Erwin Rommel and his staff, Western Desert, 1942

Love him or hate him, Edwin Rommel screams class in every photo. Rommel was a brave enemy. He did not order his men to kill the soldiers. He was not ready to oppress the Jewish population.

In fact, he is said to have broken an order from Hitler that ordered him to execute prisoners and then announced to those around him that the order was unclear.

Rommel was a very intrusive general. German military officers were trained to think for themselves. Today it is known as Mission Type Tactics. The commander was to give an order stating the resources (soldiers, tanks, etc.) available for use and the purpose.

It was up to the lower-ranking officers to use their initiative as to how to achieve the objective. Edwin Rommel gave orders with specific instructions and expected him to follow them to the letter.

He would also drive around the front and command the troops thereby cutting off their actual officers (rather than having their own officers decide and be nearly killed by returning fire to issue individual targets to anti-tank guns). to account).

Rommel was loved by those enlisted under his command and greatly detested by his officers as they considered him to be interfering and did not trust him to do his actual work.

As a general though he served as a captain. Rommel is often praised for his tactical abilities. Though strategy (small scale stuff, what soldiers do in combat) shouldn't have been a concern in general.

During World War II, Japanese weekly newsreels often celebrated German Generalfeldmarshal Erwin Rommel's military victory in Africa, thus establishing Rommel as the Japanese word for victory or success. Even today, Japanese football mascots are called by this word.

In his memoirs, the Australian General Morshed made Rommel highly predictable about how he would initially attack. This is one of the reasons why he failed to take Tobruk mostly from the Australian garrison.

Morshed was able to figure out where Rommel would attack and have the necessary defenses to resist. Morshed said that if Rommel had shown a little more unpredictability, "Fortress Tobruk" would have fallen because the defenders did not have enough antitank guns to defend everywhere.