From several sources I heard that Rommel was seen as one of the “good” nazis generals worthy of respect even by those who intensely hated the nazis, so I wonder when did this perception first came to be.
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It is during war when Reich Propaganda Ministry (whith a huge aid from Rommel himself who had a great eye for self promotion) plus British goverment (Churchill) and military establishment (Whitehall - War Office) efforts to give an explanation for their constant defeats in North Africa during 1941-1942 to public and posterity despite pouring more and more resources there and meanwhile hiding their own pre war responsibility and negligence of slashing defence budget and not creating a proper operational doctrine and design efficient weaponary that created Rommel the War Genius And Afrikakorps Superman Legend.
What made that legend AFTER the war dominant official theme in popular history is Cold War politics when Western Bloc and Germans were desperate efforts to whitewash military record of Wehrmacht and German Armed Forces in general during World War II , creating an image of honest professional foe “just like us” suborned by Hitler and Nazis and went down romantically like Siegfried in an uneven and unsportsmanlike match against barbarian hordes of Russians (Soviet Union became new adversary remember) Rommel symbolised that Black Knight in Armor image of honest and ultra professional German Army and German Armed Forces and used in post war memoirs , studies , books , movies etc to give that image. Chief culprits of that post war PR work that became popular history were like Hans Spiedel and Fritz Bayerlein (Rommels ex Chief of Staffs) , and Rommels post war biograpger in English , Desmond Young (whose Rommel biography Rommel became a movie in 1952 starring James Mason as Rommel !) and Lidell Hart who was quite offended that his indirect approach strrategic theories were not always utilised by allies during the war , giving all credit to Germans remarking “Germans are my best students”
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I have some real questions about this:
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Given the nature of totalitarian regimes seeks to basically dirty everyone’s hands pre-emptively, and make everyone an accessory so no one can accuse the leadership without implicating themselves, how professional could a soldier, or anyone really be in the to most people moral cesspool of the Third Reich?
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As I understand it, the pre-war economies of all nations could only handle two of the three branches, and the British prioritized the air RAF and the Royal Navy, and nothing could really be spared for the army, at least not at the levels of taxes the British people were willing to pay. The Germans and Japanese put themselves into economic diabetic tailspins to prepare for war, and the British (or British elites) understood you don’t win a war unless you survive it. This isn’t just about keeping the empire but also retaining collective overlordship of British society.
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Because they would have to be working in an Entente with France, they were limited in how they could structure their doctrines because in any case, they would have to coordinate with the French strategically and operationally.
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