''The Rommel Papers'' is the collected writings by the German

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

field marshal

Erwin Rommel Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel (; 15 November 1891 – 14 October 1944), popularly known as The Desert Fox (, ), was a German '' Generalfeldmarschall'' (field marshal) during World War II. He served in the ''Wehrmacht'' (armed forces) of ...

published in 1953.

Background and publication

The book included Rommel's writings of the war, edited by the British journalist and historian B. H. Liddell Hart, the former Wehrmacht officer Fritz Bayerlein, who served on Rommel's staff in North Africa, and Rommel's widow and son. The volume contained an introduction and commentary by Liddell Hart. Liddell Hart had a personal interest in the work: by having coaxed Rommel's widow to include material favourable to himself, he could present Rommel as his "pupil" when it came to mobile armoured warfare. Thus, Liddell Hart's "theory of

indirect approach The Indirect approach is a military strategy described and chronicled by B. H. Liddell Hart after World War I. It was an attempt to find a solution to the problem of high casualty rates in conflict zones with high force to space ratios, such as th ...

" became a precursor to the German ''

blitzkrieg ''Blitzkrieg'(Lightning/Flash Warfare)'' is a word used to describe a combined arms surprise attack, using a rapid, overwhelming force concentration that may consist of armored and motorized or mechanized infantry formations, together with ...

'' ("lightning war"). The controversy was described by the political scientist

John Mearsheimer John Joseph Mearsheimer (; born December 14, 1947) is an American political scientist and international relations scholar. He is R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor in the University of Chicago. Mearsheimer is best known for dev ...

in his work ''The Weight of History'', who concluded that, by "putting words in the mouths of German Generals and manipulating history", Liddell Hart was in a position to show that he had been at the root of the dramatic German successes in 1940.

Reception

The historian

Mark Connelly Mark Connelly was a professor and Head of the School of History, at the University of Kent in Canterbury, where he was both a military historian, and the Reuters Lecturer in Media History. Connelly specialises in the 19th Century and First World ...

argues that ''The Rommel Papers'' was one of the two foundational works that lead to a "Rommel renaissance" and "Anglophone rehabilitation", the other being Desmond Young's biography, '' Rommel: The Desert Fox''. The book contributed to the perception of Rommel as a brilliant commander; in an introduction, Liddell Hart drew comparisons between Rommel and Lawrence of Arabia, "two masters of desert warfare."

Background and publication

Reception

Editions

References

Citations

Bibliography

Further reading