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Richard F. Murphy wonders why Admiral Rüge disputes David Irving's Rommel's biography, June 11, 2002
Admiral Rüge's version
I'VE read Mr. Wibber's post and, though lacking a German copy of Herr von Below's book (In which, apparently, the footnote is not present), it is the only one that is attributed to the author. The others are merely accepted clarifications of the points made in the text.
Or is a legal ruling not "clarification" enough? This is not the first refutation of your portrayals of material witnesses I have read; Vice Admiral Friedrich Rüge also makes similar claims in Sam Mitcham's Desert Fox in Normandy.
HOW does Rüge's rejection of himself as [being] "Rommel's naval liaison" (he was chief of Coastal Security, if memory serves) and also of so called "hunting trips" with Rommel, which Ruge maintained never happened, place any favourable light on Speidel, who, for better or worse, was thoroughly rehabilitated long before the comments were made?
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David
Irving replies:
The hunting trips were referred to in Rüge's and Rommel's diaries, both of which I transcribed. Have a look at my document collection in the German archives before criticising me further.
Vice Admiral Friedrich Rüge, later chief of the post-war German navy, was a member of the staff of Rommel's Army Group B in France, 1944. He wrote a shorthand diary in 1944 which I had independently transcribed. It turned out that his own transcription embellished many parts, and also suppressed others which dented the image of his hero and friend, General Hans Speidel (who later headed land forces in Nato). I gave the proper transcript to the German military archives in Freiburg.
David Irving