Erwin Rommel
During the early part of 1944, an event took place that would change the outcome of World War II. It seemed insignificant at the time, but would have a profound influence upon Operation Overlord, code name for the invasion of German-occupied France, as well as the resulting Battle of Normandy and the breakout that followed.; Read more
Erwin Rommel
When Brig. Gen. Joseph-Pierre Koenig, commander of the 1st Free French Brigade, surveyed the area he had just been ordered to defend, he must have been mightily discouraged. Read more
Erwin Rommel
The Allied invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe was inevitable as the tide of World War II turned against Germany. Read more
Erwin Rommel
On March 12, 1939, Heroes’ Memorial Day (or Veterans Day) in the Nazi Third Reich, the thousands of onlookers at the giant annual parade in Berlin were treated to an unusual sight as a small monoplane landed on the Unter den Linden between Hermann Göring’s State Opera House and the Neue Wache (New Guardshouse). Read more
Erwin Rommel
At the start of the Battle of Mortain, Field Marshal Gunther Von Kluge was in an optimistic mood. Read more
Erwin Rommel
Just boys facing danger, please God make them men; If they live through the danger, make them boys once again. —Sergeant Ginger Woodcock, June 5, 1944
On the morning of June 6, 1944, the greatest amphibious fleet in history bore in toward the coast of Normandy. Read more
Erwin Rommel
On April 15, 1942, Generaloberst (Colonel General) Erwin Rommel summoned his subordinate commanders of the Panzerarmee Afrika to a conference to outline his plans for the coming offensive against the British Eighth Army. Read more
Erwin Rommel
Adolf Hitler’s wartime Armaments Minister Albert Speer was right when he termed the Führer’s pilot from 1932 to 1945, Lt. Read more
Erwin Rommel
For Nazi Party Führer (Leader) and German Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler, July 20th, 1944 dawned as a routine working day at his principal wartime military headquarters, the Wolfsschanze (Fort Wolf) in the East Prussian forest of Rastenburg, some three hundred air miles from Berlin, in what is today Poland. Read more
Erwin Rommel
The year 1939 was one of massive military parades across Europe. On April 20, the largest ever was held in Berlin to celebrate Adolf Hitler’s birthday, complete with the paratroopers, wheeled artillery, tanks, half-tracks for motorized infantry, and overhead Luftwaffe fly-bys that would mark the coming campaigns and revolutionize warfare forever. Read more
Erwin Rommel
The Allied decision to invade North Africa, codenamed Operation Torch, was reached in the summer of 1942 after lengthy—and sometimes bitter—arguments between interested parties. Read more
Erwin Rommel
It was built by forced laborers and designed to defend over 2,000 miles of coastline from the Allies. Read more
Erwin Rommel
After assuming dictatorial powers in Italy, Benito Mussolini remained a popular figure with the Italian people – for a time. Read more
Erwin Rommel
The ghosts of World War II continue to surface in remote corners of the globe.
Decades after the war in North Africa ended, another reminder of the early and uncertain days in that theater came to the attention of the media and excited historians with a snapshot of a pilot’s ordeal in the unforgiving Egyptian desert where he was forced to land a crippled fighter plane. Read more
