Rommel Lives!

What if instead of ordering him to commit suicide, Hitler just puts Rommel in prision for the remainder of the war and towards the end he breaks loose or the Allies just capture him as well. What would be his impact on Post War Germany?
 

Hawke

Banned
Sentenced for using slave labour and murder of French POW in 1940 for several years in prison.
Released like many other Nazis in 50s, he writes books in which he whitewashes Nazi Germany,demonizes Poland and Soviets, blames it all on Hitler and tries to present Wehrmacht as innocent and trying to save Jews(he can't bear to write that about Poles).
By 1980s and 90s he is rebunked by historians as one of the "clean Wehrmacht" myth and his writings aren't treated seriously by mainstream historians.
 
Probably uses his image in the West to parlay away any jail time. It would be interesting to see him act as an advisor to the West German military, but IMO that would be highly unlikely. Probably he spends the rest of his life quietly reading and writing in a modest house somewhere in Germany.
 
Rommel was probably one of the few respected German military commanders. People like Patton had great respect for him. I think if Rommel gets out in February of 1945, and he helps the war effort against Hitler, he could probably get off jail time and could be a military advisor.

I remember someone wrote a TL, or mentioned that Rommel may become a German Chancellor if he defects from the Germans in 1944.
 

Hawke

Banned
People like Patton had great respect for him.
That's not surprising considering his ignorance about German atrocities and Patton's own anti-semitism(writing that Jews need to be kept under guard and they are "locust"-in 1945, while opposing de-nazification).
Or comments like these:
The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinese or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other amiable characteristics, the Russian has no regard for human life and they are all out sons-of-bitches, barbarians, and chronic drunks


No wonder he liked Rommel...
 

Eurofed

Banned
Sentenced for using slave labour and murder of French POW in 1940 for several years in prison.

Which slave labor ? He went out of his way to ensure French workers to the Atlantic Wall got paid.
 
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Eurofed

Banned
That's not surprising considering his ignorance about German atrocities and Patton's own anti-semitism(writing that Jews need to be kept under guard and they are "locust"-in 1945, while opposing de-nazification).
Or comments like these:
The difficulty in understanding the Russian is that we do not take cognizance of the fact that he is not a European, but an Asiatic, and therefore thinks deviously. We can no more understand a Russian than a Chinese or a Japanese, and from what I have seen of them, I have no particular desire to understand them except to ascertain how much lead or iron it takes to kill them. In addition to his other amiable characteristics, the Russian has no regard for human life and they are all out sons-of-bitches, barbarians, and chronic drunks

Odd as it may seem to modern sensibilities, racism was quite the mainstream in the 1940s, across Western elites and public at large.
 
That's not surprising considering his ignorance about German atrocities and Patton's own anti-semitism(writing that Jews need to be kept under guard and they are "locust"-in 1945, while opposing de-nazification).
The Afrika Korps was never committed of war crimes, and Rommel went out of his way (sometimes disobeying direct orders) to be fair.

He wouldn't break loose though, the danger to his family would be too great (and they'll be under constant scrutiny for just this reason).

A position in the UN maybe?
 
Didn`t Rommel`s son become a mayor OTL, and receive acknowledgement from Israel for his father`s effort to save north-african Jews.

IMO, I don`t think it matters. Rommel needs to defect really early to become a hero. He`s on the wrong side. THE wrong side.
 
A position in the UN maybe?


Why would he get a position in the UN? The Security Council is comprised of the winners of World War II for a reason. I don't think it's likely at all for Rommel to be given a say in the UN, in any capacity, given he fought for one of the nations that the UN was designed to counteract...

I'm with Hawke on this one. His legacy is untarnished because he wasn't around to tarnish it himself. If he lives, we're going to see another Manstein.
 
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Eh, very few people involved in war have clean hands one way or another. That does include the US too believe it or not.

Rommel wasn't that bad really especially when compared to the likes of the real scumbags. If he is sent to Nuremburg, he's given a sentence that he gets out of by the 50's if not aquitted.

If anything, Nuremburg could be painted for the unfair trials they were more if he's convicted.
 

Eurofed

Banned
Eh, very few people involved in war have clean hands one way or another. That does include the US too believe it or not.

Rommel wasn't that bad really especially when compared to the likes of the real scumbags. If he is sent to Nuremburg, he's given a sentence that he gets out of by the 50's if not aquitted.

