cody swisher (Login tracklink) from IP address 71.0.15.2
How did Rommel die? I thought he was forced to commit suicide after the assination attempt on Hitler. Am I correct as I've also heard that he succomed to wounds recived in an attack by allied aircraft.
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Had to commit suicide to protect his family from persuction. After trail alot of officers were excuted but Rommel was found not guilty but had to take his life to protect his family. He didnt sucome to his wounds.
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Rommel was never put on trial. He was givin two options...face trial on charges of treason or commit suicide. He felt that Hitler would have him murdered before he would ever go on trial...Hitler knew Rommel would never be convicted due to his immense public popularity. So Rommel decided to commit suicide to advert the murder of himself and his family, he was promised his beloved wife Lucy and his son Manfred would not be harmed if he chose suicide. He would also be given a state funeral if he chose suicide...and a grand one it turned out to be indeed. Hitler told the public that Rommel had died from injuries he sustained in battle.
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Max is right, he took poison. From what I've read, the Gestapo took him for a "ride" in their car, and then offered him the poison. His car had been attacked by aircraft earlier, and the died of his wounds story was put out by the Nazis as a cover up.
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See I saw on one of the armor anwsers forum that someone had posted some stuff about a what if book they had read and in the book it had one of the secnerios being Rommel surviveing the Aircraft attack. I read this and it didn't sound like anything I had ever heard or read on the subject. So I decided to ask the question.
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is the book I was refering to. It's a great light read on a "what if" scenerio for the last months of the war and the Battle of the Buldge. Totally a "what if" book...Hitler dies in the July bomb attack...Himmler is put in charge...Germany makes an uneasy truce with Russia...it can't get any more hypothetical than that!
Brian
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Max is right in the fact that he took poison but he also said he was found not guilty...
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March 17 2005, 9:42 PM
He was never tried...sorry to be so picky and the question is over with anyway...I just wanted to make clear what I was pointing out in Max's post. No offense to Max I was just clarifying...
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I was watching something on Rommel on night on the history channel, i guess either they were wroung ( doubtful ) or me, i probably miss heard them ( 100% chance :P )
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yes, the wound thing was a cover-up, but another cover-up would be...
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March 19 2005, 1:57 AM
the rumor that he participated in the assasination of hitler. he wasn't. he was simply involved. in britain and america, people tend to portray rommel as some honorable, anti-nazi german general. along with them saying that he was a military genius, this is all merely an attempt to create a false impression of this man. why portray him as a likeable, and non-nazi military genius? simply because the british did a terrible job in north africa, that they had to tell the people a story in which their foe is a worthy adversary of some kind, so that the people can be a bit more forgiving. so rommel wasn't that great of a general, nor was he heavily involved in the assasination of hitler. hitler just happened to be suspicious of him, that's all.
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Rommel was a great general and he detested the SS. His tanks acheived a kill ratio of 14 british tanks destroyed for one of his and he was also responsible for turning the flak 88 into the most deadly anti-tank gun in WWII.
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yes, but the only reason he was considered great was because his foes were far worse, and he was hence given the oppotunities to have better performance. yes, many people in the Wehrmacht detested the SS, but not as many actually hated Hitler. the whole Rommel's participation in the assasination was not true, he just somehow got involved and hitler at that time was suspicious of many people. why the western allies glorify him and turn him into something far beyond what he was was merely out of PCness, to prove that "not every German was a Nazi".
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Once the Allied landing in Normandy, June of 1944, had succeeded, Erwin Rommel realized that the war was hopelessly lost and that to condone Hitler's senseless continuation of it would be irresponsible. Severely injured in a strafing air attack on July 17th of 1944 in Normandy near Livarot by two Canadian Spitfires of 412 Sqn, Rommel could not personally participate in the attempt to overthrow Hitler three days later (July 20, 1944), but he was gravely implicated. (Rommel's role in the overthrow of Hitler is still not clear and highly disputed by the historians.) Rommel's opposition to Adolf Hitler was kept secret, because of his enormous popularity. On August 8th 1944, Erwin Rommel was transported from the French Hospital to convolasce at his house at Herrlingen, where he was placed under house arrest. Erwin Rommel was given the choice of suicide, to be reported as death from a brain stroke on his way to a conference, as an alternative to being executed as a traitor, which would have placed his family and close associates in grave danger. On October 14th, 1944, Rommel was taken by the Gestapo to an open space near a wood a few hundred yards from his house at Herrlingen (Ulm), where he died in the car by his own hand taking the cyanide. On October 18th, Erwin Rommel was buried with full military honors and a day of national mourning ordered by Adolf Hitler himself. Overall, Erwin Rommel was an outstanding and an unconventional military leader with unique methods of command. Erwin Rommel is one of the few commanders, who was not involved in any war crimes. Rommel was highly respected by his enemies and was considered to be the last of the knights. During the North African Campaign, Rommel often cut the water rations of his troop, so that the prisoners of war could survive. His personal papers and notes, all put together by Lucie-Maria Rommel and Fritz Bayerlein, titled "Rommel Papers" ("Krieg ohne Hass")"War without hate", were published for the first time in 1950 and described all of Rommel's combat and personal experiences. In post-war years, Erwin Rommel's son Manfred became Mayor of the city of Stuttgart.
“I believe it is my duty to come to the rescue of Germany."
- Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, February 1944.
Because virtually none of the military conspirators are in command of large armies, they desperately seek to win over a battlefront general who has an army at his disposal to lend the required pivotal support for the coup. But so far the top brass of the Wehrmacht - Brauchitsch, Halder, von Runstedt, Manstein, Guderian, Kluge - have either refused to lend their support or revealed a fence-sitting attitude. Rommel however has long harbored an increasingly rebellious attitude towards Hitler. If the most popular and admired battlefield commander of the war can be won over, the coup might definitely succeed. With this in mind, Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg (who has taken over from Colonel Henning von Tresckow as leader of the conspiracy in late 1943) gets General Karl-Heinrich von Stuelpnagel (the military governor for Paris and the leader of the conspirators based in France) to invite Rommel to Paris for secret talks aimed at recruiting the desert fox into the plot.
Rommel agrees with Stuelpnagel that Hitler has long since lost touch with reality and must be forced to concede or else be removed from power. But he declares himself morally opposed to assassination. He wants Hitler arrested and tried by a German court for his crimes. Rommel tells Stuelpnagel he will give Hitler one last chance by sending the fuehrer a "blitz" telegram outlining the war in the starkest possible terms and urging Hitler to take immediate action on the diplomatic front or cut Germany's losses and authorize the Werhmacht to evacuate France and fall back to Germany's borders. Rommel however is certain his warning will be ignored, in which case he declares himself prepared to support a coup. He also agrees that Guenther von Kluge may be more of a liability than an asset to the conspirators. He then gives Stuelpnagel his word of honor that even if Kluge refuses to stand up and be counted, he will act "openly and unconditionally" with the conspirators. (Lamb, 406).
July 16, 1944 - Rommel writes his blitz message to Hitler and asks Kluge to have it delivered immediately.
July 17 - RAF fighters straff Rommel's motorcade along a French country road killing his driver. Rommel's car spins out of control and the field marshal is hurtled into a ditch with severe head injuries. Rommel can be of no help to the conspirators when Stauffenberg plants his bomb three days later at Hitler's headquarters.
Kluge meanwhile fails to forward Rommel's blitz telegram only to send it to Hitler two weeks later.
The German Conspiracy to destroy Hitler,a great and most complete site by Nicholas Natteau,
READ this site first before you give any comment ! http://www.joric.com/Conspiracy/Conspiracy.htm
