Africa campaign
| date | September 9, 1940 to May 13, 1943 |
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| place | Libya , Egypt , Tunisia |
| output | Allied victory , Axis troops surrender in North Africa |
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In the German-speaking countries, the term Africa campaign is used to describe the military operations of the Axis Powers against the Allies in Libya , Egypt and Tunisia during the Second World War between September 9, 1940 and May 13, 1943. The aim of the campaign was to gain dominance in North Africa .
Starting position
After the start of the war in 1939, Italy initially remained a “non-belligerent” country. In view of the rapidly emerging German victory in the western campaign , Benito Mussolini wanted to secure his share of the expected booty. On June 10, 1940, he declared war on the almost defeated France. The Italian troops attacked the Alpine border on June 20, but were repulsed by the bitter French despite their inferior forces. However, Hitler forced France to include Italy in the armistice . From then on Italy was on the side of Germany at war with Great Britain, which soon had an impact on the Italian colonies in Libya and East Africa .
After the fall of France, almost all of western and central Europe were occupied by the axis , allied with it or at least neutral. French North Africa , like the French fleet, was under the control of the Vichy government , which depended on good relations with Germany. General Charles de Gaulle had announced that he would continue the fight against the Axis powers in the name of “ Free France ”, but most of the French colonies remained loyal to Vichy.
Africa, the Mediterranean and the Middle East were of fundamental importance to the British. The Suez Canal and the Strait of Gibraltar were important lifelines of the Empire . Since after the fall of France and the beginning of the Battle of Britain a German invasion of the British Isles (which the Germans were preparing under the name of the Sea Lion Company ) had to be expected at any time and the main forces of the British Army were thus tied up in the mother country, the British were to Defense of their position in the Middle East relies on the support of the Commonwealth of Nations. First and foremost, these were the troops from Australia , New Zealand , South Africa and British India , who gradually gathered in the Middle East and were prepared there for their deployment. Belgian-Congolese troops later reached Egypt by sea and land - from Nigeria across the Sahara .
Geographical location
The battlefield was a strip of the Mediterranean Sea about a thousand kilometers long. The fighting took place mainly in the Cyrenaica , limited to the west in Libya by the fortification of El Agheila on the south bank of the Great Syrte , in the east by the border and port city of Sallum in Egypt . The width of the strip was only a hundred kilometers; in the north was the Mediterranean and in the south lay the vastness of the desert. Many peculiarities of the desert war can be explained by this geographical location in general and by topographical conditions in particular. The terrain was mostly arid and rubble. There were only a few villages and cities, which is why traditional warfare had no validity here: Gaining ground was far less important, and in some cases even immensely dangerous because the supply routes were overstretched. What was more important was the distance to the deployment area. The climate took its toll and refreshments of material and personnel were constantly necessary, while the few supply routes running parallel to the coast were very difficult, which is why operating at a distance from the base was even more difficult than e.g. B. in Russia.
course
Italian invasion of Egypt
The North African campaign began after minor skirmishes on the Libyan-Egyptian border on September 9, 1940 with a series of air raids on British border posts, followed on September 13 by the invasion of the vastly outnumbered Italian 10th Army led by General Mario Berti of Libya out to Egypt. Benito Mussolini had demanded this advance from the Italian commander- in -chief in Libya, Rodolfo Graziani , in order to wrest the Suez Canal from the British and to connect the Italian possessions in North and East Africa. The Italians, advancing cautiously, advanced within a few days to Sidi Barrani , about 100 kilometers from the border, where they halted and set up fortified camps due to the destruction of their supply routes by British planes and warships. Since these were too far apart to support each other, they were successfully attacked several times by mobile units of the British Western Desert Force under General Richard O'Connor . The main forces of the Western Desert Force, meanwhile, remained in their positions at Marsa Matruh . In the period that followed, the Italians devoted themselves to the expansion of the Via Balbia to Egypt and the creation of supply depots .
