Steven Pressfield, in Killing Rommel (2009), p. 7
“

Self-restraint, even chivalry... distinguished the combatants on both sides throughout the North Africa campaign... The leading exemplar of this code was Rommel himself. When orders from Hitler mandated the execution of captured British commandos, Rommel tossed the document in the trash. He insisted that the Allied prisoners receive the same rations he was given. He even wrote a book about the conflict called Krieg ohne Haß (War Without Hate). Memoirs of the North Africa campaign attest that, fierce and brutal as much of the fighting was, relations between individual enemies retained a quality of forbearance that seems, today, almost impossible to imagine.

— Steven Pressfield

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "Self-restraint, even chivalry... distinguished the combatants on both sides throughout the North Africa campaign... The leading exemplar of this code was Rommel himself. When orders from Hitler mandated the execution of captured British commandos, Rommel tossed the document in the trash. He insisted that the Allied prisoners receive the same rations he was given. He even wrote a book about the conflict called Krieg ohne Haß (War Without Hate). Memoirs of the North Africa campaign attest that, fierce and brutal as much of the fighting was, relations between individual enemies retained a quality of forbearance that seems, today, almost impossible to imagine." in the context of "Steven Pressfield, in Killing Rommel (2009), p. 7" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

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Source: Wikiquote: "Erwin Rommel" (Quotes about Rommel: Alphabetized by author ) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Erwin Rommel

About Erwin Rommel

Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel (15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944) was a German Field Marshal and commander of the Deutsches Afrika Korps in World War II, widely referred to as The Desert Fox (Der Wüstenfuchs). Linked to a conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler, he was ordered to commit suicide with a cyanide pill, in return for assurances that his family would not be persecuted following his death.