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.

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.

This is the strange and fascinating life of Erwin Rommel, from his days as a youth in Imperial Germany—when he had a child out of wedlock with an early girlfriend—through his lauded military exploits during World War I to his death by suicide during World War II, after he attempted a failed coup against Hitler. Rommel was a man of contradictions, a soldier who wrote a bestselling book about World War I, a commander who went from commanding Hitler's bodyguard to trying to kill him, a serious military mind who was known for participating in practical jokes. In Desert Fox, author Samuel Mitcham (Bust Hell Wide Open) confronts the truth about Rommel and takes a close look at his military actions and reflections.

Describes the life and career of Erwin Rommel, field marshal under Hitler during World War II, who is particularly remembered for his role in the campaign in northern Africa.

From a German perspective, the highly decorated and well respected General Erwin Rommel was one of their biggest and brightest assets: a military strategist who thought ‘outside of the box’, a tactic which more than once either brought him an unexpected victory, or saved him from almost certain defeat. His reputation had been gained early in the Second World War, whilst commander of the 7th Panzer Division during the invasion of France, and as the commander of German forces during the North African campaign between 1941 and 1943. Such was his influence not only as a military strategist but on the morale of the men who served under him, as well as that of the German public, that the British government decided it needed to make concerted efforts to try to capture or eliminate him, making Rommel the only German officer of the Second World War that the allied authorities were prepared to put such time, manpower and commitment into eliminating. Two operations were put in to place to try to achieve this: Operation Flipper in November 1941, and Operation Gaff in July 1944. Both operations failed for different reasons, but just three months after the latter of the two operations, Rommel was dead, forced to commit suicide by Adolf Hitler for his part in the attempt to assassinate him on 20 July 1944. Such was the level of Rommel’s popularity and importance that the Nazi authorities reported the cause of his death to be injuries sustained in an attack on his staff car by enemy aircraft. Indeed, it was only after the war that the truth behind his death was revealed.

Showalter has penned the first single-volume study to deal with the parallel lives of these two disparate generals.