Field Marshal Erwin Rommel (The Desert Fox)

Johannes Erwin Eugen Rommel (1891–1944), known worldwide as 'The Desert Fox' (Wüstenfuchs), was a German field marshal whose tactical acumen in mobile armored warfare earned the chivalric respect of friends and foes alike. Winning the Pour le Mérite in World War I for daring mountain assaults at Caporetto, he authored the classic manual Infantry Attacks (Infanterie greift an).

In 1940, Rommel commanded the 7th Panzer Division ('The Ghost Division'), driving across France with lightning speed. Dispatched to Libya in 1941 to salvage the Italian collapse, Rommel commanded the Deutsches Afrika Korps, consistently outmaneuvering numerically superior British forces. In June 1942, at the Battle of Gazala, Rommel executed a sweeping armored flank sweep that captured the fortress of Tobruk, earning his field marshal's baton at age fifty. Later assigned to fortify the Atlantic Wall in Normandy, he was implicated in the July 20 plot against Hitler and coerced into taking cyanide to save his family.