Rommel is the only member of the Nazi party that was allowed to have a memorial in Germany after WWII. The memorial required the approval of the 4 Powers, US, Great Britain, France and Russia. He was born in my wife's hometown of Heidenheim an der Brenz. In the suburb of Schnaitheim where my son was born, the hill above my MILs house contains Rommel Park with a concrete wall engraved with a map of northern Africa and depicts Rommels campaign. Hitler once came to Heidenheim and when the parade went through the town, he became enraged because the residents didn't give the Nazi salute. He then had all the military age males of the county conscripted, trained and sent to the Russian Front where my FIL and 2 of his 5 brothers are buried. The people of Heidenheim county and city hated Hitler but none more than Georg Elser who in 1939 planted a bomb in a bar to kill Hitler. The attempt failed and Elser was caught at the Austrian border. He was held in Dachau where Hitler had him executed the day before he committed suicide.
30 miles from Heidenheim is the city of Ulm where Rommel spent his last days. I have been to his house a half dozen times and my wife was a favorite of Rommel's butler and.whenever we went there with friends, he would escort us to every room in the house upstairs and down. He said he never took any tourists upstairs where the family lived.I felt honored.