Question: For what reason was Von Rundstedt taken down from his command?
About the article "Invasion of Normandy", section "German leadership".

Candidate passages:
On 25 October, Rundstedt took up his new post as commander of Army Group A, facing the French border in the Ardennes mountains sector, and based in Koblenz.
To his north Army Group B under General Fedor von Bock faced the Dutch and Belgian borders, while to his south Army Group C under General Wilhelm Ritter von Leeb faced the French along the Maginot Line.
Manstein was again his chief of staff and Blumentritt his chief of operations, although Manstein soon departed to command an infantry corps and was replaced by General Georg von Sodenstern.
Rundstedt's main field commanders (from north to south) were Blaskowitz (9th Army), List (12th Army) and General Ernst Busch (16th Army).
Hitler's original plan was to attack in late November, before the French and British had time fully to deploy along their front.
The plan, devised by Hitler, was essentially for a re-run of the invasion of 1914, with the main assault to come in the north, through Belgium and the Netherlands, then wheeling south to capture Paris, leaving the French Army anchored on the Maginot Line.
Most senior officers were opposed to both the timing and the plan.
Rundstedt, Manstein, Reichenau (commanding 6th Army in Army Group B), List and Brauchitsch remonstrated with Hitler in a series of meetings in October and November.
They were opposed to an offensive so close to the onset of winter, and they were opposed to launching the main attack through Belgium, where the many rivers and canals would hamper armoured operations.
Manstein in particular, supported by Rundstedt, argued for an armoured assault by Army Group A, across the Ardennes to the sea, cutting the British and French off in Belgium.
This "Manstein Plan" was the genesis of the blitzkrieg of May 1940.
A combination of bad weather, the arguments of his generals, and a breach of security when the details of the original plan fell into Allied hands, eventually led Hitler to agree to postpone the attack until early 1940, when it was again delayed by the invasion of Denmark and Norway.
In February, Hitler finally accepted the Manstein Plan.
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.
General Ewald von Kleist was now to command Panzer (Armoured) Group Kleist, consisting of three armoured corps, led by Heinz Guderian, Georg-Hans Reinhardt and Hermann Hoth.
These armoured corps were to be the spearhead of the German thrust into France.
Although Manstein is often credited for the change of plans, he himself acknowledged Rundstedt's decisive role.
"I would stress that my commander, Colonel-General von Rundstedt, agreed with my view throughout, and backed our recommendations to the full.
Without his sanction we could never have kept up our attempts to change OKW's mind.
"During this hiatus, the group of senior officers who were plotting against Hitler's war plans, led by Halder, renewed their efforts, convinced that an attack in the west would lead to a war which Germany would lose.
Brauchitsch agreed with Halder's fears, but continued to vacillate about opposing Hitler – he asked Reichenau and Rundstedt to remonstrate with Hitler, but they refused.
Witzleben suggested that Rundstedt, Leeb and Bock should jointly refuse to carry out Hitler's orders to carry out the attack.
Two of the conspirators, Abwehr officers Hans Oster and Hans Bernd Gisevius, discussed this with Leeb, who turned them down but did not report them.
On 13 March, Himmler came to Koblenz to give the generals, including Rundstedt, an ideological lecture, in the course of which he made it clear that the atrocities against civilians which some of them had witnessed in Poland had been carried out on his orders, and with the approval of Hitler.
"I do nothing that the Führer does not know," he said.
The attack was finally launched on 10 May.
By 14 May, Guderian and Hoth had crossed the Meuse and had broken open the Allied front.
As planned, the British and French had advanced into Belgium to meet Bock's offensive, and were in danger of being cut off there by a German thrust to the sea.
Both Hitler and Rundstedt had doubts about the safety of allowing the armoured corps to get too far ahead of their infantry support, however.
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.
In Halder's words, Hitler was "frightened by his own success... afraid to take any chance."
Guderian objected vehemently to being ordered to halt, and Rundstedt was forced to mediate between Hitler and his impetuous armoured commanders, who were backed by Halder.
By 20 May, Guderian's tanks had reached the sea at Abbeville and closed the trap on the British and French, who were already in retreat to the English Channel ports.
