Brian B. reviewed on
This is an excellent piece of military leader's insights into leadership. Rommel put himself out on the battlefield, but not just on the field, but at the front of the attacks. He narrowly escaped death on many occasions, but ultimately lived to fight another day.
His detail on the actions, the drawings that he commissioned on the battlefield, and his after-action summaries and reflections on mistakes and victories, make this an excellent read - with direct insight into the way Rommel approached problems and embraced the accountability of the outcomes.
He does not write with bravado, but matter-of-factness, that makes this an easy read. It's not like you're fighting through a self-aggrandizing biography, it's clean, precise, analytical, and filled with such detail as to boggle the mind. He was meticulous about taking notes. The fact that this book was published over 15 years after the experiences contained within it is also interesting. It became a de facto text book on military strategy, and as such, copies found their ways around the world, and one of Rommel's fiercest competitors on the battlefield, Gen. George Patton was one who read this book
That is some great historic irony - as this was a work intended to better the German leadership and train them in the ways of a master tactician, and it also gave critical insights into the mind of the man in charge of Germany's Afrikakorps.
Loved it. It was riveting, hard to put down.
His detail on the actions, the drawings that he commissioned on the battlefield, and his after-action summaries and reflections on mistakes and victories, make this an excellent read - with direct insight into the way Rommel approached problems and embraced the accountability of the outcomes.
He does not write with bravado, but matter-of-factness, that makes this an easy read. It's not like you're fighting through a self-aggrandizing biography, it's clean, precise, analytical, and filled with such detail as to boggle the mind. He was meticulous about taking notes. The fact that this book was published over 15 years after the experiences contained within it is also interesting. It became a de facto text book on military strategy, and as such, copies found their ways around the world, and one of Rommel's fiercest competitors on the battlefield, Gen. George Patton was one who read this book
That is some great historic irony - as this was a work intended to better the German leadership and train them in the ways of a master tactician, and it also gave critical insights into the mind of the man in charge of Germany's Afrikakorps.
Loved it. It was riveting, hard to put down.
