Rommel ( brilliant leader of men.

For a man known for his military exactitude, it is somewhat ironic that just hours before D-Day, Field Marshal Erwin Rommel was away from his troops and buying shoes for his wife.

As the Allied forces gathered for their daring onslaught which turned the tide of the Second World War in their favour, Rommel was back in Germany. Despite being in the wrong place at the wrong time, the commander of Germany's troops in north-west France and the Atlantic Wall was admired and respected as a military leader.

Born in 1891, Rommel was a career soldier and completely apolitical. During the First World War he commanded a mountain combat group which captured 9,000 Italian prisoners.

Senior officers described him as "a commander of genius whom his troops followed with blind trust everywhere".

While he welcomed Hitler's reintroduction of compulsory military service, he was cool towards the National Socialist Party.

At the 1936 Olympic Games, Rommel was the Fuhrer's escort and Hitler ordered that in the event of mobilisation, Rommel should be given command of his headquarters. Promoted to brigadier general in 1939, Rommel was put in charge of the 7th Panzer Division in the Second World War.

His push through the Ardennes to the Atlantic with his "Ghost Division" enhanced his reputation and when Hitler ordered troops to north Africa, Rommel ( now a major general ( was made commander of the Afrika Korps.

It was during his time in Africa that Rommel's reputation as an outstanding military figure was cemented.

Between March 1941 and January 1942, he drove the British to the Egyptian border, was repulsed and then forced the allies back towards Cairo again. He beat the British in May 1942 at Gazala and Tobruk. Hitler was so delighted, he appointed him the youngest field marshal in the German army.

But Rommel's final attempt to crush the allies ended with defeat at the hands of British commander Bernard Montgomery at El Alamein in November 1942.

Despite Hitler's "no retreat" order, Rommel's troops were forced to push back to Tunisia.

And four months later, Montgomery won a second spectacular victory, again with the USII Corps, at Kasserine Pass.

Despite defeat and fleeing Tunisia on March 9, 1943, Rommel was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with oak leaf cluster, swords and diamonds.

Both he and Hitler believed Normandy was a likely spot for an allied invasion and fortifications were reinforced.

He was appointed second in command to Gerd von Runstedt, Commander in Chief of the West.

Despite his fears of invasion, Rommel's requests for more tanks and extra coastal defences went unheeded and the Allied forces were able to penetrate the German line. Once established on land, the Allies took the upper hand after several bloody battles and the Germans lost the initiative.

After D-Day, Rommel tried to convince the Fuhrer that they would lose the war, but Hitler would not believe him. Having lost faith in his leader, Rommel was determined to surrender German forces in the west. But before he could do so, he was badly wounded when his car was shot up by a Spitfire and after treatment he went to his home in Herrlingen, near Ulm, to recover.

He was not thought to be part of the July bomb plot against Hitler but his attempts to persuade the Fuhrer to negotiate with the allies planted suspicions. On October 14, 1944 two generals visited Rommel while he recovered at home and offered him the choice of death by poison or facing a Nazi tribunal. According to his son Manfred, who was 15 at the time, Rommel told him: "In view of my services in Africa, I am to have the chance of dying by poison." He chose suicide, left the family home in a car accompanied by the two generals and 20 minutes later he was dead.