By this time, however, Kleist's armoured forces were thinly stretched and had suffered losses of up to 50% of their tanks.
Kleist asked Rundstedt for a pause while the armoured units recovered and the infantry caught up, and Rundstedt agreed to this.
At the same time, Göring attempted to persuade Hitler that the Luftwaffe could destroy the trapped Allied armies, freeing the German forces to turn south towards Paris.
Hitler accepted this view, and on 24 May issued what became known as the Halt Order, preventing the German armour from rapidly capturing Calais and Dunkirk.
The Luftwaffe were unable to destroy the Allied armies, however, and the halt allowed the British Expeditionary Force and many French troops to be evacuated from Dunkirk.
This decision, for which Hitler, Rundstedt and Kleist shared responsibility, proved very costly to Germany's war effort in the long term.
After the war, Rundstedt described the Halt Order as "an incredible blunder" and assigned full blame to Hitler.
His biographer concedes that this "does not represent the whole truth", because the original impetus for a pause came from Kleist and Rundstedt himself.
Attention then turned to the attack on the French armies to the south.
On 29 May, Hitler came to Rundstedt's headquarters at Charleville-Mézières to discuss the new offensive.
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 attack began on 9 June, and within a few days had broken the French resistance.
By 12 June, his forces were across the Marne and advancing south-east towards Alsace.
Dijon fell on 16 June and Lyon on 20 June.
By this time French resistance was crumbling and on 22 June the French requested an armistice.
In July, Hitler announced that Rundstedt and a number of other field commanders were to be promoted to the rank of Field Marshal ("Generalfeldmarschall") during the 1940 Field Marshal Ceremony.
Although Rundstedt wished to resume his retirement, he was persuaded by Hitler to stay in France and set up headquarters at Saint-Germain-en-Laye about outside Paris.
There he oversaw the planning for the proposed invasion of Britain, Operation Sealion, but never took the prospects for this operation seriously, and was not surprised when Hitler called it off in September after the Luftwaffe's setback in the Battle of Britain.
Even then, Rundstedt was not to be allowed to retire, when in October Hitler appointed him Commander-in-Chief West ("Oberbefehlshaber West", or OB West). 
In March 1942 Hitler re-appointed Rundstedt OB West, in succession to Witzleben, who was ill.
He returned to the comfortable headquarters in the Hotel Pavillon Henri IV in Saint-Germain, which he had occupied in 1940–41.
Rundstedt's command of French and his good relationship with the head of the collaborationist Vichy regime, Marshal Philippe Pétain, were considerable assets.
But his position was to grow increasingly difficult.
Hitler did not intend giving him real authority, seeing him as a dignified figurehead.
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.
He also had no control over the SS and Gestapo operations in France: the HSSPF in Paris, Carl Oberg, answered only to Himmler.
Secondly, the internal situation in France had changed greatly since Rundstedt's departure in March 1941.
Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union had led the French Communist Party to abandon its previous neutrality (its slogan was "Neither Pétain nor de Gaulle"), and launch active resistance against the Germans and the Vichy regime.
The result was an escalating cycle of assassinations and reprisal killings that rapidly alienated the hitherto quiescent French population.
On 20 October French Communists assassinated the German commander in Nantes, Karl Hotz, triggering the execution of over 100 French hostages.
As military governor, Stülpnagel directed the policy of executing hostages.
Rundstedt had no direct control over the Army's response to Resistance attacks.
Nevertheless, many held him responsible, then and later.
Rundstedt had more direct responsibility for the Commando Order of 1942, which later served as the basis of war crimes charges against him.
There were in fact two German orders concerning captured Allied commandos.
The first was issued by Rundstedt in July 1942, and stated that captured Allied parachutists were to be handed over to the Gestapo, "whether in uniform or not", rather than made prisoners of war.
This was a response to the increasing number of British agents being parachuted into France by the Special Operations Executive.
The second was issued by Hitler personally in October, following the Dieppe Raid by the British and Canadians on the coast of France.
It stipulated that all captured Allied commandos were to be executed, again regardless of whether they were in uniform.
