"Rise and fall of the Panzerarmee Afrika" Topic

"North-Africa was a battlefront opened by Adolf Hitler in 1941 after the Italians had suffered a massive defeat in the battle of Beda Fomm against the British, between February 5 and 7, 1941, from their colony Libya on British Egypt. That battle was the finale of Operation Compass, which the British launched on 9 December 1940. The Italians were then further pushed back by the British to El Agheila. As a result, the Allies had advanced 497 miles in two months and had destroyed an army of 10 divisions, made 130,000 men prisoners of war, and captured 180 medium-heavy tanks, 200 light tanks and 845 cannons. The disadvantage of this victory was that Germany became involved in the battle…"

Hitler was far from pleased with this state of affairs among the Italians and ordered Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel on February 6, 1941 in Berlin to take command of a small German unit in North-Africa. The aim of this unit was partly to save the Italian allies from destruction and to prevent the Vichy-French army from joining the British in North-Africa. The choice for Rommel was moreover rejected by a number of officers within the Oberkommando des Heeres. They preferred Generalmajor Hans Freiherr von Funck be appointed to this post, because he had knowledge of the terrain there. However, Hitler disliked Von Funk, because he was a good friend of Generalmajor Werner von Fritsch who had been disgraced in 1938. Incidentally, there are indications that the Deutsches Afrikakorps (DAK) was part of a larger operation, to eventually advance through the Middle East towards the Caucasus. The unit initially consisted of two divisions, the 5. Leichte Division and the 15. Panzer Division (which only arrived in May 1941). In addition, Rommel was given command of two more Italian divisions. Formally, the German commander was subordinate to the Italian general Italo Garibaldi, with whom he later had quite a lot of discussions. In practice Rommel had a direct line with Berlin, the Oberkommando des Heeres and Hitler, so actually he worked a lot with Italians…"
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This reads much like one of the old Purnells History of the Second World War books. Afrika Korps by Major K.J. Macksey, M.C.