Erwin Rommel

He was the enemy general his opponents could not help admiring. Erwin Rommel, the "Desert Fox", turned the sands of North Africa into a duel of manoeuvre that made his name a byword for daring even among the men he was fighting.

Born in 1891, Rommel was not a Prussian aristocrat but a schoolmaster's son¹ who made his name by sheer nerve. In the First World War he won Germany's highest honour for a lightning infantry action² in the Italian mountains. In 1940 he led the 7th Panzer Division through France¹ so fast that even his own headquarters lost track of it, and it earned the nickname the "Ghost Division".

His legend was made in the desert. Sent to Africa in 1941 to prop up Germany's Italian allies¹, he attacked instead of holding, again and again throwing weaker forces at larger ones and winning. His triumph at Gazala and the capture of the fortress of Tobruk in 1942 carried him to the rank of field marshal² and to the edge of Egypt.

Don't fight a battle if you don't gain anything by winning, runs a saying attributed to Rommel.

There the tide turned. At the Second Battle of El Alamein in late 1942, Bernard Montgomery's Eighth Army, far stronger in tanks, guns and supply, ground down his line³ and forced a long retreat. Africa was lost, and by 1944 Rommel was in France, trying to fortify the coast against the Allied landings in Normandy.

His end was grim. Drawn into the orbit of the July 1944 plot against Hitler, he was given a choice: a show trial that would doom his family³, or poison and a hero's funeral. He took the poison. Explore the campaigns that made and unmade him among the greatest battles of the Second World War, or set him beside the other great captains in the greatest military commanders in history.

Compare: Patton vs Rommel

How Rommel fought

Rommel's reputation rests on a handful of habits that made a smaller, poorer-supplied army punch far above its weight.

• Lead from the front. He commanded from the forward edge of the battle, often in his own vehicle, seeing problems and seizing chances faster than his opponents could react.
• Speed and shock. He concentrated his tanks into fast, deep thrusts that threw larger enemies off balance before they could organise a response.
• Improvise relentlessly. Short of everything, he stretched thin resources with tricks, dummy tanks, dust clouds and captured fuel and vehicles pressed into service.
• Guns forward. He used the powerful 88mm gun aggressively against armour, drawing British tanks onto hidden anti-tank lines.
• Logistics was the ceiling. His desert campaigns were ultimately capped by fuel and supply across the Mediterranean⁴, the one enemy his boldness could not outflank.
• Respect across the line. The desert war gained a reputation as a war without hate, and Rommel was admired by many of the men who fought against him.

From the Alps to the desert

1. 1891Born in Heidenheim, in southern Germany, into a middle-class family rather than the old military aristocracy.
2. 1917Wins Germany's highest honour, the Pour le Merite, for a daring mountain assault in Italy during the First World War.
3. 1937Publishes Infantry Attacks, a study of his First World War actions that spreads his ideas on speed and initiative.
4. 1940Leads the 7th Panzer Division in the rapid conquest of France, so fast that it becomes known as the Ghost Division.
5. 1941 to 1942Takes command in North Africa, forges the Afrika Korps into a feared force and reaches his high point at Tobruk and Gazala.
6. 1942Is decisively beaten by Montgomery at the Second Battle of El Alamein, the turning point of the desert war.
7. 1944Commands the defences against the D-Day landings; linked to the July plot against Hitler, he is forced to take his own life in October.

The desert war

North Africa made Rommel's name. With the Afrika Korps he swung the fighting back and forth across Libya and Egypt, seizing the fortress of Tobruk and outfighting larger British forces at Gazala. But the desert was a logistics trap: every litre of fuel had to cross a Mediterranean patrolled by the Allies, and in 1942 Montgomery's rebuilt Eighth Army broke him at El Alamein.

For the campaigns that decided the war around it, see our guide to the greatest battles of the Second World War.

The plot and the forced death

By 1944 Rommel had lost faith in the war and in Hitler. After the failed bomb plot of 20 July 1944, investigators tied his name to the conspirators⁵. Too famous to put on public trial, he was given a choice: stand accused, or take poison and be buried a hero. On 14 October 1944 he took cyanide², and the regime staged a state funeral for the fallen field marshal.

Where does a commander like Rommel sit among history's great captains? Compare him in our guide to the greatest military commanders in history, or find your own match in the Which Commander Are You quiz.