On October 28, the Italians opened a new theater of war with their attack on Greece , which soon claimed their full attention due to strong Greek resistance. In addition, their supply convoys across the Mediterranean were attacked more and more successfully by British ships and aircraft. Graziani's planned march to Marsa Matruh was therefore canceled until further notice. On the night of November 12, the Italian fleet suffered heavy losses from the British attack on Taranto and was severely restricted in its operational capability until further notice. The British took over the defense of Crete and also supported the Greeks by sending air units from Egypt.
The German leadership responded to these Italian setbacks and to the British advance on the Greek islands by offering support, which was initially to consist of units of the Air Force . It was not until the spring of 1941 that ground troops wanted to intervene in the war in Greece. In addition, pressure was exerted on the Spanish government under Francisco Franco to enter the war alongside the Axis in order to jointly take the British base in Gibraltar in the Felix company and thus control the western entry into the Mediterranean. These efforts, which were laid down in "Instruction No. 18" of the OKW of November 12, 1940, were unsuccessful.
British counterattack
The inactivity of the Italians at Sidi Barrani strengthened the British Middle East command under Archibald Wavell in their plans to strike back. With the greatest possible secrecy, the Western Desert Force, consisting of the 4th Indian Infantry Division and the British 7th Panzer Division , was advanced into their attack positions at the beginning of December. Parts of the Italian army were cleverly bypassed, cut off from supplies and thus forced to give up. The remaining Italian associations then fled to Libya. Sollum and Fort Capuzzo fell undefended into British hands and at the beginning of January the port of Bardia on the other side of the Libyan border was captured, with almost 40,000 Italians being captured. Tobruk and Derna then fell in quick succession . On February 7, the Allies succeeded in cutting off the majority of the retreating Italian troops and defeating them in the battle of Beda Fomm south of Benghazi . The Italian troops in Cyrenaica were thus largely crushed, only about 30,000 men managed to retreat further west. A total of around 130,000 Italian soldiers were taken prisoner by the Allies. After the capture of El Agheila , the British advance was halted because the British government wanted to hold back a troop reserve for the expected attack by the Axis powers on Greece .
Decision for German intervention
The German high command of the army pointed out the need to support the Italians in North Africa early on and sent General Wilhelm von Thoma to the Cyrenaica to investigate the possibility of using armored troops. In his report, Thoma had expressed the conviction that due to the poor supply possibilities overland, one should wait for the Italians to conquer the port of Marsa Matruh (Egypt). The success of Operation Compass soon made these considerations obsolete.
In December Hitler ordered the transfer of the X. Fliegerkorps to Sicily, with the help of which the Axis powers were to regain air superiority over the Mediterranean and bring British shipping through the Straits of Sicily to a standstill. Its units achieved their first successes in early January when they seriously damaged the aircraft carrier Illustrious by air strikes and sank the cruiser Southampton . As a result, British supply ships increasingly switched to the longer route around the Cape of Good Hope . At the end of January, German planes also began to mine the Suez Canal from the air, using Italian bases in the Dodecanese for refueling.
Hitler, who hesitated for a long time because he was interested in “his” campaign, the war against the Soviet Union , finally agreed to the establishment of a “blocking association” for Africa. On January 11th, he issued “Instruction No. 22”, in which, in addition to the Sunflower Company , a simultaneous reinforcement of the Italian troops in Albania ( Cyclamen Company ) was planned. The latter was finally dropped after consulting Mussolini, also because the development in Cyrenaica seemed to require quick action. General Erwin Rommel was given the task of leading these German support troops for the oppressed Italians. In addition to sending valuable units from the war-decisive armored forces to distant Africa, Hitler finally had to wage a campaign in the Balkans in the spring of 1941 to protect his allies from another debacle and to protect the "soft" flank of the axis in southern Europe to back up.
