel's failure to envision a realistic end state or to conduct an operational-level mission analysis meant there was never meaning to his battles. For the Germans, little good came of all their tactical and technological brilliance. In the end, they accomplished no clearly identifiable, meaningful objectives. Rommel was untrained and ill-suited for the intellectual rigors of operational art. Rommel came to North Africa, fought countless battles over two years, shaped his legend, but achieved no enduring political goals. In all this, he never met the challenges of operational art and never blended time, space, means and purpose.

Rommel fought battles, but never determined why. For his enemies, the price paid in blood and treasure was later repaid many times over in improvements to equipment and doctrine, and in the inestimable value of battle experience. By any measure of success at the operational level of war, Rommel failed. By most measures of history, he succeeded. The difference is absorbed within the myth. The Rommel myth fulfilled psychological needs for Germany, offset British failures and transfixed the world. His legend as a heroic, tragic figure endures. But operational art is unforgiving-it sets its judgment on success, and Rommel achieved none. It was not just that Rommel failed at operational art, he never really attempted it. He had not learned it, had not practiced it and could not meet the intellectual challenges he faced.

Rommel and North Africa are windows into the future. No, not every circumstance will be repeated, at least in any single campaign. Nonetheless, we must look for each, either in ourselves and our allies or in our foes. For within each weakness is vulnerability. Perhaps the most dangerous risk is permitting public emotions to poison reason. We must beware of heroes, legends and tales, for they can lure political leaders and the public away from the reality of war.

Rommel will be borne by his legend across the sands of time. Nothing said now will change that; nor should we wish to rewrite the tale, for heroes are hard to come by. But let us ensure that today's warriors-at least the strategists-separate the man from the myth, the deeds from the drama and the futility from the glory. We owe that not to the past, but to the future. MR


1. Gerhard Weinberg, A World at Arms (New York: Cambridge Press, 1994), 346-50.
2. David Fraser, Knight's Cross: A Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (New York: Harper Collins, 1994), 563-65.
3. Ibid.
4. An excellent survey of this complex subject can be found in Christian Millotat, Understanding the Prussian-German General Staff System (Carlisle Barracks, PA: Army War College booklet, 1992).
5. Daniel Hughes, editor, Moltke on the Art of War: Selected Writings (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1993), 47.
6. Fraser, Knight's Cross, 179, 205-9.
7. B.H. Liddel-Hart, The German Generals Speak (New York: Quill, 1979), 234.
8. Liddell-Hart, editor, The Rommel Papers (New York: Da Capo Press, 1982) 116.
9. Ibid., 179.
10. Martin van Creveld, Supplying War: Logistics from Wallenstein to Patton (New York: Cambridge Press, 1980), 181-201.
11. US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Joint Publication 1, Joint Warfare of the US Armed Forces (Washington, DC: National Defense University Press, 1991), 46.
12. Van Creveld, Supplying War, 187.
13. Franz Halder, The Halder-War Diary, 1939-1942, C. Burdick and H. Jacobsen, editors (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1988), 374.
14. Walter Warlimont, Inside Hitler's Headquarters, 1939-1945 (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1964), 129, 235-38.
15. Liddell-Hart, The Rommel Papers, xii-xxi.
16. Martin Blumenson, "Rommel," in Corelli Barnett (ed.), Hitler's Generals (New York: Quill, 1989), 293.
17. Winston Churchill, A History of World War Two, Volume 3, "The Grand Alliance" (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1950), 200.
18. Len Deighton, Blitzkreig: From the Rise of Hitler to the Fall of Dunkirk (New York: Ballantine, 1982), 54.
19. Berndt is mentioned frequently in Goebbels' diary before, during and after his time as Rommel's aide. He later became an SS general and died in action.
20. Joseph Goebbels (Trans. & ed. by Fred Taylor), The Goebbels Diaries, 1939-1941 (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1983), 339.
21. Ibid., 399 and 421.


