The real Rommel: Enduring myth of the decent Nazi is debunked in Stuttgart exhibition
His reputation has endured as a warrior-gentleman.
Known as the Desert Fox, Erwin Rommel was said to be feared but respected by the Allied forces who opposed him in the Second World War.
However, an exhibition has opened that questions his longstanding reputation.
'The Rommel Myth' in Stuttgart aims to strip away the legends that surround the general who faced off against Britain's Desert Rats in North Africa and who committed suicide after being implicated in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler.
Germans, who have learned to scorn the military men who served Hitler, have traditionally been taught that Rommel was the one good apple in a barrel of bad ones.
But this exhibition forces them to think again.
Gestapo documents on show reveal that even as he was being led away he said to the secret policeman: 'I loved the Fuhrer and I love him still. I am innocent of any involvement in the assassination attempt.
'I served my Fatherland to the best of my ability and would do so again.'
When he realised the choice that Hitler had laid upon the table for him - suicide or a show trial - he saw his wife for the last time and told her: 'Within 15 minutes I will be dead.'
He was driven to a small village where he took poison.
The image of Rommel is also shaken by letters he wrote and memorandum from Nazi bigwigs which tend to paint him more as Hitler's poodle than the Desert Fox of legend...
Read entire article at Daily Mail (UK)
Known as the Desert Fox, Erwin Rommel was said to be feared but respected by the Allied forces who opposed him in the Second World War.
However, an exhibition has opened that questions his longstanding reputation.
'The Rommel Myth' in Stuttgart aims to strip away the legends that surround the general who faced off against Britain's Desert Rats in North Africa and who committed suicide after being implicated in a plot to kill Adolf Hitler.
Germans, who have learned to scorn the military men who served Hitler, have traditionally been taught that Rommel was the one good apple in a barrel of bad ones.
But this exhibition forces them to think again.
Gestapo documents on show reveal that even as he was being led away he said to the secret policeman: 'I loved the Fuhrer and I love him still. I am innocent of any involvement in the assassination attempt.
'I served my Fatherland to the best of my ability and would do so again.'
When he realised the choice that Hitler had laid upon the table for him - suicide or a show trial - he saw his wife for the last time and told her: 'Within 15 minutes I will be dead.'
He was driven to a small village where he took poison.
The image of Rommel is also shaken by letters he wrote and memorandum from Nazi bigwigs which tend to paint him more as Hitler's poodle than the Desert Fox of legend...