Rommel: The Soldier, The Son And Hitler provides rare insight into the military career and personal life of Germany's most famous WWII commander, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. Told from the perspective of Erwin's son Manfred, it is the story of what happens when a career soldier runs afoul of a dictator. Highly decorated and one of Hitler's favourite commanders in the early years of WWII, the 'Desert Fox,' as his British adversaries labelled him, was somewhat of an enigma. Never a member of the Nazi party, Rommel detested the blending of politics and war. He would quickly discover that both were always in play in Hitler's Germany. Rommel was somewhat naive to Hitler's ways until the latter days of the Afrika Korps defeat in North Africa in 1943. By then, Rommel started to surmise that Germany's fate was sealed. In charge of the famed and flawed Atlantic Wall in western Europe in late 1943, Rommel tried his best to prepare France for the Allied invasion. In the end, it would not be enough. D-Day's success only reinforced Rommel's belief that Adolf Hitler should sue for peace in the west. It was an opinion that Hitler found treasonous.
Rommel: The Soldier, The Son And Hitler was broadcast on SBS ONE at Saturday 2 July 2022, 08:30.