Colonel James R. Robinson is a logistician in the Individual Ready Reserve, US Army Reserve. He received a B.S. from Niagara University and an M.B.A. from St. John's University. He is also a graduate of the US Army War College and the US Air War College. He has held a variety of command and staff positions in the Continental United States, including commander, 304th Materiel Management Center (Corps), Los Angeles, California; chief, Support Plans, 311th Corps Support Command (COSCOM), Los Angeles; commander, 387th Maintenance Battalion, Los Alamitos, California; and chief, Operations Branch, 311th COSCOM.

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#8

Post by Hop » 25 Apr 2004, 17:09

Good analysis. It leaves out an important area though, probably because the information was still classified until recently.

The American defence attache in Cairo, Col Frank Fellers, compiled very detailed reports on British troop deployments, operational plans etc. He sent them all to hios superiors in Washington, using a code that had been cracked first by the Italians, then by the Germans.

It meant Rommel had details of where each individual battalion was deployed, where supply dumps were, where the line was weakest, even which units were below strength or suffering morale problems.

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#9

Post by DrG » 25 Apr 2004, 18:26

Hop wrote:It leaves out an important area though, probably because the information was still classified until recently.
The American defence attache in Cairo, Col Frank Fellers, compiled very detailed reports on British troop deployments, operational plans etc. He sent them all to hios superiors in Washington, using a code that had been cracked first by the Italians, then by the Germans.
Good point Hop, but those info about Fellers (but also Capt. Seeböm's signal company was extremely useful) have been known since a long time. Certainly in the 1970's the former commander of the SIM (Intelligence Service of the Regio Esercito), gen. Cesare Amè, had already told about the decrypt of Feller's dispatches in an interview and the topic of intelligence war was touched also by David Irving in his The Trail of the Fox.
A good article about Fellers dispatches:

(from: http://africanhistory.about.com/library ... rtfox1.htm)

A Secret Ear for the Desert Fox
The intercepted communications of an American in Cairo provided a secret ear for the Desert Fox.

By Wil Deac for World War II Magazine.


During the 1941-1942 tug of war for North Africa, the British benefited from radio-intercept-derived Ultra information. Despite that Allied advantage, however, for six months and 11 days the Germans enjoyed an even speedier, more across-the-board intelligence source. It was what Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the legendary Desert Fox, called die gute Quelle (the good source). It also was known as "the little fellows" or "the little fellers," a play on the name of its unwitting provider, Brevet Colonel Bonner Frank Fellers. Fellers, a 1918 West Point graduate who previously had served in America's embassy in Madrid, Spain, was the U.S. military attaché in the Egyptian capital of Cairo.

General Cesare Amè, head of the Servizio Informazione Militari (SIM, Italy's military intelligence), approved a break-in of the still neutral American embassy in Rome in September 1941. Since Amè had keys to all the embassies in Rome, except for the Russian, it was a simple matter to gain entry at night. The burglary team consisted of two Carabinieri (national paramilitary police) specialists and two Italians employed by the embassy. One of the latter, messenger Loris Gherardi, opened the safe in the military attaché's office.

Among the items inside were the Black Code (named after the color of its binding) and its super-encipherment tables. The material, used by U.S. military attachés and ambassadors worldwide, was taken to SIM headquarters, photographed and returned. The Italians now could read everything that the U.S. Ambassador telegraphed. Although they were allied with Germany, the Italians only gave their Axis partner sanitized versions of the American messages, not the code.

While the Nazis appreciated the Italian largess, they did not tell their ally that they had cracked the Black Code in the meantime. By the fall of 1941, the German Chiffrierabteilung (military cipher branch) intercept stations were snatching the dots and dashes of the Black Code from the airwaves. The intercept station specifically assigned to cover Egypt (Britain's North African headquarters) and the United States, among others, was situated in medieval Lauf, just northeast of the Bavarian city of Nuremburg. There, on a 24-hour basis, 150 radiomen tuned receivers linked to six tall towers. The Lauf facility was backed up by a listening post near Berlin. Since the Mediterranean theater was then the war's most active battleground, it was only natural that Lauf concentrated on Cairo. It was just as natural that attention focused on the American military attaché there. His reports were the most thorough.