Originally, the German Africa Corps was designed purely as a blocking unit with the task of holding the Italian areas in North Africa. Hitler rightly feared that the British might succeed in driving the Italian troops completely out of Africa. Last but not least, this would have had negative political consequences for Mussolini. This already shows that Hitler's Africa war was basically seen as a war of prestige; Africa was not given a greater strategic importance, and Hitler sought the decision in the East. The Afrikakorps represented the first German ground troops in Africa that were formally still under the command of the Italians. Initially, only motorized and armored units of the Wehrmacht were selected for the desert war. These were the 5th light division (the later 21st Panzer Division ), the 90th light Africa division and the 15th Panzer Division .
Counterattack by the Africa Corps
On February 11, 1941, the first German troops landed in Tripoli . The Italian troops were already morally weak because of their defeats and their defensive positions were poorly developed.
In contrast to the planned, defensive stance of the Africa Corps, Rommel considered an offensive action against the British troops to be absolutely necessary. This opinion was in stark contrast to the opinion of the Italian General Gariboldi , who saw success in the defensive approach. On March 31st, on Rommel's unauthorized orders, the advance began. His main thrust was directed at Marsa el Brega in order to be able to build a bridgehead for the capture of the Cyrenaica .
With Rommel's successful tactics of mobile desert warfare, British troops under General Archibald Wavell were thrown back 800 kilometers via Benghazi and Derna . (However, the withdrawal of units from Africa to the front in Greece had reduced the originally superior British units.) Shortly afterwards, Benghazi was occupied. These rapid successes caused astonishment among the Italian generals and a deep shock on the British side.
The German advance stopped in mid-April near the Egyptian border town and fortress of Sollum east of Tobruk . This had been expanded shortly before by the Italian troops and then evacuated almost without a fight. By April 13, the German Wehrmacht had carried out three unsuccessful attacks on Tobruk, which they had surrounded. After heavy losses, the conquest of this important port city had to be postponed on Rommel's orders. The German forces were too weak to blow up the ring of minefields and positions around Tobruk. Rommel had to hold back his tanks for mobile warfare in the desert. Further advances to the east could not be carried out because the Africa Corps was already struggling with threatening supply bottlenecks, which ultimately led to a positional war at and around Sollum / Tobruk.
Operation Crusader
In November, British troops began counter-attacks as part of " Operation Crusader ", the aim of which was to relieve Tobruk fortress by diverting German troops. After this failed, British troops launched a second strike on November 18, 1941, which ended the stalemate. The British large-scale attack enabled the occupation of Tobruk to break out of the siege ring surrounding the city and by the end of 1941 threw the German Africa Corps back to its original position on the western edge of Cyrenaica .
1942
Massive attacks by the German Luftflotte 2 under Albert Kesselring on important hubs such as Malta , from where British submarines and planes attacked the German and Italian supplies, ensured that these disruptions did not occur for a time. Under these circumstances, Rommel managed to regain the initiative in January 1942. He used the operational advantage created by the air support and, in particular, freshly brought reinforcements for a surprising counterattack that led the Panzer Army Africa to El Alamein , only 100 kilometers from Alexandria , until the end of June .
The newly established Paratrooper Brigade 1 under Hermann-Bernhard Ramcke , together with other large German and Italian paratrooper groups, was intended in 1942 for the briefly canceled company Herkules to take the island of Malta in the Mediterranean region and was then deployed as regular infantry in Africa. However, due to the fact that it was quickly relocated, it was only partially suitable for the desert warfare due to the lack of motorization. Due to the changing offensives on both sides, the Africa campaign in 1942 had turned into a very rapid war of movement. The desert plains were suitable for long-range tank operations over hundreds of kilometers.
On May 26th, the Africa Corps launched the Theseus company with the aim of conquering Tobruk. After heavy tank battles, the Axis powers succeeded on June 11th in taking Bir Hacheim in order to initiate the advance on Tobruk.
Rommel bypassed the British positions south of the fortress and attacked with a surprise offensive. The advance was accompanied by Ju 87 - dive bombers , which shelled the enemy lines and bombed while interrupted British communication. In the ensuing confusion, Rommel's armored forces were able to penetrate the city and occupy it within a few hours on June 20. As a result of this coup d'état, which was celebrated by Nazi propaganda , Rommel was promoted to General Field Marshal.
