This is John Batchel, a conversation with Lloyd Clark, Professor Lloyd Clark at Sandhurst,

the commanders, the leadership journeys of George Patton, Bernard Montgomery, and Erwin Rommel.

Erwin Rommel, dead of his own hand after he was accused of participating in the plot to kill Hitler in July of 1944.

However, Lloyd Clark's measure of him has to do with how he commanded in the field

from the earliest moments of the war, the attack on the Netherlands,

that's at the end of the phony war.

That's 1940.

And the final battles for Normandy in 1944. After that he was invalided out, wounded badly in an air attack while he was going to the front, D-Day, August of 1944.

Rommel was a paragon of rectitude and devotion to Germany and his furor and enormously courageous, physically courageous.

However, there was a measure that his men could not find in him.

And Lloyd Clark, Professor Lloyd Clark explains here quickly.

Lloyd Clark on Rommel, same as Montgomery, same as Patton, very brave, but lacking something

that Montgomery and Patton had.

More of this later.

I think that that phrase venerated by but not loved would be equally

applicable to Montgomery and Patton as well, certainly at this time in their careers. All of these

men were taking extraordinary risks to themselves and demanding huge sacrifice of their men.

The fact that they as leaders weren't killed is

just very fortunate for them, but there were plenty of men that were dying all around them

or suffered terrible wounds, died of their wounds. And as a result of that, their men had great

respect for them, and particularly, I would say, for Rommel and

his bravery, his professionalism, but they found him very difficult to connect with as a human

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