Fellers was as dedicated as he was ambitious. Although it soon became apparent that he disliked the British, they needed American support and went out of their way to give Fellers what he wanted. As Fellers said, he knew that "if I was going to be a good observer and write good reports I'd better report what I saw myself." He talked to British military and civilian headquarters officials, read documents and visited the battlefront, where "it wasn't difficult to learn a great deal."

Fellers composed long, usually pessimistic radiograms describing virtually everything he learned, encoded them and filed them with the Egyptian Telegraph Company for transmission across the Atlantic to Washington. Within an hour of their transmission from Cairo, the colonel's Black Code messages found their way to German cryptanalysts' desks. Another hour or two and they would be broken into readable text, ready to be retransmitted in a German code. Thus, a few hours after Fellers' messages were sent, the data would be in Rommel's hands. Chiffrierabteilung archivist Dr. Herbert Schaedel said that military headquarters "went crazy...to get all the telegrams from Cairo." He pointed out that the most revealing, Fellers' reports, were easily pulled from the hundreds of coded intercepts received daily. They were flagged MILID WASH (Military Intelligence Division, Washington) or AGWAR WASH (Adjutant General, War Department, Washington), and signed FELLERS. Schaedel recalled that the Desert Fox "each day at lunch, knew exactly where the Allied troops were standing the evening before."

On December 7, 1941, Rommel's Panzergruppe Afrika followed initial successes with a long retreat from near Tobruk west and south across Libya's Cyrenaica to Tripolitania. There, the German and Italian units regrouped. There, also, beginning on December 18, the Desert Fox studied Fellers' detailed reports, along with local intercepts. The latter came from his second secret ear in the enemy's communications, his own 621st Signals Battalion mobile monitoring element commanded by Hauptmann Alfred Seeböhm. The British not only failed to frequently change their codes during this period but also displayed an unbelievable lack of battlefield radio discipline. According to Rommel's chief of staff, they "were quite broad-minded in making speeches during combat, and we had the possibility of making important conclusions from their speeches." On January 21, 1942, aided by intercepts telling him he had temporary front-line armored superiority, the Desert Fox launched an offensive--advancing an impressive 300 miles in just 17 days.

Die gute Quelle kept pace with the advance of Rommel's forces, now elevated to Panzerarmee status, along Libya's northeastern shore. On January 29, for example, Rommel received a full summary of British armored strength. Then he learned that more effective American-made M3 medium tanks would enter combat after mid-February. On February 6 the intercepts detailed, in addition to unit locations, the establishment of a heavily mined British defense line stretching from Gazala on the sea to the oasis at Bir Hacheim. From that line, the British intended to launch a decisive counteroffensive. With his 560 tanks (including 240 obsolete Italian ones) against his opponent's 700, Rommel pre-empted the Allies by unleashing a daring assault on May 26. His main force swept south parallel to the defense line, swung east around its Free French­held anchor at Bir Hacheim and then pivoted back north against the British positions.

Axis momentum slowed as supplies dwindled, due mainly to an overextended and inadequate logistical system. The key to British success in interdicting the Axis' Mediterranean convoys was the island of Malta, situated just west of the principal Axis sea lane. German and Italian aircraft pounded the little island, dropping some 9,000 tons of bombs during a two-month period. Fellers' cables made only too clear the island's perilous position and predicted its surrender if the bombardment continued and supply convoys failed to reach it.

In June, the British decided to sail two convoys simultaneously from Alexandria in the east and Gibraltar in the west, respectively code-named Vigorious and Harpoon, in a full-scale attempt to relieve Malta. A vital part of the operation was the neutralization of Axis ships and aircraft. Toward this end, air raids were scheduled against key enemy bases. In addition, numerous airfields would be attacked by parachute and ground elements to destroy bombers before they could be flown against the convoys. Fellers efficiently reported this. His cable, No. 11119 dated June 11, was intercepted in both Rome and Lauf. It read, in part: "NIGHTS OF JUNE 12TH JUNE 13TH BRITISH SABOTAGE UNITS PLAN SIMULTANEOUS STICKER BOMB ATTACKS AGAINST AIRCRAFT ON 9 AXIS AIRDROMES. PLANS TO REACH OBJECTIVES BY PARACHUTES AND LONG RANGE DESERT PATROL." British and Free French raiders went into action behind the lines in Libya and on the island of Crete. At most bases, they were slaughtered. There was success only where Fellers' unwitting early warning was not received, was ignored or was ineptly handled.

