Rommel's Goggles

ROMMEL'S GOGGLES---AMERICAN MADE ?

By Harold Ratzburg

    I believe that just about anybody who has even the remotest interest in World War Two, has heard of Germanys' Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, the "Desert Fox" of the World War II in Africa. And I'm reasonably certain that most have seen the photos showing Rommel wearing those "cool" plastic goggles (eyeshields) on his General Officers cap.

    But did you know that those cool goggles were made in America and that they are US Government Issue? The eyeshields must have been war booty from the US Army somewhere along the line of battle and Rommel took to wearing them as a trophy or whatever, because they are very light to wear on the cap and did the job to protect his eyes from blowing sand when needed. There is a lot of blowing sand in the desert, that's for sure.

    Those goggles still repose on Rommel's cap as it sits in a showcase of the Rommel Museum in his hometown of Herrlingen, Germany.
    This is the story of the American G.I. goggles and my interest in the goggles and the General who wore them.

    Goggles---When WW II began, Both German and American troops were trained for Gas warfare and gas masks were a permanent part of both armies equipment. Even the troops landing in France on D-Day carried masks as they stormed ashore. Nobody on either side knew or wanted to take a chance in case the other side would use poison gas as a weapon as they did in World War One.

    The gas masks were kinda the first line of defense, and just in case the Germans might use planes to spray irritant gas down on the troops, they were issued two additional cheap, and easy to use, pieces of equipment.

    First was a "Cover, Protective, Individual" which was issued in a compact, pocket sized package, which when unfolded and placed over his head, completely covered the soldier, his weapon, and his equipment. The top portion of the dark green plastic cover was left as clear plastic so the GI could see what was going on.

    The other piece of equipment was an "Eyeshield, M 1, Chemical Spray", It was an expendable, acetate eyeshield made to be discarded after use during a gas attack. However, even with it's rather crude construction, the troops (and Rommel) found them lightweight and handy to protect the eyes against sun and dust.

    The eye shields were issued in a pocket sized, heavy cardboard envelope. Each envelope held four eye shields, two of them of clear acetate and two of dark green tinted material. How many were manufactured during the war is unknown but there must have been millions.

    Rommel---My interest is Rommel came early, even as a kid in WW II. He was in the headlines some times, and being a military buff way back then, it made him interesting to me. (The War made me change from playing Cowboys shooting Indians to playing war games killing Krauts and Japs.)

    As time went on, in 1950, I eventually found myself in the US Air Force, stationed in Ulm an der Donau, Germany. And, would you believe----Rommel's home, in the town of Herrlingen, was just about four miles down the road.

    Being a "rich" GI in Germany, as compared to the German people that survived there through the war, I bought a used VW, so I could get around. I visited Rommel's house and grave site several times, sometimes in the company of a cute little redheaded Fraulein, (called "Red" of course,) that I was dating. As I got to know Red better, I found out that she was somewhat connected to the Rommel's, because she had gone to dancing school with Erwin Rommel's son, Manfred. She told me that Manfred was a clumsy dancer, and she and all the girls tried to avoid his request when he would come to them to ask for a dance. Manfred got so disgusted with it, that at one point, he kinda threw up his hands and said, 'I might just as well go out and chop wood instead of trying to dance."

    I also learned from her that she and her group of young "Bund Deutscher Madchens, Gruppe Eins" (Band of German Girls, Group One) were part of an honor guard at General Rommel's Nazi State Funeral in Ulm. Red's recollection of the affair was that she and her girlfriends were not too impressed with that honor and could hardly wait to be dismissed and go home. She was a kid of 14 at the time, so that certainly figures.

    While stationed in Ulm, I wondered from time to time just where Rommel died. I knew that after the Nazi's forced him to take poison, that they took him back to a hospital in the much larger city of Ulm, and I figured that they should at least have some kind of marker where he actually died, but there was none, because anybody that knew was afraid to talk.

