He also disregarded an order directing German generals to execute Allied commandos caught behind enemy lines. In the end, Rommel fled all the way to Tunisia, winning a tank battle there against the Americans—and losing one against the British—before returning to Europe in March Two months later, the Allies kicked the Germans out of North Africa altogether, setting the stage for their invasion of Italy.
Despite Nazi propaganda to the contrary, he found the area highly vulnerable. Under his supervision, the Nazis built fortifications, flooded coastal lowlands to make them impassable and placed massive amounts of barbed wire, mines and steel girders on beaches and offshore waters.
Rommel also wanted tanks at the ready to prevent the Allies from establishing a bridgehead, but his superiors overruled him, preferring to keep most of them inland.
Rommel was friends with some of the conspirators and certainly conversed with them about a post-Hitler future. Nonetheless, the full extent of his involvement in the plot remains unknown. According to his widow, he opposed assassination but wanted Hitler to be arrested and brought to trial.
In early , Rommel was entrusted with the French Channel coast's defense against a possible Allied invasion. Around this same time, Rommel began to express doubt about both Germany's reasons for participating in the war and Hitler's capability of peace-making, and the field marshal was told by a group of friends that he should lead the nation once Hitler was overthrown.
Rommel dismissed the suggestion, unaware at the time that the men had been planning to assassinate the German leader. On D-Day—June 6, —, Allied troops landed in Normandy, and invading forces eventually reached 1 million. After the Allied invasion and the resulting push across France, Rommel knew that Germany would lose the war and discussed surrendering with other officers.
After the July Plot—an assassination attempt against Hitler that occurred on July 20, —Rommel's contact with the conspirators was revealed, implicating him in the plot to overthrow Hitler. Rommel was then offered the option of taking his own life to avoid a public trial and protect his family. On October 14, , German officers took Rommel from his home to a remote location.
There he took his own life by biting into a cyanide capsule. He was 52 years old. Featured Content. Tags Find topics of interest and explore encyclopedia content related to those topics. Browse A-Z Find articles, photos, maps, films, and more listed alphabetically. For Teachers Recommended resources and topics if you have limited time to teach about the Holocaust. Wise — International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. About This Site. Glossary : Full Glossary. Key Facts.
More information about this image. Cite Share Print Tags German military. Rommel, the Nazis, and the Holocaust One of the most widely debated questions about Erwin Rommel is the extent to which he supported Nazism, and by extension, the Holocaust. Glossary Terms. How did the role of the German military change during ?
Rommel is often remembered not only for his remarkable military prowess, but also for his reputation for chivalry towards his adversaries - being one of the German commanders who disobeyed the commando order.
He is also noted for possibly having taken part in a plot to assassinate Hitler, for which he was forced to commit suicide before the war's end. He was baptised on November 17, He was the second son of a Protestant headmaster of the secondary school at Aalen, Prof. Erwin Rommel the elder and Helene Luz, a daughter of a prominent local dignitary.
The couple also had three more children, two sons, Karl and Gerhard, and a daughter, Helene. Later, recalling his childhood, Rommel wrote that "my early years passed very happily". At the age of fourteen, Rommel and a friend built a full-scale glider that was able to fly, although not very far.
He graduated in November and was commissioned as a Lieutenant January Rommel and Lucie married in , and in , they had a son, Manfred, who would later become the mayor of Stuttgart.
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