Operation Harpoon's six merchantmen and their escorts were continually beset by Axis air and surface attacks between June 14 and 16. Only two cargo ships reached Malta. Vigorous, the larger eastern convoy, including 11 merchant ships, incurred serious losses before turning back to Egypt.

On land, meanwhile, superior leadership, communication and use of intelligence enabled Rommel's Afrika Korps to drive the British Eighth Army out of Libya into Egypt. By the end of June, Rommel's juggernaut was about 90 miles from Alexandria. Just beyond lay Cairo, the Suez Canal and Palestine.

The opposing war machines, like boxers pausing for a breath, stopped to face each other along parallel lines running southwestward just outside the town of El Alamein. Adolf Hitler, optimistically discussing the expected capture of Alexandria, said, "It is only to be hoped that the American [Fellers] in Cairo continues to inform us so well over the English military planning through his badly enciphered cables."

Inevitably, the British came to realize that sensitive information was leaking to the enemy. The Afrika Korps was still blitzkrieging the Cyrenaican coastline when security officers approached Fellers to, in his words, "see my security measures for the [Black] code." Fellers, however, apparently allayed any suspicions the British might have had about his being the source of the suspected leaks because they directed their investigation elsewhere. At least five suspicious-looking Axis signals had been picked up by Allied stations beginning on January 25. One actually cited "a source in Egypt."

Then, on June 26, a German radio station broadcast an evening drama offering "scenes from the British or American information bureau." Nazis listened aghast as the radio play featured an actor portraying the U.S. military attaché in Cairo and described his gathering of information to relay to Washington. Thirty-six hours later, on June 29, Rommel lost his "gute Quelle."

Whether or not the incredible radio broadcast alone had allowed the Allies to pinpoint the cause of the leak, Colonel Fellers left Cairo in July after a tour of nearly 21 months. Assigned to the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) in Washington, he was, recalled a colleague, "the most violent Anglophobe I have encountered." Fellers was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal, the citation recognizing his reports as "models of clarity and accuracy." Given the temporary rank of brigadier general, he next was assigned to the Southwest Pacific theater. After V-J Day, Fellers became military secretary to General Douglas MacArthur, with whom he had been friends since serving under him in the prewar Philippines. Fellers died of a heart attack in Washington, D.C., in 1973 at the age of 77.

Fellers' successor at the Cairo embassy encoded reports to Washington in the M-138 strip cipher, which Axis cryptanalysts had not broken. Rommel nevertheless could take heart from one of Fellers' last radiograms. It described "considerable British panic" in Cairo because of the Axis presence at the capital's doorstep. On July 10, however, with Rommel's main forces lured well inland in the ninth day of a new offensive, the Australian 9th Division charged his Tel el Eisa salient overlooking the sea.The defending Italian Sabratha Division was mauled in the attack, and the 621st Signal Battalion's tents, radio vans and antennas were overrun.

Seeböhm was mortally wounded in the fighting. The papers in his camp told the Allies just how much tactical information they had lost due to poor radio security since early 1941. Captured documents also confirmed the part played by Fellers' reports in the Axis strategy.

As a sidebar to the North African intelligence war, controversy still exists over whether or not intercepted communications resulted in the death of the officer Winston Churchill selected to head the Eighth Army's forthcoming counteroffensive against Rommel. On August 7, Lt. Gen. William Gott, who had been involved in the earlier Gazala defeat, was flying in a Bristol Bombay aircraft to take up his new command. As it prepared to land at El Alamein, the unescorted transport was ambushed and destroyed by six Messerschmitt Bf-109Fs. Gott's place was taken by General Bernard Montgomery, who, though controversial, was considered a far abler officer.

