Accused of complicity in the failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, the celebrated 'Desert Fox' was visited at his home by two generals who offered him a choice: suicide by poison, framed publicly as death from war wounds, or a treason trial that would endanger his family. Rommel chose the cyanide capsule. He was given a state funeral, and the true cause of death was concealed from the German public until after the war.
Rommel had been recovering at home in Herrlingen from injuries sustained when Allied aircraft strafed his staff car in Normandy that July, an attack that left him with a fractured skull. His connection to the July 20 bomb plot against Hitler remains debated by historians; he apparently knew of some officers' discontent but his direct involvement in planning the assassination is unproven.
On October 14, two generals dispatched by Hitler's regime arrived at his house with an ultimatum. Rommel said goodbye to his wife Lucie and son Manfred, telling them he would be dead within fifteen minutes, then rode off with the generals and swallowed a cyanide capsule in their car.
The Nazi propaganda machine announced that Germany's most popular field marshal had died from wounds suffered in battle, and Hitler ordered a full state funeral with military honors, a final act of political theater to keep morale intact. The truth of his forced suicide only became widely known after the war, adding a bitter coda to the career of a general even his enemies had respected.