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

Delaying the war in the east would be far beyond Rommel's skills as a commander.

this if Manstein and Model failed why would romel do any better... not to mention the logistical, manpower, and all sorts of problems the germans would face in russia....IMO a victory is impossible regardless of who is in charge... unless for some reason the USSR is run by a bunch of cowards who immediatly surrender after thegerman assault and if they do then they will be voerthrown so that isnt likely either... really germany could not win the war in the east and by 1944 there was little Germany could do to halt the soviet advance.
 
He probably could have done a decent job in the east. Maybe even delay end of the war until early '46.
And how exactly is he going to do that other than magically pulling panzer divisions and materiel out of his arse? Stalingrad is a bust, it's more than likely too late for him to stop Kharkov and Kursk, the supply situation is horrible and Hitler is still interfering in operations and effectively sabotaging his own army. Now I don't have great in-depth knowledge of the Eastern Front so I may well be missing things, but how can he stave off the coming disaster?

Edit: Missed Fredrick II Barbarossa's post.
 
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Rommel and Guderian did meet with Hitler pre-Kursk and both of them urged him strongly not to attack the Kursk Salient and instead to focusing in Rommel's words on an 'unrelenting defense' in the East along with mass producing anti-tank weapons.

Hitler didn't care and attacked anyway. So, yes its quite likely Rommel wouldn't have done much better in the East because his advice would have been ignored as it was OTL. There are situations where he would have done better in like say if he had control of the 6th Army instead of Paulus. Things would have gone quite differently there and there is more then a small chance he tosses Hitler's stand and die order into the trash and pulls out before the net closes.

Knowing Rommel he also wouldn't have used artillery and other means to wreck the city as happened OTL and would likely have spent a fair bit of time trying to convince the citizens and local leaders he isn't their enemy and their true enemy lies in Moscow.
 
Knowing Rommel he also wouldn't have used artillery and other means to wreck the city as happened OTL and would likely have spent a fair bit of time trying to convince the citizens and local leaders he isn't their enemy and their true enemy lies in Moscow.

But he would still run into problems there, because that runs counter to the Nazis' party line, which says that Slavs are subhuman scum.
 
But he would still run into problems there, because that runs counter to the Nazis' party line, which says that Slavs are subhuman scum.

He might be sacked if word got back to Hitler, but the whole thing might come down to Hitler's mood at the time. Rommel was willing to get away with a fair bit in North Africa and France. In part because Hitler was less invested in what was going on there and in part because Rommel was so popular in Germany. But, obviously Hitler was far more ideologically invested in his dirty war in Russia so its a different story.

During Rommel's time in France, Hitler ordered him to deport the country's Jewish population; Rommel disobeyed. Several times he wrote letters protesting against the treatment of the Jews.

Also, during the construction of the Atlantic Wall, Rommel directed that French workers were not to be used as slaves, but were to be paid for their labour.

Nazi party officials in France reported that Rommel extensively and scornfully criticised Nazi incompetence and crimes. Rommel was often cited in Western sources as a general who, though a loyal German, was willing to stand up to Hitler.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erwin_Rommel
 
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Was Rommel one of those who implemented the Commando Order in the field or did he ignore it?

Rommel's response to being given that shit order was a bit more dramatic then his usual tossing illegal orders in the trash can.

Rommel was one of the 12 recipients of Hitler's infamous, illegal Commando Order issued on 18th October 1942. This order to senior commanders ordered the immediate execution of all Allied Commando troops irrespective of circumstances of combat or capture. On receipt of the order Rommel called his Staff Officers together and invited them to each individually read the order. He then took it and instructed them that under no circumstances was this order ever to be put into effect by men under his command, he then burnt the order in front of them commenting as he did so - "And thus, in such a fashion is infamy dealt with".

If Germany had many more high level officers (especially in the East) willing to burn the Commando Order, the Commissar Order, and refuse to allow the SS to
run around their area of operations killing people it would have made for a very different war in the East. The thing is most people would rather do what they
are told when they think their lives are on the line and keep their head down even if they know better and believe what they are being ordered to do is wrong.
 
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At the Wolfsschanze with a bomb.A briefing of the fuhrer with Himmler and Goring in attendance would have changed the war.

The bombing of Hitler needed someone other then Staffenberg or Rommel to pull the trigger as each of them needed to take executive actions after and they also didn't need their finger prints on the trigger in the short term (so to speak). The plotters needed someone willing to blow himself along with Hitler using a bomb that person is carrying to make sure it works. Perferably a low level German Army soldier the generals in the room wouldn't recognize who changes in the bathroom into an SS uniform before entering the room, getting behind Hitler and blowing himself up. That way the generals in the room who survive the bombing point the finger at the SS.

Having total control of the media meant Hitler was loved by most Germans and certainly the low and mid level officers had alot of love for him. Hitler's crimes was certainly not common knowledge in Germany at the time. Killing a popular leader loved by the public tends to backfire on those seen as doing itw as seen in Julius Caesar's killing were the Roman people went nuts and tore apart a tribune, burned down the Senate and drove those who did it fleeing for their lives from Rome.

Those in the plot focused on taking political control of Berlin like Staffenberg would be far better off not being at the place where Hitler was killed and then after taking action and arresting and killing those who need to be taken out to keep the SS or anyone else in the way from taking power.

Rommel short term at least publicly couldn't be linked in any way to Hitler's killing in order to use the very high regard the German rank and file officers and soldiers held him in to allow him to sit down with Monty and Ike and hammer out the armistice terms and then to order the German Armies in the West to surrender and have the vast majority of them follow the order to surrender. To pull off a Lee at Appomattox Rommel knew he needed Hitler dead and for his high regard among ordinary German soldiers and officers to still be in tact when he ordered the surrender.

Pulling off a coup against a very popular leader is not easy at all. Neither is surrendering an army before that army feels like its been beaten. Lee's forces at Appomattox in April of 1865 felt like they were beaten badly. That wasn't true for much of the Germany Army in the West in July of 1944.

If the bomb on Hitler's airplane in early 1943 went off it would be an entirely different story. At that point the war was not yet lost for Germany and Guderian and Rommel getting their plans followed in the East would change things significantly. Basically they would have a year and a half to convince Stalin that the new Germany wants peace with reasonable terms and if they keep fighting both sides will be so depleated the Americans and British will be able to swoop in and kick both Germany and the USSR's ass. Once they have peace with the Soviet's lets just say they can stare down the Western Allies and get them to agree to peace in return for France and the Low countries.
 
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