Rommel wasn't that good of a general desu

Rommel wasn't that good of a general desu

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amazon.com/Path-Victory-Mediterranean-Theater-World/dp/0374529760
amazon.com/Operation-Cobra-1944-Breakout-Normandy/dp/1841762962
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Romel was promoted above his level.

Ehh, it was more given a secondary (or tertiary) theater command when he didn't have the temperment for it.

I'm reasonably sure that if you gave him a force the size of DAK+Italian auxiliaries on the Eastern Front, he would have done decently at least. He wasn't a poor administrator or anything. It's just that he badly misjudged his strategic position and tried to bend operational realities around tactical successes instead of making attacks in accordance with some larger plan. He needed someone to hold his leash, and tell him "No, this is a shitty idea".

He slapped the bongs around regularly, and they had to come up with some propaganda cover for their failures so the plebs wouldn't revolt, and they came up with this "Desert Fox" nonsense. The plebs bought it.

Rommel had a poor understanding of military strategy, something which even he apparently admitted. To make up for this Rommel worked tirelessly during battle by running around the frontline and giving very tactical orders to those under his command.

Doesn't sound so bad, does it? The problem was that German officers were trained to think for themselves. They were trained to receive "vague" orders and then to come up with the plan on how to carry it out themselves. Under Rommel though this didn't usually happen as Rommel would turn up to give tactical orders to make up for his strategic shortfalls. This in turn meant that many of the officers who worked under Rommel detested him. The rank and file loved Rommel for this as they got to see him all the time, but as mentioned the officers, whose jobs Rommel was doing for them, hated him.

The other problem was that this worked, for a time, for Rommel. He'd give stupid strategic orders, make contact with the enemy, drive like a bat out of hell to the front and run the show. How was this a problem? It was a problem when this didn't work and Rommel would be stumped. It could take him quite a long time to change his strategic focus and when losing would keep making the same strategic mistake over and over again, even when told by the officers under him that he should do something else.

Guderian and Mannerheim will always be better.

That's very interesting. Does anyone know why Rommel was subpar at strategy but good at tactics though?

Because he was a captain at the last time he saw combat and rose through the ranks extremely quickly, in large part because of his visible loyalty to Der Fuhrer. (Rommel volunteered to command his bodyguard whenever Hitler traveled abroad, pre-war.) He simply was never vetted the way a career officer usually is rising that high.

Because he's a frontline soldier. Good at close range, bad at overall decisions.

Most of German High Command was subpar at strategy except for a few gems. The way strategy was viewed in Germany at the time often left most generals and staffs poorly equipped to handle strategic situations. Also, like most German Officers, Rommel was good at tactics.

People also seem to cherry pick things Rommel did or said to prove he was great. They will point out that Rommel believed the Allies would invade Normandy but then leave out that he thought said invasion would be a feint which made him like every other German officer.

I also think that Rommel looked good in North Africa due to the Allies helping him with that image. Churchill "stole" quite a lot of troops from Wavell for the impossible task of defending Greece. Wavell was so worried about his job that he didn't say anything and thus made it easier for Rommel to attack him, which Rommel did against orders. Wavell also isn't considered one of Britain's finest. It is easier to look great if your opponent isn't.

Every time I think about Rommel, I get sad. He gets executed for something he didn't have a hand in and then his legacy is just to be the posterboy for the Honorable German of WW2.

Don't forget how Rommel's plan to deal with an invasion was a solid beachline defense that had already proven to be shit at Salerno.

>Loyal to Hitler
>Honorable

Given that he was a die hard nazi, he got away with a far better rep than he should have.

Near the end of his life, he was beginning to grow disillusioned with how Hitler ran things.
A lot of his honorable reputation comes from propaganda.

certainly a great example of dying a hero before becoming a (bigger) villain

>die-hard nazi
>not even a party member
Wut

>Near the end of his life, he was beginning to grow disillusioned with how Hitler ran things.
>Near the end
>Realized that they aren't winning so Hitler is bad

German soldiers were forbidden from joining political parties right until late WW2.

Political parties of back then and totalitarian regimes in general are far different then your average modern democracy’s political party. There’s a reason you can refer to “the party” in almost any totalitarian regime and have a list of names and government occupations.
Being affiliated with the party like your average citizen and being a functioning part of the party we’re often separated by political positions of power, which were often doled out amongst the party.

Pic related

As it turns out, What Would Sonic Do will eventually stop working.

