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Originally Posted by Mike Main From Rommel's point of view, Africa was fine. Lots of glory for a lifetime soldier.
From Germany's point of view, perhaps Russia would have been better. Hitler needed and wanted to take the USSR out as soon as possible. They were the biggest threat once the eastern front opened up. I would have put my best people on it.
Rommel, like Patton, was good at covering turf. Lord knows there was plenty of that in the east.
The only way for anybody to have ever beaten the USSR was to keep the heat on and keep them on their heels. That was one of Rommel's strengths. |
Putting Rommel on the Eastern Front would have made very little difference without other big changes in Germany's grand strategy. For example, putting German industry on a war footing in 1939, not diverting Army Group Centre to capture Kiev in 1941, not diverting Panzergruppe 4 in July 1942 when it had a great chance of capturing Stalingrad virtually unopposed. Rommel on the Eastern Front might have done better than von Kleist but not much better, seeing as Army Group South was under-strength to begin with. And he would not have done any better than Messers. Guderian, Hoth or Hoeppner, the other 3 Panzergruppe Generals. Rommel was fine where he was and it got him noticed and got him promoted to Field Marshall faster than any other German general.
I'm sure if Rommel were alive to debate this matter he'd much prefer to remain in Africa too. There was a much higher chance of failure or even death in the field in Russia, especially after 1942. As Redcoat stated too, we'd be asking Rommel who? had he been assigned to the Eastern Front. I'm assuming the purpose of this thread is whether Rommel assigned to Russia would have made any noticeable difference to Germany's fortunes. The answer in my learned opinion is no.