Field Marshal Gerd von Runstedt: I tell you this in confidence, Rommel: I don't think anything we can do would be of the slightest use. The pattern for defeat has already been set. "Hold fast. Don't give up a millimeter of ground. Victory or death." Wars simply can't be won by men whose knowledge of tactics is based on copybook maxims. They may stir schoolchildren, but they don't stop troops. But give me a free hand for a few months and I'd make them pay for it. I'd make them pay such a price in blood they'd wish they'd never heard of Germany. I might not be able to stop them all, but they'd know they'd fought an army, not a series of stationary targets.

Field Marshal Keitel: Have you any better suggestions?
Field Marshal Gerd von Runstedt: Yes, one very much better. Make peace, you idiot!

[a British officer steps from the back of his tralier to address the officers before him]
British officer: Gentlemen, the following order from General Auchinleck, is to all commanders and chiefs-of-staff of the Middle East Forces.
[reads]
British officer: "There exists a real danger that our friend Rommel is becoming a kind of magician or bogeyman to our troops, who are talking far too much about him. He is by no means a superman, although he is undoubtedly very energetic and able. Even if he were a superman, it would still be highly undesirable that our men should credit him with supernatural powers. I wish you to dispel by all possible means the idea that Rommel represents something more than an ordinary German general. Please ensure that this order is put into immediate effect, and impress upon all commanders, that from the psychological point of view, it is a matter of the highest importance. Signed, C.J. Auchinleck, General, Commander-In-Chief, M.E.F."

[last lines]
Narrator: During that last short ride, what may Rommel's thoughts have been? Were they bitter, that he had learned too slowly and struck too late? Or did they go back to the desert, where his military genuis had first electrified the world? First at Mechili, then Tobruk, yes and even El Alamein. In any case, his life and fate may have been summed up, ironically enough, in the words of Nazi Germany's sternest enemy, the Honorable Winston Churchill.
Churchill: His ardor, and daring, inflicted grevious disasters upon us. But he deserves the salute, which I made him, in the House of Commons, in January, 1942. He also deserves our respect, because, although a loyal German soldier, he came to hate Hitler, and all his works, and took part in the conspiracy to rescue Germany, by disgracing the maniac and tyrant. For this, he paid the forfeit of his life. In the somber wars of modern democracy, there is little place for chivalry.