An excerpt from my book, “Montgomery vs. Rommel at El Agheila 1942: Duel at the Gates of Egypt,” in which I discuss the origins of Rommel’s disloyalty to Hitler that would culminate in Rommel’s death in 1944.

This battle brought many shattering moments for Rommel. Foremost among them was a direct order from Hitler to lead the troops to ‘victory or death’ – which meant death, in other words….

‘The 3 November will remain one the most memorable days in history. Because on this day, it was laid bare that the fortunes of war had not only abandoned our [Germany’s] flag with absolute finality, but from this time onwards, the freedom of the Panzerarmee to make decisions was suppressed by the heaviest restrictions due to the permanent interference of highest authorities in combat leadership’, wrote Rommel in a rather dramatic passage describing the events…

Up to this point, Rommel had made repeated attempts to get the High Command’s attention so as to secure some assistance to his army. As the stuffy old Prussians tended to dismiss him, he usually approached the one person who had showed willingness to listen to him and had the authority to get things done: Hitler. These requests were not Rommel asking for special favours but rather for supplies and resolutions to concerns about situations facing his army….

Rommel was fiercely devoted to his troops above all else and would not cease trying to represent their interests – which brought him into open conflict with Hitler, and sowed the first seeds of hatred against Hitler in Rommel’s heart. He was already discontented and disillusioned about Hitler’s lack of care about the fighting troops in North Africa by the time the Second Battle of El Alamein came…

Rommel and other members of his staff – like so many Germans during that dark time in their country’s history – swallowed their feelings, used their sense of discipline to smother their consciences and resigned themselves to go down with the ship.

‘A profound apathy overpowered all of us as we commanded that all occupied positions were to be held in accord with the highest orders’, wrote Rommel. Not a single step back. His subordinate, General Ritter von Thoma, is said to have decried the order as madness and refused to go along with it. However, Von Thoma’s opposition was not enough to change anything as long as everyone else around him was willing to fall on their swords.

Apathy was impossible for Rommel. In despair and fury he began voicing his anger against Hitler. It did not go unnoticed. Taking offence, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring confronted Rommel about his willingness to speak out against the Führer. Kesselring was loyal to Hitler and believed his orders needed to be respected.

A heated argument erupted, and what Rommel described as ‘some bitter words’ were exchanged. This confrontation forced Rommel to speak his mind and vent his anger against Germany’s most powerful man – a dangerous act. But Rommel no longer cared. ‘Until this point, I had assumed that the Führer left the command of the army to me. This senseless order has had the effect of a bombshell upon us’, he snapped. Kesselring argued that Hitler had learned from experience on the Eastern Front that in such circumstances a front line could and should be held at all costs. Rommel was not having it. ‘He [Hitler] cannot just easily apply any knowledge he has formed from experiences in Russia to leading the war in Africa’, he protested, taking a decidedly flippant tone and word choices in German about Hitler’s behaviour. ‘In this case he really should have left the decision to me.’

Meanwhile the troops went like sheep to the slaughter. A sense of torment came over Rommel and his officers as they allowed it to happen. ‘They [the troops] were ready, in accord with the directive of the Führer, to sacrifice themselves to the last man’, he wrote, adding, ‘Within us, an immeasurable bitterness rose up when we thought of the outstanding spirit of the army …’ A wholesale wave of battlefield suicides began.