The further advance should now take place through Egypt. The aim was to take the city of Alexandria and occupy the Suez Canal . Hitler was already planning to advance from there to the Middle East and India in order to threaten the British colonies. Shortly before El Alamein , however, the British had built a 65-kilometer defensive belt. Because of the swampy Qattara Depression in the Libyan desert to the south, it was not possible to circumvent this belt; the swampy terrain covered the flank. In addition, further supply bottlenecks made a long-term plan more difficult; the offensive got stuck.
On July 20, 1942, Rommel's staff gave instructions to a task force under the command of SS-Obergruppenführer Walther Rauff . This allowed her to kill all Jews residing there after a possible conquest of Palestine outside the jurisdiction of the Wehrmacht . Similar instructions had earlier in the year prior to Operation Barbarossa , the Einsatzgruppen received that should the massacre of Soviet Jews.
After the failed offensive in the first battle of El Alamein , Rommel wanted to bring about a decision in favor of the Axis powers in August. Contrary to expectations, however, the supply situation did not improve in August, as the tonnage sunk by British submarines had increased massively. Now it was taking revenge for not taking Malta. The German offensive plan in the Battle of Alam Halfa was similar to the successful conception of Gazala . A quick push by a German-Italian fast offensive group through the British minefields in the south was planned, in order to then turn to the north and thus encircle the Allied troops and destroy them from the rear. The attack was only started after Albert Kesselring had given fuel . After the offensive had started on the night of August 30th to 31st, the Allied resistance presented itself as much stronger, as the 8th Army had already known the priorities through Ultra before the attack. The attacks by the Axis powers did not achieve the desired goals and the ground gained was largely abandoned due to an Allied counterattack with strong air support. Exceptions were the former British mine belts, which the Axis powers kept in their hands when they withdrew to the starting position until September 6th.
The situation for the Axis Powers worsened when the new British commander, Bernard Montgomery, launched a counterattack on October 23 with the second Battle of El Alamein . The inferior Africa Corps was defeated by the material battle and had to retreat to Libya. On November 8th, over 100,000 fresh American and British soldiers landed in Morocco and Algeria ( Operation Torch ). The now opened two- front war overwhelmed the weakened Africa Corps, so that Tobruk fell back into British hands on November 13th.
Due to the critical situation on the Eastern Front - the Wehrmacht had to withdraw from the Caucasus and the Stalingrad disaster was looming - the Wehrmacht High Command could only send insufficient reinforcements over southern France. In southern Tunisia the fresh units united with the retreating Panzer Army Africa .
1943
At the end of January 1943, Libya had to be given up. In the meantime, the troops of the Axis Powers faced half a million Allied soldiers and thus a double superiority. The Allies also had four times the number of tanks and unrestricted air superiority . On January 23, the British occupied Tripoli .
In the Battle of the Kasserin Pass from February 19-22, the Axis powers inflicted a heavy defeat on the advancing Americans, which, however, due to the threat from the British, they could not use for lasting strategic success. On February 23, 1943, Rommel became Commander in Chief of the newly formed Army Group Africa . On March 4, Rommel proposed in a detailed radio message to Hitler that the front line should be drastically shortened and that a small bridgehead should be withdrawn around Tunis. On March 7, Rommel received a categorical rejection of this proposal from the Fuehrer's headquarters; Hitler expressed himself angry. Rommel then decided to start his cure now . On March 9th, Rommel flew to Germany from Sfax . He spoke to Hitler about ending the fighting. But Hitler remained stubborn and refused to allow the Africa Corps to retreat to mainland Europe. Rommel stayed in Germany (among other things, Nazi propaganda wanted to avoid being associated with the foreseeable defeat). On March 11th, Hitler awarded Rommel the diamonds for the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves and Swords for his service in Africa . Rommel was the first soldier in the army to receive this exclusive award.
