Did you guys know Erwin Rommel committed suicide 61 years ago today? Feel free to discuss 
Erwin Romell was one of the most greatfull warriors of WW II. He fighted in North Afrika vs Allied forces. Why do you thinking, that he die by suicide?
Because Rommel was implicated in the attemp to kill Hitler and it was either commit suicide or be tried and executed.
full details here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel
shas
IMO, Rommel is the most overrated commander of the WWII.
Man who doesnāt care about supply limitations, or intelligence information when itās against his views, or drives around desert ignoring leading his troops, or never gives enough information to HQ, etc etc. is not suited to be a commander.
Excellent captain or something like that, but a commander, not.
Without Westphal and other great commanders overriding most of the Rommelās makes-no-sense commands they would have been slaughtered in the desert.
Iām with you on this mate. He wasnt all he was cracked up to be. The real test would have been in Russia. Also he was a big brown-noser with der-Fuhrerā¦
Very much over rated IMHO, same as Gallandā¦
true. Its interesting how Goebbalsā propoganda lives on. The āfoxā was promoted like crazy in propoganda newsreels and such. Just like the waffen-ss and the paratroopers.
but in reality, the āfoxā was no better a general then Raus, Manstein, Guderian, etc.
Rommel was going to be sent to the Russian front after his defeat in Africa. There we have seen what he was capable ofā¦ :roll:
General Rommel also known as the āDesert Foxā. At one point Hitlers favorite general. He was sent to north africa to help the italian forces defeat the british and later the americans. He was undersupplied with ammo, tanks, men, food anyhting you can think of in north africa. Once defeated he was put in charge of the constuction of the North Atlantic Wall. At one point i believe he was on the russian front, i believe between these two locations. He remained in charge of the atlantic wall construction until hitlers attempted assasination in 1944. He and hitler began to not get along in aobut 1943 because rommel believed germany coul dno longer avoid defeat(after witnessing the allied bombing devestation in germany). He and Hitler continued to disagree and thus no longer got along wiht eachother. He was accused of being part of the plot and thus forced to suidicide by taking poision in 1944.
He was possibly the best ātarget of opportunityā ever engaged by the RCAF. A lone pilot strafes a German staff car he happens to find. Youāll never guess who was in it.
Edited to correctly attribute strafing Rommel to the correct Air Force.
Rommel was great! :!:
he just tended to do things too fast and without second thought.
He was a brilliant commander and excellent infantryman.
Better than Manstein???
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Actually if my information is correct, it was a Canadian Spitfire that strafed his Staff Car.
Iām with you on this mate. He wasnt all he was cracked up to be. The real test would have been in Russia. Also he was a big brown-noser with der-Fuhrerā¦
Very much over rated IMHO, same as Gallandā¦[/quote]
I disagree. Every general was hampered to a point in the Russian front (Guderian, Paulus (sp?), etc) so Rommel being sent there may have or may not have been a death wish.
Either way, I love the guy. He was a brilliant leader from his Ghost Division in France to being nicknamed the Desert Fox in North Africa and in my opinion it doesnāt get much better than him.
Plus: a good reason for his defeat in Africa was the lack of air power. Nearly every ship was intercepted by planes and raiders from Malta and with them went everything from men to tanks to supplies.
Heās a very āmake-do-with-what-you-haveā guy.
I think that if Rommel had more resources he could have won in Africa, but unfortenly the African campain was only a side show to the Russian front.
He was also right in his planinng of the defence against the allied invasion in France, if his view to put the German tanks close to the beaches was accepted, the Germans could have a very good chance at repulsing the allied invasion.
But wouldnāt you say every general wins every fight if he had enough material every time 
Itās just common sense, that if you have supplies only for 10 combats, why capture large areas consuming all your supplies, because you are going to lose all those areas anyway, if you do not have strenght to defend them.
Especially so in the desert warfare, where distances means nothing. Only cities, water-supplies, harbors mean something. Itās the same old problem: you cannot build tanks out of sand, or feed men, or turn sand into ammunition.
I think best use for Rommel would have been as a leader of some sort assault regiment/division. In that way his good qualities could have been in used many times, in many placesā¦ Any comments on this?
