image of the general who fought with common soldiers, with an indelible youthfulness and apparent invulnerability. Historian Sandra Mass considers the Rommel myth a hero cult, a synthesis of old and new hero cults and traditions culled primarily from Germany's largely imaginary colonial past, in particular the proletarian hero cult originally represented by Carl Peters and the bourgeois one represented by Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck. Rommel, as portrayed by this hero cult, was both chivalrous and ruthless, young and old, harsh and gentle, strong and righteous. Calder, Duffy and Ricci opine that Rommel's military brilliance provoked a masochistic tendency to romanticise a worthy opponent, that because he was skilled at his profession, he must have been an anti-Nazi hero. Reevaluation Post-1990s scholarship examined Rommel's attitude towards National Socialism, his performance as a military commander, his role in the 20 July plot and his motivations, leading to a more diverse range of interpretations of Rommel and the elements of the myth. Relationship with National Socialism Rommel was not a member of the Nazi Party. However, like other Wehrmacht officers, he welcomed Hitler's seizure of power. During his time in Goslar, he clashed with those Sturmabteilung (SA) men who attacked the Jews and others who supported them. Rommel thus showed sympathy towards Hitler's elimination of the SA, believing the worst was now over, although he opined that in the future the Führer should learn to see his own true strength and refrain from such illegal processes. Remy dated Rommel's support for Hitler as 1935, noting a speech in which Rommel praised Hitler for restoring the Germans' self-respect and establishment of the way towards an honourable and righteous peace, as well as efforts in alleviating the disadvantaged people's problems. The historians Ralf Georg Reuth, David T. Zabecki, Bruce Allen Watson and Peter Caddick-Adams, state that Rommel was one of Hitler's favorite generals and that his close relationship with the dictator benefited both his inter-war and war-time career. Robert Citino describes Rommel as "not apolitical" and writes that he owed his career to Hitler, to whom his attitude was "worshipful", while the historian Charles Messenger describes Rommel's "growing admiration" towards Hitler following the invasion of Poland. Speaking at The National WWII Museum's 2012 International Conference on World War II, the author Nigel Hamilton referred to Rommel as "quite a Nazi". This sympathy did not extend to the Party though. In this regard, he was similar