    As it came to pass, about thirty years after the war ended, a local farmer near Herrlingen, on his deathbed, confessed to his son, that he knew the location where Rommel cashed it in because he was working a farm field in the area at the time and watched what was going on. He was afraid to tell anyone before.

    The two German Generals who came to arrest Rommel (because he was a suspect in the July 20th, 1944 attempt on Hitler's life) took him out on a little country lane near Herrlingen and near a small grove of trees, made him take a poisonous dose of cyanide. If he didn't take the poison he was told, his family would be sent to a concentration camp and he would go on trial for his suspected crime. Rommel took the cyanide.

    Today, the spot is marked by a large boulder with a stone tablet affixed showing Rommel's name and date of death and also a hatch cover from a WW II German Tank on which is inscribed in German, words to the effect that say "On this spot, along this roadway, Rommel committed suicide by poison, forced to, by the horrible Nazi Regime".

    On the several times that I have visited the area in more recent years, there have always been wreaths of flowers and ribbons at the memorial rock and on Rommel's grave in Herrlingen's graveyard. I believe that most were placed by Veteran Organizations of his Africa Tank Corps, because the General is still highly regarded by his old soldiers.

    Red told me that after the war, Manfred Rommel came around to his old friends at the dancing school and told them that the Nazis' had killed his father. They didn't believe him and called him a liar. That had to be really hard for him to take, for sure.

    A visit to the Rommel Museum in Herrlingen is interesting.   To do so, you have to find the Town Hall and ask inside to see the museum. After they make a copy of your drivers license, they hand you a key and you walk up a hill to a big stone building and let yourself in. Rommel's stuff is in a large room and you are pretty much on your own honor system buying post cards etc. if you want them. In a show case is Rommel's uniform and Iron Cross with his famous hat, with the good old American Anti-Gas, M1, Eyeshield still attached. His other medals and a lot of paper work, photos etc, are displayed in other showcases. Talk about making a collector's mouth water, that stuff sure does.

    About two years after my dates with Red, I married that little Fraulein, and here we are, still hitched after fifty five years. Going back to visit her relatives gave me the chances to visit the Rommel sites in recent years. It was possible to visit Rommel's home back in the 1950's and walk the grounds that he had walked on, but it is now privately owned and has a formidable wall built around it.

Postscript:---Out there, somewhere, is a collector who has just read this little story up to this point. (Maybe it is you?) That collector is thinking-----"Hey, this guy Ratzburg is all wrong----he don't know what he's talking about. Those are captured British eyeshields on Rommel's cap, NOT American!!!!!!"

    So, you know what?----- He is right!!!!. Over the years I accumulated two cardboard sleeves, with goggles, that the equipment was issued in. I always thought that the two sleeves were the same. However, looking at them more closely today, I noticed that one of the sleeves is labeled "Eyeshield, M1" and the other is marked "Eyeshield, Anti-gas, MK 3,---3 tinted, 3 un tinted".   The US used M1 or M2 to denote different models of a piece of equipment, while Britain used MK (Mark) 1 or MK 2 to indicate a difference in models. (Us old Geezer collectors know all that stuff.)

    Although the eyeshields in both sleeves appear very similar, upon close inspection the American goggles are of a better quality material and construction. The goggles on Rommel's hat in the museum are definitely of British manufacture, being exactly like the ones in the MK 3 envelope. It just goes to show you how wrong I can be sometimes.

    The fact that they are British makes a lot more sense. Rommel's Africa Corps and the British Army chased each other back and forth along the northern coast of Africa a long time before Americans arrived over there, and Rommel won some of those battles.

    I am glad I caught it, because that picky collector out there, and there is at least one or more of them, would have been more than happy to point out my error to show his superior knowledge, but I cut him off just in time. That friendly criticism of course, is half the fun of collecting.

    A mystery remains of course----Did the British copy the American eyeshields, or did the Americans copy the Brit's? Maybe that picky collector will let me know.

                      copyright 2009, Harold Ratzburg