Word: rommels
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Among military men Rommel is now variously appraised as: 1) a bold and brilliant desert commander who makes mistakes like any other; 2) the best armored-force general of World War II; 3) one of the great military commanders of modern times. The outcome of the battle for Egypt and the Middle East may well settle Rommel's place in history...
Self-Made General. In common with Hitler, Rommel is no Prussian aristocrat. His father was a schoolteacher in south Germany. Like most German boys who were born in 1891, World War I found him serving in the German Army. He started the war as a humble lieutenant, but his war record was remarkable...
Commanding a detachment of mountain troops in the first battle of Champagne (1915), he captured an important French position, forced a whole French brigade to retire. (Reward: Pour le Mérite, highest Prussian military decoration.) In 1917 Rommel distinguished himself against the Italians at the Isonzo. Recently the Germans, with characteristic tact, reminded their World War II allies by stating, in a radio sketch of his life, that Rommel "captured 9,000 Italian troops in less than half an hour...
...Plebeian Rommel had no place in the skeleton post-war Reichswehr, and his frustrated longing for war turned him very early to the Nazis. He met Hitler in Württemberg, became a Storm Troop leader, joined a murderous raid against the Socialists and Communists of Coburg, a raid which Hitler, in Mein Kampf, singled out as the turning point in his career. Thereafter Rommel headed Hitler's personal police, the SS, and traveled with the leader and his adjutant, Bruckner, sharing with Bruckner the honor of sleeping in front of Hitler's bedroom door. When Hitler shook...
...invasion of Poland found Rommel a colonel. The invasion of France found him a general, commanding the 7th Armored Division which broke through at Maubeuge and was of great help in the German race to the Channel. The invasion of Egypt finds him a field marshal...