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Egypt revamps cave museum devoted to Nazi general

Egypt's Antiquities Ministry has renovated and reopened a museum in a cave used by Erwin Rommel, the Nazi general known as the "Desert Fox," during his campaign against the British in 1942.
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An old field telephone from the 1940s, a Nazi flag and a map of Tobruk greet visitors to the newly reopened Rommel Cave Museum in Marsa Matrouh, one of Egypt's lesser known tourist destinations. The items belonged to Erwin Rommel, one of the most celebrated generals of Nazi Germany until he was implicated in a plot to kill the Fuhrer in 1944. Rommel has long been remembered as one of the few "decent" Nazi commanders, though there is debate over his legacy of chivalry.

Rommel was known to the Germans as “the people’s marshal” and to the outside world as the “Desert Fox” for his surprise attacks and unbroken string of successful campaigns. He defeated the British at Gazala in May 1942, followed by his taking of Tobruk and promotion to field marshal. When the German troops entered El-Alamein, a town in the northern Matrouh governorate and 106 kilometers (66 miles) west of Alexandria, Rommel selected a site in the area’s cliffs as his headquarters, where he plotted military operations against the British forces. The two battles of El-Alamein would end with a German defeat on Nov. 4, after which Rommel dispatched his troops to Tunisia.

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