Review: With Rommel In The Desert

With Rommel In The Desert by Heinz Werner Schmidt
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I found this just as riveting and enjoyable as when I read it decades ago, so maybe I should give this 5 stars. What holds me back is the plentiful unit and commander detail that, I think, introduces an unnecessary granularity more distracting than helpful; to wit frequent footnotes and long lists of proper nouns.

Surviving supporting Italian allies in Eritrea, the author walked into a position as Rommel's aide and transitioned from there to commanding a combat unit during the Axis North African Campaign.
Thus, he was a first-hand witness to the hard struggle to brief supremacy over the British-led Allies with the 1942 defeating of the Allies at Gazala in June and the capture of Tobruk. From here there was a long, bitter decline for the Axis. Ever under-manned and under-supplied (Rommel responded with fake tanks and urgent attacks), the added weight caused the Axis powers to succumb. Although Rommel was back in Europe by then and out of the picture on the ground, the author was still there and recollects here. Fortunately, there is a wedding at the end...

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