Did rommel believe in national socialism ?

First off - not necessarily. The victim can simply spurt what he thinks the torturer wants to hear.
However, in this case, that is not necessary. The conspiritors would have said - we thought Rommel would be a useful chap after we killed Hitler (true). That would be enough.
They could even say - we even asked him, but he said no (apparently true). That would definately work, as he should have shopped them.

I don't know. They were his friends/collegues/trusted staff members, and his sense of honour/conscience/whatever stopped him? I would not like to get a reputation of selling my staff / friends down the swannee. How are yo gonna get an effective working relationship going with that reputation?

A fair trial wold have to show 'no reasonable doubt'
There is plenty. Rommel's only probable crime that I can see was in not informing on his comrades (if they did approach him).

 

Agreed, I think a "very strong case" against Rommel would be very hard to make. Most of the evidence you present, 2ndLegion, is what you'd estimate a soldier like Rommel to do in this or that situation; I think only those who actually knew him are entitled to such estimates and even so they are unreliable because thoughts are hard to know. There's really only one way to know for sure and that would be to ask him, which is impossible.

Any information given under torture is unreliable. If the torturers had asked their victim to "name names" he could have just started calling off names he'd heard to avoid the pain. They didn't need to ask specifically for Rommel since Rommel was a celebrity; the name would come up sooner or later.

I really think that "Just meeting those who were plotting against Hitler doesn't mean being involved in the plot" is a strong argument, especially since there was no action on Rommel's part, that I know of, that indicates his involvement in the plot.

 

Rommel meeting with the plotters doesn't neccesarily make him a plotter you are right there, but he was a very proud German officer, if he didn't join them why not turn them in to Hitler?

Because he had a personal and proffessional bond with them that would make it difficult to hand over his friends to the Gestapo.

Guderian was similarly approached, he too declined to take part in the plot. For many German officers it was a hard choice to make, I believe many felt that Hitler and the Nazis were leading Germany to destruction and the only way to save Germany was to remove them, but many such as Guderian apparently felt bound by their oath of allegiance, which was to Hitler personally.

In the absence of any concrete evidence (How do you know what questions were asked at the interrogations btw? Have you read the transcripts?) linking Rommel to the plot, it can only be reasonably assumed that Rommel took no active part in it.

In the case of Rommel, he has an almost cult-like following, this popularity (Then and now) seems to colour people's views of him so that a professional officer becomes on the flimsiest pretext an ardent anti-Nazi and active resistor, because to suggest otherwise is to sully the myth of the German hero who died for his anti-Nazi beliefs.

 

Under interrogation I think some personnel are told by there commander , that if they get caught they tell the enemy what they want to hear , regarding tactical and strategic matters that is.

 

Torture more often then not will yield accurate information if you don't let the victim know what you want to hear. If they said we want to hear Erwin Rommel is behind this then the information gained under torture is worthless, but if they just said "Names" or did something like that it was probably accurate.

The Gestapo destroyed very large sections of the French Ressistance thanks to torture. Henri Frenay actually gave the order that members of his organization should commit suicide when caught. The French were heroic, but they could not keep silent forever. The ressistance groups even had a policy of new locations, names, cover ups, codes etc for everytime a member was captured. Torture does yield information, the reason not to use it isn't because it isn't reliable the reason to avoid it at all times is because it is a horrendus crime against humanity.

There have been much weaker cases made on conspiracy then the one against Rommel.

The point is though that the only way to really be sure of what the Ressistance did would have been to ask them and those who escaped the Germans or survived Concentration Camp seem to all agree that Rommel was involved in the conspiracy.

Is it possible they are just trying to save the reputation of a good friend, since he was very close to his staff?

Yes

Is it likely they would lie about it and destroy their credibility on the German Ressistance and place doubt on wether or not it was really there?

Extremely unlikely.

I find it really unlikely that survivors would have lied after the war was over about if Rommel was involved don't you?

I mean you should remember that they would not have wanted to attack their own credibility.

At very least he did go along with the plan, and according to his secratary who was not caught at any point, he told Beck to wait for his orders to attack unless he were to be taken out of action, and that he was then instructed by Rommel to tell the others that they could proceed without him when he was shot by an Allied Aircraft.

You are right that witnessess are not always right, but they are our main source on the German Ressistance.

Naturally there is no way to know what he though, and like with all witnessess his staff's bias should be considered when considering what they say, but what other source is there?

In the end it comes down to this.

Do you believe what his staff, and others who would have known for sure have to say or not?

I believe them because Guderian got the shaft because of the atempted assasination as well, yet none of the ressistors or his staff came forward to make the claim that he was an enemy of Hitler, and because Rommel's Secretary would not have wanted his credibility as an eye witness to go away by making claims that were not true.

 

i didn't read all the conversation and just say my comment on the point of the topic.
Rommel was a patriot and a soldier. he trusted Hitler until he got all those insane sommands who forbidded to fall back, and shoot a captured jewisch brigade to death.
he was a Nazi but so had to everybody in the german army else they couldn't get in the army. But he never believed in national socialism. he was only a nationolist and tahts it

 

Rommel believed in Nazism until his Afrikakorps began running out of men and tanks thanks to the British 8th Army before the Battle of El Alamein. He repeatedly asked Hitler for reinforcements, and every time Hitler refused. Then, when he lost at El Alamein, Hitler got REAL angry with him because he 'allowed' his men to become weak. Then, of course, he lost in Africa, began losing in France, helped in the plot to assassinate Hitler, and died from drinking cyanide after Hitler gave him an ultimatum. Either suicide or death by firing squad.
The only think Rommel liked about Hitler was that Hitler wanted to restore Germany as a world power and, subsequently, restore its pride. (wheh)

 

Did he?

 

yes and no, Ricky. i guess nobody can tell us what his part was. after El Alemein, Rommel knew Hitler and Nazisme would destroy germany. accourding to what i all found the story goes as follows: (i'm 95% sure that it's the correct version, i search through a lot of info to find this one out)

Rommel agrees that hitler should be removed from power in order to talk about peace (he said removed, not killed, just trowen in prison). However, Rommel is a patriot, he swore to his country and with that his leader. so Rommel has a last talk with hitler and talks about surrender (off course hitler gets mad end sends rommel away to normandy)

the hardlinners however wanted to kill hitler and place someone new on top of the Nazi party, someone who is respected by the allies and whit who the want to talk. so they bring up Rommel but don't know where to place him (head of the state or head of the army)

rest is simple: plan fales, gestapo gets them, finds out that Rommel's name was mentioned, Hitler wants Rommel dead, Rommels swallows poison to save his family.

 

Quillin - where did you get all that from? (I ask because I want to know, not to be nasty!)

Also - have you read the whole topic?

 

I heard that some one might of planted it there to make it look as if rommel was trying to kill the Furher