After North Africa where should Rommel have been sent to make best use of his skills?

A simple question that's been bugging me over the past few days: after his removal from North Africa, where should Rommel have been sent to make best use of his skills?
 
In a British POW camp?
:p

That would be very good for Rommel and perhaps not so good for the Allies at Normandy as Hitler splitting up the command between the Field Marshals there did more then anything else (other then Hitler talking divisional control for himself) to make the Western Allied victory there so decisive.

Though Rommel wouldn't be staying in a POW camp. He would certainly be speaking to Monty, Churchill, Ike and others. The only issue would be that early 1943 Rommel who had never fought in the East and spent the past two years in Africa didn't learn about what was going on there in terms of the SS mass killings with their death squads until mid to late 1943 and didn't know about the death camps until early 1944. That is relevent here because its important to be aware you have a Rommel somewhat diseffected from his government. But, nowhere near what it would be a year to a year and a half later.

In terms of where Rommel could have been put in charge in Germany that would have made a difference. Well short of Hitler resigning and letting him take over there aren't alot of good options. Rommel even at the end was willing to fight in the East because he believed that if all of Germany was taken by Stalin that would be the end of Germany. Even though Rommel believed the fight had to be made and continued to the end in the East, I really doubt he could ignore the SS death squads running around in his area of operations which makes it a pretty bad choice as well.
 
That would be very good for Rommel and perhaps not so good for the Allies at Normandy as Hitler splitting up the command between the Field Marshals there did more then anything else (other then Hitler talking divisional control for himself) to make the Western Allied victory there so decisive.
Except that many of the defences (the mines, most of the pillboxes, the flooded areas, the beach obstacles, etc) were there because of Rommel. If he was captured in Africa, the Allies would have a much easier time come July '44.
 
Except that many of the defences (the mines, most of the pillboxes, the flooded areas, the beach obstacles, etc) were there because of Rommel. If he was captured in Africa, the Allies would have a much easier time come July '44.

The defenses wouldn't likely be much different without Rommel. Though who knows really.

He probably could have done a decent job in the east. Maybe even delay end of the war until early '46.
 
The defenses wouldn't likely be much different without Rommel.
They would if no-one else had come up with those ideas (and let's face it, he only really got a grasp of the situation in early 1944 so no-one else had), which would have made their job much easier.
 
I think the eastern front. I agree that it would probally extend the war till 46. Also consider that he would have been around Hitler a lot more. Could he have orchestrated a successfull assasination, and if so how would affect the war.
 
Could he have orchestrated a successfull assasination, and if so how would affect the war.

So, after North Africa, Rommel is sent to the Russian front. He becomes disillusioned with the war VERY quickly, as in basically instantly, and when the opportunity join the Valkyrie plot arises, he takes it and its Rommel, not Von Stauffenburg, who plants the bomb in the conference room in the Wolf's Lair.
 

Kongzilla

Banned
And even if the Plot doesn't succed completely he's a massive war hero and so the SS might be rounded up and disbanded even quicker or something.

To be honest there really isn't a chance for him to Extend the war. He is a great tactician and leader of men, strategist eeeeh not really.
 
The defenses wouldn't likely be much different without Rommel. Though who knows really.
More than one account refers to the great personal energy demonstrated by Rommel during the construction of those defenses. He drove construction crews and suppliers relentlessly and was constantly in the field, inspecting and revising the work. He had a special obsession with designing and planting mines, apparently. I think it is fair to at least say that without his presence, those defenses would have been less numerous, less extensive and less complete.
 
Or here's a question: could Rommel not only command the Eastern Front, but could Friedrich von Paulus command the Afrika Corps instead?
 
I do see Rommel as a very clever and capable divisional commander.

I am not sure he was in the class of Manstein, Kesselring, Model, Steiner, etc etc.

The thing is that the German generals (and the Russian one's as well) were used to command armies counting in a million or more. Comparing Africa to that is a bit hectic.

I think Rommel was perfect in the role of architect of the Atlantic wall (although too late to really make it impossible).

Ivan
 
I do see Rommel as a very clever and capable divisional commander.

I am not sure he was in the class of Manstein, Kesselring, Model, Steiner, etc etc.

The thing is that the German generals (and the Russian one's as well) were used to command armies counting in a million or more. Comparing Africa to that is a bit hectic.

I think Rommel was perfect in the role of architect of the Atlantic wall (although too late to really make it impossible).

Ivan

Model was a better commander than Rommel no doubt. Manstein... eh maybe. Though Kesselring seems to be a terrible commander but that could just be because of Hitler's retarded meddling.

Put Model as full commander of eastern front with Rommel as leader of Southern twnk divisions in '43 and you have a chance at actually delaying the war in the east considerably

Put Steiner in Normandy and I think he could work well. Steiner was under appreciated as a commander I think.
 
In command of a Panzer Corps on the Russian Front in late 1943 with possible promtion to army command in 1944.Makes little difference to the outcome of the war and Rommel has a good chance of being killed off in Russia. Dies in a pocket or a breakout.Or in an accident.
 
