Clibanarius
Banned
Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to make it possible for Erwin Rommel to serve as an Officer in the US Military. Bonus points if he serves during WWII.
Challenge: Rommel in the US Military
- Thread starter Clibanarius
- Start date
Sumeragi
Banned
Professor Erwin Rommel Senior accepts that his son has extraordinary technical aptitude, and sends him off to the US to the Wright brothers. Eventually Junior joins the Aeronautical Division, Signal Corps, where it is found he also has talent for land tactics. He eventually participates in WW1, and so on.
I think that the best POD is that he decided to study at West Point instead of Danzig, as it was a very prestigious university even then. he could meet an American girl there and decide to settle in, like he did in Danzig. He joins the Cadet Corps and is elevated to an officer, and placed in command of a line company during WWI and later a tank divviusion in WWII.
This POD has Rommel born in the United States as a natural born citizen.
Erwin Rommel Sr. and Helene von Luz emigrate to the United States from Germany and give birth to their son, Erwin J. Rommel in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Erwin is very sucessful in school and joins the United States Army through the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York, turning down an opportunity to attend the prestigious Harvard University. A patriotic American, he is sickened by the rise of the NSDAP in Germany and jumps at the chance to serve in the European theater of World War II, leading an infantry platoon of the 101st Airborne Division. He fights bravely in combat, earning the nickname "Winter Wolf", being awarded the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star Medal and Bronze Star Medal with Valor. Rommel's platoon is one of the first to discover an abandoned concentration camp near Landsberg am Lech, Germany. The experience haunts Rommel for the rest of his life and motivates him to speak out against genocide.
After the end of World War II, Captain Erwin J. Rommel tours the world, speaking out against genocide and human rights abuses. He goes on to serve in the Korean War, commanding an infantry company and retires from the United States Army in 1959, at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He later becomes a champion for the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, marching with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, D.C. He also supported expanding women's roles in the U.S. military during the mid-1970s.
Rommel dies in 1982 from old age and was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Speaking at his funeral, U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan described him as "one of the greatest Americans of our century" and urged all Americans to follow in his footsteps. In 1996, the new IAV Rommel armored fighting vehicle was named in his honor, forming the backbone of the U.S. Army's Rommel Brigade Combat Teams. The I-495 bridge in Washington, D.C. was renamed the Erwin J. Rommel Memorial Bridge in 2001.
Erwin Rommel Sr. and Helene von Luz emigrate to the United States from Germany and give birth to their son, Erwin J. Rommel in Worcester, Massachusetts.
Erwin is very sucessful in school and joins the United States Army through the United States Military Academy at West Point in New York, turning down an opportunity to attend the prestigious Harvard University. A patriotic American, he is sickened by the rise of the NSDAP in Germany and jumps at the chance to serve in the European theater of World War II, leading an infantry platoon of the 101st Airborne Division. He fights bravely in combat, earning the nickname "Winter Wolf", being awarded the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star Medal and Bronze Star Medal with Valor. Rommel's platoon is one of the first to discover an abandoned concentration camp near Landsberg am Lech, Germany. The experience haunts Rommel for the rest of his life and motivates him to speak out against genocide.
After the end of World War II, Captain Erwin J. Rommel tours the world, speaking out against genocide and human rights abuses. He goes on to serve in the Korean War, commanding an infantry company and retires from the United States Army in 1959, at the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. He later becomes a champion for the 1960s Civil Rights Movement, marching with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Washington, D.C. He also supported expanding women's roles in the U.S. military during the mid-1970s.
Rommel dies in 1982 from old age and was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia. Speaking at his funeral, U.S. President Ronald W. Reagan described him as "one of the greatest Americans of our century" and urged all Americans to follow in his footsteps. In 1996, the new IAV Rommel armored fighting vehicle was named in his honor, forming the backbone of the U.S. Army's Rommel Brigade Combat Teams. The I-495 bridge in Washington, D.C. was renamed the Erwin J. Rommel Memorial Bridge in 2001.
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He doesn't die in WWII (no plots against Hitler, etc), and is dragged into the US Army if one of those insane Operation Unthinkable/Red Army goes to the West TLs gets underway and the US start to remilitarise Germany. How long he has any men to command is another matter.
Erwin Rommel Senior sends his wife and son on a two week holiday to Switzerland on July 15 1944, then in the aftermath of failed July 20 plot Flees there himself, re-emerging sometime in 1945 to seek political asylum with the Americans, who, in the immediate post-war period draft him as the military liaison to the West German parliament.
No idea whether any of that would be even possible (let alone likely), but just my two cents.
No idea whether any of that would be even possible (let alone likely), but just my two cents.
