Could Rommel Have Won the War in the East? WW2 – OOTF 036
Could Rommel Have Won the War in the East? WW2 – OOTF 036
It’s time for another exciting episode of Out of the Foxholes! Today Indy tackles questions on food rationing in Norway, German political subversion in the United States, and whether Erwin Rommel would have made a difference on the Eastern Front.
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If Rommel was the main commander during the battle of Stalingrad I think he would have made a much bigger difference vs. Paulus, I doubt he would have made the same mistake of allowing the Soviets to regroup
The Norwegian story reminds me of a saying I first read in Chesty Pullers sons autobiography. He served as a Marine officer in Vietnam and stepped on a booby trapped howitzer shell. Lost both his legs and about half of each hand. As hes shipping out to Vietnam he had a temporary billet in Miami. As he was leaving one morning he noticed the door to the room next to him, a permanent billet of a Coast Guard officer, had a sign taped to it. It was addressed to his assistant and read… "Wake me up at 10:30 for my surfing lesson."
Puller reflects that, "Both the pig and the chicken must sacrifice for the sake of breakfast… But that doesn't mean their sacrifice is the same."
So it goes with war and even with soldiers. A rear echelon supply officer sacrifices, but not like a front line infantryman. The "horror" of a SS man stooping to help with your groceries and having to make your national dish with fish instead of lamb doesnt count as horror at all when you reflect on what much of the world was going through at that exact moment. Yet for some old woman somewhere its the defining difficulty of her entire life.
Also… 2,000-2,800 calories a day? I'm 6'2 and work out over a hour every day and I can't eat more than 1,800 calories a day and not get fat…
Well, if he could produce process and distribute 1000t of oil daily, breed, grow and train 2000 men daily, produce and distribute 5000t of military materiel daily… he just about could hold the line… until the Allies produced nuclear weapons and started obliterating German cities…
Makes you wonder, if such support to the anti-war folks by the Germans was at all successful, how much they could have delayed the U.S.'s entry into the European war if Hitler hadn't declared war on the U.S. It's my perception that Roosevelt wanted to actively support his pal, Churchill, but probably was waiting for his equivalent of a Tonkin Gulf incident with the U-boats. Same as Wilson in 1916, his campaign promised to keep the U.S. out of the war.
It's my perception that the war with Japan could have been played to a 'let's not get involved in a two front war' tune fairly successfully. The outrage at the 'sneak' attack could have been leveraged to direct most of the public's attention west instead of east. As for Rommel, I don't think his star would have shone any brighter than any of the other panzer generals who fought the Soviets.
I don't think it mattered who lead the war in the East because a half moustache corporal kept getting in the way
I agree with you 100%. Your own video about the planning of Barbarossa and the Paulus's War Games show that the invasion of the USSR was flawed from conception and a single different field commander wouldn't have made a difference in the outcome. I think it's more likely that in this scenario Rommel might've joined the German Resistance sooner and the British would hold Cyrenaica and maybe move into Tripoli by late 1941.
Ahh NO!
Its a slim chance that only works if Hitler lets Rommel run the entire East front his way with absolutely NO interference.
Rommel was a great commander but like model, was better suited for a divisional command because they liked to travel between command posts at the front which was more tactically minded rather than strategic
Agree 💯 about Rommel being hampered by logistics. The interesting question to me would've been what if Rommel had Paulus' command at Stalingrad?
Hi Indy
Interesting questions and smart answers.
Awesome to Learn.
Smug attitude in the comments, of course he could have changed things just like Patton would have changed the pacific front.
The answer is maybe. If an extra army corps had been available to push into Moscow before reinforcements could be transferred from Mongolia, and if Hitler had not ordered a halt (which he did to eliminate larger pockets of isolated Soviet troops), and If the Finns had moved south to take Leningrad, then Stalin might have been deposed (as he had feared for his many blunders) Soviet resistance might have collapsed before winter and Germany might have won the whole war. Without Rommel Germany got as far as the Moscow suburbs, so sure, it's possible.
love the chair of Infinite knowledge and Indi's ties 😛 lol
North Africa was a completely different kind of war. It was a soldiers war. The British and the Germans respected each other. The Afrika Korps was not involved in any genocide(to the best of my knowledge), and Rommel was just a member of the German Army. On the Eastern Front, the German Army and the Red Army absolutely HATED each other, and a lot of atrocities were committed on both sides. Maybe I am over-simplifying, but they were different kinds of campaigns.
More than a bit surprised that you would engage in imaginary/speculative "stuff".
Rommel was not the greatest German general/field marshall.
Hitler had more than a few competent generals who could have done much better in the Russian campaign but would that have altered the ultimate outcome? Not much chance of that happening even in the best of circumstances for the Germans.