Rommel was a fanatical Nazi and a war criminal. His units committed numerous war crimes and he himself murdered a prisoner of war.

>he was beginning to grow disillusioned with how Hitler ran things.
And? Yes he like Stauffenberg was worried Hitler will make Germans lose war and they won't enslave Europe. Doesn't make him a hero.

can i get a couple high-quality sources on that my nigga

>have brilliant division level commander who excels at high mobility and quick manoeuvres which get results but rapidly burn through fuel and requires good logistical support
>put him him in charge of an expeditionary force on the most unreliably supplied front of the war

>Italians are present
A huge handicap not even Rommel could overcome.

He boasts about murdering a French PoW in his own diary

Source

I'm all for bashing the Maccaronis but Rommel himself said the Italians were great soldiers lead by retards. Not sure if the latter refers to high command only or even company level but with him in charge he should've been able the compensate for those issues.

Rommel was brilliant at commanding small and mobile force, but he wasn't suitable to command an entire army.

To be fair, he had to work with italians. The Allies didnt have a handicap like that.

17th May 1940

... Hundreds upon hundreds of French soldiers and their officers surrendered at our approach. Sometimes they had to be got out of vehicles driving alongside us.
Particulary angry at this sudden disturbance was a French Lieutenant-colonel, whose vehicle was caught in the jam, and whom we overtook. I asked him his rank and position. He gave the impression of being one of these very fanatical officer types. His eyes glowed with hatred and impotent fury. In consideration of the possibility that our column would get split up in the traffic, I decided it best to take him along with us. He was already 50m (55yd) to the east when he was brought back to the command tank of Colonel Rothenburg, who motioned him to climb up. The French officer bluntly refused to come along, and there was nothing for it but to shoot him after three times ordering him to get up. ...

Source: Rommel and his art of war by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

source please

>be pow in warzone
>don't listen to your captors
>somehow don't expect repercussions

user you are retarded

Rommel was a great Division level general but was later put in charge of Corps and later on an Army which he was terrible at as he wasn't very good at the full strategy required for that- Germany's decision that railway supply to Normandy would be enough is pretty much all on him and von Runestadt and von Runestadt was running around trying to convince everyone they needed more trucks for supply and unit movement while Rommel wanted to fight at the beaches for instance- which they did until 60% of the German tanks had to be abandoned due to lack of fuel and munitions being provided. Oddly enough von Runestadt was a terrible division and Operation level commander but just good at planning and strategy.

>kills one pow
>automatically a war criminal
Just one pow was killed by him?

>become prisoner in war
>refuse direct orders from your captors
>get shot
its not a warcrime you dumbfuck

His unit massacred hundreds of French PoWs, and he was responsible for using civilians to clear mines in Africa and slave labor at Atlantic War-he was involved in several war crimes
Also he was a dedicated Nazi and racist worried that his illegimate daughter might marry somebody "not Aryan"

>implying Kraut's version of the events is correct
>implying kraut Rommel didn't gleefuly murder the prisoner due to some autisim related rage

proofs?

The OKH constantly tried to keep the Nazi Party officials from putting Commissars in their army units, on top of resisting for years the belief that all soldiers had to be sworn as Nazi Party members.

>Be French
>German barbarians invade your country murdering and raping everyone
>German criminal waves pistol in front of your face and shouts something in German
>politely ask for translator
>get shot by German barbarian

One of soldiers murdered by Rommel's henchmen

How do you know he didn't y'know die in fucking battle?

...

armchairgeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147727&page=4

This event occurred the 7th of June, 1940 at Airaines. After a battle lasting several days and out of ammunition, survivors of the 53e RI (mixed metropolitain French and Senegalese colonials) surrendered to elements of the 7th PzD. Capt. N’Tchoréré was seperated from the white officers and placed with the Senegalese troops. When he insisted that he be treated as an officer, it enraged a German NCO who produced a pistol and shot the Capt. in the head, killing him instantly. The French POWS standing only a few paces away were stunned that the German commanders sitting in a staff car only meters from the murder remained motionless and without expression. They later ID'd one of those Germans as Rommel from pictures they later saw in French-language editions of SIGNAL in articles of the desert war in North Africa. After the murder, the German NCO dragged the Capt. N’Tchoréré's body onto the road where it was run over and crushed by the tank column. After the war, the survivors attempted to have Rommel brought to trial for this event but then learned that Rommel was already dead, and the case dropped and forgotten until recent records surfaced.