Except that many of the defences (the mines, most of the pillboxes, the flooded areas, the beach obstacles, etc) were there because of Rommel. If he was captured in Africa, the Allies would have a much easier time come July '44.

You aren't wrong when it comes to getting off the beaches. Rommel did put his engineering skills to very good use (he wanted to be an engineer when he was a teenager, but his father said no so he went to school to become an officer in the army). He expected the British to come up with their own engineering tricks, but the Mulberry harbours were in a class of their own. Rommel invented at Normandy Rommelspargel and tons of other deadly and annoying things to delay the landings. But, that was all they were intended to do. As a delaying tactic to buy time until the troops and heavy weapons arrived.

Then there would be one final battle and Rommel believed if he did well he would have room for a surrender with conditions perhaps unoffically attached to it and if he did badly then his troops would be mauled and willing to follow his orders to surrender on mass in which case the Western Allies in his view take central Europe before the Soviets and the war ends in Europe in the Summer or early Fall of 1944.

Rommel's plan required having divisional control and moving all the troops in the West chugging towards Normandy or wherever else they land when. The situation where you had the control of the forces split into two in the West and moreso that you had Hitler in control of the divisions so that Rommel could and did send a division towards the forces at Normandy and it was recalled by Hitler after their double agent in the UK chimed in that Normandy was not the landing spot that it was all a ruse to trick Germany into knowing the true landing spot.

He was caught with his pants down on his one trip back to Germany (which the Allies know about from Ultra). He went there mainly to panhandle Hitler for five more divisions from Von Rundstedt's forces (two of them were to go to Normandy) and as an aside he knew it was his wives 50th B-Day so he thought he was killing two birds with one stone at a time the German weather forecasters told him would be quite bad weather for an attack. No divided command and I think his wife makes the trip to Paris instead to celebrate her 50th instead of him going back to Germany.

In terms of Germany doing better in the post war years I think Rommel had he been given divisional control of the forces in the West would have been in a good position to do so. Rommel knew the war was long since lost and it was down to a question of if he can do well enough to be able to hammer out something with Monty and Ike for allowing the Western Allies to occupy all of Western and central Europe on the cheap without the German people suffering as they did OTL. If he didn't do well at the beaches after sending everything Germany has against them in the West then he surrenders his extremely beaten up forces and the Western Allies have a clean shot to Berlin and like I said could get to end it by the late Summer or Fall of 1944.
 
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He expected the British to come up with their own engineering tricks, but the Mulberry harbours were in a class of their own.
Not really, he spotted what they were almost as soon as he saw them, but what he didn't realise was that they were going to moor them off the beaches, he thought they were going to use them as replacement piers in whichever harbour they managed to capture.

Rommel invented at Normandy Rommelspargel and tons of other deadly and annoying things to delay the landings. But, that was all they were intended to do. As a delaying tactic to buy time until the troops and heavy weapons arrived.
Indeed so, but problem there was, Rommel wanted them close to the beaches in small groups and under cover, whereas Von Rundstedt wanted them all back out of air range so that they could be used in a later counter-attack. Typically, Hitler vacillated for a bit before awarding a compromise, neither side got what they were hoping for.
 
Not really, he spotted what they were almost as soon as he saw them, but what he didn't realise was that they were going to moor them off the beaches, he thought they were going to use them as replacement piers in whichever harbour they managed to capture.

Indeed so, but problem there was, Rommel wanted them close to the beaches in small groups and under cover, whereas Von Rundstedt wanted them all back out of air range so that they could be used in a later counter-attack. Typically, Hitler vacillated for a bit before awarding a compromise, neither side got what they were hoping for.

I agree, but I wasn't meaning to say Rommel had no idea what the harbors were, I was trying to say as an engineering feat they blew away what Rommel was able to do with his resources.

Anyway just for tonight and this thread I did some research and looked up Monty and Rommel's last interviews before the invasion of France. Both of the interviews somewhat descended into who is the more honorable general crap. But, I found the Rommel one interesting as he hints at a number of things. I am guessing the 'compete novelty' he found touring France may have been the V rockets. But, he certainly does telegraph many of the things he set up in France for the invasion (if vaguely) ahead of time.

The article also talks about the British hammering out the armistice terms.

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The British a month before Rommel died after doing their own investigation of what the German generals were doing in France found out from wiretapping German generals that his support of the July 20th plot was in no small part related to his view the chaos in Berlin from Hitler's death would be good to take an executive action in the West to be able to accept whatever armistice terms the Anglo-Americans had hammered out (mainly to Rommel so the war ends early with central Europe being controlled by the democratic West at the end of the war not Stalin).

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It makes me wonder when they release the archieve in 32 years of British files on the war what terms might have been willing to accept in the event if a mid-1944 armistice in the West could have been achieved. Obviously, much of it would have been up to how well Rommel was able to do on the beaches.
 
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