The Desert Fox's change of fortune came with the double loss of Fellers' cables and Seeböhm's expertise. The Axis divisions, virtually ignorant of what was transpiring on the other side of the lines, threw themselves against the Allied defenses from July to early September without success. Then on October 23, 1942, to the thunder of a thousand cannons, Montgomery, aided by information from an improved and more efficient Ultra staff, began the offensive that pushed the surprised Afrika Korps back for the last time. As one historian noted, the Fellers intercepts had "provided Rommel with undoubtedly the broadest and clearest picture of enemy forces and intentions available to any Axis commander throughout the war."

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#10

Post by panzertruppe2001 » 26 Apr 2004, 01:47

Excuse me Eightball, when i say the "myth of Rommel" i means the legend of him but not in the sense that he never existed or never was a good general. I has written this in the sense of an epic story so can i say the legendarious U boats or the legendarious kamikazes

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#11

Post by Nucleicacidman » 26 Apr 2004, 05:39

[Eightball]

Yes, they all had operation experience, but that doesn't retract from obvious mistakes.

You must remember that the Crusader offensive was launched after two other offensives, Battleaxe and ?, failed. Not only that, but Crusader actually failed. The British armor was defeated around Sidi Rezegh, but Rommel was forced to retreat due to inadequet supply lines and lack of material for another defensive battle.

The British did push the Italians back, however the Italians were possibly once of the worst armies to enter WWII. They lacked the material to fight the war and most of the divisions were B, if not C or D, divisions.

Also, I consider Montgomery as the stupidest commander in the war. Every operation he conducted was either one with twice to four times the casualties of the Axis or complete failures. His inability to cope with tactical scenarios and his inability to plan further than the overview were innefieciencies which made his a bad general.

Not just this, but during 1941 it wasn't German supply lines getting sunk, it was British supply lines. Not until Malta was able to push back the Luftwaffe - under Kesslring - did the British begin wholehearted attacks on German naval assets in the Med. Sea.




Also, what Rommel did compares nothing to what Manstein did. Manstein is best known for his miracle of Kharkov in March 1943, where he defeated the Soviet Red Army with the 2nd SS Panzerkorp, and he re-stabilized the Southern Front after loosing Paulus' 6th Army and Hoth's 4th Panzer Army - as well as a Romanian army.

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#12

Post by ViKinG » 26 Apr 2004, 08:49

Exactly how does Rommel's victories NOT compare with Manstein or any other German Commander???? He did win the pour le Merite in WW1, he commanded The 7th panzer division skillfully, for a man with no previous panzer experience and also had the British on the run for nearly two years single handed in the dessert! How does that not compare? Just because mansteins victories were on a bigger scale, it doesn't mean that it was a better victory, or harder earned.

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#13

Post by Karri » 26 Apr 2004, 12:41

ViKinG wrote:Just because mansteins victories were on a bigger scale, it doesn't mean that it was a better victory, or harder earned.

Viking
Actually bigger victory means better victory :)

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#14

Post by Eightball » 26 Apr 2004, 17:45

Nucleicacidman wrote:[Eightball]

Yes, they all had operation experience, but that doesn't retract from obvious mistakes.

You must remember that the Crusader offensive was launched after two other offensives, Battleaxe and ?, failed. Not only that, but Crusader actually failed. The British armor was defeated around Sidi Rezegh, but Rommel was forced to retreat due to inadequet supply lines and lack of material for another defensive battle.

The British did push the Italians back, however the Italians were possibly once of the worst armies to enter WWII. They lacked the material to fight the war and most of the divisions were B, if not C or D, divisions.
That may very well be, but you wrote the British generals were 'green', meaning inexperienced. Being inept and being inexperienced doesn't necessarily coincide.

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#15

Post by ViKinG » 26 Apr 2004, 20:14

Maybe so, but I still don't see how Rommel's victories wouldn't compare. If you put him on the eastern front with the others, i'm sure his victories would have been similar. He did the best with what he had.

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