Erwin Rommel Quotes

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Sweat saves blood, blood saves lives, but brains saves both.
Erwin Rommel
Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning.
Erwin Rommel (Rommel: In His Own Words)
In a man-to-man fight, the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine.
Erwin Rommel
No plan survives contact with the enemy
Erwin Rommel
I would rather be the hammer than the anvil
Erwin Rommel
Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas.
Erwin Rommel
Be an example to your men, in your duty and in private life. Never spare yourself, and let the troops see that you don't in your endurance of fatigue and privation. Always be tactful and well-mannered and teach your subordinates to do the same. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness of voice, which usually indicates the man who has shortcomings of his own to hide.
Erwin Rommel
When there's no clear option, it's better to do nothing.
Erwin Rommel
Loose lips sink ships.
Erwin Rommel (Rommel and His Art of War)
Winning the men's confidence requires much of a commander. He must exercise care and caution, look after his men, live under the same hardships, and—above all— apply self discipline. But once he has their confidence, his men will follow him through hell and high water.
Erwin Rommel (Attacks)
But courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility.
Erwin Rommel (The Rommel Papers)
It is often possible to decide the issue of a battle merely by making an unexpected shift of one's main weight.
Erwin Rommel (The Rommel Papers)
Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning.” —Erwin Rommel
J.J. McAvoy (American Savages (Ruthless People, #3))
The organization of supplies, the command of men, anything in any way constructive requires more than intellect; it requires energy and drive and an unrelenting will to serve the cause, regardless of one's personal interests.
Erwin Rommel (The Rommel Papers)
Sturm, Swung, Wucht
Erwin Rommel
Sweat saves blood.
Erwin Rommel
Give me the Maori Battalion and I will conquer the world
Erwin Rommel (War)
Whether I would survive a defeat lies in God's hands. The lot of the vanquished is heavy. I'm happy in my own conscience that I've done all I can for victory and have not spared myself.
Erwin Rommel (The Rommel Papers)
Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning
Erwin Rommel
It is my experience that bold decisions give the best promise of success. But one must differentiate between [strategic] and tactical boldness and a military gamble. A bold operation is one in which success is not a certainty but which in case of failure leaves one with sufficient forces in hand to cope with whatever situation may arise. A gamble, on the other hand, is an operation which can lead either to victory or to the complete destruction of one's force. Situations can arise where even gamble may be justified - as, for instance, when in the normal course of events defeat is merely a matter of time, when the gaining of time is therefore pointless and the only chance lies in an operation of great risk.
Erwin Rommel
It has been said that large staffs are the invariable sign of bad armies.
David Fraser (Knight's Cross: A Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel)
It is a truism that all governments lie: they lie to each other, they lie to their own people, they frequently lie to themselves.
Daniel Allen Butler (Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel)
This is what you’re looking for. In fact, The Book of Five Rings is often placed alongside The Art of War by Sun Tzu, On War by General Carl von Clausewitz, Infantry Attacks by Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, and Patterns of Conflict by Colonel John Boyd. Each of these works has materially influenced military thinking, directly or indirectly influencing modern combat despite the fact that they were written decades or even centuries ago.
Miyamoto Musashi (Musashi's Dokkodo (The Way of Walking Alone): Half Crazy, Half Genius—Finding Modern Meaning in the Sword Saint’s Last Words)
A retired lieutenant colonel in the Marine Corps, Richard Westmoreland, came at it from the other side. He stood up and said that Erwin Rommel was a great general, but there are no statues of Rommel in Germany. “They are ashamed,” he said. “The question is, why aren’t we?
Isabel Wilkerson (Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents)
The most powerful speaker, I thought, was a Lakeview resident, Richard Westmoreland, a retired Marine Corps lieutenant colonel, who said that Robert E. Lee was a great general, but compared him to Erwin Rommel, the World War II German tank commander. There are no statues of Rommel in Germany, he continued. "They are ashamed. The question is, why aren't we?" Westmoreland said. "Make no mistake, slavery was the great sin of this nation." In a letter to the New Orleans Advocate, Westmoreland wrote: "The "heritage" argument doesn't stand the test of time. These men were traitors. We are the United States before we are the South. How can anyone begin to think that these remembrances aren't offensive and disrespectful to African Americans? They are offensive to me as a retired military officer. They are offensive to me as a citizen; our tax money maintains these sites. Their existence is offensive to me as a human being; the monuments to the Confederacy on our public lands are disrespectful at best. They are subtle, government-sanctioned racism. There is nothing about our "heritage" with the Confederacy worthy of embracing. We are not who we once were. We should be proud of that. We are our brother's keeper. I am white, by the way, a fact that shouldn't be relevant in this argument, but we know it still is.