As a consequence, six British commandos captured in Operation Frankton, a raid on shipping at Bordeaux in December 1942, were executed by the German Navy.
Although Rundstedt neither ordered nor was informed of this action, he was later held responsible as German commander in France.
Meanwhile the military situation for the Germans was deteriorating.
The entry of the United States into the war in December 1941 raised the likelihood of an Allied invasion of France.
Hitler's response was to order the construction of the Atlantic Wall, a system of coastal fortifications from Norway to the French-Spanish border, to be constructed by the Organisation Todt using slave labour.
There was also a steady build-up of German forces in France, despite the demands of the eastern front.
By June Rundstedt commanded 25 divisions.
In November 1942 the Allied invaded French North Africa (Operation Torch).
When the Vichy authorities in Africa surrendered after token resistance, the Germans responded by occupying all of France and dissolving what remained of the French Army.
Rundstedt travelled to Vichy to placate Pétain, who threatened to resign but backed down after soothing words from Rundstedt.
At the same time, in the Soviet Union, Rundstedt's old command, Army Group South, was facing disaster at Stalingrad, the decisive battle of World War II in Europe.
The catastrophe of Stalingrad prompted renewed efforts by dissident German officers to remove Hitler from power while there was still time, as they believed, to negotiate an honourable peace settlement.
The conspirators were centered on Halder, Beck and Witzleben, but by 1943 all had been removed from positions of authority.
The real movers were now more junior officers: Henning von Tresckow, chief of staff of Army Group Centre, Friedrich Olbricht, Chief of the Armed Forces Replacement Office, and Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, a member of the Replacement Army staff.
Their strategy at this time was to persuade the senior field commanders to lead a coup against Hitler.
Their initial target was Manstein, now commanding Army Group Don, but he turned Tresckow down at a meeting in March 1943.
Several sources say that Rundstedt was also approached, although they do not say specifically who approached him.
In any case, he refused to get involved, although both Stülpnagel and Falkenhausen were recruits to the conspiracy.
By one account, he complained: "Why always me?
Let Manstein and Kluge do it."
He told Gerhard Engel, one of Hitler's adjutants, that he was "too old and had had enough."
This failure of moral leadership at a critical time, when Rundstedt was the most senior and respected officer in the German Army, was to count heavily against him after the war.
It was true, however, that Rundstedt was well past his best.
The military historian Chester Wilmot wrote soon after the war: "The truth was that Rundstedt had lost his grip.
He was old and tired and his once active brain was gradually becoming addled, for he had great difficulty in sleeping without the soporific aid of alcohol.".
Events in June 1944 were to show that this was an exaggeration: Rundstedt was still capable of clear thought and decisive action.
But his health was a matter of increasing concern to his staff and his family.
His son Major Hans-Gerd von Rundstedt was posted to his command as an aide-de-camp, partly to monitor his health and report back to Bila von Rundstedt in Kassel.
In one of his letters, Hans-Gerd referred to his father's "somewhat plentiful nicotine and alcohol consumption," but assured his mother that Rundstedt's health was basically sound.
Nevertheless, in May 1943 Rundstedt was given leave and was sent to a sanatorium at Bad Tölz, south of Munich, which was also the site of the SS Officer Candidate School.
Later he stayed some time at Grundlsee in Austria, and was received by Hitler at his summer house at Berchtesgaden, a sign of Hitler's continuing respect for him.
He was back at work by July. 
World War II.
German invasions.
On 7 May 1939, Blumentritt submitted to his superiors a working plan for the German Invasion of Poland.
At this time, he was assigned to the "Oberkommando des Heeres" (Army High Command; OKH), and formed along with von Manstein and "Generalfeldmarshall" Gerd von Rundstedt a "Working Staff" for the development of a plan for the invasion.
The plan he submitted was called "Fall Weiss" (Case White).
It was subsequently to be followed with little alteration.
Then on 2 September 1939, Blumentritt was transferred to the general staff of Army Group South (one of the two German Army Groups to carry out the invasion) in Silesia under von Rundstedt.
