At this juncture—early in 1944—a very active and popular Field Marshal made himself, at first without the knowledge of Stauffenberg, somewhat available to the conspirators. This was Rommel, and his entrance into the plot against Hitler came as a great surprise to the resistance leaders and was not approved by most of them, who regarded the “Desert Fox” as a Nazi and as an opportunist who had blatantly courted Hitler’s favor and was only now deserting him because he knew the war was lost.
