The Afrika Korps or German Africa Corps was the German expeditionary force in Africa during the North African Campaign of World War II.
First sent as a holding force to shore up the Italian defense of their African colonies, the formation fought on in Africa from March 1941 until its surrender in May 1943. Its commander was the infamous Erwin Rommel.
These often-chilling pictures offer us a fascinating insight into the hardware the Allies were up against in this theatre of WW2. The campaign was hard and bloody and left many hundreds of thousands dead, missing, wounded, or captured, but the fascist alliance of Germany and Italy was ultimately driven from the land. After the campaign, the Allies would turn their attention to Italy, where they would win another crucial victory in the fight against militant fascism in Europe.
The arrival of the first Afrika Korps troops. Rommel greets an Italian officer Bundesarchiv CC-BY-SA 3.0