This collaboration began his long and intimate friendship with von Runstedt, which was to last for many years.
Blumentritt was von Rundstedt′s Chief of Operations, while von Manstein was Chief of Staff.
The invasion was put into motion, after some delays, on 1 September 1939, and by 6 October the entire country of Poland was subdued.
In 1940, Blumentritt—as the Operations Officer of Army Group A (again under von Rundstedt)—took part in the planning (with von Manstein and Henning von Tresckow) and execution of the invasion of France.
The plan he helped develop was called "Sichelschnitt" or "Sickle Cut", and was later referred to as the Manstein Plan.
The subsequent unmitigated success of the German "Blitzkrieg" in France and the complete collapse of the French defense shocked even the Germans.
However, as the German army closed in on complete victory, Blumentritt and von Rundstedt ignored conflicting orders from the OKH to advance on the British and French position at Dunkirk, and instead followed Adolf Hitler′s order to halt for three days, consequently allowing the evacuation of the British Forces.
Immediately after the German occupation of France, von Rundstedt, Blumentritt, and others were tasked with preparing for the invasion of Great Britain.
This plan, as handed down from high command, was designated Operation "Sea Lion".
Blumentritt helped with the details of the plan, and several exercises were carried out in preparation for it, but he never believed that it was a serious option, or that Hitler intended to carry it out.
He said that at the end of July or August "... Field-Marshal von Rundstedt was in Berlin, and Hitler stated quite clearly to him that he did not intend to carry out "Sea Lion"," and further, "By the end of September it was clear that the invasion of England was off.
"In 1941, Blumentritt, under General Günther von Kluge, was made Chief of Staff of the 4.
"Armee" and promoted to general, and despite the opposition he later professed to the plan, was involved with the German invasion of the Soviet Union.
On 18 April 1941, Blumentritt wrote:Maybe the Russians really intend to stand and fight the Germans between the western border and the Dnieper, a move which would be desirable...
Even the Imperial Army was no match for the German command, and the Russian commanders today are at an even greater disadvantage.
The shortcomings of the middle ranks are even greater...
The effects of German weapons, whose prestige has increased with the campaign against Yugoslavia, will soon be felt!
There will be fourteen days of heavy fighting.
Hopefully, by then we shall have made it.
In another memo, Blumentritt wrote:On warfare and the inner value of the Russian opponent, the dull mass had two kinds of "ideas": the tsar and God.
Today, there is neither.
Bolshevism has taken their place.
I consider that to be a weakness since I never believed that this idea means anything to the bulk of the Russian people.
That is why I do not believe that the people will be carried away by Bolshevism.
They will soon be indifferent and fatalistic.
Blumentritt′s command was part of Army Group Center, which suffered massive casualties and the 4th Army itself only narrowly escaped envelopment and annihilation by the Russians outside Moscow.
After the ultimate failure of Operation "Barbarossa" in January 1942, Blumentritt returned to Germany as Chief Quartermaster of the OKH.
Late in the year he personally recommended to his superiors that the Germans should withdraw from Stalingrad, receiving the support of Chief of Staff OKH—General Franz Halder—in this recommendation, but the idea of any withdrawal was rejected by Hitler. 
Rundstedt returned to Island Farm to await developments.
Otto John, a German lawyer who had been active in the German resistance, arrived in October to interview the prisoners and make recommendations on possible future war crimes prosecutions.
John and Rundstedt got on well, and in November John arranged for Hans Gerd von Rundstedt, who was suffering from the early stages of throat cancer, to be released and sent home.
In April 1947 the Allied War Crimes Investigation Group operating in Germany recommended that Rundstedt should not face prosecution.
The U.S. government, however, did not accept this recommendation and insisted that Rundstedt, Manstein, Brauchitsch and General Rudolf Strauss (an Army commander on the Russian front in 1941) should stand trial.
All four were in British custody.
In August Telford Taylor, the U.S. Chief Counsel for War Crimes, formally advised the British Attorney-General, Hartley Shawcross, of his intentions.