Mitch Landrieu (In the Shadow of Statues: A White Southerner Confronts History)
Hitler deployed four panzer groups with a total of seventeen panzer divisions and 3,106 tanks2 for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. In addition, two independent panzer battalions, Pz.Abt. 40 and Pz.Abt. 211, were deployed in Finland with 124 tanks (incl. twenty Pz.III). The 2 and 5.Panzer-Divisionen were refitting in Germany after the Greek Campaign in April 1941 and were in OKH reserve. Otherwise, the only other extant panzer units were the 15.Panzer-Division with Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel in Libya and two panzer brigades in France. No other panzer units were in the process of forming in Germany. Consequently, the OKH was committing virtually all of the available German panzer forces to Barbarossa, with negligible reserves and limited monthly production output to replace losses. In mid-1941, German industry was producing an average of 250 tanks per month, half of which were the Pz.III medium tank. Combat experience in France and Belgium in 1940 indicated that the Germans could expect to lose about one-third of their medium tanks even in a short six-week campaign, which Hitler regarded as acceptable losses. Furthermore, German industry had no tanks beyond the Pz.III or Pz.IV in advance development. The Heereswaffenamt (Army Weapons Office) only authorized Henschel and Porsche to begin working on prototypes for a new heavy tank four weeks before Operation Barbarossa began, and this program had no special priority until after the first encounters with the Soviet T-34 and KV-1 tanks in combat.
Robert Forczyk (Tank Warfare on the Eastern Front, 1941–1942: Schwerpunkt)
In a man-to-man fight, the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine.
Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel
General Erwin Rommel, commander of the 7th Panzer Division, was guilty of only slight hyperbole later when he said of his sweep through France: “Nowhere was any resistance attempted. . . . Hundreds upon hundreds of French troops, with their officers, surrendered at our arrival
Lynne Olson (A Question of Honor: The Kosciuszko Squadron: Forgotten Heroes of World War II)
Fixed Fortifications are monuments to the stupidity of Man. —George S. Patton, Jr. Not quite so much as fixed ideas are. —Patricio Carrera Mortal Danger is an effective antidote to fixed ideas. —Erwin Rommel
Tom Kratman (Days of Burning, Days of Wrath (Carerra #8))
Nuestro espía de El Cairo es el más grande de todos los héroes.   ERWIN ROMMEL, septiembre de 1942
Ken Follett (La clave está en Rebeca)
Courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity; if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility. Don’t fight a battle if you don’t gain anything by winning. Erwin Rommel
James Mace (Soldier of Rome: The Sacrovir Revolt (The Artorian Chronicles #2))
Society wants to believe it can identify evil people, or bad or harmful people, but it’s not practical. There are no stereotypes
Hourly History (World War II Biographies: Adolf Hitler, Erwin Rommel, Benito Mussolini, George Patton, Joseph Stalin (World War 2 Biographies Book 1))
War is a terrible thing which incurs suffering for everyone involved in it. This book is not about taking sides. It is not about passing moral verdicts. Whatever your personal views may be, it’s unquestionable that Erwin Rommel was an important historical figure. This photo collection is significant because it sheds new light on his personality, allows us to view him from a creative standpoint, and adds a groundbreaking dimension to the history of World War II.
Zita Steele (Erwin Rommel: Photographer - Volume 1: A Survey)
Im Osten, Westen und Süden liegen die letzten Ruhestätten jener deutschen Soldaten, die für Heimat und Land den Weg der Pflicht bis zum bitteren Ende beschritten haben. Sie sind eine ständige Mahnung an unsere Zurückgebliebenen und unsere zukünftigen Generationen, dass wir sie nicht im Stich lassen dürfen, wenn es darum geht, Opfer für Deutschland zu bringen.
Erwin Rommel (Infantry Attacks)
There is one unalterable difference between a soldier and a civilian; the civilian never does more than he is paid to do.
Hourly History (Erwin Rommel: A Life From Beginning to End (World War 2 Biographies))
El sudor ahorra sangre, la sangre ahorra vidas, y el cerebro, las dos cosas.
