Erwin Rommel

Biography

Erwin Rommel was born on 15 November 1891 in Heidenheim in Württemberg, the son of a former artillery lieutenant. He joined a Württemberg infantry regiment as an officer cadet in 1910, attended the cadet school in Danzig and was commissioned in 1912. In the First World War he fought in France, Romania and Italy, and his capture of Italian positions on Mount Matajur and at Longarone during the Caporetto offensive of 1917 won him the Pour le Mérite.

Between the wars he commanded an infantry company in Stuttgart and then taught at the infantry school in Dresden and the war academy in Potsdam. His 1937 book Infantry Attacks, an account and analysis of his First World War fighting, became a bestseller, and Hitler made him liaison to the Hitler Youth for military training. In 1940 he led the 7th Panzer Division in the invasion of France.

From 1941 he commanded German and Italian forces in North Africa, where his tank operations earned him the nickname the Desert Fox and the rank of field marshal, until defeat at El Alamein and the Allied landings forced the Axis out. In 1944 he commanded Army Group B against the Allied invasion of Normandy. Implicated in the 20 July plot against Hitler, he was offered the choice of a trial or suicide, took poison on 14 October 1944, and was given a state funeral at which his death was blamed on wounds. His reputation as an apolitical and chivalrous commander has since been questioned by historians.