12 Erwin Rommel Quotes on Leadership

Erwin Rommel quotes on leadership

2. Courage which goes against military expediency is stupidity, or, if it is insisted upon by a commander, irresponsibility.

4. Mortal danger is an effective antidote for fixed ideas.

6. Men are basically smart or dumb and lazy or ambitious. The dumb and ambitious ones are dangerous and I get rid of them. The dumb and lazy ones I give mundane duties. The smart ambitious ones I put on my staff. The smart and lazy ones I make my commanders.

7. Be an example to your men in your duty and in private life. Never spare yourself, and let the troops see that you don't in your endurance of fatigue and privation. Always be tactful and well-mannered, and teach your subordinates to be the same. Avoid excessive sharpness or harshness of voice, which usually indicates the man who has shortcomings of his own to hide.

10. In the absence of orders, go find something and kill it.

15. There are always times where the place of a commander isn't back with his Major State, but onward with his troops.

19. Gentlemen, you have fought like lions and been led by donkeys.

21. Dialogue with Italian general Barbasetti at Capuzzo. Barbassetti: 'it was very painful the sacrifice of the X Army Corps abandoned in the desert'; Rommel: 'is this a critic? no disapproval words have come from the Fuhrer'; Barbassetti: 'I watched the endless column of retreating companies, German drivers rejected to pick up on their trucks the Italians'. After these words Rommel silenced.

23. We have a very daring and skillful opponent against us, and, may I say across the havoc of war, a great General.

    Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

24. Rommel was jumpy, wanted to do everything at once, then lost interest. Rommel was my superior in command in Normandy. I cannot say Rommel wasn't a good general. When successful, he was good; during reverses, he became depressed.

25. He was the best leader of fast-moving troops but only up to army level. Above that level it was too much for him. Rommel was given too much responsibility. He was a good commander for a corps of army but he was too moody, too changeable. One moment he would be enthusiastic, next moment depressed.

27. Anybody who came under the spell of his personality turned into a real soldier. He seemed to know what the enemy were like and how they would react.