In March and April, the Axis soldiers were finally trapped. They put up bitter resistance, especially on the Mareth Line , until the end of March. Only after Rommel's successor Colonel-General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim surrendered near Tunis on May 12 and 13, 1943 , did the public learn that Rommel had left Africa in March and received another award. Before that, because of Rommel's disregard for orders, tensions between Hitler and his “favorite general” had arisen for the first time. Tensions eased when Rommel's assessment of the unavoidable defeat in North Africa was finally confirmed.
Aggravating circumstances during the Africa campaign
The supply of the troops with food, fuel, ammunition and equipment was difficult to ensure because of the distances in North Africa. For the Axis powers, the strong presence of the British Navy in the Mediterranean also had an adverse effect. For example, in the summer of 1942 two-thirds of the German-Italian supplies coming from Sicily and occupied Greece fell victim to British submarines and aircraft operating from Malta and Egypt . Operational successes on the battlefield were associated with increasing distances to their respective supply points for both sides. Thus, the success of military operations depended more than on any other battlefield on functioning supplies.
In addition, the desert climate (up to 50 ° Celsius during the day, below 0 ° Celsius at night) and the sand placed high demands on people and materials. Under these conditions, a person typically needs four to five liters of water a day, so that supply bottlenecks could quickly have detrimental effects. The fine sand of the desert was, in turn, a heavy burden on the vehicles and technology of the time and led to higher maintenance costs.
The Afrikakorps had efficient technical supply services, so the German units for the maintenance, rescue and repair of failed, damaged or captured vehicles and weapons were well equipped and usually motorized. The logistics on the side of the Axis troops, however, had to deal with a diverse mixture of material and weapons from Italy, Germany, Great Britain, the USA and even France and Russia (for example captured tanks ). For this purpose, additional special tools, spare parts and ammunition had to be procured and stored. Particularly in the case of retreats, which often had to take place over long distances due to the terrain, it was then often no longer possible to recover harmful material such as failed tanks and vehicles.
Rivalries between the German armed forces and the Italian armed forces as well as conflicts between the German armed forces (army, navy and air force) made matters worse.
The terrain with its wide open spaces required different tactical approaches than in Central Europe (more densely populated and covered by forests). Very few areas offered natural bottlenecks, which could not be circumvented by flanking maneuvers, in which a static defense could be established. The theoretically superior tactical abilities of the Wehrmacht for combined arms combat and mobile warfare lost importance in the further course of the campaign when the British 8th Army under Montgomery in the east and the fresh American troops in the west clearly outstripped the German-Italian troops.
losses
| Dead, missing, prisoners: | ||
| Italian: | 362,341 | |
| German: | 151.994 | |
| French (Vichy): | 3,343 | |
| British: | 220,000 | |
| Americans: | 18,221 | |
| Free French: | 16,000 |
consequences
Almost 255,000 German and Italian soldiers became prisoners of war because Hitler did not allow them to be returned to Europe.
Field Marshal Rommel has been in the public spotlight since his spectacular successes. The Afrikakorps had been shaped by the inhuman environment, the successes and the media into a symbol of the German will to fight. The Germans reacted in horror to the defeat and high losses in North Africa. The catchphrase of the "second Stalingrad " spread quickly in the German Reich.
The Allied forces now had control of the Mediterranean and good conditions for an Allied landing on Sicily . With this, the new front in southern Europe, so feared by Hitler, was opened on July 10, 1943, which led to the overthrow of Mussolini and the change of sides in Italy within a few days.
Planned extermination of the Jews
Although Rommel was not considered an anti-Semite , with the advance of the Africa Corps he created the prerequisites for the Jews of North Africa to be included in the Holocaust . Labor camps were set up for them in Tunisia, and as far as we know today 39 of them perished. The German advance posed an immense threat to the Jews in Palestine .
In Athens , a task force under the command of SS-Obersturmbannführer Walther Rauff was ready to begin with the annihilation of the Jewish population in Egypt and Palestine and on July 20, 1942, Rommel's staff had received the necessary instructions for their activities in the rear of the army. Part of the Arab population of Palestine, as far as they orientated themselves towards the Mufti of Jerusalem Mohammed Amin al-Husseini , longed for a victory for the Germans, because they hoped for the expulsion of the Jews, British and French. In view of the approaching troops of the Africa Corps, the British therefore considered it necessary, despite the tense military situation in the summer of 1942, to leave parts of their 9th Army in Palestine in order to protect the local Jews from pogroms by the Arabs.
