Posted on 11/30/2014 6:54:32 PM PST by robowombat
21 November 2014 Last updated at 13:11 ET
A former soldier has revealed how a Nazi general spared him from the firing squad in World War Two.
Roy Wooldridge, 95, from Hendy, Carmarthenshire, .....
Mr Wooldridge, who was twice awarded the Military Cross, was sent a telegram ordering him to report to his unit just three days after his wedding in 1944.
The lieutenant, who was later promoted to captain, was sent to the French beaches with a colleague to ensure there were no mines which could blow up the boats during the D-Day landings.
Due to the secretive nature of the mission, he was not wearing a uniform or carrying identification.
The duo were captured
He was then blindfolded and taken to a chateau where he was ordered up a flight of stairs.
"I opened the door... and there standing behind the desk was Field Marshall Rommel, so I gave him the courtesy of standing to attention.
....... After his request to the general, he was taken to the mess hall where a stein of beer, a packet of cigarettes and a meal of meatballs, potatoes and sauerkraut were waiting.
....... After his meeting with Rommel, he was taken to Paris.
He said: "When I got to the Prisoner of War camp, a German guard who spoke English said 'you're a very lucky man, if you hadn't been to see Rommel you would have been shot as a saboteur.'"
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Right. He was approached but did nothing. Who knows what might have happened if he hadn’t been hurt.
IIRC, German infiltrators wearing American uniforms during the battle of the bulge were summarily executed as spies.
CC
Some genes are more equal than other genes.
Whether you can smoke in your twenties and live to be 95 is a separate question.
Some genes are more equal than other genes.
Whether you can smoke in your twenties and live to be 95 is a separate question.
“Rommels son ended up rising to the rank of general in the West German Bundeswehr.”
Let us keep in mind that Rommel agreed to swallow poison (thereby saving Hitler the spectacle of a very embarrassing public trail) in order to protect his family (including only son Manfred) from collective punishment over the Field Marshall’s involvement in the 20 July 1944 assassination plot.
However, Manfred did not go on to achieve high office (civilian or military) in the Bundeswehr. In fact, his only military service was as a teenager during the war.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Rommel
Here's one that's part of the story of a remarkable operation called The St Nazaire Raid. In a television documentary of this battle, beautifully done and narrated by Jeremy Clarkson, are the following words:
British Commando survivor: They were patting us on the back now, the Germans were. Amazing! I mean, they probably couldn't believe it, that anybody would venture up into a submarine base, heavily defended.This documentary, here, on YouTube, has more than a million views, and is well worth the time to watch.Jeremy Clarkson:Some of the stories of bravery were incredible. Out in the estuary one of the surviving NL's had gone head-to-head with a much more powerful German destroyer. The British gunner, a commando called Seargent Tom Darrent was asked to surrender on a number of occasions, but even though he'd been shot sixteen times, he kept on firing, until he was overcome by the loss of blood and passed out.
J.C. continues: But the story doesn't end there, because the captain of the German destroyer (the one Darrent was taking on pretty much single handed) was so impressed by Darrent's bravery that when he landed, he took the trouble to find the most senior British officer he could, and said "look, I don't know who was on that little ship, but whoever it was should get your Victoria Cross."
Of course, many of you will have heard the story of The Charlie Brown and Franz Stigler incident, in which a badly shot-up B-17 and its American crew were escorted to safety by the pilot of a Messerschmitt Bf 109 because the pilot, German ace Franz Stigler, could not find it within himself to shoot down a barely flying aircraft with basically every crew member wounded.
Too bad he didn’t get a selfie with Rommel. That would have scored big $ at the Antiques Road Show.
Thomas Frank Durrant, former butcher's boy and builder's laborer, actually did receive the Victoria Cross, as recommended by his enemy!
Incredible.
"His award of the Victoria Cross was unique in that it is the only award given to a soldier in a naval action and it was on the recommendation of the enemy commander."
The amazing thing is that his very early evaluations pegged him as only a slightly above-average military man —they weren’t crazy about him.
The same for the early flying career of the highest-scoring Luftwaffe ace, Rudel —he was almost kicked out for poor performance. He straightened up, later, and then everything took off for him once he strapped into a Stuka.
Something north of 400 tanks, one battleship (single-handed) and lots and lots of other stuff.
He was on the eastern front for a long time, and they more or less flew mission after mission after mission.
LOL!
That's a great catch!
Assuming that the assumption that he smoked the cigarettes himself... is correct.
You’re right. I got Rommels son mixed up with Von Stauffenberg’s son.
CC
Thanks TS. Hope you had a good Thanksgiving too.
I don’t know the whole story here but this write up makes it sound like a bunch of bull.
Thanks very much for posting that video. What an amazing story and what brave men.
ref “Too bad he didn’t get a selfie with Rommel. That would have scored big $ at the Antiques Road Show.”
Just made me think of an old “In Living Color” skit where the appraiser from the Antique Roadshow uses every antique heirloom, no matter its age, to surmise that the owner’s great, great, great grandmother was a prostitute servicing Chinese laborers on the Transcontinental Railroad....A selfie with Rommel would have fit perfectly....
Lol
The PC Brit Left think Jeremy Clarkson is a Nazi too you know...
Well he was from Württemberg, but I get what you mean by the old Prussian officer tradition though I would not lump Rommel into that category since he was never a part of the old Prussian aristocracy.
A lot of the documentation that exists out there shows that Rommel was, at first, very much enamored with Hitler, though never officially becoming a National Socialist and distrusted Hitler’s pseudo-military organizations (ie. SA and SS). He would remain loyal to Hitler for the bulk of the war and would be rewarded with not only promotions, but propaganda orchestrated by Goebbels to add to his heroic status.
By the end it is clear from most documents that Rommel had become disillusioned with Hitler’s ability to preserve Germany, but his actual role or even level of knowledge of the July 20 event is still debated.
That debate starts with a sworn statement by Rommel’s son made on 5 April 1945 and published shortly after the war which first debunked the official Nazi story on his father’s cause of death and stated that he had died on Hitler’s orders after Rommel’s chief of general staff Lt. Gen. Speidel had implicated Rommel as a primary conspirator.
Speidel would refute this claim a few weeks after it was published in the Südkurier stating that he never implicated Rommel in anything since if he had done so it would have implicated himself. Since he was trying to save his own life under Gestapo interrogation he certainly was not going to do anything to compromise his own claim of innocence.
Finally, Rommel’s wife Lucie chimed in, also in the Südkurier, stating statements by Speidel and others had indirectly implicated Rommel to have some knowledge of the overall plot.
From there his level of involvement has ebbed and flowed as time, and history has varied the significance of the event.
“Rommel wasn’t a Nazi.”
Quite true. Rommel had no use for Nazis.
Rommel was a traditional German officer but he wasn’t one of the Prussians.
Rommel wasn’t Prussian.
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