Germany. Heer. Panzerarmeekorps Afrika. - At Rommels side: the lost letters of Hans-Joachim Schraepler

At Rammels Side: The Lost Letters of Hans-Joachim Schraepler

This edition published in 2009 by Frontline Books, an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Limited, 47 Church Street, Barnsley, S. Yorkshire, S70 2AS
www.frontline-books.com

DITIONS PRIVAT 2007

Translation Hans-Albrecht Schraepler, 2009

This edition Pen & Sword Books Limited, 2009

ISBN: 978-1-84832-538-8

Publishing History

Mon Pre, lAide de Camp du Gnral Rommel was first published in French by
ditions Privat in 2007. This is the first English-language edition of the text and
includes a new introduction by Dennis Showalter.

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War is the main topic of nations; it is the place where death and life are decided.

It is the way of ones own survival or of ones own end. It should not be treated carelessly.

The war is subject to five factors to be included in the analytical calculation of the balance of powers.

The first factor is the virtue, the second the climate, topography the third, the fourth the command, the fifth organisation

Sun Tsu: army general in China and philosopher, about 500 BC,

The Art of War, chapter I

I discovered the bundled letters of my father, Lieutenant Colonel Hans-Joachim Schraepler, adjutant of the Deutsches Afrika Korps, after my mother died in 2001. He wrote his first letter from Tripoli on 20 February 1941, his last on 9 December 1941. He wrote to my mother almost every day, either early in the morning, at noon, late in the evening or in the middle of the night, whenever time and fighting at the front permitted. Altogether I found more than 400 pages.

His last words were deeply marked by the depressing withdrawal of the Afrika Korps under British pressure and by the information that his wifes cousin, General Walter Neumann-Silkow, had succumbed to the serious wounds received the day before.

I knew, of course, that my father had joined the cavalry of the Weimar Republic after finishing school, progressing in his military career in Pomerania, a former Prussian province, during a politically difficult period for Germany and Europe. North Africa was an unknown continent for him and his comrades. His letters reveal the importance of his conservative and traditional background to his ability to withstand the hard and exhausting conditions of war in the desert.

The letters also show his doubts about the policy of the Berlin regime after the invasion of the Soviet Union. Today we know that, despite initial successes, the war against Stalin would not be finished by the winter and the country had no intention of surrendering. For my father, as for many others, the realisation of this was crushing.

His letters were often written in a hurry or in sections, depending on the changing war situation. But they were always full of information about the war in the desert, Rommels leadership, British strategy and his observations as an adjutant in the Afrika Korps functioning as he did between the staff and fighting troops. By the end of 1941 he rarely found calm moments to inform my mother about his condition or to note down his reflections as the situation at the front continued to deteriorate. The German troops suffered from lack of supplies on the ground and British supremacy on land, at sea and in the air.

His letters are informative and precise, and mention interesting details without getting bogged down. They also indicate his professional experience and present military and strategic views which, above all, show his loyalty to Rommel; and they do not hide a certain reserve regarding the regime in Berlin, as he is conscious, without mentioning it, of his oath of fidelity to Fhrer and Reich (made on the instructions of the minister of war of 2 August 1934).

They touch on topics like the strategic difficulties of the front in North Africa that were characterised by the particular context of North Africa in the international war. The letters are unique documents: they describe Rommel, the commanding general of the Afrika Korps, later of the Panzergruppe Afrika, without neglecting the situation at the front, which had the distinction of being the only deployment of German troops on another continent during World War II on the one hand, yet which was both geographically close and strategically important.

He describes not only the phases of the war front in Libya in 1941, the lengthy and unsuccessful siege of Tobruk and the famous Panzerschlacht (tank battle) of Sollum, but he also assesses the personality and strategy of Rommel, criticising him if he had reasons to, repeatedly mentioning how hard the demands of this war were for each soldier in the merciless desert without any natural protection or other options.

I found his assessment of the British adversary particularly interesting: he saw that their war stratagems were not always recognised by the German side, and that it was their need to defend the interests of the British Empire in the Mediterranean including the Suez Canal and the Red Sea needed for access to the Indian Ocean and the British colonies that was motivating the war in North Africa. He realised that this was in contrast to the way Berlin politics continually revised war ambitions in other theatres.

My father did not hesitate to express his concern about the outcome of the North Africa campaign. It started to come up in his letters a few weeks after the attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941. Overall, I feel that in his letters my father knew exactly what he was talking about and to whom he had been writing such frank letters.

The letters are bold. They are even courageous. Only a few of his letters show the familiar signs of censorship. Owing to his position in the Afrika Korps, my father was always well informed and he constantly identified comrades leaving for Germany to whom he could entrust his letters on some occasions to avoid the official field post.

Almost every letter confirmed my impression of his deep understanding of military affairs, from his time in a regiment of cavalry of the Reichswehr, the army of the Weimar Republic, when it was confronting deep changes in Germany after the end of World War I; and of his strong beliefs as officer and soldier: his loyalty to Germany, his affiliation to the Wehrmacht, his relationship with his comrades and his feelings for his family.

When reading the letter dated 25 August 1941, I remembered a conversation with my mother. I had asked her how her husband, my father, would have accepted the end of World War II with its far-reaching consequences for Germany, Europe and the world on the whole. She seemed to be surprised, for she hesitated a short moment before giving an answer. She looked at me and told me that she believed that he would not have regretted having chosen a career in the army; but he would have regretted belonging to a Wehrmacht whose supreme command had forgotten its role and function in a state where tradition, national feelings and progress are linked for the benefit of the country.