ColinWright -> RE: What is a sucessful scenario? (9/18/2007 3:55:02 AM)
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I think the impulse to criticize Rommel comes from a number of sources. First, there's the desire to say something original. To do something other than just join the chorus of admiration. Well, I can sympathize with that -- but it is not in and of itself a valid criticism. Second, Rommel did almost customarily violate accepted military canon. These canons are there for good reason, and violating them automatically creates valid criticisms. Rommel's greatness lies partly in knowing when he could do this and reap rewards greater than the penalties, though. See, for example, periodically disappearing from headquarters. Given what he did while he was gone, this helped the Germans more than it hurt them. Third, granting that Rommel was without qualification a great general necessarily casts his opponents in the shade. If one can make criticisms of Rommel, then one can leave it at 'Rommel was a good -- but flawed -- general. Montgomery was a good -- but flawed -- general.' Semantically at least, they become equal. This doesn't work if one calls Rommel a military genius. Then one has to either make the same case for Montgomery -- not really a tenable view -- or concede that in this case at least, the Germans were better than the British. Finally, there's the aversion to glorifying any aspect of the Third Reich. Manstein, Guderian -- these are relatively faceless entities. The English-speaking world knows exactly who Rommel was. This leads to an impulse to somehow qualify one's praise. Else one is -- however obliquely -- singing hosannas to Hitler. That this is an element in the equation can be seen in the need to play up Rommel's anti-Naziism simultaneously with praise of his generalship. He cannot just be a great general. He must either be a great general with major limitations or he must be a great general who was also a fervent anti-Nazi.
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