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Rommel flew to Rome on 11 February, 1941 and immediately began giving orders. He would need air support, he was nowhere near the front line and he uncharacteristically began taking over command. Next morning he arrived at Tripoli airfield.

The Germans perceived Operation Sonnenblume a rescue operation intended to save their ally while the Italians were still being effective tying down British troops.

Rommel had unclear information on the position of the British forces. He assumed that he would be dealing with an overwhelming British offensive against the demoralized Italians. He believed the salvation of the Italians would lie with the Luftwaffe, since he had few troops of his own- most of his forces during the entire African campaign were Italian. He was given Luftwaffe sorties which bombarded British armored columns.

When the first German troops arrived in Tripoli they were paraded before the general population. They made a great impression before they were sent to the front. However their equipment was unsuitable to the desert climate, the men found the conditions very unusual. The German soldier learnt very fast and adaptation began immediately.

Rommel ensured over the next weeks that there were no delays unloading the German armor in Tripoli harbor. He also ordered that dummy tanks be set up in order to confuse the enemy as to the strength of the German/Italian army. On 19 February the name Afrika Korps was coined to indicate the German troops.

His armor arrived on March 11. Half of them were the excellent Mark III and IVs and the other half were light tanks. Rommel moved his headquarters close to the front. However his superiors were restricting the amount of German troops being sent to Africa.

On his return to Berlin in March, 1941, Rommel was rewarded with the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves. By the time Rommel flew back he was rewarded with the news that the 5th Light Division had won the first victory of the North African campaign.

Rommel decided to attack Mersa El Braga, but he had received orders to wait for the 15th Panzer division. This he found impossible to do. If he delayed the British could mine the area. Under the false name of a probe he attacked. He outflanked the British and won the battle. What had started with a probe had turned into a major pre-emptive strike. It was an act of disobedience that Rommel hoped to justify by its success.

His next goal was the capture of Cyrenaica. On 2 April the operation began. Flying over his disorganized columns in his Storch light monoplane he redirected formations like he did in France. Once he nearly landed in a British column and narrowly escaped capture. Rommel won the battle, the British had evacuated Cyrenaica and were retreating as fast as they could to Tobruk.

SIEGE OF TOBRUK
On 10 April Rommel announced "Objective: Suez Canal". For the mean time his immediate goal was the Libyan port of Tobruk. To an extent Rommel was obsessed with Tobruk. He knew it would be a tough nut to crack; it was held by the Australian 9th Division who had prepared the position. He described the Australian prisoners as "big and powerful men, without question...an elite formation of the British empire..." Tobruk could only be taken by siege.

He surrounded Tobruk and on 14 April attacked. It failed miserably. Rommel was furious. He thought the coordination between the infantry and the armor was defective and air bombardment had gotten the edge over the Afrika Korps. He described the Italian soldiers: "They did not come forward at all, or they ran at the first shot."

Rommel made another attempt two weeks later and took the commanding position that the Anzacs were using to harass Axis supplies after a fierce battle.

On 27 April General Paulus arrived to assess the situation. He sanctioned a further attempt on Tobruk which (Paulus present) failed. After seeing Rommel first hand in battle he reported back to Berlin, describing Rommel as "a head-strong, tempestuous commander of the Afrika Korps." Paulus also thought that Rommel should withdraw to Benghazi and shorten his supply line. Rommel thought differently. However Paulus didn't see Rommel at his best.

Rommel now thought Tobruk should only be taken by siege. He now planned to hold the front, which was by now the Egyptian border. The redeployments of his non-motorized infantry took time and the British appreciated this. They prepared an attack which began on 15 May, 1941. They planned to preempt the arrival of 15 Panzer, which was en route to the front, and knock Rommel off balance. Small actions characterized the battle which Rommel won.

BRITISH COUNTERATTACK
Rommel's intelligence had informed him of this attack in advance. Rommel had three sources of intelligence. The first was the patrols and recons made by the Luftwaffe and his troops. The second was captured documents and the third was the interrogation of prisoners. Rommel treated his prisoners with respect, and admired the British order that if captured only name and rank can be given to the enemy. An example of respect given to the enemy is his encounter with Brigadier Stirling. He assured Stirling that his captivity would not be harsh, and with a handshake and a smile remarked "that there must surely be enough room in the world for both British and Germans without need for fighting." Stirling heartily agreed.

OPERATION BATTLEAXE
These three sources were valuable but by far the most useful was the interception of British signal traffic. His excellent intercept documents prompted Rommel to boast the he knew more about where the enemy formations were than the opposing commander. The attack on 15 May began with a British signal "Fritz". On 14 June Rommel's forces again picked up the code word "Fritz" and troops on the front were alerted. This was the beginning of Operation Battleaxe. The British attack was a two pronged attack. The defensive battle went well, with the excellent 88mm anti-tank knocking out large numbers of British armor. The British started 'Battleaxe' with 200 tanks. After the first attack, they were down to 39.

The next day, 16 June, was when Rommel countered. After a hard fight which lasted throughout the day the British withdrew with a loss of 29 tanks. Battleaxe had ended in a complete victory for Rommel. He hoped this triumph would result in more supplies being sent to his front. He did not know that most of the available material was being saved for the German invasion of Russia. Rommel was lucky not to be on the Eastern Front. Many shady military reputations were made there. Rommel didn't know of the atrocities being committed in Russia.

