Plan orient (1 Viewer)

[forlornhoper]

Can i throw open to my fellow forum members a discussion on the german Plan Orient during WW2 ,one of its main advocates was Erwin Rommel,it was muted at the time as the "Great Plan",question is did it have merits? or was it just another pipe dream ( sorry for the unintended pun ) ?

 

[UKReb]

Can i throw open to my fellow forum members a discussion on the german Plan Orient during WW2 ,one of its main advocates was Erwin Rommel,it was muted at the time as the "Great Plan",question is did it have merits? or was it just another pipe dream ( sorry for the unintended pun ) ?

The very first time I came across or even heard of Plan Orient was during a series of lectures/talks conducted by a crusty old British general when I was stationed on the Rock during the '80's. He entitled his talk "Hitler's Mistakes and Missed Opportunities" and no doubt because of the location of Gibraltar his opening gambit was a scenario based on if the Allies had lost control of the Mediterranean during 1942 which obviously would have changed the whole course of the war.

I remember taking copious notes during his lecture which must be somewhere in my library stash so I am relating this from memory so excuse any nonsensical errors.

He reckoned that Rommel had wanted to capture the Suez canal, race through Egypt across the Syrian desert and into Persia (Plan Orient). His supply of oil to undertake this would come from capturing the huge stocks in Alexandria and Cairo. He apparently discussed this with Hitler sometime in early 1942 and found Hitler quite enthusiastic however Hitler's General Staff (fully aware that Rommel was the grand egoist) viewed the plan as pure fantasy by studying the improbabilities of the geographical terrain and the pure logistics of the operation. And there it lay until Rommel and his AK repeatedly carried out his operational miracles and reached the Egyptian border-couple this with Von Kleist's First Panzer Army being hindered more by shortages of petrol than enemy resistance and Plan Orient became much more attractive.

But then came Rommel's defeat at Alam Halfa and the plan was finally shelved. The lecturing general's view if I remember correctly and to refer it to his lecture title was that if Hitler instead of by this time being obsessed with Barbarossa had diverted just a few of the 140 odd divisions and aircraft squadrons from Russia to Africa the British could well have been defeated and Plan Orient undertaken by Rommel all the way to the Caspian Sea.

That's all I remember unless I find those notes except for some fascinating side-bars that he threw into the discussion. Hitler had many "silent" allies in the Middle East with Egypt in particular being very pro-Nazi. Both Nasser and Anwar Sadat as members of the Egyptian General Staff during the war repeatedly offered Rommel their full support and a popular Egyptian song at the time was
"Allah's in Heaven-Hitler's on Earth

Reb