Correct. He never joined the party. He was one of the last of the traditional Prussian officer corps. Most old-school German soldiers loathed Hitler. They called him “that Bohemian corporal” behind his back. Rommels son ended up rising to the rank of general in the West German Bundeswehr.
CC
Correct.
The duo were captured.
What happened to the other guy? Was he kaput?
“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
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 was a traditional German officer but he wasn’t one of the Prussians.
Rommel wasn’t Prussian.