Georg Stumme’s Last Inspection

On 24 October 1942, General Georg Stumme drove toward the front near El Alamein with Colonel Andreas Büchting, his chief signals officer. Stumme had taken overall command of Panzer Army Africa while Erwin Rommel was away because of illness and exhaustion. The British offensive had opened the previous evening with a massive bombardment. This was the second day of the Second Battle of El Alamein, and Stumme went forward to review the situation.

He travelled without the escort and radio car Rommel had used. As Stumme and Büchting’s car came into the open on the way to a command post, it was attacked. A shot struck Büchting in the head and killed him. Stumme jumped out and clung to the side of the car as the driver drove out of range. The inspection had become a brief, exposed flight from fire.

Stumme’s approach to the opening attack had reflected the scarcity of his means. He followed the plan Rommel had left, but ordered German artillery ammunition kept in reserve rather than used against British troops assembling forward of their lines. The British had begun their attack on 23 October under a heavy bombardment. Stumme’s letters to his superiors had shown little optimism: he agreed with Rommel that success depended on keeping the enemy off balance with attacks, for which he lacked the resources. The decision to conserve ammunition left the British assembly areas unbombarded.

Stumme was found dead along the track the next day, with no visible wound. He was known to have high blood pressure, and a heart attack was thought to have killed him during the attack on the car. The precise cause was not certain. He was 56. Rommel returned to command Panzer Army Africa; Wilhelm Ritter von Thoma commanded the Afrika Korps. Stumme’s brief tenure ended not in a headquarters but on a track near the front, after an inspection that had cost Büchting his life and left the army’s commander dead.