When the advance of the German Wehrmacht into the Egyptian Nile Valley was feared in the summer of 1942, the Grand Rabbi of Cairo asked the Sheikh of the Azhar Mosque , Mohammed Mustafa al-Maraghy , for support in the event of pogroms following a German invasion of Egypt. According to the historian Alexandre Kum'a N'dumbe , the conversation shows that the pro-German and pro-fascist line of al-Husseini was not predominant among Arabs.
See also
literature
- Pier Paolo Battistelli: Rommel's Afrika Korps - from Tobruk to El Alamein . Osprey Battle Orders 20, 2006. ISBN 978-1-84176-901-1 .
- Peter Lieb : War in North Africa 1940–1943 (= modern wars). Verlag Reclam, Ditzingen 2018, ISBN 978-3-15-011161-1 .
Official military history accounts
In many of the nations that took part in World War II, the events were later processed in official military-historical accounts. Of these, the following deal with the African campaign:
Australia
- Gavin Long: To Benghazi (= Australian War Memorial [Hrsg.]: Australia in the war of 1939-1945. Series 1 - Army . Volume 1 ). Australian War Memorial, Canberra 1961, OCLC 872538251 ( gov.au [PDF; accessed December 12, 2018]).
- Barton Maughan: Tobruk and El Alamein (= Australian War Memorial [Ed.]: Australia in the war of 1939-1945. Series 1 - Army . Volume 3 ). Australian War Memorial, Canberra 1966, OCLC 933092460 ( gov.au [PDF; accessed December 2, 2018]).
Germany
- Gerhard Schreiber , Bernd Stegemann , Detlef Vogel: The Mediterranean and Southeastern Europe. From the "non belligeranza" of Italy to the entry into the war of the United States (= Military History Research Office [Hrsg.]: The German Reich and the Second World War . Volume 3 ). Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1984, ISBN 3-421-06097-5 , The Italian-German warfare in the Mediterranean and in Africa, p. 591-682 .
- Horst Boog , Werner Rahn , Reinhard Stumpf , Bernd Wegner : The global war. The expansion to the world war and the change of initiative. 1941–1943 (= Military History Research Office [Hrsg.]: The German Reich and the Second World War . Volume 6 ). Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-421-06233-1 , Part Five , I. The Beginning of the Second German-Italian Offensive in North Africa and the Battle for Malta, p. 569-594 .
Italy
- Mario Montanari: Sidi el Barrani (Giugno 1940-Febbraio 1941) (= Ufficio Storico [ed.]: Le operazioni in Africa settentrionale . Volume 1 ). Stato maggiore dell'esercito, Roma 1985, OCLC 603722101 .
- Mario Montanari: Tobruk (March 1941-Gennaio 1942) (= Ufficio Storico [Ed.]: Le operazioni in Africa settentrionale . Volume 2 ). Stato maggiore dell'esercito, Roma 1985, OCLC 929862118 .
- Mario Montanari: El Alamein (Gennaio-November 1942) (= Ufficio Storico [Hrsg.]: Le operazioni in Africa settentrionale . Volume 3 ). Stato maggiore dell'esercito, Roma 1989, OCLC 247554263 .
- Mario Montanari: Enfidaville (November 1942-Maggio 1943) (= Ufficio Storico [Hrsg.]: Le operazioni in Africa settentrionale . Volume 4 ). Stato maggiore dell'esercito, Roma 1993, OCLC 470399009 .
South Africa
- JAI Agar-Hamilton, Leonard Charles Frederick Turner: The Sidi Rezeg battles, 1941 . This book was prepared by the Union War Histories Section of the Office of the Prime Minister of the Union of South Africa. Oxford University Press, Cape Town 1957, OCLC 25042454 .
