the city of Monte Matajur, near Caporetto, Italy, for
which he won the Prussian Ordre pour le Mérite, an
award usually given to senior officers. He received the
Iron Cross for his service on the western front.
Following the end of the war, Rommel attended the
University of Tübingen for a short period, then served in
a number of regimental commands. He was an instruc-
tor at the Dresden Infantry School from 1929 to 1933
and at the Potsdam War Academy from 1935 to 1938.
With the rise of Adolf Hitler to power in Germany, he
became a member of Hitler’s National Socialist, or Nazi,
Party, and some historians claim that Rommel served as
the head of the hated corps of special Nazi troops called
the Schutzstaffel, known as the SS; one source, however,
notes that he was probably the head of the Nazis’ para-
military force, the Sturmabsteliung, or SA. In 1938, he
was promoted to colonel and named as the commandant
of the War Academy at Wiener Neustadt. In mid-1939,
shortly before the Second World War broke out, Rommel
was promoted to major general. Following the invasion
of Poland on 1 September 1939, he was given com-
mand of the 7th Panzer Division, known as the “Ghost
Division” because of the speed of its movement, which
raced across northern France (“Blitzkrieg”), bypassing
all attempts to halt the German advance and leading to
France’s capitulation. In 1941, Rommel was promoted
to lieutenant general and given command of the Afrika
Korps, the German forces in northern Africa.
Rommel won a series of brilliant battles, outma-
neuvering the British and pushing their Eighth Army
back, from Cyrenaica into Egypt to El Alamein, and tak-
ing the important port of Tobruk on 20 June 1942. The
following day, he was promoted to field marshal. How-
ever, although he had forced the British back, Rommel
could not defeat them completely, a failure that would
eventually cost him and the Germans dearly. Command-
ing a joint German and Italian force, he raced ahead of
his supply lines, and he and his forces were defeated at
the critical battle of El Alamein (23–24 October 1942)
when the British general Bernard montgomery stifled
his maneuvering room and beat him back with over-
whelming tank and air attacks. Rommel’s forces turned
and fled into Tunisia, where he had to face American
forces under Dwight D. eisenhoWer, who had landed
in the west, culminating in the battle at Medinine (5
March 1943). Rommel became ill, and he departed for
Germany before his forces in Africa were forced to sur-
render. Although he was not personally blamed for the
North Africa defeat, he was in effect demoted when he
was placed in command of the Nazi defense lines on the
Atlantic coast in France.
Since the start of the war and the forced ejection
of Allied forces from the European continent, Hitler
and his generals believed that the Allies would attempt a
landing somewhere in northern France, and to this end
they fortified the entire coastline with machine guns and
concrete blockhouses. Under Rommel, these measures
were improved even further, and by the beginning of
June 1944, he was so confident that an Allied landing
would not be attempted that he returned home to Ger-
many to visit his family. He was there when the D-Day
landings, known as Operation Overlord, occurred, and
he rushed back to command the German defense. On
14 July, though, his car was struck by gunfire from an
Allied aircraft, and he was seriously wounded. He was
Erwin Rommel taken back to Germany to convalesce.
Rommel, eRwin JohAnneS eugen