Was Field Marshall Erwin Rommel Jewish?

[Karl Radl]

Was Field Marshall Erwin Rommel Jewish?

In order to pre-empt the claims that I read swirling about the internet, and even occasionally in print, that such and such prominent member of the Third Reich had jewish ancestry. I thought I would check the background of the Wehrmacht's most famous military commander: Field Marshal Erwin Rommel.

I will discuss the subject of Rommel's views on the Third Reich itself and the jewish question in a seperate article, but I wanted to address the simple question of Rommel's ancestry here.

This is simple enough as Rommel was born on 15th November 1891 to Erwin Rommel (Rommel was named after his father) and Helene von Luz in Heidenheim near Wurttemberg. (1) Rommel's father Erwin was a schoolmaster (and mathematician) like his father before him. (2) His mother, Helene, was the daughter of the local Regierungs-Prasident von Luz. (3)

In his personnel file at the Royal Officer Cadet School at Danzig Rommel later (correctly) stated in a handwritten note that both his parents with of the Protestant faith. (4) The simple fact is that we have absolutely no evidence that Rommel had any jewish ancestry whatsoever.

Therefore we can authoritatively say, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, that Rommel wasn't jewish.

References

(1) David Fraser, 1993, 'Knight's Cross: A Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel', 1st Edition, Harper Collins: London, p. 3; David Irving, 2005, 'The Trail of the Fox: The Search for the True Field Marshal Rommel', 3rd Edition, Focal Point: London, pp. 9-10
(2) Idem.
(3) Ibid.
(4) Irving, Op. Cit., p. 10

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This was originally published at the following address: http://www.semiticcontroversies.blog...el-jewish.html