Ralf Georg Reuth: Rommel [2019]

Repeatedly decorated for valour during the First World War, Erwin Rommel went on to lead German Panzer divisions in North Africa, becoming known as the 'Desert Fox.'

Stripping away layers of wartime German and Allied propaganda, Reuth's dramatic reassessment of Rommel's life finds him at odds with his popular legacy. His purported involvement with the 20 July plotters was a myth. In fact, he remained mindlessly loyal to his Fuhrer until forced to commit suicide in 1944.

Colluding with the Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels to bolster his fame, Rommel was also a useful figure for the Allies in exaggerating his battlefield prowess they succeeded in making the incompetence of their own campaign in North Africa.

This revelatory biography shows Rommel was no master strategist caught between duty and resistance, but the embodiment of the tragic German choice to follow Hitler unquestionably into the abyss.