Who's Your Favourite C-O-S?

[Wing]

Who, in your opinion, was Rommel's coolest chief of staff/aide/directly subordinate officer?

Hans Speidel is my (second) hero... ;D

[Qualerei]

Err... this one's pretty hard - I don't know much of Rommel's staff. I kinda like Aldinger, but I don't know much about him. Then, there are also von Manteuffel and von Mellenthin, but they weren't exactly his direct subordinates... All in all, I'd say Fritz Bayerlein...

[Desert Stallion]

I've always kind of liked Fritz Bayerlein. The description of him in Desmond Young's book and the interviews they had together were what won me over. It's been said, that other than Rommel, he was one of longest-staying officers in Africa, which must have meant he was a fairly tough individual too.

[Qualerei]

Bayerlein and Rommel must have been pretty close, then, if they stayed both in Africa that long. What does Young's book say about that ?

[Desert Stallion]

I think it says they even knew each other a bit while Rommel was a school instructor. It didn't really say how close they were to each other, just that they were good friends, I think... I'll go double-check in a while.

[Qualerei]

It's hard to imagine Rommel as a teacher - I don't think he had any patience for fools.

[Wing Not Logged In]

I was reading Hans von Luck's book last night, and Bayerlein apparently was a bit like Rommel's nursemaid. He would always be happy when von Luck visited because he always cheered Erwin up.

[Qualerei]

Aw so cute ! Yes, I confess, I love these "mother hen" kind of people, that's just so much fun to read about ! (I gotta find Von Luck's book... although, I think I'll wait till after I paid the rent... just being careful...)

[ErwiiRommie]

Fritz Bayerlein. He seemed, to me, to have paid attention to Rommel's methods and learned from them.

Long ago I would have chosen Hans Speidel if I had not read a note by a historian concerning an accusation against Speidel betraying Rommel to save his own skin. I don't know if it is true or not. The exact truth behind that whole affair has been buried and lost behind so much propaganda I doubt even the Desert Fox could sniff it out.

[Wing]

It's not true. I've only read one thing that says Hans talked to save himself, and that was by a Holocaust-denying historian. Hence, I'm more inclined to believe him and the four or six other books I've read saying that he didn't.

(If you want specific proof, I can provide some facts )

[Qualerei]

I haven't read anything about this... but I kinda like Hans, so I hope he didn't betray Rommel. (A German Judas ? ha, that would be so ironic.) And since we'll never know for sure, I hereby decree he was innocent. Although I'd be interested in these specific proofs of yours, Wing. Because of you, I'm starting to like Speidel a lot. All your fault.

This holocaust-denying historian you mentioned, wouldn't he happen to be called David Irving ?

[Desert Stallion]

Wing, bring forth the arguments.

David Irving? Hahaha, most likely it was him. You can't take anything that fella says at face value. I still like Fritz Bayerlein the best. Maybe I should start a fic with him as a main character. Or maybe a comical fic with all Rommel's C-o-S around a table arguing who was the best. I suppose that should have gone in the story category...

[Qualerei]

Haha, that sounds pretty funny. Well, the nice thing with Bayerlein is that he was with Rommel during his African campaign, while Hans wasn't... Maybe we should write a story in which Hans is mistakenly sent in Africa as Rommel's C-o-S... only it was all a mistake in the paperwork, since Rommel already has Fritz. As a consequence, both C-o-S keep fighting each other to convince Rommel they are each the best C-o-S he could dream of (Hans would certainly like being in Africa much more than being on the eastern front, so he'd have a good reason for wanting to stay).

Actually... I really like that idea. And I was thinking, we write each our own stuff, but we never wrote a story together. Isn't that called a Round Robin or something like that ? Anyone interested in such a thing ?

[Desert Stallion]

Which idea? And the round robin thing sounds like great fun. I wouldn't be able to write a really long story, just a short one-shot thing like I mentioned in the last post. But that would be fun if everyone wrote on the same story.

[Qualerei]

Well, it should be something we do for fun, and each post wouldn't be very long. We could keep the rules to a minimum... Okay, I'll post a new topic about this.