Editing Erwin Rommel (section)

=== Rommel's views on propaganda ===
Rommel was interested in propaganda beyond the promotion of his own image. In 1944, after visiting Rommel in France and reading his proposals on counteracting Allied propaganda, Alfred-Ingemar Berndt remarked: "He is also interested in this propaganda business and wants to develop it by all means. He has even thought and brought out practical suggestions for each program and subject."<ref>{{cite web|last1=Fischer|first1=Thomas|title=Propaganda-Star Ein Mythos entsteht|url=http://www.swr.de/rommel/propaganda-start/ein-mythos-entsteht/-/id=10224974/did=10224880/nid=10224974/ktgj7v/index.html|access-date=4 August 2016|date=2 September 2014|archive-date=29 March 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170329060533/http://www.swr.de/rommel/propaganda-start/ein-mythos-entsteht/-/id=10224974/did=10224880/nid=10224974/ktgj7v/index.html|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Rommel saw the propaganda and education values in his and his nation's deeds (He also did value justice itself; according to Admiral Ruge's diary, Rommel told Ruge: "Justice is the indispensable foundation of a nation. Unfortunately, the higher-ups are not clean. The slaughterings are grave sins."{{sfn|Remy|2002|p=247}}) The key to the successful creating of an image, according to Rommel, was leading by example: {{blockquote|The men tend to feel no kind of contact with a commander who, they know, is sitting somewhere in headquarters. What they want is what might be termed a physical contact with him. In moments of panic, fatigue, or disorganization, or when something out of the ordinary has to be demanded from them, the personal example of the commander works wonders, especially if he has had the wit to create some sort of legend around himself.{{sfn|Rommel|1982|p=241}}}} He urged Axis authorities to treat the Arab with the utmost respect to prevent uprisings behind the front.{{sfn|Shepherd|2016|p=356}} He protested the use of propaganda at the cost of explicit military benefits though, criticising Hitler's headquarters for being unable to tell the German people and the world that El Alamein had been lost and preventing the evacuation of the German forces in Northern Africa in the process.{{sfn|Rommel|1982|p=324}}{{sfn|Perry|2012|p=170}} Ruge suggests that his chief treated his own fame as a kind of weapon.<ref name="Ruge160415"/>

In 1943, he surprised Hitler by proposing that a Jew should be made into a ''[[Gauleiter]]'' to prove to the world that Germany was innocent of accusations that Rommel had heard from the enemy's propaganda regarding the mistreatment of Jews. Hitler replied, "Dear Rommel, you understand nothing about my thinking at all."{{sfn|Fleischhauer|Friedmann|2012}}<ref name=FrankAllg112012>{{cite news |date=3 November 2012 |title=Der Mann wusste, dass der Krieg verloren ist |newspaper=Frankfurter Allgemeine |language=de |url=https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/hans-ulrich-wehler-zu-rommel-der-mann-wusste-dass-der-krieg-verloren-ist-11947572.html |access-date=15 June 2016 |archive-date=8 December 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211208113358/https://www.faz.net/aktuell/feuilleton/medien/hans-ulrich-wehler-zu-rommel-der-mann-wusste-dass-der-krieg-verloren-ist-11947572.html |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Cross of Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German War Machine, 1918–1945 By John Mosier">{{cite book|last1=By John Mosier|first1=John|title=Cross of Iron: The Rise and Fall of the German War Machine, 1918–1945|date=2006|isbn=978-0-8050-8321-7|page=41|publisher=Henry Holt and Company |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zrMt1_4KmAAC&pg=PA41}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Knab|first1=Jakob|title=Falsche Glorie: das Traditionsverständnis der Bundeswehr|date=1995|publisher=Ch. Links Verlag |isbn=3-86153-089-9|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MnH8gY4B2zMC&pg=PA79}}</ref>{{Excessive citations inline|date=September 2021}}