Talk:Erwin Rommel - Misplaced Pages

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Erwin Rommel article.
This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject.

Put new text under old text. Click here to start a new topic.
New to Misplaced Pages? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help.

Article policies

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9Auto-archiving period: 30 days

This

level-4 vital article is rated B-class on Misplaced Pages's content assessment scale.
It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Biography: Military / Politics and Government

	Biography portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Misplaced Pages's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography
	This article is supported by the military biography work group (assessed as Top-importance).
	This article is supported by the politics and government work group (assessed as Mid-importance).

Military history: Biography / European / German / World War I / World War II

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	Military biography task force
	European military history task force
	German military history task force
	World War I task force
	World War II task force

Germany High‑importance

	Germany portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Germany, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Germany on Misplaced Pages. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.GermanyWikipedia:WikiProject GermanyTemplate:WikiProject GermanyGermany
High	This article has been rated as High-importance on the project's importance scale.

This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus.

Erwin Rommel was one of the History good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.

Article milestones
Date	Process	Result
March 6, 2006	Good article nominee	Listed
November 22, 2006	Good article reassessment	Delisted
June 12, 2011	Good article nominee	Not listed
Facts from this article were featured on Misplaced Pages's Main Page in the "On this day..." column on October 14, 2014, and October 14, 2019.
Current status: Delisted good article

Text and/or other creative content from this version of Rommel myth was copied or moved into Erwin Rommel with this edit. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists.

Section sizes

Section size for Erwin Rommel (51 sections)
Section name	Byte count	Section total
(Top)	8,396	8,396
Early life and career	1,561	1,561
World War I	3,839	3,839
Between the wars	10,121	10,121
World War II	199	72,345
Poland 1939	1,779	1,779
France 1940	20	11,280
Promotion to armoured division commander	2,110	2,110
Invasion of the Netherlands, Belgium and France	3,982	3,982
Drive for the Channel	5,168	5,168
North Africa 1941–1943	1,457	28,241
First Axis offensive	2,722	2,722
Siege of Tobruk	5,922	5,922
Battle of Gazala and capture of Tobruk	4,960	4,960
El Alamein	21	9,631
First Battle of El Alamein	3,558	3,558
Battle of Alam El Halfa	2,151	2,151
Second Battle of El Alamein	3,901	3,901
End of Africa campaign	3,549	3,549
Italy 1943	1,856	1,856
Atlantic Wall 1944	14,356	14,356
Plot against Hitler	14,634	14,634
Death	7,234	7,234
Style as military commander	9,720	52,066
Relationship with Italian forces	5,948	5,948
Views on the conduct of war	36	36,398
Combat	6,091	6,091
Attitude toward colonial troops	7,958	7,958
Politics	2,130	2,130
Civilians	20,183	20,183
Reputation as a military commander	14,380	14,380
Debate about atrocities	28	17,133
Executions of prisoners in France	4,405	4,405
Treatment of Jews and other civilians in North Africa	9,818	9,818
Alleged treasure and spoils	2,882	2,882
In Nazi and Allied propaganda	5,011	15,712
Successes in North Africa	3,700	3,700
Military reverses	3,305	3,305
Rommel's views on propaganda	3,696	3,696
Relationship with Nazism	18,416	18,416
Rommel myth	3,940	3,940
Family life	1,863	1,863
Awards	1,817	1,817
Commemoration	8,766	8,766
Portrayals	736	736
Notes	31	31
References	16	23,078
Citations	29	29
Bibliography	23,033	23,033
Further reading	3,806	3,806
External links	3,468	3,468
Total	268,708	268,708

Categories added by Death Editor 2

To User:Death Editor 2, people should be put in categories only when the general consensus (/majority of historians) says that such people are the notable representatives of such categories. This is not the case with this article. If you have new updates, new sources... etc, please provide them and show that this is the new consensus. -Deamonpen (talk) 18:54, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

By using basic reasoning I can determine that Erwin Rommel was a nazi, he was a nazi general who fought for a nazi regime and was, for a time, Hitler's favorite general. Death Editor 2 (talk) 19:06, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

So, this is your personal opinion, and not based on any special sources. Sorry, but as far as I understand, that is original research.

What is your source for "Rommel inviting the Einsatzgruppen over to Africa in November 1942"? By the way, even if any other scholar said so (I doubt you can find even one), you cannot use that to link it to Clemens Vollnhals by "your reasoning", because Clemens Vollnhals does not say so. In the same section, you can see that Caron says that Nehring (who in 1942 became the commander of the Afrika Korps) was the one who was responsible for those activities. This is Caron's article in German, in which he states that Rommel was not involved in the lootings, and there is no evidence that he would have supported Rauff's Einsatzgruppen (there is no evidence Rommel knew about the mission either). "Iirc" (your reason for undoing my edit) does not come close to a scholarly consensus either. In the case you were a commander who worked with Rommel in 1942 (I suppose this is how you can still recall the whole history), please go to historians and present your evidences.

