EL ALAMEIN

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 104, 30 October 1945, Page 6

EL ALAMEIN

A GERMAN OPINION

LONDON, October 29. The German view of El Alamein was given to "The Times" Hamburg correspondent by Major-General Johann Cramer, who was taken prisoner at Cap Bon, and repatriated because of his ill health.

Cramer said, "El Alamein was lost before it was fought. We ■ had not enough petrol. Vast stocks of petrol and material were lying around in Italy, and the Italians were supposed to bring them over, but they could not do it. Rommel had known for a long time that the campaign, in North Africa was hopeless, not because we lacked weapons or reserves, but because of the petrol shortage. He appealed to Hitler to end the campaign as soon as El Alamein was lost, thus saving us much greater losses later on—which, in fact, we suffered at Cap Bon. We could have taken Alexandria and Egypt in the summer of 1942, but Rommel knew we could not have held them.

"There were only two ways we could have held North Africa. One would have been to have taken Gibraltar, Crete, and Malta. The other way would have been with a giant pincer movement coming through the. Caucasus and joining up- with us in the Middle East. But we were defeated at Stalingrad and El Alamein, and that was the turning point of the war. The war in North Africa was a gentlemen's war." ■

Asked about Rommel, Cramer said, '.'He was no Nazi. He never allowed any SS in his ranks, or any high party men. For a bit he may have been impressed by Hitler,*, but he quickly realised what Hitler's rule meant." The general spoke "of Rommel's death, and of. how he was convalescent after his accident in Normandy at his home near Ulm when under suspicion of being concerned with the plot against Hitler. He was called for by two generals in a car —Burgdorf and Meisel. The next thing his family knew was that Rommel was dead. He had carried poison for just this eventuality, as he had indeed been concerned in the plot. ' . ,