Special to The ribune - Son’s letter confirms enforced suicide of Nazi General Rommel - (Shyam Bhatia in London)

A revealing letter has confirmed details about the enforced suicide of a Nazi-era German general whose North Africa campaign was blocked with the help of Indian soldiers. Back in 1942-43 during the North Africa campaign, Gen. Erwin Rommel - known as the Desert Fox - commanding the Afrika Korps celebrated a series of battle successes. Allied forces, including elements of the British Indian army, were pushed back to within 90 miles of Alexandria, thereby threatening Cairo, the Suez Canal and the sea route to India.

The Germans were stopped at the First Battle of El Alamein in Jul 42. But they were decisively defeated at the Second Battle of Alamein in October of the same year. The rows and rows of Indian graves at Alamein are testimony to the gallantry of the Indian soldiers from the 5th, 9th and 10th Indian Infantry Divisions and the Indian 18th, 29th and 161st Infantry Brigades who died resisting the Germans. Indian casualties amounted to 3,000 from the 5th Inf Div alone. After the North Afrika campaign, Rommel was redeployed to Greece, France and Germany, where he was implicated in the 1944 military plot to kill Hitler. In October 1944, when details of the plot were revealed, Hitler offered Rommel two choices, either to face a People’s Court or to commit suicide. Rommel chose the suicide option by biting into a cyanide capsule supplied to him by two fellow German generals who visited him at his home. The description of how he was led away to his death is contained in a letter written by his then teenage son, Manfred, who says in his recently discovered hand written account how his father “told me that he had taken leave of my mother, and that Adolph Hitler had given him the choice between taking poison or being brought before the People’s Court. Adolph Hitler had also let him know that in the event of his committing suicide, nothing was to happen to his family, the family on the contrary would be provided for… “Having said farewell to me... my father left the house in uniform, we accompanying (sic) him to the car where the general saluted him with Hail Hitler.  “My father got into the car first and took a seat in the back followed by the generals... the car drove off. 15 minutes later, we had a telephone call from the general hospital that my father had been brought there by the two generals and had apparently succumbed there to an attack of cerebral apoplexy. “In my last talk with my father, he told me that he had been suspected of complicity in the 20th July, 1944 plot. “The Fuhrer, he was informed, did not wish to lower his prestige with the German people, so was offering him the chance of a voluntary death by means of a poison pill.“It would have a mortal effect within 5 seconds. In the event of his refusing, he was to be arrested immediately.”  Young Rommel’s letter was part of a collection of documents that once belonged to an officer who served on the staff of British army chief Sir Bernard Montgomery (later Viscount Montgo-mery of Alamein). As for Manfred Rommel, now 84-year-old, he first became a civil servant before entering local politics and going on to serve as Lord Mayor of Stuttgart from 1974 till 1996. He is the recipient of honours from the French, German, Israeli and Egyptian authorities.

Fatal choice

• General Erwin Rommel (pic) was implicated in the 1944 military plot to kill Hitler
• Hitler had offered the General two choices, either to face a People’s Court or to commit suicide
• Rommel chose the suicide option by biting into a cyanide capsule supplied to him by two fellow German generals

(Source-The Tribune)