Erwin Rommel is the arguably the most well-known German general of the Second World War. Revered by his troops and applauded by his enemies, the so-called Desert Fox achieved legendary status for his daring exploits and bold manoeuvres during the North African campaign. In this book, richly illustrated with over 400 images, the author examines the privations and challenges Rommel faced in leading his coalition force. Endeavouring to reach the Nile Delta, we find Rommel's Axis soldiers poorly-prepared to undertake such an audacious operation. Much-admired by his men in the front lines, we discover a demanding and intolerant leader, censured by subordinate officers and mistrusted by his superiors in Berlin. Certainly no diplomat, we observe posed interactions with Italian and junior German officers through an official lens. We note Rommels readiness to take advantage of his enemys weakness and study his extraordinary instinct for waging mobile warfare. We consider his disregard for the decisive factor of supply and view his armys reliance on captured equipment. We learn how this brave and ambitious commander was celebrated by German propaganda when the Wehrmachts fortunes in the East were waning. Conversely, analyse why Winston Churchill honoured him as a daring and skillful opponent. Finally, we picture this energetic, ambitious, at times reckless, commander as he roamed the vast Western Desert battlefield. This is the story of Rommel in North Africa.

Prior to the outbreak of war in September 1939, the German Army had focused exclusively on the operational, organisational and training preparations needed to wage war in continental Europe. The threat of an Italian collapse in North Africa in early 1941, however, prompted Hitler to reinforce his ally by sending an armoured blocking force to Libya. Not content to merely thwart the British from capturing Tripoli, Lieutenant-General Erwin Rommel harried his inexperienced expeditionary force eastward towards the Nile Delta. This book is a pictorial narrative of the unfolding conflict from the arrival of the Deutsches Afrikakorps until Rommels departure from the battlefield in March 1943. We view the desert war, with its shifting fortunes and unique challenges, primarily through the lens of ordinary combatants. This is their personal record of serving with Rommel in the desert.

Adolf Hitler's war in Africa arose from the urgent need to reinforce the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini, whose 1940 invasion of Egypt had been soundly beaten. Of secondary importance to his ideological dream of conquering the Soviet Union, Germany's Führer rushed a small mechanised force into the unfamiliar North African theatre to stave off defeat and avert any political fallout. This fresh account begins with the arrival of the largely unprepared German formations, soon to be stricken by disease and heavily reliant upon captured materiel, as they fought a bloody series of see-sawing battles across the Western Desert. David Mitchelhill-Green has gathered a wealth of personal narratives from both sides as he follows the brash exploits of General Erwin Rommel, intent on retaking Libya; the Nile firmly in his sights. Against this backdrop is the brutal human experience of war itself.

Adolf Hitler invaded Western Europe on 10 May 1940. After breaking through the supposedly impenetrable' Ardennes, Erwin Rommel was at the forefront of the Wehrmacht's audacious drive through France. Rommel, who had no prior experience leading an armoured division in combat, moved with such speed and nerve that he frequently surprised French units by arriving far earlier than expected. Crossing the Meuse River, we follow Rommel in what he referred to as practically a lightning Tour de France' as he pushed through northern France to the English Channel. His spectacular victory at the coastal port of Saint-Val ry-en-Caux was crowned by the capture of Cherbourg. Following the armistice, Rommel was involved in re-enacting certain battles, such as crossing the Somme, for the documentary Sieg im Westen (Victory in the West). This is the story of Rommel and the 7th Panzer Division the so-called Ghost Division' in France, 1940.

The outcome of the Second World War was decided on the Eastern Front. Denied a swift victory over Stalin's Red Army, Hitler's Wehrmacht found itself in a bloody, protracted struggle from late 1941 that it was ill-prepared to fight. Although many pictorial books have been published on Germany's hapless invasion of the Soviet Union, they are typically a collection of soldiers' snapshots or 'official' photographs taken by Propagandakompanien (PK) reporters. This book is different. It contains an extraordinary personal record of the war captured by a professional photographer, Walter Grimm, who served in the German Army in a communications unit. David Mitchelhill-Green brings Grimm's previously unpublished photographs together with a carefully researched introduction. The 300 evocative black and white images provide an absorbing insight into the daily life and privations of the ordinary German soldier amid the maelstrom of history's largest conflict. The Ukrainian people, many of whom initially welcomed the Germans as liberators, freeing them from the yoke of Bolshevik oppression, are also chronicled in this fascinating study of the fighting in Ukraine.