Erwin Rommel
The Great German general Erwin Rommel once made a distinction between a gamble and a risk. Both cases involve an action with only a chance of success, a chance that is heightened by acting with boldness. The difference is that with a risk, if you lose, you can recover: your reputation will suffer no long-term damage, your resources will not be depleted, and you can return to your original position with acceptable losses. With a gamble, on the other hand, defeat can lead to a slew of problems that are likely to spiral out of control. With a gamble there tend to be too many variables to complicate the picture down the road if things go on. The problem goes further: if you encounter difficulties in a gamble, it becomes harder to pull out—you realize that the stakes are too high; you cannot afford to lose. So you try harder to rescue the situation, often making it worse and sinking deeper in to the hole that you cannot get out of. People are drawn into gambles by their emotions: they see only glittering prospects if they win and ignore the ominous consequences if the lose. Taking risks is essential; gambling is foolhardy. It can be years before you recover from a gamble, if you recover at all.
Robert Greene (The 33 Strategies of War)
In a man-to-man fight, the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine.
Hourly History (Erwin Rommel: A Life From Beginning to End (World War 2 Biographies))
Don’t fight a battle if you don’t gain anything by winning.
Hourly History (Erwin Rommel: A Life From Beginning to End (World War 2 Biographies))
Democracy is beautiful in theory; in practice it is a fallacy.
Hourly History (Erwin Rommel: A Life From Beginning to End (World War 2 Biographies))
It’s good to trust others but, not to do so is much better.
Hourly History (Erwin Rommel: A Life From Beginning to End (World War 2 Biographies))
A risk is a chance you take; if it fails you can recover. A gamble is a chance taken; if it fails, recovery is impossible.
Hourly History (Erwin Rommel: A Life From Beginning to End (World War 2 Biographies))
Sweat saves blood; blood saves lives, but brains save both.
Hourly History (Erwin Rommel: A Life From Beginning to End (World War 2 Biographies))
If, in the early summer of 1941, one had stopped the first passer-by in the streets of Cairo and asked him the reason for this astonishing reversal of fortune, it is odds-on that he would have replied in one word: Rommel.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel: The Life and Career of the Desert Fox)
It is my experience that bold decisions give the best promise of success. But one must differentiate between [strategic] and tactical boldness and a military gamble. A bold operation is one in which success is not a certainty but which in case of failure leaves one with sufficient forces in hand to cope with whatever situation may arise. A gamble, on the other hand, is an operation which can lead either to victory or to the complete destruction of one's force.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel: The Life and Career of the Desert Fox)
Rommel simply viewed Hitler as an idealist with a patriotic mission to save Germany from external and internal threats that the nation faced.
Hourly History (Erwin Rommel: A Life From Beginning to End (World War 2 Biographies))
Sweat saves blood; blood saves lives, but brains save both.” —Erwin Rommel
Hourly History (Erwin Rommel: A Life From Beginning to End (World War 2 Biographies))
Don’t fight a battle if you don’t gain anything by winning.” —Erwin Rommel
Hourly History (Erwin Rommel: A Life From Beginning to End (World War 2 Biographies))
Instead, the Desert Fox was offered a choice: ‘suicide’ followed by a state funeral and the promise that his family would be cared for, or trial before the People’s Court. Erwin Rommel chose suicide. On 14 October the captor of Tobruk, the scourge of the British Army for eighteen months in north Africa, took his own life.
