German Commanders of World War II (1) Army

Benghazi and Derna fell to the advancing Afrikakorps, which was soon at the gates of Tobruk; but on 11 April a two-day battle to seize this strategic port ended in failure. A further attack from late April until 2 May also failed to dislodge the British garrison. Rather than delay his advance, Rommel by-passed Tobruk and continued his advance eastwards. On 15 June he fended off a British counter-attack ('Battleaxe') in a battle which saw over 200 outclassed British tanks destroyed for the loss of just 12 of his own. On 1 July 1941. Rommel was promoted to General der Panzertruppe. Running short of supplies. however, he was inevitably forced onto the defensive, and gradually fell back to Mersa el Brega. He was elevated to Generalmajor in 1937, commanding 18. Inianterie Division the next year; and to Generalleutnant by April 1939, becoming Rundstedt's chief-of-staff at Army Group A that August. He excelled in this post during the Polish campaign, and during the preparations for the campaign in the West. Unimpressed by the General Staff's intention to follow the basic plan conceived by Schleiffen in 1914, he contributed his own plans for an attack into France. These involved a powerful armoured force striking through the supposedly impenetrable wooded hills of the Ardennes, and seizing the bridges over the Meuse prior to by-passing the Maginot Line defences and cutting off enemy forces in the north. Hitler was impressed by the audacity of the scheme, and overruled its rejection by the OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres).
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