The Russians tend to put up a fighting retreat with a scorched earth policy and depend fairly heavily on the twin immortal generals of Mud and Winter – both of which have yet to be beaten as far as I know. The numbers in the German initial advance to the outskirts of Moscow: they started with 206 divisions and by the time they reached their deepest into Russian territory had somewhere between 65 and 70 fit divisions left to fight with – not an encouraging result even though Hitler did strip his northern armies to reinforce his attackers hitting Stalingrad.
I think your point about the east being under more direct scrutiny from HItler and HIgh Command really rings true here. Rommel would have undoubtedly run into exactly what generals like Bock, Rundstedt, Guderian, and Paulus did.
the information is good but the format, I really don't like this format
A massively overrated commander, with a reputation pumped up the Brits to cover for their own ineptitude.
Being Norway herring would have been involved to some extent
Rommel did good in Africa when he supply was good, and Rommel was failing in Africa was his supply was bad.
Rommel would not have made the difference in the USSR.
Germany lost on the eastern front because of strategic incompetence. Rommel was tactically brilliant but also strategically flawed.
Just because you have a better general in Russia doesn't mean they will do a better job.
If the German Army had defeated Britain in Egypt, maybe the balance of power changes.
Rommel was a great general, but he wasn't better than Guderian or Manstein. The Germans didn't fail for a lack of good leadership. Rommel can't magically create more panzers, planes, trucks, and gas. He wouldn't have been able to change any of Hitler's strategic decisions. Even if they do a bit better the Germans still never take Moscow, they still lose Stalingrad, and they still get ground down by the Red Army.
It sounds like while the Norwegians were rationing but still using regular food items, the Germans at home were drinking ersatz coffee and baking wood chips into bread. Must've been interesting for the occupying German soldier to notice, if the case.
He didn't even win in North Africa. Why would Russia have been different?
Von Manstein is good as Rommel
The High Command opinion on Rommel was he was an excellent division or army corp leader , but his capabilities faded if given command of an army , not to speak of an army group. Therefore there's no way he could be given command of the Eastern Front.
I think that if Hilter had given Rommel full control of the General Staff, they would have won on all fronts.
Definitely no. Rommel was a good tactician but no strategist as proven by a campaign in North Africa. He was good when under overall command of someone else, but never able to grasp broader picture beyond immediate theater. All the problems that brought him down in Africa would be only exacerbated in the East.
Rommel was not a genius.
He was ok tactically but shit operationally.
Has soon as he lost intel from italian, he lost.
He is just a british and nazi propaganda tool.
The war was not winnable.
For an eastern front what-if: if the Germans get a do-over, the Soviets get a do-over as well. Imagine Stalin having been somewhat less paranoid and letting the general staff run affairs. The Germans don't even get anywhere near Smolensk or Leningrad.
I already thought this would be the answer: It's not like bad military leadership was the cause for the failure of Fall Blau or Kursk, or that all the eastern front Generals were hopeless numpties who Rommel would have outdone to the point of winning.
The only way to beat the Sowjets was gone in September 1939. Hitler wanted Poles as allies and from Oct. 38 till March 39 waited and negotiated. The Poles said no. So Germany had 300 km more to go with some 30 divisions at least (700k personell) less.
There was absolutely no way of winning the war after Stalin moved the industry eastward. Of course, the nazis could have integrated the initially welcoming population in their war scheme – but the ideology was their enemy in this respect…
Simple answer is no. Considering the Afrika Korp should have been destroyed at the battle of Gazala and that the tactics he used in the desert simply wouldnt have worked in the Soviet Union, he'd still have had atrocious logistical support, still have continuous interference from Hitler and still have gone for the wrong target during the first year. One other thing, his rank would have put him in charge of a single army on a single front. If he'd been promoted and given Halders job, he proved at Gazala that he was not a great planer and even if he had been he'd still have to rely on his front commanders to organise local theatre operations which means nothing would have changed in that regard.
I can’t wait for Vietnam. . .
Erich von Manstein proved to be as good if not better than Rommel at the type of fighting on The German eastern front.
There are certainly a lot of you who are more knowledgeable than I am on this topic and I might be wrong here but both sides had a vested interest in claiming that Rommel was better than he was. For the Germans, they needed a hero. For the Allies, they needed a way to sidestep blame for their own failings. Rommel himself was repeatedly surprised at how bad the Allied generals were.
Rommel was a fine general but his opponents made some very bad (and repeated) mistakes. Maybe he was just an '8' out of ten but if the Allies claim he is a ten then they don't have to say that they themselves fielded a bunch of twos and threes.