Richard Hargreaves (The Germans in Normandy)
In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it. —ERWIN ROMMEL
Marc Cameron (State of Emergency (Jericho Quinn #3))
The Treaty of Versailles and the agreements made by the Weimar government meant that Germany’s army would be greatly reduced.  Allowed to maintain an army of only 100,000, Germany would now need far fewer officers—only 4,000 would have a status in the “troop office.”  Rommel, without social connections or an aristocratic background, was chosen for his distinction of service, and for having earned the Pour le Merite.  Still, Searle says, Rommel “squeeze[ed] through the selection process.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
This was especially true of the navy sailors under Rommel’s charge.  Since the Versailles Treaty had forbidden the Germans from maintaining a navy, these sailors were now army men.  Butler records a story in which Rommel, derided by his men for wearing his World War I medals, replied by telling them of his prayers for them during his evenings at the front: “My prayers were heard, because here you are.”  As Rommel would later write in his Infantry Attacks, “Winning the men's confidence requires much of a commander. He must exercise care and caution, look after his men, live under the same hardships, and—above all—apply self-discipline. But once he has their confidence, his men will follow him through hell and high water.”[35] This was certainly true in Rommel’s life, and the former sailors gave Rommel no more trouble.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
The Versailles Treaty (and the Weimar government’s at least public adherence to it) was, to von Seeckt, an embarrassment and a hurdle to be overcome.  In 1921, he created the R Sondergruppe, a secret organization within the Reichswehr whose purpose was to acquire help from the Soviet Union to evade the arms limitations of Versailles.  The R-group sought modern weapons technology, including planes, tanks, and poison gas, that the army could access for training and in the future.[38] The result was well over $200 million (adjusted for inflation) being secretly funneled to the Soviets, at a time when the German people
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
In October 1938, after reading Infantry Attacks, Hitler selected Rommel to be his escort during his march into the Sudetenland. In this position, Rommel had charge of over 300 men and received a promotion to colonel after completing his service to the Fuhrer.  As colonel, he would take up a new teaching position at the war school south of Vienna.[59]  When he was called back to guard duty for Hitler after the full German invasion of Czechoslovakia in March of 1939, Rommel seemed to believe his fortunes were improving and described for his wife how he “persuaded [Hitler] to drive on [in face of a missing SS escort] under my personal protection.  He put himself in my hands.” An impressed Rommel then ventured a question: “Isn’t it wonderful that we have this man?
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
As other officers clung to the need for cavalry in the inter-war years, Guderian would remember what he had seen and argue that the machine-gun would make mounted soldiers a thing of the past. He would later say, “New weapons require new tactics. Never put new wine into old bottles.” As a wireless communications officer, he did not see the successes an ambitious young man might have hoped for, if only because like any new system, wireless communications had growing pains and opportunities were missed as a result.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
On the 28th of February 1918, Guderian began to work for the German General Staff, and while he studied to become a staff officer, British inventors were creating a machine that would transform his career. In 1916, during the Battle of the Somme, a new weapon, the armored tank, made its debut.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
was the British (at the instigation of Winston Churchill) who pioneered the “landship”, but the French soon followed suit with their own designs. Ironically, Germany, which would subsequently become famous for panzers and blitzkrieg warfare, was late in taking up the idea.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
Instead he attended school, showing less interest in academic pursuits than in outdoor ones, and entered the army upon graduating from the realgymnasium at 19.[4] Here, Rommel would have been expected to learn Latin, as the realgymnasium followed a strict curriculum of “Bible and Church history, with the catechism of the established Church, German (rhetoric,  and composition, and literature), Latin, Greek, French, history, geography, mathematics, natural science, writing, drawing, with English and Hebrew as electives in the last two years. To this [was] added singing during the first two years, and physical culture throughout the course.”[5]  The strict gymnasium that Rommel attended was also an all-boys school, with high expectations for behavior, and respect for authority.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
As part of the Wurttemberg army, Rommel would have had greater exposure to Jewish soldiers, as this army followed slightly different standards of conduct, and certainly was less extreme and nationalistic than the Prussian armies of Germany’s north.[12]  Anti-Semitism in Germany was certainly not something that arrived with Hitler; throughout the late 19th century, writers speculated it was the Jews who were holding back German greatness, and many of Germany’s most influential thinkers were exposed to an extreme form of German nationalism, mixed with a dark pessimism about the future.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
An excellent work on the period, The Politics of Cultural Despair by Fritz Stern, gives insight into what young men in the Prussian systems were taught. Paul de Lagarde, one of Germany’s most influential thinkers in this period, blamed the Jews for Germany’s problems, ”wrap[ping] his incredibly ferocious anti-Semitism…in a respectable cloak of nationalist idealism. With both horror and envy, he identified the Jews as a proud invincible nation whose religion had nothing to do with the Old Testament, but consisted in an unshakeable faith in its own nationalism. In other words, the Jews possessed the very unity that the Germans lacked.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