As I stated before, and as the two historians above whose work I referred to, no record has been found that Rommel ordered these executions...but it is clear that his men committed several...and it least in the case of Cpt. N’Tchoréré, Rommel was present and if full view of this criminal deed.

The biography of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel
Ward Rutherford - 1981
Not even his most sycophantic apologists have been able to evade the conclusion, fully demonstrated by later behavior, that Rommel was a racist who, for example, thought it desperately unfair that the British should employ 'black' - by which he meant Indian - troops against a white adversary.

>Not even his most sycophantic apologists have been able to evade the conclusion, fully demonstrated by later behavior, that Rommel was a racist who, for example, thought it desperately unfair that the British should employ 'black' - by which he meant Indian - troops against a white adversary.
1. how does Rommel being a racist proof that he ordered war crimes?
2. you could find racist statements from allied generals as well.
3. How is being racist a bad thing anyway?

in the 40's, literally everyone and his mother was a racist

>Based Rommel knew that it is unfair to send subhumans to fight against white soldiers who actually know what they're doing

>1. how does Rommel being a racist proof that he ordered war crimes?
>Kraut literally murders a prisoner by himself and boasts about it
>Kraut literally watches as his troops mass murder prisoners and drive over bodies with tanks and laughs
>he a good boy he dindu nothing, he need just mo money for dem blitzkrieg programs

Wait, how do you know that rommel shot him?

>proceeds to get kicked out of africa by said subhumans

>Wait, how do you know that rommel shot him?
Well because autist Rommel admitted to it in his diaries

>his unit massacred french POW's
None of which except the one were carried out at hos command, and whether or not that execution was justified is debateable.
>marched civillians into land mines
Source?
>used slave labor to cobstruct the atlantic wall
The Vichy regime was actually responsible for conscripting french laborers, not rommel.

He only says "there was nothing to it but to shoot him three times". No mention as to who shot him.

You mean Manstein you moron, read a book

Well he couldn't make any other plan in all fairness, all he had was shit divisions barely or not even capable of movement

Rommel with a scarf that his illegitimate daughter knit for him. He wore it constantly throughout his campaign in north africa.

You can't judge how good a general is by looking at whether they won a certain battle or not or how many casualties they had. You need to look at logistics and strategy and judge how that general performed with what they had available. In the case of Rommels, and generally with the Nazi North African campaign, they had major logistical problems and they were severely handicapped as a result.

*Rommel

typo

And in the case of Rommel, rather than planning around his logistical limitations and seeing what he could do with what he had available, he proceeded to metaphorically stick his fingers in his ears, charge blindly ahead, and then wonder why he got his ass handed to him.

That's actually pretty terrible for a general.

What? Salerno almost worked. The only reason it couldnt hold was naval gunfire. The Germans could only press the Allies back as far as the range of the battleships.

Technically, Rommel was right. If you have no way of eliminating the enemy fleet, shore annihilation is the only way to win. Defense in depth basically concedes defeat but aims to kill as many enemy soldiers as possible in the process.

>What? Salerno almost worked.
No it didn't. And even if it "almost" worked, almost doesn't mean much, does it?

>The only reason it couldnt hold was naval gunfire.
And the reason that doesn't count is????? Are you going to be assuming there won't be naval gunfire at Normandy?


> Defense in depth basically concedes defeat but aims to kill as many enemy soldiers as possible in the process
And if victory is impossible, making an absurd, hopeless plan on the basis of "Doing otherwise eventually concedes defeat" is stupid.

It is. And I did not mean to say that he was not responsible for the logistical problems that he faced. As a whole, German generals tended to disregard logistics and focus on tactics,almost believing that by winning gloriously on the battlefield they could have strategic success. This approach was rather ignorant, leading them poorly managing their resources and losing horribly in Northern Africa and elsewhere.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rommel_myth
And before you shit your pants about wikipedia not being a true source, this is a pretty good article, if you follow the citations they direct to you to academic works

how sweet

Ahh, I thought you meant it in an exculpatory sense.

I actually would quibble with you, by the way, on the subject of Rommel's responsibility for his logistical factors. Most of them were things that he was not in any way able to control, like the state of infrastructure in Libya (or lack thereof) His problems are more in the sense of not taking those into account when he made his plans, and at least in my opinion, somewhat indicative of someone who had been promoted too fast: Rommel was constantly bewailing a supposed lack of commitment, and if only someone at HQ could see how vital what he was doing to the war effort was, suddenly the fuel and ammo and spare parts could be made to reach DAK. That there was this big "Logistics pool", and the real skill was making your case to your bosses so that supplies are given to you and not someone else. He seems to be completely blind to the notion that no, the ports can only handle so much cargo, that they would have to get from the ports to his force by road, and that operating a fleet of trucks in the desert is insanely difficult, and those will persist even if Barbarossa is canceled entirely.