United Kingdom
- Ian Stanley Ord Playfair , CJ Molony, George Marquis Stewart Stitt, SE Toomer: The early successes against Italy: (to May 1941) . In: Her Majesty's Stationery Office (Ed.): History of the United Kingdom in the Second World War - Military Series (= The Mediterranean and Middle East . Band 1 ). Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London 1959, OCLC 881708088 .
- Ian Stanley Ord Playfair , James Butler: The Germans come to the help of their ally, 1941 . In: Her Majesty's Stationery Office (Ed.): History of the United Kingdom in the Second World War - Military Series (= The Mediterranean and Middle East . Band 2 ). Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London 1960, OCLC 59086174 .
- Ian Stanley Ord Playfair , FC Flynn, CJ Molony, TP Gleave: British fortunes reach their lowest ebb: September 1941 to September 1942 . In: Her Majesty's Stationery Office (Ed.): History of the United Kingdom in the Second World War - Military Series (= The Mediterranean and Middle East . Band 3 ). Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London 1960, OCLC 58901476 .
- Ian Stanley Ord Playfair , FC Flynn, CJ Molony, TP Gleave: The destruction of the Axis forces in Africa . In: Her Majesty's Stationery Office (Ed.): History of the United Kingdom in the Second World War - Military Series (= The Mediterranean and Middle East . Band 4 ). Her Majesty's Stationery Office, London 1966, OCLC 2802405 .
Web links
Notes and individual references
- Remarks
- ↑ To better distinguish it from the fighting in other parts of Africa, other languages use the term " North African Campaign " ( English North African Campaign , Italian Campagna del Nordafrica )
- Individual evidence
- ↑ David Van Reybrouck: Congo. A story. Paperback edition, Suhrkamp: Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-518-46445-8 , p. 225.
- ↑ Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers , "Elimination of the Jewish National Homeland in Palestine". The task force at the Panzer Army Africa 1942 , in: Jürgen Matthäus and Klaus-Michael Mallmann (eds.), Germans, Jews, Genocide. The Holocaust as past and present , Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft , Darmstadt 2006, pp. 153–176 ( ISBN 978-3-534-18481-1 ).
- ↑ Reinhard Stumpf: The War in the Mediterranean Region 1942/43 - The Operations in North Africa and the Central Mediterranean , p. 672.
- ↑ Reinhard Stumpf: The War in the Mediterranean Region 1942/43 - The Operations in North Africa and the Central Mediterranean , p. 687.
- ↑ page 407
- ↑ Guido Knopp: Hitler's warriors. Look into the book
- ↑ so in Sönke Neitzel: Rommel, Eugen Johannes Erwin. In: New German Biography (NDB). Volume 22, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2005, ISBN 3-428-11203-2 , p. 23 f. ( Digitized version ).
- ↑ → Rommel
- ↑ Paul Carell: Le volpi del deserto. 1960, p. 597. Raymond Cartier: La Seconde Guerre Mondiale. P. 40. Rick Atkinson: An Army at Dawn . 2002, p. 536. David Zabecki: North Africa. 2007. CN Barclay: Mediterrean Operations. 1997.
- ↑ The great Ploetz. The encyclopedia of world history. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. Göttingen, 35., completely revised. Ed., 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-32008-2 , p. 829.
- ↑ List of names on the memorial stone for the forced laborers who died at the Jewish cemetery in Borgel / Tunis (PDF; 6.1 MB) ( Memento from October 7, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Klaus-Michael Mallmann and Martin Cüppers, "Elimination of the Jewish National Homeland in Palestine". The task force at the Panzer Army Africa 1942 , in: Jürgen Matthäus and Klaus-Michael Mallmann (eds.), Germans, Jews, Genocide. The Holocaust as past and present , Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft , Darmstadt 2006, pp. 153–176.
- ↑ Alexandre Kum'a N'dumbe: Hitler voulait l'Afrique. Les plans secrèts du 3e Reich sur le continent africain. Éditions l'Harmattan, Paris 1980, ISBN 2-85802-140-6 , p. 67.