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Category: Desert Fox Erwin Rommel  -- See latest WWII news here. See also 'WW2 Tanks', 'Panzers, Crews & Armored Units', 'Most decorated soldiers: WWII medals, Iron Cross', 'Werhmacht', 'German Generals'.

[Fiction] Killing Rommel by Steven Pressfield
Based on real-life events, "Killing Rommel" concerns the daring British and Commonwealth soldiers who faced German General Erwin Rommel's desert forces, which in 1942 dominated Northern Africa west of Egypt. The story is narrated by R. Lawrence "Chap" Chapman, a minor player in the dramatic African action of World War II. As a very young British officer, he was tasked to the Long Range Desert Group (LDRG), a glamorous posting in an outfit prizing resourcefulness and improvisation, qualities necessary to surviving LDRG's extreme dangerous assignments. The story is so rich in details that it is hard to read without maps at the elbow.     [ kirkusreviews :: 2008-02-12 :: Fiction and What-If Alternate History books ]

Just when Erwin Rommel was brought to ground, he went on another rampage
Just when they believed the Desert Fox was brought to ground, he went on another rampage. In Feb 1943, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel had his Afrika Korps moving forward again. This time it was not in Egypt and Libya, where he was fooled out of position by the 8th Army of General Bernard Law Montgomery. Instead, it was in the uplands between Algeria and Tunisia where Allied troops who had invaded North Africa in 1942. And this time, the enemy of Rommel's Panzer warriors was not the British 8th Army and its new all-Brit tank divisions. This time it was the green-as-grass troops of the U.S. Army who scattered like mice in front of the attack of the Desert Fox's Panzer column.     [ fayobserver :: 2008-01-31 :: Desert Fox Erwin Rommel ]

Heil Rommel: New documentary taints image of Desert Fox Rommel
The legend of military genius Erwin Rommel, the German Field Marshal lives on. If Erwin Rommel, lauded as a master military tactician even by his enemies, had managed to fight his way through North Africa, he would have sealed the fate of thousands who had fled from the Nazi terror. A new documentary on Germany's ZDF tv channel seeks to correct Rommel's image as a gentleman warrior whose campaigns in North Africa weren't connected with the murderous wars Nazi Germany unleashed in Europe. Adolf Hitler was celebrated in large parts of the Arab world, and some likened him to the Prophet. The Desert Fox was almost as popular: "Heil Rommel" was a common greeting.     [ spiegel :: 2007-05-24 :: Desert Fox Erwin Rommel ]

Pilot Charley Fox recalls how he wounded the Desert Fox
This is the story of how a quiet, unassuming Canadian air force pilot named Charley Fox wounded Germany's greatest field marshal, the Desert Fox. Fox, who flew over Normandy three times during D-Day, told his story. The Guelph native, who is 86, was 'looking for targets' on July 17, 1944 in Normandy, when he spotted a car carrying Field Marshal Erwin Rommel and a number of his aides. Fox described how he fired from his Spitfire and struck the car carrying one of Nazi Germany's top military men.     [ chathamthisweek :: 2006-04-26 :: Desert Fox Erwin Rommel ]

Rommel: The End Of A Legend by Ralf Georg Reuth
The legend of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the Desert Fox, is threefold: he was a simple soldier who did his duty and knew nothing of Nazism; he was a commander of superlative talent in North Africa in 1941-2; he was a leader of resistance to Hitler who gave his life after the failure of the July 1944 plot. Reuth shows that all of these assumptions are false. Rommel was a officer whose ambitions were in perfect harmony with the aims of the Nazis. He colluded in the marketing of his persona by Goebbels, whose newsreels built him up like a movie star. He was mindlessly loyal to the Reich and Führer.     [ --- :: 2006-02-19 :: Desert Fox Erwin Rommel ]

Turnaround in the desert - North Africa 1942-1943
The WW2 not only began badly for the British, it continued that way for some time. By the summer of 1942, we were facing defeat in the one theatre in which we still faced the Germans on land: the desert. James Holland's second work includes famous generals such as Montgomery, Patton and Rommel; but no less important to Holland's narrative are the many lesser soldiers from across the world. The story begins with the disastrous British defeat at Gazala in May 1942, a battle that even Rommel thought he was going to lose. One of the few "British" heroes was Air Vice-Marshal "Mary" Coningham, whose Desert Air Force saved the 8th Army from total destruction.     [ telegraph :: 2005-06-05 :: Generals of World War Two Commanders ]

Rommel's journal entries from 1940 Blitzkrieg
General Erwin Rommel led the 7th Panzer Division as it crashed through the Belgian defenses into France, skirting the Maginot Line and then smashing it from behind. This was a new kind of warfare integrating tanks, air power, artillery, and motorized infantry into a steel juggernaut emphasizing speedy movement and maximization of battlefield opportunities. Rommel kept a journal of his experiences. In this excerpt, he describes the action on May 14 as he leads a tank attack against French forces near the Muese River on the Belgian border: "Rothenburg now drove off through a hollow to the left with the five tanks which were to accompany the infantry..."     [ eyewitnesstohistory :: 2005-04-10 :: Desert Fox Erwin Rommel ]