The grounds for the prosecution would be the Commissar Order of 1941, the Commando Order of 1942, the murder of Soviet prisoners-of-war, the conscription and deportation of civilians in occupied countries as forced labour, and the responsibility of the named officers for the invasions of Poland, France, Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union and other countries.
The British, however, were extremely reluctant to act.
British public opinion had rapidly shifted (as it did after World War I) away from anti-German sentiment towards a desire for reconciliation.
There was a strong feeling that putting elderly and sick men on trial three years after the war was unjust.
There was also the fact that many of the events referred to by the Americans had taken place in the Soviet Union and Poland, which were now, with the onset of the Cold War, political adversaries and no longer co-operating with western war crimes investigations.
The British Military Governor in Germany, Air Marshal Sir Sholto Douglas, was strongly opposed.
He wrote: "We are apparently prepared to send these men, including one who is 73, to trial by the Americans.
I frankly do not like this.
I feel that if the Americans wish to be critical in our inaction in trying war criminals, I should prefer that they should continue to criticise rather than that we should commit an injustice in order to avoid their criticism.
"Rundstedt and the other officers knew nothing of the proposed prosecutions.
In June his son Hans Gerd had been admitted to hospital and it soon became apparent that his cancer was inoperable.
In December Rundstedt was granted compassionate leave by British government to visit the hospital in Hannover where Hans Gerd was being treated.
On Christmas Day he saw his wife for the first time since May 1945, and his grandchildren for the first time since 1941.
Hans Gerd died on 12 January 1948: "a blow from which he never really recovered."
On Rundstedt's return he was given a medical examination.
The doctors reported "a markedly senile general physique", chronic arterio-sclerosis, osteo-arthritis in most of his joints, and failing memory.
The examiners advised that to put him on trial would "adversely affect his health."
A similar recommendation was made about Brauchitsch, although Manstein was judged fit to stand trial.
As a result, the Secretary of War, Emmanuel Shinwell, recommended to Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin that the prosecutions should not proceed.
Bevin was put in a quandary, fearing the reactions of countries such as France and Belgium if Rundstedt were to be released.
In March the Soviet government formally demanded Rundstedt's extradition to the Soviet Union.
Meanwhile, the Americans had requested that Rundstedt and Manstein be brought to Nuremberg to appear as a witness in the High Command Trial, in which a number of prominent generals, including Leeb, Blaskowitz (who committed suicide during the trial), Hugo Sperrle, Georg von Küchler and Hermann Hoth were on trial for war crimes.
In May, therefore, Rundstedt was transferred from Island Farm to a military hospital in Norfolk.
On 22 July Rundstedt left the hospital and the next day he and Manstein were flown to Nuremberg.
But the presiding judge in the case ruled that he would not allow Rundstedt or Manstein to testify unless they were first informed whether they were themselves in danger of prosecution.
Thus Rundstedt and Manstein discovered for the first time that the Americans had requested their indictment.
As a result, they refused to testify.
They were then transferred to a military hospital near Munster.
Here conditions were so bad that Brauchitsch went on a hunger strike.
In August the matter become public when Liddell Hart launched a press campaign to have the four officers released.
He was supported by figures such as Michael Foot, Victor Gollancz and Lord De L'Isle, VC.
On 27 August the government responded by formally announcing that the four would be tried by a British military court in Hamburg.
Items in Rundstedt's indictment included: "the maltreatment and killing of civilians and prisoners of war... killing hostages, illegal employment of prisoners of war, deportation of forced labour to Germany... mass execution of Jews... and other war crimes, yet to be specified."
On 24 September the four were moved to a military hospital in Hamburg, where they were allowed to be visited by their families.
It was here that Brauchitsch died suddenly of heart failure on 18 October.
This led to a renewed outcry in Britain for the trial to be abandoned.
Nevertheless, Bevin was determined to press ahead, and on 1 January 1949 Rundstedt, Manstein and Strauss were formally charged.
Hugo Laternser was engaged as Rundstedt's counsel, and Liddell Hart and others in Britain collected material for the defence.
The Bishop of Chichester, George Bell, announced that he would bring in a motion in the House of Lords critical of the government.
This was a serious threat since the Lords had the power to compel the government to produce documents.