Rommel studied the battle tactics of Civil War generals in Virginia in the interwar period as seen below. He also spoke English quite well.
http://books.google.com/books?id=NBGswvQDRGAC&pg=PA112&lpg=PA112&dq=Erwin+Rommel+virginia+hotel&source=bl&ots=tIDN4cfU3p&sig=6kMmdWc3obHMw2BY1NX_K10GK9s&hl=en&ei=IzzlTpvoH8jX0QGt3dHGBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CEkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Erwin%20Rommel%20virginia%20hotel&f=false
Lets say his wife and son died in a car accident and he goes to Virginia to focus on military affairs and to get him mind off it and meets an attractive southern gal and marries her and she refuses to come to Germany so he applies for citizenship in the US. Rommel loved creating military plans and strategies too much to stay out of a war so I could see him joining up. He would probably request to fight Japan though.
In our real life time line Rommel did tell his son in 1944 to ask General George S. Patton to accept him into his Army. If the U.S. Army/Patton would have allowed that or not for propaganda reasons who knows, the French for propaganda reasons were more then willing to enlist Rommel's son in their forces and the French had far more reason to dislike Rommel and his family then the Americans, but they didn't.
As for Rommel himself being allowed to join the U.S. Army after WW2 starts and he fighting for Germany that is a really hard one. Rommel never had an Admiral Canaris or Oskar Schindler moment where he was confronted with the true horror that the Nazi regime was doing (piles of bodies of murdered women and children), certainly when he returned from Africa he heard stories about such things, but hearing about it and seeing it are two very different things.
If you had a Canaris or Oskar Schindler moment say in his short time home in late 1942, IE a member of the SS who is part of the resistance (there were a couple) takes him on a car ride to Poland to see one of the death camps. He very well might be depressed enough to surrender personally along with his forces in Africa in early 1943 to U.S. forces of course he would have to tell his family beforehand to leave Germany for Switzerland.
The Americans mainly knew him at that point by reputation from the British press. After his surrender the U.S. would be willing to use him as a propaganda tool against the Nazi regime and as an unoffical advisor, but they wouldn't let him join the Army even if he wanted to which I don't think he would.
Churchill and the Brits on the other hand liked him enough he just might give him some military position say as the leader of 'Free German Forces' and try to organize Germans from any nation willing to support the liberation of the homeland. It would mainly be a propaganda tool with little military value unless the WAllies would be willing to release German POWs willing to renounce their oath to Hitler and join the forces.
Mind you Rommel considered a soldier of one nation turning his guns on his fellow soldiers and his allies the ultimate form of treason and any soldier that did that deserved to be executed for treason in his view. Many an Allied general I am sure felt the same way. The only thing that I think might at all potentally change Rommel's view on that would be seeing the horror of the death camps for himself. Even then he wouldn't blame ordinary German soldiers who he considered 'his boys' for that and would be extremely extremely reluctant to lead men to fight and kill soldiers many of who fought for him in the past. In his mind he would be personally betraying those young men even if the cause was just. Rommel wouldn't mind fighting the Japanese though and if things went south between the WAllies and the Soviet's right after the war and turned into an open war the Allies would probably make him Supreme Commander of German forces and he would be more then willing to fight to liberate Eastern Germany and Eastern Europe.
http://books.google.com/books?id=NBGswvQDRGAC&pg=PA112&lpg=PA112&dq=Erwin+Rommel+virginia+hotel&source=bl&ots=tIDN4cfU3p&sig=6kMmdWc3obHMw2BY1NX_K10GK9s&hl=en&ei=IzzlTpvoH8jX0QGt3dHGBQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CEkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=Erwin%20Rommel%20virginia%20hotel&f=false
Lets say his wife and son died in a car accident and he goes to Virginia to focus on military affairs and to get him mind off it and meets an attractive southern gal and marries her and she refuses to come to Germany so he applies for citizenship in the US. Rommel loved creating military plans and strategies too much to stay out of a war so I could see him joining up. He would probably request to fight Japan though.
In our real life time line Rommel did tell his son in 1944 to ask General George S. Patton to accept him into his Army. If the U.S. Army/Patton would have allowed that or not for propaganda reasons who knows, the French for propaganda reasons were more then willing to enlist Rommel's son in their forces and the French had far more reason to dislike Rommel and his family then the Americans, but they didn't.
As for Rommel himself being allowed to join the U.S. Army after WW2 starts and he fighting for Germany that is a really hard one. Rommel never had an Admiral Canaris or Oskar Schindler moment where he was confronted with the true horror that the Nazi regime was doing (piles of bodies of murdered women and children), certainly when he returned from Africa he heard stories about such things, but hearing about it and seeing it are two very different things.