>Kills just one child

What am I a child murderer now wtf???

t. Wikilet

>the only reason it didn't work is this incredibly common things in amphibious landings
So this is the power of wehraboo delusion

They were, are, and forever will be great soldiers.

ROMA INVICTA

(I hope you guys at least know about their exploits at El alamein or Tunisia)

Division Folgore is pretty cool

>Salerno almost worked. The only reason it couldnt hold was naval gunfire. The Germans could only press the Allies back as far as the range of the battleships.
>Technically, Rommel was right.
Brave, innovative thinking.

>salerno almost worked
>euphoricaly get teared apart by over 150 naval gun
>mamma mia the livorno got rekt

Even rommel said Italians were brave and great soldiers led by autists

They weren't led by autists, autists have moments of brilliance, the Italian general staff and generals were bog standard fucking retarded

he was up against Australians. failure was the only possible outcome for him

Sentinel was the best tank in WW2. FACT

>The only reason it couldnt hold was naval gunfire.

so it failed because of one unsurprising element? what a fragile plan

i am interested to know from people, however, what a good alternative would be?

There really is none, the quality of troops on average for the Germans on the Western and Italian fronts were fucking abysmal

>tfw big boy sentinel doesn't have a dong

Autist vs Ultimate Shitposters.
Krauts never had a chance

Can't believe they circumcised it like that, fucking disgrace

[citation needed]

>West Front
>Mostly static divisions and a handful of mobile divisions awaiting refit plus Panzer Lehr
>Italian Front
>Bunch of under-strength Luftwaffe divisions and the Herman Goring Panzer Division along with the worst the Italians had to offer due to attrition
read a book nigga

>Mostly static divisions and a handful of mobile divisions awaiting refit plus Panzer Lehr
But that's wrong you fucktard, unless your only understanding of "The Entire Western Front" is "Normandy landings". Take something like Cobra. Even if you discount the panzer divisions entirely (they were understrength) you have 2 infantry divisions, a paratrooper division, and a panzergrenadier division, which makes it a 50/50 split between static and mobile, which is no different from how things are going on the eastern front at that point. Battles like Arracourt or Nancy were fought with panzer armies, and plenty of the infantry formations are "real" ones like the 1st and 15th armies.

>Bunch of under-strength Luftwaffe divisions and the Herman Goring Panzer Division along with the worst the Italians had to offer due to attrition
Is completely fucking wrong. Right at the outset, you have things like the XIV and LXXVI panzer corps. By the time you get to 1944, they've been reinforced by things like the 29th Panzergrenadier division, the 65th Infantry division, and the 114th Jager division, none of which are green, understrength, nor static. (Nor Luftwaffe)

>read a book nigga
Pot, meet kettle. I would suggest the following.
amazon.com/Path-Victory-Mediterranean-Theater-World/dp/0374529760

amazon.com/Operation-Cobra-1944-Breakout-Normandy/dp/1841762962

amazon.com/Race-Rhine-Liberating-Countries-1944-45/dp/1612002943

Operation Cobra and the vast majority of the Italian theater is months after both the landings and Rommel dying, I don't even know why you're bringing them up when what I responded to was "what is a better way to beat an amphibious invasion than Salerno"

Because you claimed that the Western Front and the Italian front were of "Abysmal quality" in terms of troops. Which is wrong, or at least their quality was representative of the overall German quality at the time, and they weren't only putting their good troops on the Eastern Front.

If you want to talk about Salerno in specific, let's see, you've got the 10th army, which had 1 Italian and 1 Parachute division out of 11 divisions overall. Hardly a majority and those troops were pretty mobile.

Your earlier assertion that the "fight at the beaches plan was advocated because they couldn't do anything else" is pretty baseless, as you know, the ENTIRE FUCKING SUBSEQUENT ITALIAN CAMPAIGN demonstrated

I'm not the same user, I'm responding to why the idea of fighting them on the beach instead of a defence in depth was considered, Panzer divisions don't tend to do well under naval and air gunfire constantly. Personally I think the Axis could have pulled an Anzio if they really wanted at Salerno but didn't because the chain of command was fucking awful