Covers Erwin Rommel's World War II battles before he led the legendary Afrika Korps First work to recognize the talented staff officers and company, battalion, and regimental commanders who supported Rommel One of the most famous soldiers to fight in World War II, Erwin Rommel achieved immortality as the Desert Fox in the sands of Africa, but his first field command was the 7th Panzer Division, the so-called Ghost Division. During the 1940 campaign in France, the unit suffered more casualties than any other German division and at the same time inflicted heavy losses on the Allies, taking almost 100,000 prisoners. The Ghost Division's success owed much to Rommel's subordinates, who aided Rommel more than he admitted in his papers and whom historians have generally overlooked. This book remedies that oversight.
“An accessible, well-honed study of two fascinating characters” who famously fought each other in numerous battles during WWII, from Egypt to D-Day (Kirkus). Bernard Montgomery and Erwin Rommel faced one another in a series of extraordinary battles that established each man as one of the greatest generals in history. Born four years apart, their lives were remarkably similar. Each came from provincial roots, nearly died in WWI, yet emerged from that great conflict with glowing records. Through their many duels, including their legendary conflicts in North Africa and later at the Normandy D-Day invasion, Peter Caddick-Adams tracks and compares their military talents and personalities. Monty and Rommel explores how each general was raised to power by their war leaders, Churchill and Hitler, and how the innovative military strategy and thought of both permeate down to today's armies.
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 Divisionalso known as the Ghost Divisionwhich 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 itRommel 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 Francemuch 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.
Written directly after combat, Rommel critiques his own battle strategies and tactics during World War I in an attempt to learn further from his losses and victories.
Erwin Rommel, Hitler's so-called 'Desert Fox', is possibly the most famous German Field-Marshal of WWII. He is widely regarded as the one of the most skilled commanders of desert warfare and, in contrast to other leaders of Nazi Germany, is considered to have been a chivalrous and humane officer. The letters of his adjutant provide a unique picture of Rommel during his time in Libya. Hans-Joachim Schraepler was by Rommel's side in North Africa for ten crucial months in 1940-41. During that time, he wrote to his wife almost every day. In most cases, the correspondence went via the usual channels but occasionally he used other methods to avoid the censor's gaze. Through his letters, Schraepler supplies a vivid image of the first phase of the North Africa campaign. He covers the siege of Tobruk, the capture of Benghazi, and the difficulties experienced by those fighting in Cyrenica and the wider North African theatre. He also complains that the Italian were poor Allies, lacking training and leadership, and that Berlin regarded North Africa as a theatre of only secondary importance. Schraepler also provides insights into Rommel's character - his dynamism and tactical skill, along with the growing 'cult of personality' which seemed to surround him. One of his unofficial tasks, for example, was to respond in Rommel's name to much of the fan mail that arrived at the Afrikakorps HQ. Hans-Albrecht Schraepler was only seven years old when his father died. The cache of letters was held by his mother and remained untouched for sixty years. His father's last letter, found the day of his death, remains unfinished.
In Patton, Montgomery, Rommel, one of Britain's most accomplished military scholars presents an unprecedented study of the land war in the North African and European theaters, as well as their chief commanders—three men who also happened to be the most compelling dramatis personae of World War II. Beyond spellbinding depictions of pivotal confrontations at El Alamein, Monte Cassino, and the Ardennes forest, author-scholar Terry Brighton illuminates the personal motivations and historical events that propelled the three men's careers: how Patton's, Montgomery's, and Rommel's Great War experiences helped to mold their style of command—and how, exactly, they managed to apply their arguably megalomaniacal personalities (and hitherto unrecognized political acumen and tact) to advance their careers and strategic vision. Opening new avenues of inquiry into the lives and careers of three men widely profiled by scholars and popular historians alike, Brighton definitively answers numerous lingering and controversial questions: Was Patton really as vainglorious in real life as he was portrayed to be on the silver screen?—and how did his tireless advocacy of "mechanized cavalry" forever change the face of war? Was Monty's dogged publicity-seeking driven by his own need for recognition or by his desire to claim for Britain a leadership role in postwar global order?—and how did this prickly "commoner" manage to earn affection and esteem from enlisted men and nobility alike? How might the war have ended if Rommel had had more tanks?—and what fundamental philosophical difference between him and Hitler made such an outcome virtually impossible? Abetted by new primary source material and animated by Terry Brighton's incomparable storytelling gifts, Patton, Montgomery, Rommel offers critical new interpretations of the Second World War as it was experienced by its three most flamboyant, controversial, and influential commanders—and augments our understanding of each of their perceptions of war and leadership.
In the fall of 1942, with Rommel's forces poised to overrun Egypt, the Suez, and the oil rich Middle East, the British launch a desperate plan to send a small, heavily armed team behind enemy lines to stop Germany's Afrika Korps and its commander.
Lieutenant-General Hans Speidel’s Invasion 1944 tells the story, from the German viewpoint, of one of the most critical periods of World War II. Indeed, to most Americans the summer months of 1944, highlighted by the battles on the Normandy beaches, represent the climax of the world convulsion. Every detail of this epic struggle is today of interest not only to those Americans who participated personally in the battles on the beaches and in the Normandy countryside, but to that still greater number who sweated and bled in Italy, on South Pacific isles, or in the Philippines, or were forced to stay at home. For the Norman beaches have now become a keystone in the arch of American military tradition—worthy to stand alongside Chancellorsville, Appomattox, Château-Thierry and the Meuse-Argonne. Our curiosity, therefore, cannot but be piqued as to what went on in the Château La Roche Guyon, the headquarters of the German Army Group opposing the Allied Normandy armies, as, day by day, American and British pressure brought Hitler’s doom nearer. Invasion is by no means merely military history, a record of the estimates and orders of the German Command during the Normandy struggle. This book tells a double story. The battles are the background, while the foreground is dominated by the narrative of another climactic struggle, that between the commander of the Army Group, Erwin Rommel, “the Desert Fox,” and his overlord Adolf Hitler. “A notable contribution to the...literature on the Normandy campaign. The author was Chief of Staff successively to Rommel, Kluge and Model.... What he has to say about the German defeat is authoritative and of high interest.”—New York Herald Tribune Book Review
