rommel famous as being the best german general of ww2(most peoples opinion),but is this cos he won a few battles against the british and because we grow up in  a western society so we romantizised him as a great general for beating us.

rommel was commander of africa corps and not even a german army.

wat about Manstein who came up with the plan for attacking france,captured/killed millions of russians.and never lost a battle exept for when hitler ordered him against mansteins wishes to attack at kursk.

wat about guderian who invented blitzkreig

im sure theres more good german generals .

I think Manstein and Guderian were the gratset german generals.This men were able to devise briliant plans and execute them flawlessly.There is also Gerd von Runstedt, regarded by many contemporaries as the best german general(this was before the war, though).

As fo Rommel, his greatest asset was his speed of thinking.His agressivenesss usually threw the enemy off balance, and Rommel was there to speculate any mistake.When the enemy made no mistake, Rommel's military value was greatly diminished.

Actualy Rommel commanded both an army (Panzerarmee Afrika) and army groups (Armeegruppe B in Italy and Armeegruppe B in France).

And yes Rommel is overrated, he clearly did not posses the training and skill necessary for handling large formations (above corps). His neglect of such matters as logistics doomed the Axis forces in Africa since he advance to the El Alamein line without enough fuel to be able to withdraw. 

If anything Rommel is UNDERratted!  The only flaw he had was trusting the German and Italian high command.  He was a brilliant field marshal in defense and offense.  Had it not been for the lack of supplies in Africa he would have wiped the Brits out!

His agressiveness was a major asset and his best characteristic. 

Most german generals were not nazi, and despised Hitler and his politics,but they were so into the Prussian military tradition that obeying the orders always came first for them, no matter wwhere these orders cam from.

Indeed, Rommel was quite able to face the allies on D-day, but:

1. He was on leave in Germany

2. Hitler had assumed personal control of all the armoured divisions in the west therefore Rommel was mostly commanding an army of infantry, who were either recruits either too old or crippled to be any good.

Q. Why was he short of supplies?

A. Because the royal Navy and RAF kept on intercepting his supply ships from Malta, (and completely unchallenged) after 1942.

In early 1942 Malta was on it's last legs, the siege of Malta so intense that more bombs had been dropped on the tiny island than the whole UK in the entire war. The island was virtually devoid of planes and down to two weeks food and then due to successful air attacks both the Alexandria and Malta British fleets were put out of action.

Hitler was about to launch operation Hercules, the invasion of Malta with 4 air divisions specially assembled as well as ships, German troops, and aircraft.

Rommel instead asked Hitler to cancel the invasion and send the equipment to him in Tripoli. Kesselring the German commander in Italy disagreed and warned Hitler if they don't take Malta Germany will lose the Mediteranean. But Rommel used his Hitler's favourite general status and won, so he got the troops and Malta survived.

Shortly after the British repaired the Alexandria fleet, sent large numbers of Spitfires to Malta, and broke the siege of Malta with a huge convoy of supply and warships.

Rommel sabotaged his own supplies and against the advice of a better general.

Rommel would have had the neccessary supplies had the Italian and German high command lived up to their numerous promises.  They promised Rommel more supplies and troops nearly everyday and he hardly ever got them. 

Lack of supplies was also do to the Italians incompitance on the battlefield.  The Italians were so out of date it wasn't even funny.  That and the Italians codes had been broken giving away all of their supply lines!

Rommel was a better general than Kesselring!  Kesselring was a defense strategist and had no right tellimg Rommel, a very powerful attacker, where and when to attack!

Rommel was a good commander, but his secrets were exposed when Patton read his book....

It was hard for rommel to command his forces when he can only move at night, casue Germany lost most of their air force during the Battle Of britain.

If ur opponent knows what ur doing, how are you suppose to win?

The reason Italian and German command didn't live up to their promises is because their ships were being sunk by subs, planes and ships operating from Malta. Hence the need to knock it out.

Italian incompetance on the battlefield has nothing to do with supplies, supplies come via sea.

Italian codes were broken, so were German and so were British naval signals, by the Italians not the Germans. So Axis knew equally what the British fleet was doing.

Kesselring didn't tell Rommel where and when to attack. He told Hitler to take Malta. He also told Goring to target the airfields in the battle of Britain, Goring didn't listen either. Kesselring was one of the first to realise the true significence and use of modern airpower. Hence he realised Rommel would lose if Malta wasn't taken, and it would be his downfall, he was right again in both instance.

Rommel blew it.

