Afton---The Desert Fox

Happy All Saints Day! I picked out perhaps an unusual Saint to honor. Here's the story.

When we were at home in our teeny tiny little cottage(ok, apartment, but I was going for the fairly tale feel, after all we lived not far from the fabled Black Forest), we spent a lot of time outdoors in peaceful and picturesque Herrlingen. Putting on your little red hood and heading through the woods for Grandma's. No, wait, that was someone else. OK, so rambling through the village, walking to town, watching the fish in the little river there, going to the cemetery.(I started a quasi fascination with cemeteries as a teenager, so it was kind of natural in a way. And I'm basically writing this on Halloween, after all....)

This particular quaint little cemetery hosted the gravesite of a famous German Nazi, Erwin Rommel. He had been Hitler's favorite General, and because of his brilliant leadership during WWII, especially in Africa, he was known to the World as The Desert Fox. He was known as a chivalrous and humane officer, in contrast to so many. Even Winston Churchill publicly acknowledged this unusual man and held him in high regard. Grandpa Ernie in his Army career had followed General Patton to Germany right after D Day, so I had a longstanding interest in these matters. And though we went there almost daily, at first I was queasy visiting his grave because after all, he was a NAZI. But....

Sometimes there is a rest of the story. A saving grace. Rommel had been forced by Hitler to commit suicide on Dec. 14, 1944, because Rommel had become disenchanted with what he found out was going on under Hitler's insanity. To save his country, he became involved in plots to eliminate The Fuhrer. Because he was the most illustrious hero of the German people, Hitler needed to avoid a trial for treason. I came to think highly of him. To my mind, The Desert Fox died a hero.

And that actually happened in our backyard. Sort of. Our yard really bordered the Rommel's very spacious and forested grounds, so when I would take you out for a little sun, my mind would wander to that time 20+ years earlier when the powers that be came to that very backyard and gave a cyanide pill to the Desert Fox.

By the way, things change with time, and at that point the Rommel place had become a kindergarten. Many books and movies are out about the Desert Fox.