Rommel related newsā¦
http://hitlernews.cloudworth.com/erwin-rommel-africa-corps.php
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After Kurskā¦or beforeā¦? I canāt rememberā¦ Rommelā¦ while visiting Hitler on one of his many tripsā¦ told Hitler that if Germany had any chance of winning the warā¦ Germany had to go on permanent defence!
And what does that meanā¦ (well I dont have to tell you but am)ā¦ that means NO offensive operations for at least 2 or 3 years. Stop building bombersā¦ focus strictly on fighters. Increase tank and gun productionā¦ increase the number of anti-tank guns in each divison to at least 100 guns. I believe the number was only fairly lowā¦ canāt remember. He later said each divsion would need a minimum of 400! ON the Russian frontā¦ he wanted to place do a defence in-depth. Lets the Russians attack and bleed them with the sheer amounts of 88s. Then and only then would they take local counterattacks. Build up the Atlantic Wall to prevent the Allies from gaining a foothold.
Of course Hitler would have none of it and the rest is as we say is history. I got this from a book called Patton and Rommel! and a lot of that is memory and could be offā¦ but that was what he wanted to do.
EDIT**************
I also rememberā¦ Rommel knew Germany could NEVER win in the amount of war material Germany could produce. He knew it took a long time to build tanksā¦ but anti tank guns could be built much quicker. He wanted more of these built and bleed the Allies dry. That makes more sense!
But any defensive warfare would have lead even more into production war, and germany just could not escape total loss with that strategy.
If you have crucially less resources (oil, iron, men, etc), and your enemy says theyāre not going to negotiate with you - what is the only chance for anybody in that situation?
What would you do?
If enemy out-produces you and assures that they will never negotiate with you - does defence sound like a good option?
Produce attack weapons, and try to strike one decisive blow pretty much offers the only chance to win or force enemy to negotiate.
And Hitler knew more about panzer and antitank production, itās costs and kill-ratios, than Rommel, who had very limited possibilities to get information.
There are numerous cases when Rommel completely ignored facts and information. Once luftwaffe showed him pictures how enemy planned to attack - he threw pictures on the floor (general von Ravenstein saw this). Is that a correct way to gather information and knowledge? Of course enemy attacked just where luftwaffe had showed, and Rommel was completely taken by a surprise.
Good for germans that Westphal and others under Rommelās command ignored and overcommanded Rommels orders.
If youāre leading Africa Corps, and divisions are waiting your orders, then you really shouldnāt be checking details of some frontline fortification.
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If enemy out-produces you and assures that they will never negotiate with you - does defence sound like a good option?
Noā¦ it does not. But by late 1943ā¦ the German Army could not attack anywhere. They were outgunnedā¦ outmannedā¦ and low fuel was becoming a Big problem.
So what do you do nowā¦ you (hitler) pretend that this is the same army as in 1940ā¦ with superior forces. Your invincible. Butā¦ when the Russians do attackā¦ you realize thatā¦ they have 8 tanks to your 1ā¦ they have 10 infantry menā¦ to your 1. Your low on fuel and ammuntionā¦ while the Russians have plentyā¦ and more each month. With all thisā¦ the Russians attackā¦ surround youā¦ and destroy you.
You could let this happenā¦ orā¦ You could do what Rommel suggested. Switch to the defence while you are stilll able to at least stand. Bleed the Red army just like they did to you at Kursk. Gain back the initiitve if possible. Thenā¦ and maybe if you destroy enough tanks and kill enough of their soldiersā¦ maybe you can attackā¦ or force an amistice. Something.
Offensive operations cannot always be the answerā¦ especially when you have little or no fuelā¦ no air support and new raw recruits who probably should not be there in the first placeā¦ but do to man power shortages are.
I just wanted to start with by saying that letās not take this too seriously and spoil a good conversation, ok?
So what was battle of the bulge then?
He did not do/pretend that, but as he said āwhatās the point of defensing, thatās just makes the war last couple of months longer?ā
If enemy is bombing your country to dust in coming years, whatās the wisdom defending and waiting that to happen?
Of course, but the same goes with the defence. If youāre passive, enemy can take most of their divisions, concentrate them on one point, and PANG, make a breakthru - and how youāre going to counter it without fuel etc.
History of WWII is full of super defensive lines - and bang - basically all of them got blown away.
From Germanyās point of view, there were severals problems with defensive strategy (what you suggested):
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To be able to put up solid enough defence, year must have been 1941, 1942 latest. If that would have worked at all! Considering that the point of the ww2 was that attacker always took most of his divisions and concentrated them against a single point in the enemy line - that pretty much guaranteed that defence was broken: germans did that, soviets did that, uk/us did that. Any point of any defence line was the weak point if attacker really concentrated his (panzer)forces, gaining ratio of dozens of divisions against one.
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Production difference was way too much in favor of Allies. Even with super-killer-ratios (men, tanks) germany couldnāt have gain anything with defensive strategy.
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Warfare in the air. Germany had total lack of fuel, and even with winning ratio of me262 itās difficult to see Germany stopping itās factories to be bombed down.
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I do not have figures right here with me now, but (even) with defensive tactics germany was losing way more men that it could replace, meaning, over some time there would be zero men left in the armed forces.
It doesnāt matter if enemy bleeds, if you end up with zero men army.
Edit: Kurskā¦ Personally I donāt think thatās very good example of germans bleeling. They nearly made it, soviet losses very huge, without having control of the battlefield they could not have fixed their tanks knocked out, italian landing messed german determination, soviet had to engage their reserves to survive, etc etc. Very complex topic. Just my opinion in short.
So what was battle of the bulge then?
It was a last desperate battle with the last of the Reichsā few precious resourcesā¦ and they had to rely on capturing fuel to stay on the move. Soā¦ what was it?
I still dont fully agree. You guys all say that defence wouldnāt of workedā¦ well offence did not work after 1943ā¦ something had to change. The Germans did almost reach Kursk on the southern pincerā¦ the northern pincer made it no where. Defenceā¦ with reserves in behind worked. Knock out as many tanks as you can then counterattack.
- I do not have figures right here with me now, but (even) with defensive tactics germany was losing way more men that it could replace, meaning, over some time there would be zero men left in the armed forces.
Germany only had one optionā¦ and that was to fight for its life! I dont see the point of wasting resources and time to build a tank that had no fuel to run on. It would of been better to build the 88 mm Anti-tank gun. Keep it in placeā¦ and if that was lost it was not at the same cost as an expensive tank. Ohā¦ and Germany would lose men faster if they were to throw them into pointless counterattacks.
- Warfare in the air. Germany had total lack of fuel, and even with winning ratio of me262 itās difficult to see Germany stopping itās factories to be bombed down.
The Me262 should of been out a lot earlier than it wasā¦ and againā¦ making it a fighter -bomber was a dumb idea. If this plane was out months even before the D-day landing againā¦ things could of been different.
Againā¦ the Germans lost. There was a lot of distrust between the western allies and the russiansā¦ who knowsā¦ maybe you deal them soem serious defeats and Russia stops after taking back their own country and leaving the rest of the fight to the western allies. Who knowsā¦ But the Germans could of done somethingā¦ even after 1942 and still came out intactā¦ make a few changes on top (hitlerā¦goreing) and things could of been a lot differentā¦
It was a good attack to destroy enemy divisions, tighten relations between allies, showcase that germans were not beaten and therefore change to create some trust in german peopleā¦ But of course, in the short term, the battle was lost, soā¦ 
I think weāre just dancing around the fact that germany was too weak to win in the last years, by both defence and attack.
IMO, von Mansteinās (eastern front) idea of letting enemy advance and then cut them out-of-supply was great, and they should have tried that somewhere.
But 88 was immobile, easy to spot, easy for artillery or airattack to knock out. Or without destroying it, just move your tank 2000 meters to the different location and go around it. 88 was heavy to drag around, so they would have needed fuel anyways. Whatās the point building such weapon?
There are problems with each weapon (in this context)
Well, this is the same matter than before: Do you want to make defensive weapons (fighters) or attack weapons (bombers). When Hitler asked Willi Messerschmitt can it carry bomb-load, Willi said yes.