The Desert Fox Research Paper

Erwin Rommel: The Desert Fox

Erwin Rommel: Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was everything that is wanted in a general. He was highly skilled in combat along with being brave and just a touch audacious. He is considered to be a military phenomenon that was able to combine bravery and daring with brains. He brought glory to Germany and struck fear in the hearts of the enemy. Winston Churchill said that “We have in Rommel a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great general.”1 He was admired for his prowess within his country and outside of Germany as well. The British considered him to be a model soldier and a model gentleman. Perhaps most importantly
He fully believed that a soldier lived a charmed life or a short one, and he felt that an encounter with French soldiers confirmed this belief.5 His first shot dropped two of the men with the single bullet passing through both men. He pulled the trigger of his gun on a third soldier and nothing happened. He opened the chamber and found it empty. He charged anyway with his bayonet and was immediately shot in the thigh. He was not discouraged by this wound, but viewed the fact that he was not killed as proof of his charmed life. After the war he remained in the military. He was one of the four thousand officers that Germany was allowed after the Treaty of Versailles. He held a variety of posts and found the time to write a book based on the detailed records he kept on his service. The book was highly regarded and was published as a textbook. Titled The Infantry Attacks, it caught the attention of Adolph Hitler, who had been in the infantry. This book eventually led to Rommel being given the post of commandant of the Weiner Neustadt military academy in
Supplies were insufficient. The Italian troops were unreliable and Rommel himself became ill when he contracted jaundice, which he never fully recovered from. He was promoted to General of Armored Forces by Hitler, but felt this constrained his ability to wage war. He was also fighting a war trying to get enough supplies to the troops. Food sources were not adequate, nor were they compatible with desert conditions. Even with all of these problems, Rommel was in his element. He stayed at or near the front, moving from one formation of troops to another. Once he found himself in a New Zealand field hospital and quickly had to move before they discovered who he was. Another time, he happened to be where a British plane dropped a bomb. His driver was killed, but once again he received confirmation of his firm belief that good soldiers are charmed and only lost the heel off one of his boots.7 It was during this time that the first cracks in Rommel’s belief in Hitler began to appear. Rommel had always believed in conducting oneself always as a gentleman and to adhere to a strict military code in the treatment of the enemy. At this time he blatantly ignored Hitler’s order to execute any captured British