If I use "my reasoning" and a handful of scholars I cherrypick, I may add Rommel to Category:German resistance members too, but that description is not without controversies (Maurice Remy think that "he was both": Nazi and resistance fighter, while Ralph Georg Reuth thinks that he was neither). So, it's one thing if one puts him in a detailed article about forms of resistance against the Nazi government ("Controversial cases"), but using him as an example for a category will need a stronger consensus. -Deamonpen (talk) 19:43, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

So you deny that he was a nazi general who fought for a nazi regime and was hitler's favorite general? Are you denying the literal fucking facts? Death Editor 2 (talk) 21:51, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

And besides, being a 20 july plotter does not make one free from Nazism (See Eduard Wagner, Wolf-Heinrich Graf von Helldorff, and Arthur Nebe), and do you deny that there were camps set up in north africa for the jews? Death Editor 2 (talk) 21:53, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

So, only your original research matters then - this is not what the Misplaced Pages is about. No person should have a monopoly on "facts". I used the "resistance fighter" example to show that one cannot put historical personalities in categories based on accusations from a minority. If we do things that way, every single historical leader we know today (if they have ever commanded something for more than one week) will be put into criminal categories, because even when there is no evidence about them doing something criminal, the regime they served would have done something criminal. This is also the case with the camps in Africa:

Libyan Jews noted that in daily matters, the Germans largely acted out of pragmatic economic interest rather than adopting the political and ideological practices known elsewhere. The German authorities found Libyan Jews well equipped with goods they needed for their military activities. The Jews complied with their demands, some out of fear and others out of strict economic interest. By the end of their time in Libya, this strategic economic arrangement led the Germans to perceive the Jews as similar to the native Muslims and they therefore regarded the Jews to be less threatening than their brethren in Europe.

It was only when Italy entered the war in 1940 that Libya became subjected to direct Fascist—Nazi collaboration, and “Nazi-style” deportations, camps and polices were enacted. This collaboration initially only had an impact on foreign citizens still residing in Libya not yet directly affected by the racial laws due to their economic status and consular intervention. But in September 1940, Italy ordered the immediate imprisonment of all 7,000 citizens of enemy countries then residing in Libya. Detention camps in Tajura (near Tripoli) and in Burat al-Hasun in Sirtica (in the Vicinity of Benghazi) were established for this purpose. As was seen in other cases, this order was only partially ful?lled clue to the economic dif?culties and logistical impediments present in the imprisonment procedures. Moreover, the Italians were not capable of effectively controlling the detainees or providing them with sufficient food. This meant that over a brief period the detainees could be Visited by their relatives who supplied them with provisions and money; occasionally they would be permitted to return to their homes and later were freed. In 1941 new orders to evacuate foreign Jews from Libya sent a total of 2,315 people to Tunisia; this group reportedly included 715 Muslims and 1,600 people of “the Jewish race.” In a letter to the Italian Ministry of the Interior and the Foreign Ministry, Attilio Teruzzi asked “to interest the Vichy Government so that the 1,600 subjects and protected French of the Jewish race and 715 subjects and protected French Muslims be evacuated directly from Libya to the territories of Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco from which they came after all. thus what is left to be interned are 1900 British-Maltese, 870 British subjects of the Jewish race and others "

According to the report of the PAI (the Police of Italian Africa) of August 2, 1942, “the order was given for further removal to Tunisia of French subjects and protected Muslims and Jews. They were forced to leave in five groups

Where is Rommel in that?

The author of the above passage is Maurice M. Roumani, a renown scholar on the subject and also a Libyan Jew who had family members victimized during the relevant events (source)

Anti-Semitic measures were certainly carried out in Axis-occupied Tunisia during late 1942, when Rauff’s Einsatzkommando forced Jews to build forti?cations. At this time, however, Rommel’s forces were retreating from Egypt, and there is no evidence that Rommel himself had contact with the Einsatzkommando.”

According to Ben H. Shepherd(Source)

Are you saying that such historians are intentionally lying to us? "There were concentration camps in Africa" is one thing. That "Rommel supported them" is something you have to prove, and with a scholarly consensus, not with "facts" you imagine. -Deamonpen (talk) 23:00, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

So the guy in change of africa at that point had zero idea of the jews being forced into the camps? What's next? Are you going to go full David Irving on me and claim Hitler actually had no idea of the holocaust? Death Editor 2 (talk) 23:15, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

And we CAN put Historical personalities in categories, because Rommel again, was a Nazi general who fought for the Nazi regime. So yes, he was a Nazi. Death Editor 2 (talk) 23:18, 14 June 2023 (UTC)

I do not see that it has been established that he is "notably responsible" for the Holocaust in any reliable source. He may be culpable for tolerating some anti-semitic activities in his command area, but he was no Bormann or Goering. --John (User:Jwy/talk) 03:01, 17 June 2023 (UTC)

There is no evidence that Rommel had anything to do with the holocaust. On the contrary, there is evidence that he went against Hitler’s orders for the treatment of Jewish POW’s and POW’s in general. And since the high command of the Afrika Korps was convoluted (split between Italian & German officers), one cannot even say that Rommel was the supreme commander in Africa and as such was not responsible for any war crimes committed in the African theatre. Surfstud31 (talk) 15:38, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

yeah i'm sure the man who personally executed a french officer had nothing to do with the holocaust. Death Editor 2 (talk) 16:18, 12 August 2023 (UTC)

Length

At over 22k words of readable prose, this article is too long to read comfortably. It would be beneficial to condense and/or migrate content to subarticles to make this one more readable. Nikkimaria (talk) 19:32, 28 June 2023 (UTC)

Yes, it seems that this article ought to be split. I recommend that a sub-page be created for "Rommel in WWII" then a shortened version can be left on the main page. Semaurer01 (talk) 21:17, 24 April 2024 (UTC)

Inappropriate source?

I have added a name to the quote reference 516 in the debate section on treatment of Jews in Africa however the quote seems to be laying out facts rather than the author debating anything. I can see an argument for including it for context but in that case it really needs a better source than a journalist's news article in a news magFirestar47 (talk) 13:48, 9 April 2024 (UTC)

Categories: