Rommel won many battles in Africa in 1941 and 1942 against British forces that always outnumbered him and generally had better supply lines, through aggressive action. On several occasions he violated direct orders not to attack. But his eagerness to drive for Egypt, when the necessary logistical support was lacking, meant that these drives ultimately failed with great losses. Rommel perceived "unique opportunities" in capturing Egypt and perhaps the Middle East. This result would definitely have had a huge impact on the course of the war, but his grand vision was never supported by Hitler nor the General Staff in Berlin to the extent that Rommel desired.
Rommel himself only belatedly acknowledged that his continual supply problems were not the result of intransigence or slacking by the Italians, who handled the transshipment of his supplies, but were a result of his aggressive actions in overextending his lines of communication. In his analysis of the logistical aspects of the North African Campaign, military historian Martin van Creveld wrote:
Given that the Wehrmacht was only partly motorized and unsupported by a really strong motor industry; that the political situation necessitated the carrying of much useless Italian ballast; that the capacity of the Libyan ports was so small, the distances to be mastered so vast; it seems clear that, for all of Rommel's tactical brilliance, the problem of supplying an Axis force for an advance into the Middle East was insoluble. ... Rommel's repeated defiance of his orders and attempts to advance beyond a reasonable distance from his bases, however, was mistaken and should never have been tolerated.
British General Harold Alexander commanded Allied forces in the Middle East facing Rommel in Egypt (from August 1942) and later commanded 18th Army Group in Tunisia. In his official despatch on the campaign in Africa, he wrote of Rommel :
He was a tactician of the greatest ability, with a firm grasp of every detail of the employment of armour in action, and very quick to seize the fleeting opportunity and the critical turning point of a mobile battle. I felt certain doubts, however, about his strategic ability, in particular as to whether he fully understood the importance of a sound administrative plan. Happiest while controlling a mobile force directly under his own eyes he was liable to overexploit immediate success without sufficient thought for the future.
Sir David Hunt, one of Alexander's intelligence officers, expressed the view in his own book that:
...his real gift was for commanding an armoured regiment, perhaps a division, and that his absolute ceiling was an armoured corps.
During the siege of Tobruk, Rommel launched frequent costly attacks during the first month of the siege. The level of losses incurred caused Rommel to have several arguments with his unit commanders, and also with the German High Command. Indeed, some sources indicate that Chief of Staff Halder had to send Friedrich Paulus to Africa to rein Rommel in, although Rommel himself maintained he had realized the futility of further attacks on the fortress on his own accord.
Popular perception
Rommel was extraordinarily well known in his lifetime, not only by the German people, but also by his adversaries. Popular stories of his chivalry and tactical prowess earned him the respect of many opponents, including Claude Auchinleck, Winston Churchill, George S. Patton, and Bernard Montgomery. Rommel, for his part, was both complimentary and respectful of his foes. Hitler counted Rommel among his favourite generals. Rommel was among the few Axis commanders (others being Isoroku Yamamoto and Reinhard Heydrich) directly targeted for assassination by Allied planners. However, unlike the other two, the attempt on Rommel's life was a failure.
The Afrika Korps were never accused of any war crimes, and Rommel himself referred to the fighting in North Africa as Krieg ohne Hass—war without hate. Numerous examples exist of Rommel's chivalry towards Allied POWs, such as his defiance of Hitler's infamous Commando Order following the capture of Lt. Roy Woodridge and Lt. George Lane as part of Operation Fortitude. He also refused to comply with Hitler's order to execute Jewish POWs.
During Rommel's time in France, Hitler ordered him to deport the country's Jewish population; Rommel disobeyed. Several times he wrote letters protesting against the treatment of the Jews. When British Major Geoffrey Keyes was killed during a failed commando raid to kill or capture Rommel behind German lines, Rommel ordered him buried with full military honours. Also, during the construction of the Atlantic Wall, Rommel directed that French workers were not to be used as slaves, but were to be paid for their labour.
His military colleagues also played their part in perpetuating his legend. His former subordinate Kircheim, though privately critical of Rommel's performance, nonetheless explained: "thanks to propaganda, first by Goebbels, then by Montgomery, and finally, after he was poisoned (sic), by all former enemy powers, he has become a symbol of the best military traditions. ...Any public criticism of this legendary personality would damage the esteem in which the German soldier is held».
After the war, when Rommel's alleged involvement in the plot to kill Hitler became known, his stature was enhanced greatly among the former Allied nations. Rommel was often cited in Western sources as a general who, though a loyal German, was willing to stand up to Hitler. The release of the film The Desert Fox: The Story of Rommel (1951) helped to further enhance his reputation as one of the most widely known and well-regarded leaders in the German Army. In 1970 a Lütjens-class destroyer was named the FGS Rommel in his honour.
Annexes Panzer Tactics
A everyone knows, theory and practice do not ilways coincide. That is exactly how it was with the German philosophy of the employment of armored formations in World War H. Although Germany was well ahead of all other armies in the fundamentals of commitment and in the art of operational command from the mid-thirties, within the Wehrmacht there were abundant violations of those fundamentals when it came to putting them into practice on the operational and tactical levels. Thus a study of German armored operations cannot have the goal of documenting the many violations of principle. Instead, I intend to make clear how the German fundamentals of employing armor formations differ from those of other nations even to the present day. Those tactically effective doctrines were one of the ultimate reasons for the success of German troops on a local level until the final weeks of the war.
The technical literature includes countless competent presentations at the level of operational/ strategic command (army and higher). That also holds true at the tactical/operational level of army corps and division. Totally underrepresented are factually correct descriptions of the level of command that bears the actual burden and rigor of the battle, that of the regiment—generally, the brigade in modern usage—'and the battalion. With appropriate reinforcements for combat and employment, they generally form the heart of the operation in that they become the battle groups (Kampfgruppen) or combat formations, frequently approaching divisional strength.
The reasons for the gaps in the literature are manifold. The interested reader usually wants an overview of a battle or a military theater without getting lost in the details of individual fighting. Also, most of the war literature inevitably comes from generals, some of whom have no knowledge at all regarding situations so far under them.