As they moved out, one soldier recalled, “As far as could be seen, to both left and right of us, men were advancing with their rifles in the porte position, their bayonets glinting in the pale moonlight. Full moon had been days ago so it was quite dark…As we advanced, the feeling of pride and exhilaration was unmistakable. We didn’t realize or think of the danger we were in; we were doing a job and the thought of being killed or wounded was far from our minds…I remember seeing forms sink to the ground but our orders were to keep going and not to stop for wounded or dying. Later we passed slit trenches with forms slouched over them facing in our direction …
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
While some biographers claim Rommel had retrieved the goggles from an abandoned British vehicle, stating that “even a general was allowed a little booty,” a 2015 Daily Mail article claims that a British POW actually gave his goggles to the general.  After his capture, Major General Michael Gambier-Parry was invited to supper with Rommel, where he informed the field marshal that his hat had been stolen by a German soldier.  Rommel investigated, and returned Gambier-Parry’s hat, but asked if he could keep the British-issue goggles that the general had left in his staff car.[83]  They became part of his signature appearance, and he was rarely photographed without them after 1941.   Rommel would also receive his moniker, the Desert Fox, in the weeks following his victories there.  In German “Wustenfuchs,” it described a “small fox with a habit of burrowing quickly into the sand to escape predators, affording human occupants of the desert only an occasional fleeting glance.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
In the meantime, the Germans established numerous bridgeheads on the south bank of the Somme, to be used when the southward advance began. Panzers invested Boulogne on May 22nd, and on May 23rd, the British evacuated their troops at midnight. The French garrison surrendered at noon two days later on May 25th, recognizing their utterly hopeless position. The British government ordered an evacuation of Dunkirk on May 26th, but the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French forces accompanying them could not escape that easily, however. Near catastrophe struck on May 28th when the Belgians surrendered to Germany, opening a colossal gap in the Allied lines. King Leopold III, showing consistency of character at least if not moral courage, informed the British and French of his planned capitulation only hours prior to the actual surrender, leaving them with practically no time to prepare for its disastrous military consequences. The action earned Leopold III such sobriquets as “King Rat” and “the Traitor King,” nicknames he did little to disprove when he evinced more willingness to negotiate with Hitler for restoration of Belgian independence than he had shown in dealing with France and Britain, which sought to defend Belgium's freedom in the first place. British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill blasted the Belgian monarch's abrupt surrender in a detailed speech summarizing the repercussions: “The surrender of the Belgian Army compelled the British at the shortest notice to cover a flank to the sea more than 30 miles in length. Otherwise all would have been cut off, and all would have shared the fate to which King Leopold had condemned the finest army his country had ever formed. So in doing this and in exposing this flank, as anyone who followed the operations on the map will see, contact was lost between the British and two out of the three corps forming the First French Army.” (Churchill, 2013, 174).
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
The BEF and their French allies in Dunkirk owed their escape to an unlikely source: the bombastic Luftwaffe leader, Hermann Goering. Goering wanted the glory of destroying the trapped Allies for the Luftwaffe and persuaded Hitler to order the panzer divisions to halt. Without this error, the “Miracle of Dunkirk”  – also known as “Operation Dynamo” – would likely have failed, and the Germans may have taken vast numbers of English and French prisoners, possibly ending British participation in the war.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
A good general not only sees the way to victory; he also knows when victory is impossible. —POLYBIUS
Daniel Allen Butler (Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel)
Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die —ALFRED TENNYSON
Daniel Allen Butler (Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel)
Whereas the Soviets were content with the simplicity of sheer brute force strategy and tactics, and the Germans were depending on their technological superiority to make up for their deficiencies in production capacity, the Allies were building a systematic way of waging war, akin to a machine, one that would, if given sufficient time, integrate formations, units, and weapons types, land, air, and sea into an irresistible force. One that would still be subject to the mental and physical limitations of the flesh-and-blood creatures who had to operate and guide it, but that had been fundamentally designed from the beginning to fight battles in the way the Allies intended to fight them. As Rommel saw it, the Wehrmacht could not defeat that machine, therefore the Gemans must find a way to make it too expensive for the Allies to continue to operate it. That process, he believed, could begin in Tunisia.
Daniel Allen Butler (Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel)
Had the Allies invaded, the result would have been much like how the Marhathas recollected the capture of Ahmednagar in 1803: “They came here in the morning, looked at the wall, walked over it, killed the garrison, and returned to breakfast!
