Marsa Matrouh's Rommel Museum, a cave of secrets

CAIRO – 8 December 2022: Recently, the Rommel Museum celebrated the 5-year anniversary of its reopening. 

Rommel Cave is one of the natural caves in Matrouh Governorate. It is located in the mountain on the slope overlooking the beach on the island of Rommel, in front of the eastern port of the city.

The history of this cave dates back to the Roman era, where it was used as a storehouse for wheat, barley and water, for export to the Roman states. It was also used to provide ships with their needed supplies for its proximity to the sea.

German General Erwin Rommel, nicknamed the "Desert Fox", chose it to serve as his headquarters and fortress during World War II, and as an escape if conditions worsened in battle.

The cave remained deserted until 1977, when Matrouh began preparing it to be a museum. In 1999, the museum was annexed to the Supreme Council of Antiquities, but it was closed for several years for restoration and development. It reopened on August 25, 2017.

The museum includes a collection of General Rommel's personal belongings, which his son Manfred Rommel donated to the Egyptian government in his memory. The collection includes war tools and maps of military sites during the Second World War, in addition to some small arms from the war collectibles, and a detailed map of the Battle of Al-Ghazala.

Among the museum's holdings are the general's leather coat, binoculars, compass, and maps with Rommel's handwritten notes.

The museum has started broadcasting a series of publications and introductory videos on the museum's social media pages about Commander Rommel and the museum's holdings, to encourage visiting the museum, especially that Matrouh has been recently receiving a large number of vacationers.