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I'm looking for the original German version of Erwin Rommel's letter to his wife Lucie Rommel from November 16, 1942. You can find the English translation on page 354 of "The Rommel Papers". The English translation starts like this:

Dearest Lu, Another good step back. To cap it all it's now raining, which makes it all the more difficult to move. Shortage of petrol! It's enough to make one weep. Let's hope the British are having equally bad weather...

I want to find these two sentences in Rommel's original words: "Shortage of petrol! It's enough to make one weep." Google translate comes up with:

Mangel an Benzin! Es ist genug, um einen zum Weinen bringen.

My German is OK, and the above seems like a pretty good translation to me, but does anyone have the original?

I am giving a public lecture on Monday about the worldwide primary energy supply. I'm using the quote as evidence of the importance of oil in war. The book was first published in 1953; the editor and translator worked directly with Rommel's son Manfred, who had collected and organized the papers. So there were no archives consulted, per se. From what I've seen there's no note in the book indicating what was done with the originals after the book was written

Rodrigo de Azevedo
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Douglas B. Staple
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    Welcome to History.stackexchange.com. If you were to add a bit of explanation on why this piece of trivia is of interest to you, other members here would be more likely to acquire interest in the question. – Pieter Geerkens Nov 30 '13 at 20:11
  • Also the FAQ restrains us from answering source requests. (A decent source book will indicate the archives consulted, and the archival citation for originals) – Samuel Russell Nov 30 '13 at 21:14
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    @SamuelRussell No, that's referring to questions like "what are some good books on WW1?". This question is fine as is. – Luke_0 Nov 30 '13 at 21:28
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    @PieterGeerkens I am giving a public lecture on Monday about the worldwide primary energy supply. I'm using the quote as evidence of the importance of oil in war. The book was first published in 1953; the editor and translator worked directly with Rommel's son Manfred, who had collected and organized the papers. So there were no archives consulted, per se. From what I've seen there's no note in the book indicating what was done with the originals after the book was written. – Douglas B. Staple Dec 01 '13 at 02:13
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    You could try contacting someone at the State Library of Wurttemberg in Stuttgart: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W%C3%BCrttembergische_Landesbibliothek. Rommel was born nearby at Heidenheim, and his son was Lord Mayor of Stuttgart for many years (1974-1996!). The library is also part of the University of Stuttgart library system, if you have any contacts there who could look something up for you on a Sunday. – Pieter Geerkens Dec 01 '13 at 19:58
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    I'd move this question to German language SE, where there are a large percentage of native speakers, some of whom may know (or have access to) the original quote. A few are also here on History SE, but most of them not. – Tom Au Dec 02 '13 at 22:22
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is a resource request. – Samuel Russell May 12 '15 at 01:35
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    I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because this is a resource request – NSNoob May 04 '16 at 13:45
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    I would say that this is a request for a canonical reference, which is within the scope of H:SE. OP has done the preliminary research, and what he is asking is part of the normal practice of history. – MCW May 04 '16 at 15:38
  • This is borderline off topic. – Tyler Durden May 04 '16 at 20:02

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"Benzinmangel! Es ist genug, um zu weinen."

This is what is written in the book. My granddaddy has this german book which was gifted to him by a friend of his. I went through the book as soon as I saw this question. I don't know for sure if this was his original text but as it is german and matches exactly what you asked for by google translate, I think this is authentic.

Mansha Mannan Ul Haque
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