If anything, Nuremburg could be painted for the unfair trials they were more if he's convicted.

On what ground could he ever sent to Nuremberg ? He had no real war crimes on his record, and certainly not anything anywhere near the same class of misdeeds that were charged to the people tried in Nuremberg. He enjoyed widespread respect in the Anglo-American public, and the Soviets had no special reason to hate him, so no trumped-up charges either.

I'm with Hawke on this one. His legacy is untarnished because he wasn't around to tarnish it himself. If he lives, we're going to see another Manstein.

How could he ever manage to tarnish it if he lives ? He had not done so up to Valkyrie, and if he lives, he would not be in a position to do anything to help the Nazi cause till the end of the war.

IMO, I don`t think it matters. Rommel needs to defect really early to become a hero. He`s on the wrong side. THE wrong side.

The notion of the "worthy opponent", the good man trapped by loyalty to fight for a rotten cause, fits him like a glove. Since he got involved in the plot to overthrow the tyrant, he may be regarded as a hero.
 
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Hawke

Banned
Which slave labor ? He went out of his way to ensure French workers to the Atlantic Wall got paid.
It doesn't that change the fact that they were forced against their will to work for German war effort. Also slave labour doesn't mean always unpaid labour.
Also it's nice of Rommel to pay French workers at Atlantic Wall. I am sure Russian POW's working there were excited that somebody is receiving payment for forced labour unlike them.

Also he issued following order regarding Italian soldiers

"Any sentimental second thoughts on the part of German soldiers towards members of Badoglio guerillas wearing the uniform of our former comrades-in-arms are entirely unsuitable. Any one of them fighting against German soldiers has given up any claim on our mercy and should be treated with the harshness such rabble deserve when they turn their weapons against their friends.
This opinion must immediately become the general understanding of all the German forces.
A corresponding warning should be broadcast to the Italians on all Italian radio stations.

signed, Rommel"

Such orders resulted in mass murder of Italian soldiers elsewhere and were persecuted as war crimes.


Also
Rommel was not involved in Italy's partisan war, though the orders he issued prescribing death for Italian soldiers taken in arms and Italian civilians sheltering escaped British prisoners do not suggest he would have behaved significantly differently from his Wehrmacht counterparts.
Patton and Rommel: Men of War in the Twentieth Century, by Dennis Showalter, pg. 334



Furthermore:
http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-567536/Was-Rommel-a-war-criminal.html
It's true Rommel's name's not linked to any of the German army's major atrocities. Rommel did most of his fighting in the North African desert, and people to commit atrocities against were in short supply there.

In France in 1940, there were more chances for that sort of thing. There's a case in The Tank." Studies in the Development and Use of a Weapon, by Douglas Orgill (1970). Rommel's words are from The Rommel Papers, edited by Captain Basil Liddell Hart.

This was on May 17, near Arras. Rommel was a major-general then, in command of the 7th Panzer Division in the XV Panzer Corps. His troops had broken the French front on the Meuse, and they were pushing westward towards the Channel coast.

Rommel's staff vehicles were following the main road, past tangles of French transport and surrendering French troops. Rommel saw a French lieutenant-colonel stuck in a trapped car, watching the German tanks rumble past.

"I asked him for his rank and appointment," Rommel wrote. "His eyes glowed hate and impotent fury and he gave the impression of being a thoroughly fanatical type. There being every likelihood, with so much traffic on the road, that our column would get split up from time to time, I decided on second thoughts to take him with us ..."

What was the French officer thinking just then? Nobody ever found out. "He was fetched back to Colonel Rothenburg, who signed to him to get in his tank," Rommel wrote. "But he curtly refused to come with us, so after summoning him three times to get in, there was nothing for it but to shoot him
 
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Sentenced for using slave labour and murder of French POW in 1940 for several years in prison.
Released like many other Nazis in 50s, he writes books in which he whitewashes Nazi Germany,demonizes Poland and Soviets, blames it all on Hitler and tries to present Wehrmacht as innocent and trying to save Jews(he can't bear to write that about Poles).
By 1980s and 90s he is rebunked by historians as one of the "clean Wehrmacht" myth and his writings aren't treated seriously by mainstream historians.

Ah, I see what you did there.;)
 
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