Interesting historical detail there, Teribus. As far as I'm concerned, Rommel was a good man in a bad system. There were a great many such men.

As for loyalty oaths, they are common in systems. Everyone dutifully mouths them, because there really doesn't appear to be any choice about the matter whether you believe in it or not. I recall everyone mouthing the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag (of the USA) in school every morning when I lived there between age 10 and 20. I was not in sympathy with the idea at all, so I merely stood there, went through the motions and moved my lips but never actually spoke the words. I was not prepared to make an open issue of the matter, because it would simply have put me in an impossible position, and I was already being picked on by other students anyway for "not being an American". Why make things even worse by drawing further attention to myself as an outsider?

When you're in a heavily procedurized national system, specially an armed forces, and they require you to recite a loyalty oath...you recite it, by God, or at least look like you're doing so. Specially in Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia. To not recite it, in Rommel's case, would have been the action of either a complete fool or a martyr who wished to end his career rather abruptly.

And if you still believed in the system and its leader at the time, as the younger Rommel certainly did...why wouldn't you recite the oath?