Desert Knight

The Knight’s Cross was the German Army’s highest award for valor, and only 0.04 per cent of the soldiers who served in the Second World War received this prestigious medal; even fewer survived.

In this extremely rare memoir, Günter Halm recounts his experiences with the Afrika Korps where he was employed as a gunner with an anti-tank platoon of Panzergrenadier-Regiment 104 of the 21. Panzer-Division.

During the First Battle of El Alamein in July 1942 he destroyed seven tanks of the British 23rd armored Brigade at Ruweisat Ridge, a deed for which he was awarded the Knight’s Cross from the hands of Rommel himself.

His courage resulted in him being sent for officer training and, with the rank of Leutnant, was deployed in Normandy as an ordnance officer with Panzergrenadier-Regiment 192. He was involved in the massacre in the Falaise Pocket in August 1944, where he was captured by Allied forces and shipped to a prisoner of war camp in the USA.

Desert Knight is a unique book, translated and presented by two highly-regarded historians, which portrays some of the most significant events of the Second World War though the eyes of a humble but courageous German soldier.