November 15- Birth of Erwin Rommel

Does it matter what they're thinking? 10 different soldiers in a platoon doing one thing, may be thinking ten different things while they're doing it, but they're all still doing that same thing.

As a judge would say, motives may explain why someone does something, but it doesn't excuse it.

It does not matter WHAT he was fighting for. He was still FIGHTING for the conquests of the NAZI regime. Therefore, he was technically FIGHTING for the Nazi regime.

Exactly, why should he be excused for fighting for an evil regime because he was against it? If he was so against it, why did he fight for it in the first place?

How about this for example,

http://www.allempires.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=4547& ;PN=3

Rommel was not ever going to fight peacefully. He wanted the best for Germany and until Hitler took control of the military, the best was Hitler as dictator and the Nazi party. This does not mean that Rommel fought for them though. Their is a difference between the SS and the  standard German army. The SS was the Nazi army, the German army was not. To be an SS officer you had to be a Nazi, like Himmler. Rommel was not a Nazi he fought and commanded for the German Army, which was contolled by their Fuhrer but was fighting for Germany. The SS was fighting for the Nazi party. Rommel may have fought under the Fuhrer but he had nothing and no part in the War Crimes that took place in Europe. Directly or indirectly.

The bomb plot against Hitler at the bottom of the post was hardly peaceful.

 

You seem to be a Platonist. You talk of an abstract concept of Germany outside and beyond it's people, actions and government. Example you describe fighting for Germany and fighting for Hitler as two different things.

I disagree, I'm a materialist. Germany was it's government people and actions, at that period of time Germany was Nazism. Rommel was fighting for Nazism.

I'm not criticising you for holding a different view, actually I'm quite in admiration for the way you're intelligently defending it. On this forum too often when people disagree debates can collapse into flame wars and insults. This one's must nearly be a record for how long and civil it's been.

Are you a member of Simaqian Studio History Forum Paul? I think you would do well there. We need intelligent people like you. Here is the link:

www.simaqianstudio.com

Edited by Hannibal Barca

Left Wing Nazi? Nazism is an extrime right wing thing. Unless you mean like a soup nazi. I consider myself more of a moderate left leaning than a full on liberal in politics.

Originally posted by Hannibal Barca Rommel was not ever going to fight peacefully. He wanted the best for Germany and until Hitler took control of the military, the best was Hitler as dictator and the Nazi party. This does not mean that Rommel fought for them though.

Was there a different Hitler around, I have never heard of?
Or are we talking about the same Hitler, who ever since he went into politics, made no secret that he intended to get rid of the Jewish people in Germany or increase German territory "Lebensraum" to the east. Was it the same Hitler, who immediately after he took power in 1933 started a vicious, dictatorial regime that tortured and killed any opponents, persecuted the Jews with ever increasing brutality, began with criminal measures like the "euthanasy" of mentally and physically disabled people?
Was it the same Hitler, who started a massive re-armament programme with the distinct intentions to invade its European neighbours and to take revenge for what he perceived as the humiliation of Germany in the Versailles treaty.
There were hundreds of reasons to oppose Hitler from the very moment he took power, many decent Germans did resist or at least went into exile and tried their best from there.
But Rommel was not a decent German, he was one of those traditional Prussian idiots, marionettes who did what their master told them and who did not ask questions.
He is as guilty for the criminal activities of the Nazi-regime as those who actually committed them. Foir he knew about Hitler's plans and did nothing to prevent them. Even more, unlike most other Germans, he actually was in a position to do something against Hitler right from the outset.
Howmuch he was actively or passively involved into war-crimes is debatetable and besides the point anyway. The involvement of the Wehrmacht in the genocide on the Jewish and Slavic population is well documented, especially on the Eastern front, and the only thing that can be brought forward to Rommel's defense is that he was lucky enough to be somewhere else.There is nothing in Rommels career to indicate that he wouldn't have tolerated the murder of civilians behind the front-lines, as his officer colleagues did tolerate them, if he had been in Russia.
And please don't tell me, what the "glory of Germany" was in the 1930s. As a German , I should know.
The only glourious thing that happened in the days when the official Germany was a murderous, criminal regime, was the resistance against Hitler, by people who were not blinded by moronic obedience, but by people who were imprisoned, killed or exiled for their attempts to free Germany from the dictatorship. If Rommel had been amongst them, he would have indeed fought for the "Glory of Germany", but as he didn't, he was just Hitler's poodle.

Edited by Komnenos