Daniel Allen Butler (Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel)
Be an example to your men in your duty and in private life. Never spare yourself, and let the troops see that you don't in your endurance of fatigue and privation. Always be tactful and well-mannered, and teach your subordinates to be the same. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness of voice, which usually indicates the man who has shortcomings of his own to hide.” – Erwin Rommel
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
But the murky role he played in the notorious July 20 plot on Adolf Hitler’s life in 1944, the closest an assassination attempt got to killing the Nazi Fuhrer, would bring about the Desert Fox’s untimely demise in October 1944, even as the Soviets and Western Allies were tightening the vise on Germany. Compelled to take cyanide by authorities, the Desert Fox insisted he was innocent until his dying day, and his popularity forced the Nazi government to claim his death was brought about by a heart attack or a cerebral embolism. In fact, Rommel was given an official state funeral, and Winston Churchill would go on to praise him, “He also deserves our respect because, although a loyal German soldier, he came to hate Hitler and all his works, and took part in the conspiracy to rescue Germany by displacing the maniac and tyrant. For this, he paid the forfeit of his life. In the sombre wars of modern democracy, chivalry finds no place … Still, I do not regret or retract the tribute I paid to Rommel, unfashionable though it was judged.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
The Great War would be the defining event of the twentieth century, even more so than the larger war which followed 20 years later. It was what historians deem a “world-historical event”: it fundamentally altered how humanity viewed itself, its societies and institutions, its values and morals. The world which emerged from the war in 1918 was far, far different than that which entered it in 1914; the Great War was (and remains) the greatest cataclysm in Western history since the fall of Rome.
Daniel Allen Butler (Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel)
The wound also earned Rommel his first combat decoration, the Iron Cross, Second Class. Years later, when he was writing of the tactical lessons to be learned from this encounter, he would comment wryly that “In a man-to-man fight, the winner is he who has one more round in his magazine.
Daniel Allen Butler (Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel)
With that, there was no holding back Rommel or his men: Benghazi fell that night, the British departure hasty and unorganized. (A few days later, when inspecting the port facilities, Rommel came across a blackboard where a cheeky Tommy had chalked an admonishment for the new owners: “Please keep tidy! Back soon!” Rommel grinned and then growled, “We’ll see about that!”)
Daniel Allen Butler (Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel)
Throughout his work, Guderian showed an aptitude for military theory, and in 1937, he put some of it into print in a book named Achtung! Panzer! In Achtung! Panzer!, Guderian assessed the state of armored warfare among the nations of Europe and the Soviet Union, based on his extensive studies. He argued that the era of cavalry was over due to the impact of machine-guns, and that mechanized infantry could be used to fill their role. He also set out his views with respect to the best way to conduct combined armored and armed warfare. Guderian's approach as set out in Achtung! Panzer! was one of warfare by maneuver, in which speed and surprise were essential to victory.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
One rather unexpected presence at the front was Adolf Hitler himself. Hitler personally crossed into Poland on September 4, 1939, with his train under the watchful eye of Rommel himself.[63] Not yet weakened by illness, drugs, and his vegetarian diet, the Fuhrer watched much of the campaign's action firsthand from an aircraft window or an open automobile, including ground combat and Stuka bombardment in his itinerary.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
To make matters worse, the British sighted French tanks, thought they were German and attacked them. The German commander charged with the task of resisting was a man who would soon be the most famous German general of them all, then known as Major-General Erwin Rommel. By 6pm, Rommel had prevailed, the attack was over and the remaining British tanks – and most of the commanders had been killed – were in retreat
David Boyle (Dunkirk: A Miracle of Deliverance (The Storm of War Book 2))
The day itself, June 6, 1944, has come to be commemorated as “D-Day.” An immense invasion fleet—6,939 ships in all: 1,213 warships, including six battleships, 23 cruisers and 104 destroyers, 4,126 landing craft of various types, 736 support vessels, and 864 merchantmen—departed ports all along the southern coast of England on June 5, bound for an assembly point in the middle of the English Channel, from whence they sailed south, for France.
Daniel Allen Butler (Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel)
The British and American battleships, cruisers, and destroyers posted off the Normandy beaches carried awesome amounts of firepower that were on-call for the Allied soldiers struggling through the hedgerows—the big 15-inch guns of the battleships could range as far as 16 miles inshore, while even the 5-inch guns on the destroyers could strike targets 5 miles inland.
