Nazi Germany's Best Generals: The Lives and Careers of Erwin Rommel, Heinz Guderian, and Albert Kesselring

One of his biographers called him "a complex man: a born leader, a brilliant soldier, a devoted husband, a proud father; intelligent, instinctive, brave, compassionate, vain, egotistical, and arrogant." As that description suggests, every account of Erwin Rommel’s life must address what appears to be its inherent contradictions. Fittingly, and in the same vein, he remains one of the best remembered generals of World War II and history at large, despite the fact he was on the losing side, and he was defeated at the most famous battle of his career, the decisive Battle of El Alamein. Heinz Wilhelm Guderian was one of the most respected commanders and theoreticians of World War II. An innovative tank commander, he was a pioneer of German Blitzkrieg tactics and therefore, a hugely influential figure in the way the war was fought. Guderian's profile was not always what might have been expected for a man of his abilities and influence warrant due to the shape of his career.