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).People like Patton had great respect for him.
Sentenced for using slave labour and murder of French POW in 1940 for several years in prison.
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
The Afrika Korps was never committed of war crimes, and Rommel went out of his way (sometimes disobeying direct orders) to be fair.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).
A position in the UN maybe?
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.
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.
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.
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.Which slave labor ? He went out of his way to ensure French workers to the Atlantic Wall got paid.
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.
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
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.