It was a pain, and fighting in it was a nightmare for both sides. The desert was hardly a haven of beauty or romance. It’s an attractive image all around, and it is unfortunate that practically all of it is false. It was war, yes, but almost uniquely in World War II, it was a "war without hate." Placing Rommel and his elite Afrika Korps to the fore allows us to view the desert war as a clean fight against a morally worthy opponent. Everything about him attracts us-the manly poses, the out-of-central-casting good looks, even the goggles perched just so. Finally, it implies a bold hero, in this case Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, a noble commander who fought the good fight, who hated Hitler and everything he stood for, and who couldn’t have been farther away from our stereotyped image of the Nazi fanatic. It calls forth a war of near-absolute mobility, where tanks could operate very much like ships at sea, “sailing” where they wished, setting out on bold voyages hundreds of miles into the deep desert, then looping around the enemy flank and emerging like pirates of old to deal devastating blows to an unsuspecting foe. There is no more evocative phrase to emerge from World War II than Afrika Korps. The name conjures up a unique theater of war, a hauntingly beautiful empty quarter where armies could roam free, liberated from towns and hills, choke points and blocking positions, and especially those pesky civilians.
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