This was a biography of the "desert fox." It was very complimentary and I'm not sure it's deserved as I don't know enough to make more commentary. This author asserts that Rommel was the ultimate soldier/warrior/German. He was not a member of the Nazi party and did not ascribe to their racial stance. (He has 3 or 4 footnotes with references for this point, but I can not access any of them. I can verify through reliable sources that he was not a member of the Nazi party). That being said, Rommel was a mentor in the Hitler youth at age 16 and also became Hitler's bodyguard in Poland where he came to the Fuhrer's attention. The author claims Rommel was loyal to Hitler because he thought him a good commander. He was loyal until D-Day, when he discovered there was no way that Germany could win the war; they had squandered their manpower and resources on the SS and the camps. Butler claims Rommel was forced to commit suicide not because of his participation in the July 20 plot (which the author says he was not involved in), but because he dared to tell Hitler that one can not divide the resources of a country; he dared to criticize Hitler. I get the feeling that this author wanted to make Rommel into a shining knight, which he wasn't. This was a very good read, even if tedious in some places and with a lot of duplication. 798 pages ( )