On November 15th, 1891, Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel, future commader of 7th Panzer Division [1940], Deutsches Afrika Korps [1941], Panzerarmee Afrika [1942-1943], Armeegruppe 'B' [1943-1944], promoted Generalfeldmarschall [June 20, 1942], and holder of the Pour le Merite [for Caporetto], Iron Cross 1st and 2d class, Kinight's Cross with Swords and Oakleaves, and the Wounds Badge; is born in Wurtemberg, Germany.

It's intersting to see how Rommel fared post mortem and post war.

Initially, Rommel was probably [with Patton, and unfoirtunately, 'Monty']the most famous general of WW II. He was certainly the most famous German genral in western eyes. And he was perceived as the 'good' German general. Clean war, involved in the anti-Hitler plot [although he opposed assasinating Hitler. He wanted him tried], and forced suicide. When the West German military was formed, a barracks and a warship were named after him. And then the revisionism hit.

First to be attacked was Rommel's military reputation. While conceding he was an able general at the operational/ tactical level, he was dismissed as a strategist, and condemned as a bully to his officers. He was savaged for his lack of interest in logistics [a failing, I might point out, of the entire German Army, both individually and as an institution].

Then came the P.C, and Rommel was no longer 'clean' because he waged war for a dictatorship. So the barracks wwere re-named, the plaque in hi honor was torn dow. This for an officer who had tangled twice with the NSDAP before the war [In 1934 when he refused to parade his battalion if an SS detachment marched in front of the (he won), and i936 or 1937, when, as military advisor to the Hitler Youth, he argued strongly against the emphasis on military training they were being given-he lost the argument-and the job]. And then there was his participation in 20 July. Rommel was seriously wounded by RAF aircraft on July 17th - after conferring with, and getting support from the senior Waffen SS commanders in Normandy for his plan to surrender the West to the Allies. Nobody else could have pulled that off.

But when I was in Armor Officer basic at Knox, he was back. The motto was "Patton is King. But Rommel is God".