Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel by Daniel Allen Butler
Daniel Allen Butler . Unknown Year . English
Erwin Rommel was a complex man: a born leader, brilliant soldier, a devoted husband and proud father; intelligent, instinctive, brave, compassionate, vain, egotistical, and arrogant. In France in 1940, then for two years in North Africa, then finally back in France once again, at Normandy in 1944, he proved himself a master of armored warfare, running rings around a succession of Allied generals who never got his measure and could only resort to overwhelming numbers to bring about his defeat. And yet for all his military genius, Rommel was also naive, a man who could admire Adolf Hitler at the same time that he despised the Nazis, dazzled by a Führer whose successes blinded him to the true nature of the Third Reich. Above all, he was the quintessential German patriot, who ultimately would refuse to abandon his moral compass, so that on one pivotal day in June 1944 he came to understand that he had mistakenly served an evil man and evil cause. He would still fight for Germany even as he abandoned his oath of allegiance to the Führer, when he came to realize that Hitler had morphed into nothing more than an agent of death and destruction. In the end Erwin Rommel was forced to die by his own hand, not because, as some would claim, he had dabbled in a tyrannicidal conspiracy, but because he had committed a far greater crime – he dared to tell Adolf Hitler the truth. In Field Marshal historian Daniel Allen Butler not only describes the swirling, innovative campaigns in which Rommel won his military reputation, but assesses the temper of the man who finally fought only for his country, and no dark depths beyond.
Categories: Crime
About the Author
Daniel Allen Butler is a maritime and military historian, the author (through 2024) of eleven books. Some of his previous works include "Unsinkable"--the Full Story of RMS Titanic; Distant Victory--the Battle of Jutland and the Allied Triumph in the First World War"; The First Jihad: Khartoum and the Dawn of Militant Islam; The Other Side of the Night: The Carpathia, the Californian, and the Night the Titanic was Lost; The Burden of Guilt: How Germany Shattered the Last Days of Peace, Summer 1914; Shadow of the Sultan's Realm: the Destruction of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East; Field Marshal--the Life and Death of Erwin Rommel; and his newest, Pearl - December 7, 1941. Educated at Hope College, Grand Valley State University, and the University of Erlangen (FAU), Butler served in the United States Army before becoming a full time author. He isa popular guest-speaker, having given presentations at the National Archives in Washington DC, the Mariners Museum, and in the United Kingdom. From 2002 to 2010, he was also a frequent guest in the on-board enrichment series of Cunard's Queen Elizabeth 2 and Queen Mary 2, as well as the ships of the Royal Caribbean and Norwegian cruise lines. Butler is currently at work on two new projects: The Convoy -- ONS-5 and the Last Stand of the Wolfpacks; and A Short Victorious War: the Russo-Japanese War. 1904-1095. Noted for his love of good cigars and single-malt scotch, Butler is a self-proclaimed "semi-professional beach bum," dividing what little time he spends away from his writing between, his love of woodworking and his fascination with building model ships. After living and working in Los Angeles, California, for several years, Butler now resides in northern Georgia.
