Rommel Quotes

“History judges you by your success or failure,” he pontificated. “That’s what counts. Nobody asks the victor whether he was in the right or wrong.” Before”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall

“History judges you by your success or failure,” he pontificated. “That’s what counts. Nobody asks the victor whether he was in the right or wrong.”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall

“the Rommel diary records an edict that was typical of him: “While the overflowing POW cage on the airfield is being set up, South African officers demand to be segregated from the blacks. This request is turned down by the C in C. He points out that the blacks are South African soldiers too—they wear the same uniform and they have fought side by side with the whites. They are to be housed in the same POW cage.”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall

“Churchill is the very archetype of a corrupt journalist,” sneered the Führer. “He himself has written that it’s incredible how far you can get in war with the help of the common lie. He’s an utterly amoral, repulsive creature. I’m convinced he has a refuge prepared for himself across the Atlantic. . . He’ll go to his friends, the Yanks.”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall

“The prisoner was Driver A. J. Hayes, chauffeur of the commander of one of the crack field batteries attached to the Fourth Indian Division. “He says Hitler has on several occasions offered Britain good peace terms. But Churchill, inspired by malice and ruthlessness, is leading the British people toward the abyss. The prisoner’s manner of speaking makes his testimony seem trustworthy.”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall

“Rommel reached the wood at Cerfontaine on May 16, 1940. He wanted to get through it fast, so as to reach the bunkers themselves before dark—but how, without alerting the bunkers that he was coming? Rommel took the microphone and quietly ordered all tank commanders to drive through the woods, this time without firing a single shot. Their crews—gunner, radio operator, loader and commander—were to ride outside the tanks and wave white flags. He himself rode Colonel Rothenburg’s Panzer IV. Ulrich Schroeder recalled: “The enemy was in fact so startled by this carnivallike procession that instead of shooting at us they just stood back to either side and gaped.”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall

“Next day Hitler again made a “fabulous speech” to the Reichstag, this time formally offering peace to Britain and France (now that Poland no longer existed”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall

“Despite everything,” she wrote to Erwin on September 4 from Wiener Neustadt, “we were all hoping to the very end that a second world war could be avoided—we all hoped that reason would prevail in Britain and France. . . . Now the Führer has left last night for the Polish front.”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall

“Almost at once the telephone call came, ordering him to stand by. That evening, the phone rang again in the railroad station waiting room where he had set up his office. “The invasion begins tomorrow, 4:50 A.M.” Thus the Second World War began. Nobody, least of all Erwin Rommel, could foresee that the military operations that began on September 1, heralded by a ranting and self-justificatory Reichstag speech by the Führer, would inexorably involve one country after another; would last six years; would leave 40 million dead and all Europe and half Asia ravaged by fire and explosives; would destroy Hitler’s Reich, ruin the British Empire and end with the creation of new weapons, new world powers and a new lawlessness in international affairs.”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall

“For more than two years he stayed on the slaughterhouse battlefields of France. In September at Varennes he was wounded by a ricocheting rifle bullet in his left thigh—characteristically for him, he was confronting three French soldiers alone and with an empty rifle. He was awarded the Iron Cross, Second Class. When he returned to the 124th Infantry from the hospital on January 13, 1915, it was fighting in grueling trench warfare in the Argonnes forest. Two weeks later he crawled with his riflemen through 100 yards of barbed wire into the main French positions, captured four bunkers, held them against a counterattack by a French battalion and then withdrew before a new attack could develop, having lost less than a dozen men. This bravery won Rommel the Iron Cross, First Class—the first for a lieutenant in the entire regiment.”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall

“He took no delight in the death of an enemy soldier. A Montgomery would order: “Kill the Germans wherever you find them!” An Eisenhower would proclaim: “As far as I am concerned, any soldier that is killing a German is somebody for whom I have a tremendous affection, and if I can give him something so he can kill two instead of one, by golly I am going to do it.” Rommel never descended to such remarks. He outwitted, bluffed, deceived, cheated the enemy. It was said that his greatest pleasure was to trick his opponents into premature and often quite needless surrender.”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall

“IN 1944 ROMMEL was already a living legend. He was known as a great commander in the field, distinguished by that rare quality, a feeling for the battle. Bold, dashing and handsome, he was relentless in combat, magnanimous in victory and gracious to his vanquished enemies. He seemed invincible. Where he was, there was victory: he attacked like a tornado, and even when he withdrew, his enemies followed very gingerly indeed.”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall

“Pour le Mérite”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall

“Schmidt growled back: “You’ll find there are always two possible decisions open to you. Take the bolder one—it’s always best.”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall

“Shed sweat—not blood,”
― David Irving, THE TRAIL OF THE FOX The Search for the True Field Marshall