Amid the crisis of the Soviet counter-offensive in December 1941, Kluge was promoted to command Army Group Centre replacing Field Marshal Fedor von Bock.

Several members of the German military resistance to Adolf Hitler served on his staff, including Henning von Tresckow.

Kluge's forces were unable to stop the momentum of the Allied invasion of Normandy, and he began to realise that the war in the West was lost.

Although Kluge was not an active conspirator in the 20 July plot, in the aftermath of the failed coup he committed suicide on 19 August 1944, after having been recalled to Berlin for a meeting with Hitler.

[2] Wolfgang served in both world wars, rising to the rank of lieutenant general by 1943, and was commander of Fortress Dunkirk between July and September 1944.

[2] During the Sudetenland Crisis, he was a member of a secret anti-war faction led by Ludwig Beck and Ernst von Weizsäcker, hoping to avoid armed conflict over the disputed territory.

[16] A river crossing, spearheaded by 7th Panzer commander Erwin Rommel, established a bridgehead on the west bank of the Meuse on 13 May and forced the French 9th Army into retreat.

[17] Kluge's forces—particularly the 7th Panzer Division—achieved a rapid breakthrough from their bridgehead in the following days; between 16 and 17 May Rommel captured 10,000 prisoners and 100 tanks, and wiped out the remainder of the French 9th Army at the expense of only 35 casualties.

[19] After a conference with Hitler and Rundstedt, Kluge issued an order to his Panzer units to halt on 24 May, 16 km (9.9 mi) from Dunkirk—by then the possible escape route for the British Expeditionary Force.

[23] On 4 July, the Oberkommando des Heeres (OKH) ("High Command") subordinated the 2nd and the 3rd Panzer Groups to Kluge, to improve coordination between the fast charging armoured spearheads and the slower infantry.

It stated that it was "high time to put a complete end to the unjustified methods of obtaining supplies, the raids, the plundering trips over vast distances, all the senseless and criminal activity".

[31] A lack of tanks, insufficient motor transport, and a precarious supply situation, along with tenacious Red Army resistance, and the air superiority achieved by Soviet fighters hampered the attack.

In the aftermath of the battle, Hoepner and Guderian blamed Kluge's slow commitment of the 4th Army's south flank to the attack for the German failure to reach Moscow.

With the outer defensive belt completed by 25 November, Moscow was a fortified position which the Wehrmacht lacked the strength to take in a frontal assault.

After severe criticism from his chief of staff, Henning von Tresckow, who upbraided him for corruption, he agreed to meet Carl Friedrich Goerdeler, an opponent of the Nazi regime, in November 1942.

[44] The withdrawal was accompanied by a ruthless scorched-earth and security campaign, resulting in widespread destruction, razing of villages, deportation of the able-bodied population for slave labour, and killings of civilians by the troops of the Wehrmacht under the guise of "anti-partisan warfare".

[49][50] On 15 April, Hitler and the OKH issued a new operational order, which called for the offensive codenamed Zitadelle ("Citadel"), to begin on 3 May or shortly thereafter against the Kursk salient.

[53][54] As the planning and preparations continued, in late April Model met with Hitler to express his concerns about strong defensive positions being established by the Red Army in his sector.

[61] With Army Group Center falling back on prepared defensive positions, the German resistance stiffened and it took the Soviet forces until the end of September to liberate Smolensk.

[65] With the initiative belonging to the Allies, Kluge immediately sought to assert authority over Rommel, in charge of Army Group B and build his command's confidence in defending Normandy.

[66] Five days later, Rommel was wounded when a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) Spitfire strafed his staff car, causing the vehicle to veer off the road; Kluge succeeded him in command of Army Group B while retaining his other post.

[67] Launched on 25 July, Operation Cobra was intended for U.S. forces to take advantage of German armies occupied by British and Canadian attacks around Caen and achieve a decisive breakthrough in northwestern France.

[68] Lacking the resources to hold the front, German units launched desperate counterattacks to escape entrapment, while Kluge sent reinforcements, comprising elements of the 2nd and 116th panzer divisions, westward in hopes of avoiding total collapse; in fierce engagements, his forces suffered heavy losses in men and tanks that he could not replace.

[69] In the last days of July, the German army in Normandy had been reduced to such a poor state by Allied offensives that Kluge could no longer sustain a viable defensive position in Normandy; he had no prospects for reinforcements in the wake of Operation Bagration, the Soviet summer offensive against Army Group Centre, and very few Germans believed they could salvage victory.

[72][73] He demanded that all available Panzer units cooperate in a concentrated attack aimed at recapturing the Contentin Peninsula and cutting off U.S. forces in Brittany from resupply.

[72] According to OB West Operations Officer Bodo Zimmermann, Kluge knew "very well that carrying out this order meant the collapse of the Normandy front", but his misgivings were ignored.

The offensive came to a halt 15 km (9.3 mi) from Avaranches, primarily due to Allied air superiority, leaving German units vulnerable to entrapment.

[78] By 22 August, the gap—desperately maintained by the Germans to allow their trapped forces to escape—was completely sealed, ending the Battle of Normandy with a decisive Allied victory.

[80] In Paris, the conspirators arrested over 1,200 SS and SD members, and after the assassination attempt failed, Stülpnagel and Caesar von Hofacker met with Kluge at his headquarters in La Roche-Guyon.

[77] When he was recalled to Berlin for a meeting with Hitler, Kluge was convinced he had been implicated in the 20 July plot and opted to commit suicide on 19 August using potassium cyanide.