Rommel's Ghost Division: Victory in the West
I am an unabashed fan of the Images of War book series. While I was not familiar with the author, David Mitchelhill-Green, I thoroughly enjoyed his contribution to the series and will seek him out in the future.
From the Notes on Photography and Sources section at the beginning of the book,
The German Army collated detailed daily records into Kriegstagebücher (or KTBs). Rommel also kept his own personal dairy, delegating his aides to update it.He also instructed his staff to keep copies of all his orders, reports and maps. This material, he explained to his friend Kurt Hesse, would feature a sequel to his earlier Infanterie greift an (Infantry Attacks), a First World War memoir. Rommel was a keen photographer, and by the end of the campaign had taken and amassed hundreds of photographs. Most of the images used in this book are drawn from the ‘Rommel Collection’, seized after the war and today held in the US National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
It is with this explanation that the book is based with photographs from both Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel and the Kriegsberichterstatter (war correspondents) during Operation Fall Gelb (‘Case Yellow’), the offensive against neutral Luxembourg, Holland, Belgium and France that began on 10 May 1940. Rommel carried his Leica camera, a gift from Reichspropagandaminister Joseph Goebbels, with him throughout the campaign.
Following the familiar Pen & Sword Images of War series is the story of Rommel's Ghost Division: Victory in the West. Each chapter starts with a brief history of the topic covered, followed by a lot of photographs to complement the text. This book is composed of the following:
- Acknowledgements
- Notes on Photography and Sources
- Abbreviations, Conventions and Definitions
- Introduction
- Part I
- Chapter 1: Hitler Strikes West
- Chapter 2: Victory at Saint-Valery-en-Caux
- Chapter 3: ‘Le Havre is Taken’
- Chapter 4: Swastika over Cherbourg
- Chapter 5: Bordeaux Victory Parade
- Part II
- Chapter 6: Re-enacting the Somme Crossing
- Appendix 1: 7th Panzer Division Order of Battle, 10 May 1940
- Appendix 2: 1940 Timeline for the 7th Panzer Division in France
- Bibliography
Part I – War, Part II – After the Battle Propaganda War
The introduction is succinct (four pages, two of which are photographs) and summarizes the life of General Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel up to his directly asking Adolf Hitler for command of a panzer division at the conclusion of the Polish Campaign (Rommel had served as commander of Hitler’s personal security battalion), to which he was given the 7th Panzer Division, despite misgivings from senior generals, including the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), Alfred Jodl.
The book does a fantastic job of hitting the highlights of the French Campaign and the 7th Panzer Division’s role in the victory. Photographs of this campaign were numerous, especially as Rommel wanted to capture his role in it. Rommel served with distinction in the First World War and earned Imperial Germany’s highest award for bravery, the Pour le Mérite. Surviving the purge of German officers post WWI, Rommel found himself as a tactics instructor at the Infantrieschule. His first book, Gefechts-Aufgaben für Zug und Kompanie (Combat Problems for Platoon and Company) was published in 1934, followed by his very successful Infanterie Greift an (Infantry Attacks) in 1937 (if you are interested in small unit combat, this is a great book to read). It is in this vein that Rommel lead a panzer division as an infantry officer.
Operation Fall Gelb was a case study in tactics. The French and their Allies, primarily British, thought the Maginot Line would protect them and force the Germans to react in predictable ways. The Germans outfought and outmaneuvered their adversaries, and more importantly, were quicker to take advantage of situations. While the 7th Panzer Division was a small part of the German invasion force, it was well documented and had a newsworthy and photogenic commander; it also appeared where not expected, thus earning the moniker “The Ghost Division”. Their exploits were remarkable and outlined in this book. On 12 June 1940, just a month into the campaign, the 7th Panzer Division accepted the surrender of one corps and four division commanders in St Valery. On the same day, Heinz Guderian smashed through the French lines and split two French armies apart. A day later, Paris was declared an open city; German troops entered Paris the following morning, and three days later, Guderian reached the Swiss border, trapping 500,000 French troops within the Maginot Line.
With the British success of the Dunkirk evacuation, the 7th Panzer Division continued its advance along the French coast, closing ports to further British evacuations. The 7th Panzer Division was pushed hard. Rommel had earlier told Oberst Kurt Hesse,
I don’t believe in armchair strategy. Let’s leave that to the gentlemen of the General Staff. This is the age of (Prussian General Friedrich Wilhelm, baron von) Seydlitz and (General Hans Joachim von) Ziethen all over again. We’ve got to look at this war like a cavalry action – we’ve got to throw in tank divisions like cavalry squadrons, and that means issuing orders from a moving tank just as generals once used to from the saddle.
Despite the rapid German advance, the final evacuation of British and French troops from France, Operation Aerial, “described by one historian as ‘Churchill’s second miracle of deliverance’, began on 15 June. Nearly 186,000 troops – almost half of the Dunkirk total – were rescued from Cherbourg, Granville, Saint-Malo, Brest, Saint-Nazaire, Nantes, La Pallice, the Gironde River, Saint-Jean-de-Luz and the Channel Islands.” All these ports fell to the Germans in rapid succession, cutting off further withdrawals to England.
In six weeks of fighting, Rommel had captured 97,648 prisoners, including 5 admirals, 1 corps commander and 4 divisional commanders and staff – and taken 458 armoured vehicles, 277 artillery pieces, 64 anti-tank guns, 458 tanks and armoured cars, and over 4,000 trucks, over 1,500 cars and more than 1,550 horse-drawn vehicles. In the same period, the 7th Panzer Division suffered 682 men killed (including 52 officers), 1,646 wounded and 296 missing.Forty-two of its tanks were destroyed.In Hans von Luck’s opinion, it was ‘certainly a proud balance’.
The 7th Panzer Division was in Bordeaux on 24 June 1940 when the armistice went into force, less than 200 miles from the Spanish frontier.
Rommel was not without controversary for his achievements. Superiors, peers and subordinates had doubts, and several were critical of his methods, but his results and methods were defended by several of his superiors. His dash across the Somme River, which stymied the Germans in the First World War, and subsequent dash to the channel, then along the coast, were brilliant maneuvers against a mightier foe. The author noted, “Though outnumbered in arms and manpower, Germany overran France as a consequence of three primary factors: poor intelligence, plus tactical and operational shortcomings in conjunctions with inadequate strategic leadership.”
Part II of the book is about re-enacting the Somme River crossing highlighted in the German propaganda movie Sieg im Westen (‘Blitzkrieg in the West’). While this is mainly photos taken during the movie recreation, the author does a great job highlighting parts of the battle using captions. Of particular interest was the German attitude of the tenacious fighting prowess and techniques of French Colonial Troops and their fate after the battle.
As British Prime Minister Winston Churchill famously said, “The Battle of France is over. The Battle of Britain is about to begin.” England found itself alone in the fight against Hitler. In February the next year, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel was in North Africa, about to write another chapter in his book as the Desert Fox.
Profuse thanks to Casemate and IPMS/USA for providing the review sample.
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