After Battleaxe Rommel had under his command 10 divisions and three Corps commands and he was now 'General of Panzer Troops'

OPERATION CRUSADER
He embarked on Operation Sommernachtstraum ,a raid which told Rommel the British were not ready for any kind of an offensive. During this lull on the front Rommel was to organize an assault on Tobruk. It began on 14 November, 1941 and coincided with the British offensive dubbed 'Crusader'. The British plan involved an incursion in the German lines after which the German forces would retaliate and run straight into a British line of anti-tank guns and tanks.

Rommel came to the conclusion that the British operation was in fact a major offensive. He was forced to postpone the attack on Tobruk and divert his armored forces to destroy the mobile British forces. He missed the entire British 7th Armored Division and its commander was told to press on to Tobruk. Rommel expected an attack from Tobruk itself to meet with the 7th Armored. He had to stop these forces from linking up.

In one of the most confusing battles of World War Two, the British relieved Tobruk, albeit tenuously. Rommel had lost all but 26 of his tanks and on December 8 Rommel withdrew from Cyrenaica.

The British, thinking Rommel was finished began building up for the final attack on Tripoli. However the Desert Fox, as Rommel had come to be known, had a surprise waiting for them.

ROMMEL COUNTERATTACKS
In January, 1942, a naval convoy carrying 55 Panzers and tons of supplies got by the Malta blockade. Rommel immediately threw these newly arrived forces in a preemptive strike on the British before they could finish their buildup. He overran the assembling grounds and pressed all the way to the Gazala Line, where he halted due to shortage of supplies. After this brilliant success, Rommel was promoted to Colonel-General.

After this attack, there was the usual lull on the battlefield, as both sides built up supplies for the next attack. When Rommel struck, first as usual, he was outnumbered three to one in tanks, ten to one in armored cars, eight to five in artillery and six to five and a half in aircraft. Despite this disproportionment of strength, Rommel broke through the heavily mined Gazala Line, outfought and outmaneuvered the British, and nearly destroyed the British 8th Army.

He pursued his routed enemy to Tobruk, without giving his men time to rest, and captured Tobruk on June 21, 1942. The next day, Hitler promoted Rommel to Field Marshal. He was the youngest German Marshal in the Wehrmacht. This was the apex of his military career. His promotion was not the award he hoped to achieve. He wrote to Lucy that night: "Hitler has made me a field marshal. I would have much rather he had given me one more division."

After the capture of Tobruk, Rommel only had 44 operational Panzers left. Despite this weakness he invaded Egypt. He hoped to capture Alexandria and Cairo before the battered 8th Army could recover. He nearly pulled this bold plan off. However he was halted at El Alamein.

BATTLE OF EL ALAMEIN
There were two battles of El Alamein. In the first, Rommel tried to reach the Nile at full throttle, but failed. In the second, General Auchinleck, the new 8th Army commander changed the Allied tactics. Instead of attacking the Germans, they concentrated solely on the Italians. Mussolini's Roman legions broke every time. Rommel was forced to use the Afrika Korps as a fire brigade, rushing around to restore the front. Supplies were used up and the supply lines almost collapsed completely.

In the battles of July 1942, the Afrika Korps were fighting almost only with captured British guns and ammunition. Rommel repelled ten attacks in July, but by the 26th his artillery fired its last shot. He was prepared to retreat if the British attacked again, but they had suffered heavy losses and had to rebuild their forces.

By now, the Allies were unloading 38 times more supplies than the Germans. The RAF had swept the Luftwaffe from the sky, and Rommel's worn Panzers, which were in bad need of overhauls, were outnumbered nearly 3 to 1. The Allies had won the war of attrition. Rommel decided to attack one last time before the British became too strong for him to attack at all.

General Montgomery (the fifth 8th Army commanders in less than a year) was ready for such an attack. During the Battle of Alam Halfa ridge, he destroyed 49 Panzers and turned back Rommel's last attempt to breach the El Alamein line.

On September 23, he left on sick leave, before he was to travel to Russia for a new command. However when Montgomery began his offensive on October 23, Hitler telephoned Rommel and told him to report back to North Africa. Rommel was severely outnumbered and ordered a general retreat. To Rommel's surprise, Hitler told him to "Stand fast, yield not a yard of ground, and throw every gun and man into battle."

As a soldier, Rommel obeyed the Fuhrer's order, a decision which cost him half his Panzers and most of the Italian tanks. On November 3 Rommel ordered a retreat without the Fuhrer's permission the next afternoon. From the retreat on, the Desert Fox's relationship with the Fuhrer deteriorated steadily. At the Fuhrer Headquarters, Rommel was treated to scenes of the Fuhrer's rage: Temper tantrums, charges of defeatism and screaming fits. Hitler even questioned the courage of Afrika Korps, upon which comment Rommel left the room. When Hitler insisted that Rommel's men stand fast and die in battle, Rommel asked why the Fuhrer didn't come to the front and show them how to do it.

Rommel conducted a brilliant one thousand mile retreat and got the remnants of Afrika Korps to Tunisia in early 1943. After the Americans landed in Morocco in 1943, cutting off Rommel's rear, he wanted to abandon Africa and use his tanks to defend Sicily and Italy. Instead Hitler sent an entire army to Africa, even though he couldn't supply it properly. Rommel turned on the Allies and defeated the inexperienced Americans terribly at the battle of Kasserine Pass in late February, 1943. In March 6 he lost fifty Panzers without inflicting a single casualty on the 8th Army - his worst tactical defeat ever. Hitler decorated him with the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves, Swords and Diamonds and sent him off in unofficial disgrace.

He left North Africa for the last time in March, 1943.

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