Along with Manstein and Guderian, Erwin Rommel ranks as one of the great German commanders of World War II. Following a staff position with Hitler during the campaign in Poland, Rommel was given command of a Panzer division for the invasion of France.
Though perhaps owing his position to his acquaintance with Hitler, Rommel justified his appointment by his brilliant leadership in the field.
Sent to Libya in 1941, Rommel took command of the newly formed German Afrika Korps. It was in North Africa that Rommel established himself as an exceptional tactician and strategist.
In the interwar years he had written a classic textbook on infantry tactics, in which he had developed the theory of forward control. These precepts he now combined with the tactics of blitzkrieg, leading his forces in a series of stunning victories, and achieving for the Afrika Korps, as well as himself, lasting international renown.
The capture of Tobruk in 1942 earned Rommel his Field Marshall ' s baton, and a further advance into Egypt took him to within 60 miles of Alexandria.
At El Alamein, suffering from chronic shortages of fuel and supplies, he was finally defeated by an overwhelmingly superior force, but in the long withdrawal through the Western Desert, Rommel demonstrated a mastery of defensive tactics , that enabled the Afrika Korps to extricate themselves intact for a final, if ultimately futile, last stand in Tunisia.
In 1943 Rommel was recalled to Germany, and, after serving briefly in Northern Italy, was sent to prepare for what Hitler believed would be the decisive engagement of Allied and German arms, the by then inevitable, seaborne assault on the coast of France.
Commanding Army Group B, under von Rundstedt, Chief of Staff West, Rommel was responsible for defending a coastline that stretched from the Brittany Peninsula to Belgium, a predicament exacerbated by disagreements with Rundstedt over strategy.
Having seen his forces decimated by vastly superior airpower in North Africa, Rommel despaired of the Wehrmacht being able to fight a mobile war in France, and proposed the deployment of armoured formations close to the coast, a proposal rejected by Rundstedt , who feared such an irrevocable commitment.
Events were to confirm Rommel's prediction. The overwhelming superiority of Allied air power rendered impossible the movement of substantial Wehrmacht forces during the battle for Normandy.
Once established the beachhead proved uncontainable, expanding inexorably under the pressure of accumulating Allied arms.
But Rommel was never to see the ultimate destruction of the German Armies in France. Implicated in the attempt on Hitler's life in July 1944, Rommel was given the option of Court Marshall or suicide. To spare his family from shame he chose the latter.
