Z.K. Kostka

Zita Ballinger Fletcher is an award-winning author, editor and military historian. She is currently a Master’s Degree student of Military History. She writes fiction and nonfiction, has published more than 10 books, and writes military history articles and book reviews. She is also a photographer, graphic designer and video producer; she designs and illustrates her published books. She often writes using the creative pen name Zita Steele. Her areas of military history interest & research include the Vietnam War and World Wars I & II, with particular focus on Great Britain, Germany, and Eastern Europe.

Zita is fluent in German and became the author of the first published collection of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s wartime photography, a groundbreaking military history book series, which she first started working on after a visit to the U.S. National Archives when she was 15 years old. The first two books in the series were published in 2015, with a third and fourth volume released in years following. The series is ongoing.

Zita’s writing has appeared in many history publications including Military History magazine, Military History Quarterly (MHQ), World War II magazine, Vietnam magazine, the Bulletin of the Military Historical Society (U.K.), the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies, the Abraham Lincoln Association’s “For the People” newsletter, and others.

She is an experienced public speaker and has given numerous presentations about her academic research and military history topics for various groups.

She has been recognized with awards as a writer and editor. The Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) presented Zita with a Media and Entertainment Award in 2022 for her accomplishments in history publishing and videography. In 2022 she received a 2nd Place national award for Editing from the National Federation of Press Women (NFPW), in addition to previous awards from NFPW for history writing and videos. In 2020, the Military Writers Society of America (MWSA) awarded Zita a Silver Medal for History for her book “Bernard Montgomery’s Art of War,” and a Bronze Medal for Historical Fiction for her novel “The Hidden Sphinx: A Tale of World War II Egypt” – making Zita a winner in both nonfiction and fiction categories.

She has also been recognized for outstanding academic achievements. Zita won her first award as an artist in 1996, coming in 3rd Place in a statewide art competition. She became a district Spelling Bee champion at age 13 in 2004 and received a National Merit Scholarship Commendation in 2009. She received a Magna Cum Laude degree in Interdisciplinary Social Sciences from the University of South Florida in 2013, where she attended the Honors College for academically gifted students.

Zita has done military history research in person at numerous museums and historic institutions in the U.S. and abroad, including:

• The Documentation Center Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg

• The Nuremberg Trials Memorial

• The Museum of Military History in Vienna, Austria

• The Smithsonian National Museum of American History

• The Topography of Terror (Gestapo Museum) in Berlin

• The Munich Stadtmuseum

• Numerous battlefields, forts and war memorials

Zita was named after Empress Zita of Austria, the wife of the last Habsburg emperor, Karl I, by her mother who was inspired by the empress’s courage described in a 1989 obituary. Later on, Zita was impressed by the life story of her namesake’s husband, Karl I of Austria. Both Karl and his wife Zita have been an inspiration to her and an important part of her life, which she has described in a book she wrote about Karl.

Zita’s passion in life has always been military history. “One of the main reasons I love military history is because it is filled with courage, leadership and self-sacrifice. I like to learn about feats of bravery and strength. There is also a lot of warmth and humor among soldiers. I admire stories of brotherhood and great