Daniel Allen Butler (Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel)
Only nine weeks after Hitler brought Rommel home from North Africa, his replacement, Colonel General Juergen von Arnim, was forced to surrender to the Allies.  As Rommel had predicted, Africa was, at this point, unwinnable for the Germans.  Over 100,000 German soldiers were taken as prisoners of war, and Italy, now open to invasion, would fall in 1943.[118]  Historian Samuel Mitcham Jr. claims that Hitler told Rommel he had made a mistake, and “should have listened
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
Hitler, at the behest of von Rundstedt to reinforce France, sent Rommel to the area to shore up German defenses. Finally, as Hitler anticipated an Allied invasion in 1944, he asked Rommel to inspect the Atlantic Wall, in what Young calls “a fake, a paper hoop for the allies to jump through.”[121]  No wonder Rommel was “appalled” as he moved from Denmark into France to make a report on Germany’s lauded defenses.  Young lists the deficiencies Rommel discovered in his inspection tour: army artillery with no cover, lack of concrete shelters at the strongholds, lack of minefields for defense, and a general lack of coordination between the navy and army defenses.[122] Rommel set to work on addressing the issues, but was not given a position of command until January of 1944, which would prove to be too late to save Germany from the Normandy invasion.
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
Even as the Atlantic Wall was strengthened, Operation Fortitude tricked Hitler into keeping 13 divisions in Norway rather than reinforcing the Normandy peninsula. It had also tricked German High Command into believing that 89 Allied divisions were preparing to land, with enough landing craft to bring 20 divisions ashore. In actuality, the figures were 47 and 6 respectively. Overreliance on intelligence crippled German defensive efforts in Normandy; it would not have taken a genius commander to realize that an exhausted Britain and a U.S. Army fighting a multi-theater war in the Pacific, Africa, Western Europe and Italy could not have fielded 87 divisions to attack Europe. Instead the Germans swallowed
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
Count Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg played the central role in Operation Valkyrie, also known as the July 20th bomb plot, the 1944 attempt on Hitler’s life that (unlike most of the Army's previous efforts) nearly succeeded. The subject of numerous books and at least one high-profile popular film, Operation Valkyrie came even closer than Georg Elser's bombing attempt to killing Hitler. Since at least 1943, Stauffenberg had involved himself in covert resistance to Hitler and scheming against the Fuhrer's life. The officers engaged in these ambitious plans worked out a strategy, “Valkyrie,” that would enable the seizure of key spots and the arrest or elimination of crucial Nazi personnel in the event Hitler died, allowing the schemers to assume the reins of power or at least attempt to do
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
The Gestapo hanged the final group of 28 July 20th “traitors” on April 20th, 1945 as a birthday present to the Fuhrer. Many of the victims made no effort to either kill themselves or escape prior to their arrest, preferring to await the Gestapo with “dignity” and thus express their belief they were neither criminals nor traitors but brave German officers doing their duty and accepting the consequences of failure. Peter Yorck von Wartenburg wrote to his wife during the trials, “I, too, am dying for my country, and even if it seems to all appearances a very inglorious and disgraceful death, I shall hold up my head and I only hope that you will not believe this to be from pride or delusion. We wished to light the torch of life and now we stand in a sea of flames.” (Thomsett, 1997, 236).
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
On October 14, 1944, German generals Wilhelm Burgdorf and Ernst Maisel visited Rommel in his home in Herrlingen. Outside, SS troops stood by, having been instructed to kill Rommel if he attempted to escape. Rommel was told that he had been accused of associating with conspirators, and had been implicated in the July 20th assassination plot against Hitler. They gave him the choice to die by his own hand, or face a public trial. Rommel was promised that the Nazis would report his death as an accident, and that his family would be left alone. He would leave with the generals, and on his way to Ulm would drink poison
Charles River Editors (Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian: The Lives and Careers of Nazi Germany’s Legendary Tank Commanders)
Almost at once the telephone call came, ordering him to stand by. That evening, the phone rang again in the railroad station waiting room where he had set up his office. “The invasion begins tomorrow, 4:50 A.M.” Thus the Second World War began. Nobody, least of all Erwin Rommel, could foresee that the military operations that began on September 1, heralded by a ranting and self-justificatory Reichstag speech by the Führer, would inexorably involve one country after another; would last six years; would leave 40 million dead and all Europe and half Asia ravaged by fire and explosives; would destroy Hitler’s Reich, ruin the British Empire and end with the creation of new weapons, new world powers and a new lawlessness in international affairs.
David Irving (THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall)