Portions of From This Day In History at History.com
Rommel: On October 14, 1944, German Gen.
Erwin Rommel, nicknamed “the Desert Fox,” is given the option of facing a public trial for treason, as a co-conspirator in the plot to assassinate
Adolf Hitler, or taking cyanide. He chooses the latter.
Hitler put Rommel back in northern France, to guard against an Allied invasion. Rommel’s suggestions for the precautions necessary to repel an enemy invasion were not heeded, and he began to lose confidence in Hitler and Germany’s ability to win the war. When Rommel was approached by friends to agree to head the German government in the event of Hitler’s overthrow, he agreed-although there was no explicit talk of assassination, which he found abhorrent.
D-Day was launched, and Rommel’s prediction of disaster for Germany’s position played itself out. Still, Hitler would not consider negotiations with the Allies. Rommel ended up in the hospital after his car was attacked by British bombers and he was forced off the road. Meanwhile, details of the failed assassination plot had come to Hitler’s attention, including Rommel’s contact with the conspirators. As Rommel was convalescing in his home at Herrlingen, two generals visited and offered him his choice: trial or suicide. Rommel told his wife and son what had transpired, and that he had chosen to take the cyanide capsules the generals had provided. The German government gave Rommel a state funeral. His death was attributed to war wounds.
Rommel never got to write the book shown in the movie, but he did write this one still in print: Infanterie Greift an
pennstate.rivals.com
I read your book!
