Erwin Rommel and the Bundeswehr

[8] Speidel in particular, who was one of the founders of the Bundeswehr and later served as Commander of the Allied Land Forces Central Europe, was a major defender of Rommel's legacy.

Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk (MDR) reports that, "Wolffsohn declares the Bundeswehr wants to have politically thoughtful, responsible officers from the beginning, thus a tradition of 'swashbuckler' and 'humane rogue' is not intended".

[14] According to authors like Ulrich vom Hagen and Sandra Mass though, the Bundeswehr (as well as NATO) deliberately endorses the ideas of chivalrous warfare and apolitical soldiering associated with Rommel.

[21][22][23] Parliamentary Commissioner for the Armed Forces Hans-Peter Bartels (SPD) supports the keeping of the name and the tradition associated with Rommel, but notes that the reasons should not be his initial successes in the North African campaign (1940-1943), or that the former adversary armies have continued to worship him until this day.

Bartels adds that Rommel, who probably supported the resistance, is a borderline case, regarding which historians find it hard to ascertain, and German history is full of such ambiguities.

[24][25] In early 2017, the Federal Ministry of Defence, in response to a petition championed by historian Wolfgang Proske and backed by politicians from the Left Party, defended the naming of barracks after Rommel, with the justification that the current state of research does not support their allegations.

[26] Sönke Neitzel supports the commemoration, although he notes that Rommel "rode the waves of the regime" and only mustered the courage to break with it at the last minute, but in a way unlike any other general.

According to Piper though, Rommel was a loyal Nazi without crime rather than a democrat, thus unsuitable to hold a central place among role models, although he can be integrated as a major military leader.