Rundstedt's biographer says: " There is certainly no evidence that Rundstedt ever condoned, let alone encouraged, these acts.

Rundstedt's biographer writes: " This was something for which some Germans, while they were prepared to forgive him everything else, could and cannot excuse him.

On 24 May, Hitler had visited General von Rundstedt's headquarters at Charleville.

In May Hitler approved Rundstedt's appointment as commander of Army Group South, to invade Poland from Silesia and Slovakia.

Hitler sent the chief of staff of the Armed Forces Supreme Command ( Oberkommando der Wehrmacht, OKW ), General Wilhelm Keitel, to Rundstedt's headquarters, to urge caution.

On 29 May, Hitler came to Rundstedt's headquarters at Charleville-Mézières to discuss the new offensive.

On 10 July Brauchitsch arrived at Rundstedt's headquarters at Brody, with instructions from Hitler that Kleist was turn south towards Vinnitsa and link up with Schobert's army there, rather than continue south-east to Kirovograd.

" The historian Stephen E. Ambrose wrote: " The only high-command officer who responded correctly to the crisis at hand was Field Marshal Rundstedt, the old man who was there for window-dressing and who was so scorned by Hitler and OKW ... Rundstedt's reasoning was sound, his actions decisive, his orders clear.

Keitel immediately reported Rundstedt's words to Hitler, whereupon Hitler dismissed him from his post, replacing him with Kluge.

Rundstedt's attack began on 9 June, and within a few days had broken the French resistance.

This was a sign that Rundstedt still had Hitler's respect, as were Hitler's two visits to Rundstedt's armies during this period.

Although he was commander of the German Army in the west, charged with defending the coasts of France and Begium against attack by the western Allies, the military governors in Paris and Brussels ( Rundstedt's former subordinate Carl-Heinrich von Stülpnagel and Alexander von Falkenhausen respectively ) were not under his direct command, and he had no control over the Navy or Air Force.

Secondly, the internal situation in France had changed greatly since Rundstedt's departure in March 1941.

But the offensive had burned up the last of Rundstedt's reserves of manpower, equipment and fuel, and as a result neither the West Wall nor the Rhine could be properly defended.

Rundstedt's heart condition had worsened and he also suffered from arthritis.

Since he was a witness, not a defendant, the questioning was not intended to prove Rundstedt's guilt: it was designed to bolster the prosecution's case that the high command had functioned as an organisation and that it was collectively responsible for the German invasions of various countries between 1939 and 1941 and also for the war crimes committed during those invasions.

Rundstedt's defence, both at the time and after the war, was that as a soldier he had a duty to obey the orders of the legitimate government, whoever that was, and whatever the orders were.

In May 1941, Panzer Group Kleist became Panzer Group 1 ( Panzergruppe 1 ), which was attached to Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt's Army Group South at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa.

Hube oversaw the formation of the 16. Panzer Division, and then led the division as a part of Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt's Army Group South during Operation Barbarossa.

Two massive German armies flanked them: General Fedor von Bock's Army Group B was to the east, and General Gerd von Rundstedt's Army Group A to the west.

Even after this, two of Rundstedt's friends, Generals Erwin von Witzleben and Erich Hoepner, remained involved in anti-Hitler plots and continued to try to recruit him.

General Günther von Kluge's 4th Army and General Maximilian Reichsfreiherr von Weichs's 2nd Army were transferred from Army Group B to Rundstedt's command.

That was the end of Gerd von Rundstedt's military career after 52 years.

Hitler's personal intervention also greatly hindered the effective working of the General Staff, notably by confirming Gerd von Rundstedt's order to halt short of Dunkirk in 1940.

During the attack on the Low Countries and France, the 4th Army, as part of Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt's Army Group A, went into Belgium from the Rhineland.

The LSSAH was attached to Generaloberst Gerd von Rundstedt's Heeresgruppe Süd during the campaign.

Operation Barbarossa saw III Armeekorps ( mot ) attached to Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt's Heeresgruppe Süd.

The Götz von Berlichingen was placed under the LXXX Army Corps, a part of Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt's Heeresgruppe D.

On 3 November Brauchitsch visited Rundstedt's headquarters at Poltava, where Rundstedt told him that the armies must halt and dig in for the winter.

Rommel in fact agreed with Rundstedt that the Atlantic Wall was a " gigantic bluff ", but he also believed that Allied air power made Rundstedt's defence in depth impossible.

Rundstedt's education followed the path ordained for Prussian military families: the junior cadet college at Diez, near Koblenz, then the military academy at Lichterfelde in Berlin.

" This was not an indication of any fondness for the Weimar Republic on Rundstedt's part-he remained a monarchist.

Although Manstein is often credited for the change of plans, he himself acknowledged Rundstedt's decisive role.

Hugo Laternser was engaged as Rundstedt's counsel, and Liddell Hart and others in Britain collected material for the defence.

Had this happened, Rundstedt's forces would have been in no state to give chase: they were exhausted after two months of ceaseless combat.

The Allied invasion of Italy in September 1943 removed Rundstedt's fears that France would be invaded that summer, but he could not have doubted that the massive build-up of American troops in Britain meant that a cross-channel invasion would come in 1944.

Some writers have sought to connect Rundstedt's acceptance this money with his continuing refusal to support the resistance movement against Hitler's regime within the Germany Army.

No incident in Rundstedt's career has damaged his posthumous reputation as much as his involvement in this process.

Rundstedt's armies advanced rapidly into southern Poland, capturing Krakow on 6 September, but Reichenau's over-ambitious attempt to take Warsaw by storm on 9 September was repelled.

Bock's Army Group B on the right was to advance on Paris, while Rundstedt's Army Group A, now consisting only of List's 12th Army, Weichs's 2nd Army and Busch's 16th Army, was to attack towards Soissons and Rheims.

Rundstedt's armies were also weakened by the transfer of units back to Army Group Centre to take part in the attack on Moscow ( Operation Typhoon ).

He arrived in Poltava on 3 December, where he found both Reichenau and Dietrich firm in defending the correctness of Rundstedt's actions.

Since Reichenau's order was widely understood as endorsing the mass killings of Ukrainian Jews which were going on behind the German lines, with which 6th Army at any rate was actively co-operating, Rundstedt's open endorsement of its strongly anti-Semitic language clearly contradicts his later assertions that he did not know what the Einsatzgruppen were doing.

It is Rundstedt's steadfast refusal to lend his support to any of the plans to overthrow Hitler's government, however, which is most held against him, particularly in a modern Germany which has turned its back on militarism and has elevated the 20 July plotters to the status of national heroes.