If you had a Canaris or Oskar Schindler moment say in his short time home in late 1942, IE a member of the SS who is part of the resistance (there were a couple) takes him on a car ride to Poland to see one of the death camps. He very well might be depressed enough to surrender personally along with his forces in Africa in early 1943 to U.S. forces of course he would have to tell his family beforehand to leave Germany for Switzerland.
The Americans mainly knew him at that point by reputation from the British press. After his surrender the U.S. would be willing to use him as a propaganda tool against the Nazi regime and as an unoffical advisor, but they wouldn't let him join the Army even if he wanted to which I don't think he would.
Churchill and the Brits on the other hand liked him enough he just might give him some military position say as the leader of 'Free German Forces' and try to organize Germans from any nation willing to support the liberation of the homeland. It would mainly be a propaganda tool with little military value unless the WAllies would be willing to release German POWs willing to renounce their oath to Hitler and join the forces.
Mind you Rommel considered a soldier of one nation turning his guns on his fellow soldiers and his allies the ultimate form of treason and any soldier that did that deserved to be executed for treason in his view. Many an Allied general I am sure felt the same way. The only thing that I think might at all potentally change Rommel's view on that would be seeing the horror of the death camps for himself. Even then he wouldn't blame ordinary German soldiers who he considered 'his boys' for that and would be extremely extremely reluctant to lead men to fight and kill soldiers many of who fought for him in the past. In his mind he would be personally betraying those young men even if the cause was just. Rommel wouldn't mind fighting the Japanese though and if things went south between the WAllies and the Soviet's right after the war and turned into an open war the Allies would probably make him Supreme Commander of German forces and he would be more then willing to fight to liberate Eastern Germany and Eastern Europe.
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Erwin "Irving" Rommel was born in 1891 in Heidenheim, Württemberg, the son of a schoolmaster. However, the young Rommel was soon whisked away to a foreign land - America, where his father had been hired as the headmaster of a German language school for the children of immigrants in New York City. Erwin was a boisterous child, and was particularly enamored with cinema. Erwin the Elder felt the films were a waste of time, and worse still, immoral. Despite his father's admonitions, the young boy would often find time to sneak into a picture show.
Rommel's father insisted that his son follow a military path, but the young man refused. In 1909 Rommel left home to follow his dream - to be a star of the silver screen! Unfortunately, show biz is tough to break in to. Rommel was a natural with machines, though, and secured a position as a camera man, a role in which he labored for years. Eventually, however, Rommel began to appear as bit parts in films, often as a butler, driver, priest, or military man, what today would be called a "character actor". Rommel may have faded into obscurity if not for a chance meeting with Groucho Marx. Rommel was given the task of showing Marx the backstage of the Astoria Studios in Queens, and at several points shocked the comedian into laughter with his dry wit. Thus, in 1929, Rommel appeared in a small but memorable role as a snooty desk clerk in The Cocoanuts. Rommel again appeared with the Marxes, in the more prominent role of Hives the butler, in 1930's Animal Crackers. With the success he had found in comedy, Rommel made the leap, as so many others had, to the California film industry.
During the 30s and early 40s, Rommel played the "straight man" in many comedies - though he was not unknown in dramatic roles, memorably playing Major Heinrich Strasser in 1942's Casablanca. Perhaps it was playing a Nazi officer, and some snide remarks that had been circulating about Rommel's German heritage, that motivated his next step: Shortly after completing the film, Rommel joined the US military.
He was assigned to the 18th AAF Base Unit - "The First Motion Picture Unit". There, with the rank of Captain, Rommel worked with actors like Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Stewart, and others (Including future actor DeForest Kelley, at the time just an enlisted man. Rommel would later act alongside Kelley as "John Gill" in the Star Trek episode "Patterns of Force"). Rommel appeared in numerous patriotic films, including films produced to be shown to German prisoners of war. He also appeared in front of active duty troops alongside his old friends the Marx Brothers.
After the war, Rommel appeared in a number of minor film and television roles (unfortunately, often cast as a Nazi), including an appearance on Star Trek and a regular role as Los Angeles Sun Editor Mr. Kruetz in the first two seasons of My Favorite Martian. His final film appearance was as a kindly German man killed in the firebombing of Dresden, in the film Slaughterhouse-Five. Rommel died of a heart attack at his home in 1973. He was 82 years old.
Rommel's father insisted that his son follow a military path, but the young man refused. In 1909 Rommel left home to follow his dream - to be a star of the silver screen! Unfortunately, show biz is tough to break in to. Rommel was a natural with machines, though, and secured a position as a camera man, a role in which he labored for years. Eventually, however, Rommel began to appear as bit parts in films, often as a butler, driver, priest, or military man, what today would be called a "character actor". Rommel may have faded into obscurity if not for a chance meeting with Groucho Marx. Rommel was given the task of showing Marx the backstage of the Astoria Studios in Queens, and at several points shocked the comedian into laughter with his dry wit. Thus, in 1929, Rommel appeared in a small but memorable role as a snooty desk clerk in The Cocoanuts. Rommel again appeared with the Marxes, in the more prominent role of Hives the butler, in 1930's Animal Crackers. With the success he had found in comedy, Rommel made the leap, as so many others had, to the California film industry.
