What do you think of Erwin Rommel?!?

Originally Posted by warshark42

What do you think of Erwin Rommel?!?

A good 'seat of the pants' general, but a poor logistician.
Most over-hyped general of WW2

Originally Posted by redcoat

A good 'seat of the pants' general, but a poor logistician.
Most over-hyped general of WW2

Pretty good summary.

Because the UK and the USA fought him, we're impressed and everyone hypes him as the "Best Military Commander of the Third Reicht" which is absolutely untrue. I find it funny -- I post a topic on Heinz Guderian who is probably the REAL best ... I'm willing to bet lots of people are like, "Huh? Who the hell is that?" I'm guessing the same would happen for Eric Manstein who was so good its scary. But people just absolutlely love to discuss ol' Erwin Rommel for some reason. Why is that?

To be fair, Rommel was a very good, in my opinion.

By the way, this is a repeat topic. Run a search, there's pages and pages of discussion on Herr Rommel

Originally Posted by godofthunder9010

But people just absolutlely love to discuss ol' Erwin Rommel for some reason. Why is that?

Probably because Rommel wasn't a Nazi and he was killed as a conspirator. That has somewhat romanticized his image to us westerners. Rommel was more like the traditional type of honorable German officers, like Von Rundstedt for example.

I personally think that although he faced only British, French and American soldiers he was still one of the best.

I'm not catching any difference between Rommel and Guderian ... except Guderian was implicated in the conspiracy but not found guilty, so he wasn't executed. He was not a member of the Nazi party, which is true of most of the the German Army's leadership.

Rommel was "one of the best", but just not the best.

Originally Posted by Hegario

Probably because Rommel wasn't a Nazi and he was killed as a conspirator. That has somewhat romanticized his image to us westerners. Rommel was more like the traditional type of honorable German officers, like Von Rundstedt for example.

I personally think that although he faced only British, French and American soldiers he was still one of the best.

I think you're right about the romantic image he has here in the West. He's seen as one of the 'good' German generals, a non-Nazi, someone who was honorable and did the right thing by being involved in the July '44 bomb plot.

I think you're still evaluating him whilst seeing him in this romantic light however. He was a very intuitive and charismatic commander and he definitely understood mobile warfare, although in the beginning he, like most German commanders, thought the idea of dedicated Panzer and Panzergrenadier divisions were nonsense. He was one of the better German commanders but when you compare his contribution to say Heinz Guderian it pales in comparison..

I know I keep on harping on about Guderian but his legacy on modern warfare is immense and without him (and Hitler to be fair) there would have been no panzerwaffen, no blitzkrieg, no combined arms tactics, at least not in WW2. Oh, and he was the best operational level commander of WW2 as well.

Wait! Eureka, I have it! Erwin Rommel was a better lookin guy than Guderian and I'll wager that's the biggest thing!

I dunno, ole Heinz is a bit studly in some photos I've seen. :P

Yeah and Old Erwin was a baldylocks. :P