By April the public debate in Britain was becoming so damaging that the government decided that the best option was to back down as gracefully as it could.
The government's resolve was stiffened by the refusal of the Soviet government to provide any evidence for the trial.
Further medical reports were commissioned, with varying results.
A team of British Army doctors eventually reported that Rundstedt and Strauss were unfit to stand trial, and the government used this as a pretext to abandon the trial.
On 28 April Cabinet considered the medical reports, and asked the Lord Chancellor, Lord Jowitt, to prepare a report for its next meeting.
On 5 May Cabinet accepted his recommendation that Rundstedt and Strauss be released, but that Manstein's trial should go ahead.
Rundstedt was formally advised of his release on 19 May, but since he had nowhere to go he stayed in the hospital until 26 May, when he finally left British custody and went to the home of his brother Udo at Ratzeburg in Schleswig-Holstein. 
World War II.
Polish campaign.
Rundstedt's retirement did not last long.
By early 1939 Hitler had decided to force a confrontation with Poland over Polish Corridor, and planning for a war with Poland began.
In May Hitler approved Rundstedt's appointment as commander of Army Group South, to invade Poland from Silesia and Slovakia.
His chief of staff was General Erich von Manstein, his chief of operations Colonel Günther Blumentritt.
His principal field commanders would be (from west to east as they entered Poland) General Johannes von Blaskowitz (8th Army), Reichenau (10th Army), and General Wilhelm List (14 Army).
Even at this early stage of the war, Rundstedt was becoming a "figurehead" general, leaving the detailed planning to his subordinates.
Manstein said of him: "As an exponent of grand tactics he was brilliant – a talented soldier who grasped the essentials of any problem in an instant.
Indeed, he would concern himself with nothing else, being supremely indifferent to minor detail."
Up until the last, moreover, Rundstedt did not believe that war would actually break out, since Poland and its allies would back down at the last minute, as had happened over Czechoslovakia.
But Poland did not back down, and on 1 September the invasion began, leading to Britain and France declaring war on Germany.
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.
Soon after, Blaskowitz's exposed northern flank was attacked by the Polish Poznan Army, leading to the major engagement of the Polish campaign, the Battle of the Bzura.
Rundstedt and Manstein travelled to Blaskowitz's headquarters to take charge, and by 11 September the Poles had been contained in a pocket around Kutno.
By 18 September the Poznan Army had been destroyed, and Warsaw was besieged.
Reichenau's forces took Lublin on 11 September, while List's army was advancing to the east towards Lvov, where they eventually linked up with Soviet forces advancing from the east under the terms of the Hitler-Stalin Pact.
Warsaw surrendered on 28 September, and by 6 October fighting in southern Poland had ceased.
From the first days of the invasion, there had been incidents of German troops shooting Polish soldiers after they had surrendered, and killing civilians, especially Polish Jews.
Some of these incidents were the work of units of the SS-VT, forerunner of the Waffen-SS, but some involved regular Army units.
Rundstedt's biographer says: "There is certainly no evidence that Rundstedt ever condoned, let alone encouraged, these acts."
Rundstedt told Reichenau that such actions did not have his authorisation.
In fact, both Rundstedt and Blaskowitz complained to the Chief of Staff, General Franz Halder, about the Army Command's apparent tolerance of such incidents.
Nevertheless, as commander of Army Group South, Rundstedt was legally responsible for the behaviour of his troops, and these incidents would later form part of the charges of war crimes against him.
Behind the Army came SS "Einsatzgruppen" (task forces) commanded by Theodore Eicke, who began systematically executing Jews and members of the Polish educated classes.
One "Einsatzgruppe" commanded by Udo von Woyrsch operated in 14th Army's area.
At Dynów Woyrsch's men herded the town's Jews into the synagogue then burned it down.
By 20 September, over 500 Jews had been killed.
In 1939, this was still too much for most German Army officers to stand.
After complaints from numerous officers, Rundstedt banned Woyrsch's units from the area, but after his departure his order was rescinded.
On 20 October Rundstedt resigned his command and was transferred to the western front.