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?

Richard
F. Murphy

From the same correspondent: What Von Below wrote

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.