Rommel did the very best he could with the little he had.  He could not have done more with such little he had.  The problem with the supplies was that the high command was not even sending the supplies.  It is not that they all got blwo up(some did) but that the command was not even sending them.  Mainly the Italians.  And as for the codes being broken, if I am not mistaken the British codes were not boken until much later in the war.  But I may be wrong on that!

The Italian incomitance was a major problem on the battelfied with supplies.  The Italians were not good fighters and not well equiped.  Thus they were taking up resources that could have been used to other causes!

Hesselring may have sen the power of an air force but Rommel saw the importance of the tank! 

Now this is my opinion;  Rommel was one of the best German Field Marshals during the war, no doubt about it.  He just had some trouble with the German command and Hitler.  If you know how Rommel died you'll see what "troubles" Hitler gave him!

Well, the eproblem with supplies could be giving to Rommel, but he really had no controll over his own supplies.  During the end of the African campaign(in the later years when the Afrika Korps began to fail) the German began their attack on Russia which even Rommel thought was a good idea.  And for a time it was; everything was going good.  Then Stalingrad; the supplies just stopped coming to Afica, and Rommel understood why but he said they should not have been fighting on 3 fronts. 

Overall he was a good filed marshal.  You said one of his weak chacteristics was his assertiveness and lack of planning.  Well, many take that to be one of his good qualities which is why he even got as far as he did in Africa with his very limited resources.  He actually was planning; planinng that he was to get more supplies.  A plan often seems good on paper, but when put into action if could easily fall apart.  Thus is what happened with Rommel's popularity with Hitler!

Are you referring to Field Marshall William Slim, and his amazing 14th Army?

Clearly, Slim is one of the most underrated generals of ALL time!

Gerd von Rundstedt was not at all a good general, as mentioned above. He was the man who misinterpreted the place of Normandy Landings

Rommel interpreted that place right.While Rundstedt and Hitler was saying,Pas de Calais, he said Normandy

Plus, Rommel had gained a great victory with his group of soldiers in Caporetto and took many Italians in WW I,plus he had been successful at France in addition to his success at Africa.Everybody has their own skills. Rommel was a man of desert and his success were there.Also, he was professional on logistics and armored vehicles, like Guderian and Manstein,who were really successful,too.

The main reason Rommel ran out of supplies was not that the High command didn't send them or that they got sunk, the main problem was none other than Rommel himself who had a poor grasp of corps&army-level lgoistics and consistently chose to undertake operations for which he didn't have the supplies or support necessary. Rommel did not have a professional graps of logistics since he had not served on the German General Staff or recived the necessary education in that area. He simply lacecked the trainign required fro hig elvel command and only his inate skill anda lot of luck made him a successfull commander at the divisional and corps levels. As an Army commander he was only fair and his graps on army group operatiosn was frankly poor.  

The was the main reason for Panzer-armee Afrika gettign caught at El Alamein, rommel advance towards Egypt with insufficent fuel&other supllies hopign to either capture more supplies on the wayor to make the 8th Army collapse.

Once he was halted by the confused fighting durign the 1st battle of El Alamein he didn't have the fuel or vehicles necessary to withdraw and was forced to fight in place.   

That is true. Rommel always captured all the fuel the British had so urgently left behind during his initial attacks. So of course his entire strategy for the African campaign slowly built up on the hope to always use what the British had left for him. And this only worked up to a certain point which Rommel failed to recognize.

Rommel had a very good grasp on corps and army level logics; you win beat the enemy before they beat you.  Had Rommel been given more supplies in Africa and more command in France the Axis would have done a lot better.  So I suppose we can give part of the Allies victory to Hitler!

The supply problem was that the command did not send the need supplies.  The High Command told Rommel he would have the neccessary supplies, but they hardly ever sent supplies.  And when they did, the Brits took them out because the Italians did not defend their transports.

Rommel advanced on Egypt because it was an order from Hitler.  Rommel attacked and did what Hitler told him to do even when it went against his better thinking.  When Hitler told him to fight to the last man he did that to the best he could do even though he knew it was the wrong choice.  He did not have as much control as most think.  Had he done what he had planned things would have definatly gone a differnt direction!

Rommel was told by Hitler to defend Tripoli, he disobeyed Hitler and attacked.

He also disobeyed just before he was relieved of his command in Africa, for retreating when he was told to die to a man.

And on the one that cost him his life. Historians these days believe he had nothing to do with the plot to kill Hitler, he was framed by his rivals.

"Logistics: 1. the organization of moving, lodging and supplying troops and equipment. 2. the detailed organisation and implementation of a plan or operation." -The concise Oxford dictionary.

