New perspective on the most famous campaign of the legendary Desert Fox Details on the contributions and animosities of Rommel's subordinates Includes accounts of Tobruk, Gazala, El Alamein, and other battles In Libya and Egypt in 1941 and 1942, German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel achieved immortality as the Desert Fox, battling and usually defeating numerically superior enemies. Until now, historians have generally overlooked the talented cast of characters who supported Rommel during this campaign. Distinguished military historian Samuel Mitcham recounts the battles of the Afrika Korps through the men who served Rommel as staff officers and commanders of divisions, regiments, and battalions--soldiers like Ludwig Crüwell and Walter Nehring, two of World War II's best panzer commanders, and Ernst-Günther Baade, who wore a kilt and carried a broadsword into battle.

Perhaps the most famous and admired soldier to fight in World War II was Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who achieved immortality as the Desert Fox. Rommel's first field command during the war was the 7th Panzer Division—also known as the Ghost Division—which he led in France in 1940. During this campaign, the 7th Panzer suffered more casualties than any other division in the German Army, at the same time inflicting a disproportionate number of casualties upon the enemy. It took 97,486 prisoners, captured 458 tanks and armored vehicles, 277 field guns, 64 anti-tank guns and 4,000 to 5,000 trucks. It captured or destroyed hundreds of tons of other military equipment, shot down 52 aircraft, destroyed 15 more aircraft on the ground, and captured 12 additional planes. It destroyed the French 1st Armored Division and the 4th North African Division, punched through the Maginot Line extension near Sivry, and checked the largest Allied counteroffensive of the campaign at Arras. When France surrendered, the Ghost Division was within 200 miles of the Spanish border. No doubt about it—Rommel had proven himself a great military leader who was capable of greater things. His next command, in fact, would be the Afrika Korps, where the legend of the Desert Fox was born. Rommel had a great deal of help in France—much more than his published papers suggest. His staff officers and company, battalion, and regimental commanders were an extremely capable collection of military leaders that included 12 future generals (two of them SS), and two colonels who briefly commanded panzer divisions but never reached general rank. They also included Colonel Erich von Unger, who would no doubt have become a general had he not been killed in action while commanding a motorized rifle brigade on the Eastern Front in 1941, as well as Karl Hanke, a Nazi gauleiter who later succeeded Heinrich Himmler as the last Reichsfuehrer-SS. No historian has ever recognized the talented cast of characters who supported the Desert Fox in 1940. No one has ever attempted to tell their stories. This book remedies that deficiency.

Looks at the men who supported Rommel's campaigns, detailing where they came from and outlining their contributions to Rommel's efforts.

As the Germans wreaked havoc in Europe in the early 1940s, the war in Northern Africa seemed relatively insignificant. Yet a series of surprising victories by the Afrika Korpsforced Winston Churchill to refocus his attention. In the desert, one of the war's most brilliant commanders was blooming - Commander Erwin Johannes Eugen Rommel. In this provocative study, Ronald Lewin, prizewinning author of Slim: The Standardbearer and Ultra Goes to War charts the course of Rommel's military career. The Desert Fox, was a tactical genius - his personal leadership and ability to improvise on the battlefield with minimal resources were exemplary. Yet lapses in Rommel's judgment, combined with Churchill's heightened defences and Hitler's neglect, led to a crushing defeat for the Afrika Korps at Alamein in 1942. As Rommel's success waned, so did his relations with Hitler. Rommel was an exceptional commander - not only for his skills, but for the integrity with which he carried himself. This integrity, admired even by his adversaries, proved fatal. Unafraid to voice his objections to Hitler's military decisions, Rommel was associated with the 1944 plot to kill the dictator. In the wake of the plot's failure, Rommel was forced to take his own life.

This book contains the story of Rommel, the famous German Field Marshal of World War II, commonly known as Desert Fox. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

The desert war produced commanders of dash and originality on both sides and the memory of the German commanding general, Erwin Rommel, has endured as the epitome of skill, daring and soldierly integrity. His victories in World War II were brilliant until he was bested by poor health, lack of reinforcements and an opposing commander who was his equal. The contribution of his various troops is detailed in a full order of battle which includes his veteran Afrika Korps and Italian allies, and their uniforms are shown in full color artwork.

A classic account of the Desert Campaign of 1940-43, by a renowned military historian. The distinguished historian Correlli Barnett gives here a complete and full account of the Desert Campaign 1940-43, an epic story set in a wasteland where soldiers fought for victory in a tumult of mechanical warfare. But THE DESERT GENERALS is also the story of five men under the strain of command in battle, the commanders who successively led the Allied forces against first the Italians and then the Germans in the ebb and flow of the desert war, culminating in the myth of Montgomery and the battle of Alamein, a myth that Correlli Barnett sets out to expose as ill-founded. Brilliantly written, THE DESERT GENERALS captures at every level the intensity and human drama of a unique and compelling episode in the history of war and warfare.