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Editor says, what if Hitler had swapped von Paulus and Rommel after Tobruk? muses Scott Palter. Please note that the opinions expressed in this post do not necessarily reflect the views of the author(s). This story was published in the November 2011 edition of Changing the Times Magazine.
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In 1941, serving for the last time under the inspirational command of the "Desert Fox" Colonel-General Erwin Rommel, the Panzer Army Afrika launched a daring strike at the British armour in the rear of the Allied defences at Gazala near the Libyan City of Tobruk.
Fox on the Volga By Ed and Scott PalterWith the Eighth Army retreating into Egypt, Hitler decided the time was right to pull Rommel out of the Western Desert Campaign. His replacement Friedrich Wilhelm Ernst Paulus obeyed orders by halting the advance at the Egyptian border, a cautious decision which ultimately set-up Operation Hercules for success, enabling Kesselring to take Malta.
Instead of chasing the Desert Rats into Egypt, Rommel was to deploy his prodigious talents in a theater of far greater strategic importance to the Third Reich. And rather than face the British General Wavell, his new adversary was the altogether more impressive Russian military genius Marshal Zhukov. Nevertheless he prevailed, defeating Zhukov at Mars.
The prize for this latest success was a new mission of epic proportions. To mastermind Operation Winter Storm instead of the brilliant, but out of favour Prussian General Erich Von Manstein. The relief of Stalingrad.
Entry posted by
Scott Palter
© Scott Palter, 2009-.Story Tags
Permalinks: Post, Day. Browse Thread: Generals Source: Wikipedia Labels: Rommel, Stalingrad, Tobruk, Afrika Corps, Eastern Front. Editor says, in this article we explore a point of divergence proposed by the Strategy Page, toy with the novel "Fox on the Rhine" by Douglas Niles and Michael Dobson (2000) and have repurposed a significant amount of content from Wikipedia.
~ Meanwhile, what's going on in North Africa? good point in first draft VP surrounded at El Alemein (like Stalingrad) but here we have a less belligerent Desert Campaign..
~ Sounds as if this alteration would have kept Germany fighting longer. Perhaps just long enough that Nuremberg and Berlin would be the first cities incinerated by A-bombs. (Actually, it would have had to be two other cities: Hiroshima aand Nagasaki were chosen because they had *not* previously been hit, sparing military analysts the problem of sorting out the damage caused by the Bomb from that done previously by conventional munitions. Berlin and Nuremberg had already been heavily bombed by early 1945.)
~ It would have spared Eastern Europe a good deal of oppression behind the Iron Curtain.
~ Um, Stalingrad was put under seige in 1942. and Manstein did have a plan to break Paulus out of stalingrad, a good plan too. But Paulus would have none of it since Hitler said to hold stalingrad at all costs. Theoretically, if Hitler had given the go ahead in late december or early january, Manstein could have broken the germans out of stalingrad. They would have lost a lot of heavy equipment, but it couldf have been done.
Sadly though, this has a net loss for the germans, since it frees up the Soviet troops encircling stalingrad. With the extra addition of troops, the russkies smash through the weakened army Group Southerns front, and kick them out of the caucasus earlier than OTL. No Miracle on the Donetz, And the war ends in early 1944, most likely. Things do not end up better for the allies at all.
© Today in Alternate History, 2013-. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