Nothing in there about "beating the enemy" as you can see, "beating the enemy" is part of tactics, the operational art and strategy, not logistics as any military professional would know. Rommel was a commander who excelled at tactics and leadership but his graps of the operational art and strategy was profoundly flawed. Just look at his famous operation at Gazala where he managed to get both his mobile corps trapped against the vast brittish minefields with cut lines of supply. Only the flaws in the brittish deployment combiend with the inferior equipment and tactics of the brittish armour as well as some very hard fighting on part of the Ariete divsion saved the DAK&20th corps.

And that's just the German tanks shipped to Africa, as can be seen Rommel recevied a steady stream of replacements&reinforcements as well as supplies. Most of which got through thanks to the efforts of the much malinged Italian navy and merchant marine. Considering the problems faced by the much better equiped and trained Royal Navy and later on the U.S Navy in protecting convoys the Italians did well. From 1942 onwards the main problem was that Rommel vetoed the invasion of Malta and the fact that ULTRA allowed the Royal Navy to target the tankers bringing the fuel to N. Africa with pin-point accuracy. (See Barr, 'Pendulum of War')

One should also be aware that Rommel's units were far more supply demanding than the other units in the Wehrmacht at the time. A unit deplyed to Africa had to be motorised since animal transport wasn't an option. And a motorised unit in Africa needed 10(!) times the trucks of a unit deployed in France or on the Eastern front when you count the trucks need to make the logistics work at all. (Tamelander, 'Malta') Do you send the limited of the wehrmacht to the Eastern front where the war is decided or do you send them to a vainglorious general in the desert who's has to have the resources of 10 divisions in order to get a single one of his divisions working...

Romme still got a preferential treatment and his units recived allotments of for example modern AT-guns in numbers that the hard pressed landser on the eastern front could only dream about.  

The Supplies didn't stop coming, Rommel recived large reinforcements in the form of the 5th Panzer Army which included 10th Panzer-division, 334th Infantry divsion, the Herman Goring division, elite fallschimjaegers of regiemnts Barenthin and Koch as well as the 501st and 502nd Heavy Tank battalions armed with the fearsome Panzer VI "Tiger". The luftwaffe intervende with both combat units and transport units and this was at a time there was a shortage of both fighter and transport aircraft in the units responsible for mantaining the airbridge to Stalingrad.

rommel neither overrated neither underrated..he has right place in history...

his only mistake was malta..but in the dunes of africa he is still the best....

First of all, the list given was a list of  tanks, not supplies.  So the more tanks Rommel received the less supplies he had.  So more tanks is not neccessarily better.

Secondly, Rommel advanced on Egypt because he was ordered to.  And then when his forces were being overwhelmed by vastly overwhelming numbers of enemies with the supplies of the US behind them, Hitler ordered Rommel to fight to the last man.  Thank goodness he didn't!

And once again, Rommel received plenty of reinforcements but those reinforcements came without the neeeded supplies to keep them up and running!

Now if people would just post THEIR OPINION we can all get over what I THINK!!!

Are you kidding me with the English defences?!  Rommel secured those things past what anyone other commander there did with what VERY little he had.  He even convinced the French to help make the defenses by friendly means.  He would tell the French that if the defeces are bad, the allies will destroy that part of the defeses aong with the homes and buildings in that town.  So that motto of the French was "Let the Allies come, but not in my backyard"!  They worked very hard to the very best of anyones ability.  Rommel also scetched everything he wanted done which helped the builders tremedously!

And in fact, the allies were so worried about Rommel being in charge of defeses that they almost stopped the invasion and decided it was a higher priority to either kill of capture him first.  But after Rommel's car accident and run in with a fighter, they decided to continue with the attack.

And besides, if Rommel had actually been allowed to command his troops, the Allies would have been beaten back before they got a landing!  Luckilly Hitler was a moron and killed his best general!

 I think Rommel was clearly the best, unlike the other he wasn't from the prussian school of thought, he was from Wurrtemberg. Rommel was very flexible on the battlefield and not rigid like the others. In that aspect he ressembled Napoleon, he was expert in quick analysis and processing of information, and at time act on instinct. I think for that reason he should be considered as exceptional.

 And what make him closer again to Napoleon, Rommel has this code of honour, he has humanity unlike the other NAZI monsters, a sort of chivalry in other word. In other word he got charisma.

Rommel was a good, reckless general.  Yes, his bravery warrant him respect, but he was quiet reckless.

Compare him to Napoleon, Nappy wins big time. 

Nappy belongs with the Sun Tzu's, Alexander the Great (or Terrible), Hannibal & Genghis Khan.