Is it because there aren’t many documentary who show his friendship with hitler or because not everyone know that his participation in the 20th july plot was either limited or dubious since it seem to be babsed around anecdotal evidence? I do think there need to be a special debunking the rommel myth (and it’s really weird how he overshadow all anti nazi within the Wehrmacht since when people think about anti nazism in the wehrmacht, they’ll automaticly think about rommel even though there are much more legit case of anti nazism than him)
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It is Cold War after effect of populist history writing which is still very influential in West especially in English speaking countries that made Rommel a war deity due to trying to present WWII era German Army generals especially well known ones to West especially most well and famed one Rommel as either regular professional army officers doing their job or genius romantic folk heroes serving bad side as dark knight in honorable armor (the latter image fit Rommel’s presentation like a glove) when the new enemy of West was Soviet Union , most experienced people fighting Red Army was Wehrmacht and it was essential for US and UK to give a positive outlook to newly formed Federal Germany (West Germany) and its army a positive presentation. Rommel the honorable sportsman hero was part of that image making.
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Rommel benefitted from a few unique circumstances that helped burnish his image to western audiences even before his death, including:
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His role in the breakout attack in 1940, where he famously commanded the “Ghost Division” (it deserved that sobriquet not only for how far and how fast his troops advanced which is where the British noted it, but also for his deliberate habit of going “out of communications” with higher headquarters so he could pretend not to have heard orders he didn’t want to obey, which is why he would almost certainly have been court-martialled except for his success and friendship with Hitler).
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His command of the Afrika Korps was a series of stunning propaganda coups for the Nazis, yet the nature of the fighting did not create situations where his troops could be seen indulging in the kind of questionable conduct seen on almost every other front (the “original” clean Wehrmacht general).
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Rommel’s unquestioned successes – often by the thinnest of lucky margins – made him seem superhuman to his British opponents who were generally unlucky when it counted and until Alexander and Montgomery arrived, composed of weaker leaders operating under badly flawed tactical doctrines.
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The conduct of the German defenders on the Atlantic Wall under Rommel’s command slipped very quickly back to normal (i.e., prone to conduct that was questionable all the way to criminal), but his death shortly afterwards made it easy for postwar apologists to claim he didn’t know about this.
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His effective execution by Hitler for his part in the conspiracy made it even easier to use him as a symbolic shining knight after the war, and even officers who despised him affected support for him in their various postwar memoirs, interviews, and articles.
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I think Rommel’s reputation also benefits from the fact that he spent a good chunk of the war in North Africa where he was detached from the mass murders and deportations going on in Europe.
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