Quotes About Rommel

My father became the technical advisor for 'The Desert Fox,' with James Mason as Rommel. They wanted an Aussie who had been in North Africa with the English, and found my father on the Pasadena police force.

the Rommel diary records an edict that was typical of him: "While the overflowing POW cage on the airfield is being set up, South African officers demand to be segregated from the blacks. This request is turned down by the C in C. He points out that the blacks are South African soldiers too—they wear the same uniform and they have fought side by side with the whites. They are to be housed in the same POW cage.

IN 1944 ROMMEL was already a living legend. He was known as a great commander in the field, distinguished by that rare quality, a feeling for the battle. Bold, dashing and handsome, he was relentless in combat, magnanimous in victory and gracious to his vanquished enemies. He seemed invincible. Where he was, there was victory: he attacked like a tornado, and even when he withdrew, his enemies followed very gingerly indeed.

Rommel could smell the sea. At Torbruk the heat and the dust and flies were as bad as they had been in the desert, but it was all made bearable by that occasional whiff of salty dampness in the faint breeze.

Nuestro espía de El Cairo es el más grande de todos los héroes.   ERWIN ROMMEL, septiembre de 1942

In the Freudian age, parents say to their children, 'Don't be defensive,' meaning, 'You have no argument,' but I was born in the age of Rommel, when defense was considered an honorable thing.

Instead of being wakened to the sound of birdsong, like princesses in books, I was wakened to the sound of Rommel shrieking as Fat Louie beat him senseless for getting into his bowl of Fancy Feast.

All of Rommel's supplies and reinforcements come across those very straits from Italy, and land at Tunis or Bizerta. From there, Rommel can strike out east towards Egypt or west

Rommel soon enjoyed almost mystical status among his Africa Korps troops, bringing to mind Virgil's famous comment on improbable achievement: "Possunt, quia posse videntur" ("They can, because they think they can," Aeneid 5.231).

Rommel realized this at once and brought up an 88mm battery. He personally directed the 88s shot by shot with the result that over 30 British tanks were knocked out and the enemy withdrew.

Once again, Rommel took my arm. "Luck, one day you will think of my words. The threat to Europe and to our civilized world will come from the east. If the peoples of Europe fail to join forces to meet that threat, western Europe will have lost. At the moment, I see only one 'warrior' prepared to champion a united Europe: Churchill!

Rommel was convinced that the mind of the British commander was his enemy's greatest weakness.

At OKW the message was delivered to Colonel General Alfred Jodl, Chief of Operations. The message remained on Jodl's desk. He did not order an alert. He assumed Rundstedt had done so; but Rundstedt thought Rommel's headquarters had issued the order.

Read Churchill, he tells you how crucial was the Greek role in your decisive desert victory over Rommel.

At home, Rommel played the violin in an amateurish fashion but was otherwise easy to live with.

General Erwin Rommel, commander of the 7th Panzer Division, was guilty of only slight hyperbole later when he said of his sweep through France: "Nowhere was any resistance attempted. . . . Hundreds upon hundreds of French troops, with their officers, surrendered at our arrival

That summer, Egyptian army officers eagerly anticipated their liberation by Rommel's Afrika Korps. They were thrilled by the arrival in Cairo of two German spies, Hans Eppler and another man known only as "Sandy." Captain Sadat was crestfallen, however, to witness the frivolous behaviour of the two agents, whom he found living on the Nile houseboat of the famous belly dancer Hikmet Fahmy.

American artillery was now taking its toll on Rommel's Panzers.

Samuel had the same gift of never being out of place, always fitting in, while at the same time he conveyed the sense that here was someone special, someone important. People liked him instinctively, and trusted him. It served him well as a doctor, but I was inclined to think it served him a little too well as a man. He was too used to getting his way. When charm didn't cut it, he used a tactical brain that would have done credit to Rommel.