Rommel's defeat - His son Manfred Rommel recounts D-Day
Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was Hitler's man in charge of repelling the Allied invasion on D-Day. Here his son Manfred Rommel recounts how the landings caused divisions in the German command, and led to the downfall of both the German forces and his father. On 6 June I was at our home, because my father was coming to spend the night on his way to visit Hitler at Berchtesgaden, and it was my mother's 50th birthday. But at 0800 he received a call from his chief of staff announcing that the landing had begun. He took his car and went back to his headquarters in France - it was too dangerous for him to fly as the Allies had huge air superiority.     [ bbc :: 2004-06-01 :: Desert Fox Erwin Rommel ]

The Forced Suicide of Field Marshall Rommel, 1944
For a time, Erwin Rommel was Hitler's favorite general. Gaining prominence in 1940 as a commander of a panzer division that smashed the French defenses, Rommel went on to command the Afrika Korps where his ability to inspire his troops and make the best of limited resources, prompted Hitler to elevate him to the rank of Field Marshall. In 1943, Hitler placed Rommel in command of fortifying the "Atlantic Wall" along the coast of France - defenses intended to repel the inevitable invasion of Europe by the Allies. By the beginning of 1943, Rommel's faith in Germany's ability to win the war was crumbling, as was his estimation of Hitler.     [ eyewitnesstohistory :: 2004-04-10 :: Desert Fox Erwin Rommel ]

Stopping Rommel's Panzer divisions - Brigadier Sir Rainald Lewthwaite
Brigadier Sir Rainald Lewthwaite had a distinguished career with the Scots Guards. At the start of March 1943, the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards formed part of a slender line of troops which had been hurried forward to face a threatened counter-attack by Rommel's Panzer divisions at Medenine. The battalion position extended for 2,000 yards with the ground rising for about 300 yards in front. There had been no time to lay a minefield. The objective of Rommel's Panzer divisions was the high ground behind the battalion position, dominating the Medenine plain. If they took it, the Eighth Army's position would be untenable; if they failed, the days of the Afrika Corps might be numbered.     [ telegraph :: 2003-06-17 :: Desert Fox Erwin Rommel ]

Operation Flipper - Killing or capturing Rommel
Operation Flipper - The story of the raid on Rommel's headquarters in the Libyan desert. The small raiding party achieved total surprise but due to poor intelligence there never was a chance of killing or capturing the General - he was in Rome at the time and in any event had never stayed in the property. A small party left Alexandria on the evening of the 10th of November 1941 in the submarines Torbay and Talisman. On board the former were Lt. Col. Geoffrey Keyes, two officers and 22 men and on the latter were Laycock, two officers and 24 men.     [ combinedops :: 2003-04-10 :: Desert Fox Erwin Rommel ]

Sixty years on and the El Alamein armaments still maim
To the Bedouin it was known as El Alameen, or the place of two flags. A fitting title for its moment in history. It was there, at 9.40pm on Oct 23, 1942, that the climactic battle of the campaign in North Africa began. For the next 12 days the Eighth Army, under the guidance of its new commander, Bernard Montgomery, battered away at the numerically inferior German and Italian divisions. Eventually, despite heavy losses in men and tanks Montgomery succeeded in breaking his opponent. Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, who had rushed back to the battlefield from his sick bed in Germany, managed a skilful withdrawal, depriving Montgomery of a battle of annihilation.     [ telegraph :: 2002-10-19 :: Desert Fox Erwin Rommel ]

Rommel letters reveal secret second family
Erwin Rommel, the German tank commander known as the Desert Fox, had a secret child by a teenage girlfriend. The girl's mother committed suicide when Rommel later married another woman and had a second child. Until now the field marshal has been seen as an upright soldier with a conventional life, happily married to his wife Lucie with a son, Manfred. The existence of his second family has emerged in a collection of 150 letters and photographs, kept for decades by his illegitimate daughter Gertrud Pan. The letters emerged after Gertrud's death. "There were hints from some fellow officers and an army nurse, and I put it to the museum curator in Rommel's home town, who confirmed the family's existence," said producer Sallyann Kleibel.     [ freerepublic :: 2001-07-11 :: Desert Fox Erwin Rommel ]

The Real Rommel - Bio of Panzer commander "Desert Fox"
Erwin Rommel, the "Desert Fox", was a German war hero whose exploits during the WWII are the stuff of legend. He appears to have been the archetypal "good German", an apolitical soldier and cunning military genius. But he had a secret love affair that almost ruined his career - and he was more political than his fans would like to believe. In 1937, Rommel published The Infantry Attacks, a book based on his war experiences. It appealed to Hitler, and Rommel was put in charge of his bodyguard. In February 1941, after the successful campaign against France, Rommel was sent to northern Africa, and led the Afrika Korps.     [ channel4 :: 2001-04-10 :: Desert Fox Erwin Rommel ]

See also

'WW2 Tanks'

'Panzers, Crews & Armored Units'

'Most decorated soldiers: WWII medals, Iron Cross'

'Werhmacht'

'German Generals'.

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