Das Afrika Korps

In his latest account of German soldiers in combat in World War II, Franz Kurowski journeys into the desert with the Afrika Korps, graphically depicting what it was like to sweat beneath the African sun, to taste the gritty sand, to serve under a brilliant commander like Erwin Rommel. From 1941 to 1943, this fighting force waged an impressive campaign that turned Rommel into the Desert Fox and secured the Afrika Korps a legendary place in military history. The Afrika Korps deployed to Africa as Germany’s Italian allies teetered on the brink of collapse in early 1941. With high spirit and aggressive courage, the Afrika Korps roared into action and battled the British back and forth across the Western Desert--at places like El Agheila, Gazala, Tobruk, and El Alamein--for much of the next two years. The campaign then shifted into Tunisia, where the British onslaught combined with the arrival of the Americans and growing supply difficulties to force the Afrika Korps to surrender in May 1943. Kurowski’s narrative focuses on the men who did the fighting, who endured not only enemy attacks but also the extremes of the desert climate, who experienced moments of sheer terror as well as occasions of humor, who saw war’s savagery and its surprising, if brief, civility, and who counted themselves proud to be members of Germany’s Afrika Korps.