During the 30s and early 40s, Rommel played the "straight man" in many comedies - though he was not unknown in dramatic roles, memorably playing Major Heinrich Strasser in 1942's Casablanca. Perhaps it was playing a Nazi officer, and some snide remarks that had been circulating about Rommel's German heritage, that motivated his next step: Shortly after completing the film, Rommel joined the US military.
He was assigned to the 18th AAF Base Unit - "The First Motion Picture Unit". There, with the rank of Captain, Rommel worked with actors like Clark Gable, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Stewart, and others (Including future actor DeForest Kelley, at the time just an enlisted man. Rommel would later act alongside Kelley as "John Gill" in the Star Trek episode "Patterns of Force"). Rommel appeared in numerous patriotic films, including films produced to be shown to German prisoners of war. He also appeared in front of active duty troops alongside his old friends the Marx Brothers.
After the war, Rommel appeared in a number of minor film and television roles (unfortunately, often cast as a Nazi), including an appearance on Star Trek and a regular role as Los Angeles Sun Editor Mr. Kruetz in the first two seasons of My Favorite Martian. His final film appearance was as a kindly German man killed in the firebombing of Dresden, in the film Slaughterhouse-Five. Rommel died of a heart attack at his home in 1973. He was 82 years old.
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Having been repeatedly warned by his father that his lack of Prussian status ensures that he will be denied promotion regardless of his actual skills Erwin Rommel chooses to join the US military after WWI.
This might be the best way to accomplish this, Rommel relocating himself and possibly his family to the US. That Blue Max of his would probably earn him a commision.
A scenario like that would in all likelyhood end up with him becoming head of either West Germany's Bundeswehr, or NATO ala Speidel in OTL.
That's what Grimm Reaper proposed, and it would be the best way in my opinion.
Actually he seemed to know an extent of what the Nazi's where doing (enough that he ignored any and all orders about sending all Jewish POWs to his superiors). ALthough your point about him viewing himself as a traitor if he turned agaist Germany would probably be true, although he may have less issue with fighting Japan though.
Oh, he knew the SS were rabid brutal racists. He believed for a long time that when Hitler felt secure in his position he would pull a Night of the Long Knives II on them like he did the SA, but it never happened. He talked to Hitler and wrote him at least a dozen times trying to get him to see that Jews should be allowed back in the military and in government. In Rommel's view killing POWs was bad, but not as bad as say killing civilians as soldiers lives he viewed as far more expendable then civilian lives. He was trained in the era well before the 1929 Geneva Conventions on PoWs where as a soldier you were told you were lucky to be taken as a PoW and not shot on sight or put against the wall.
Killing millions of civilians in the Soviet Union and hearding civilians into death factories Rommel did find out in late 43/early 44 and could not for the life of him understand at all why the hell they were doing it. The only thing that made sense to him was that the Nazis must be trying to burn the bridges of the German people behind them so that after Germany is defeated the world out of hatred for the Nazi's actions ends Germany as a country as well as destorying the Nazi Party.
Instead the world gave lots of German land to Poland, effectively divided the country in two for decades and indoctrinated a culture of collective gulit, anti-nationalism and shame on the Germany people that they are now and forever guilty of these crimes for being German.
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Speidel is an interesting character. He had far bloodier hands then his boss when it came to innocent civilians, but he was Rommel's Chief of Staff who he tasked with surrender negotations with Ike and Monty at Normandy. I suspect him being part of those negotations as much as him being Rommel's Chief of Staff led the U.S. and UK to make him Commander of NATO forces in Europe by 1957.
I expect if Rommel survived he would be offered the same or better, but he was so depressed about his failure to save Germany from its internal and external enemies in late 44 that in order for him to take any military or political position he would have to come out of that depression.
Rommel a few days before his death.
Before he was suicided he was pretty much a broken man who spent his days trying to focus on how if the next war broke out between Stalin and the Allies how that would go.
He was pretty much on his own amoung German officers at the time who visited on the issue. He believed Anglo-American control of the seas, Anglo-American control of the skies, America's incredible industrial power, and in his view America's large scientific edge would mean if the Red Army attacks the WAllies after crushing Germany they would lose WW3. Soviet troop numbers meant little to Rommel when America has control of the skies and such powerful bombers and such a technological edge.
If Rommel survives the war he would have to come out of his deep deep depression to be any help during the Cold War.