Rommel: Leadership Lessons from the Desert Fox

Modeled on the acclaimed Great Generals Series, which features the strategy and legacy of famous American generals, World Generals broadens the scope to include the world’s finest military leaders. Each volume includes a foreword by General Wesley K. Clark and is coedited with an afterword by a different foreign general.

This exciting series opens with “the Desert Fox,” the most famous German field marshal in World War II, Erwin Rommel. A hero of the people of the Third Reich and widely respected by his opponents, Rommel proved himself highly adept at blitzkrieg warfare. Both in France and North Africa he consistently outwitted his adversaries through his ability to sense the weak spot in his enemy’s deployment and by the pace at which he conducted his operations. Rommel was seriously wounded in France just three days before the aborted attempt on Hitler’s life. Rommel subsequently came under suspicion of being involved in the plot and, under pressure, committed suicide. Rommel displayed an outstanding ability to seize the initiative and retain it, and here, Charles Messenger draws on the skills behind this ability for the benefit of modern-day leaders.