In Nazi Germany advancing to the highest ranks of the army was not simply a mark of professional achievement; it brought personal enrichment (through Hitler’s private payments) as well as public celebrity. No other arm of the Wehrmacht provided a better springboard for such advancement than the dynamic Panzertruppe. As we have seen, such career inducements were not immaterial factors in motivating the generals and, to no small extent, served to pervert their priorities and conduct as military men. Professional duties and service to the army clashed with the yearning for individual recognition and reward. The same pressures also shaped their reporting of events, with problems typically leveraged to denounce others in the high command, while serious issues presented by the Red Army, the Eastern climate or the poor infrastructure were ignored or underappreciated. Hitler, as the ultimate patron, was typically spared criticism and, when the occasion presented itself, the culture of embracing ‘can-do’ personalities, over pessimists and naysayers, prefaced what information was provided and how it was presented. Hence, when Guderian visited Hitler in August 1941, ostensibly to challenge the dictator’s decision to attack into Ukraine, he instead disavowed his previous commitments to the other generals and abruptly adopted Hitler’s view.

This chapter considers the private lives of the German generals. As men who are typically studied exclusively for their military roles, this chapter uses their letters to ask questions about how they expressed themselves in the ‘private’ sphere. Not surprisingly, their wives, to varying degrees, served as confidants as well as sources of strength. The role of the prominent military wife is also directly discussed with reference to letters by Margarete Guderian – the only available collection from one of the generals’ wives. The role of family is discussed, including the presence of military-age sons who were serving on the Eastern Front in 1941. The demands of senior command took a serious toll on each of the men and the letters over the course of 1941 chart their exposure to physical danger as well as psychological pressure. Coping mechanisms employed by the generals, such as free-time hobbies or spiritual beliefs are also evaluated from their writings. Overall, the value of the correspondence in illuminating a much more rounded view of the panzer generals charged with leading Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union is highlighted.

Although a lot has been written (mainly in German) about field post in the German army during the Second World War and the many historiographical issues concerned with it, very little study has been devoted to the letter collections of the German generals. This chapter attempts first to consider this unique collection of sources and discuss where they have been used before and to what end. There is also a discussion about why they have not been used more generally in past operational histories. The problems with Kurrentschrift, and even the standardised Sütterlinschrift, are explained to make readers aware of the complexity inherent in tackling letters from a generation of men educated in the late nineteenth century. Another major focus of the chapter are issues concerned with veracity and verification of the correspondence. A statical analysis of each collection provides a remarkable insight into anomalies, which reveals that letters are missing (or were withheld) from the publicly available collection. This is an important qualification of the study and already points to an attempt by the generals to present a selective post-war image.

No serious investigation of German generals on the Eastern Front can avoid an explicit engagement with the ubiquitous criminality that pervaded the occupation of the Soviet Union. Given that the letters of the generals were provided by family descendants who tended to venerate their famous relatives, it should not be surprising that the letters do not explicitly mention German war crimes or the Holocaust. Yet that in itself is a telling omission given the direct evidence from divisional, corps and panzer groups files pointing to widespread, even exceptional, killing programs within the units under Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt’s command. All four men were among the most active in carrying out the murderous Commissar Order as well as the violent suppression of perceived acts of resistance in their zone of control. Moreover, the post-war myth of an honourable and ‘clean’ German army finds no such supporting evidence in the correspondence – there is not one letter in a combined collection spanning well over 100 examples that expresses any outrage or even acknowledgment of the mass murder of Soviet Jews. Indeed, there is no criticism for any of the action undertaken by the German security force or army.

Typically, the success of a general is thought to be measured in their professionalism and military achievements, however this is only partly true of the German Wehrmacht. As the letters reveal, the panzer generals were very much aware that their career success was determined by gaining public prominence and attaching oneself to battlefield triumph. This consumed a remarkable amount of their time and, in no small part, helped shape the direction of their campaigns. Propaganda companies operating at the front become engines for self-promotion, which transformed the achievement of the formation into the achievement of the individual. The most successful practitioners of this media campaign, like Guderian, became indivisible with the all-conquering German Panzertruppe in the East, while others who commanded similar sized forces, like Hoepner, proved far less successful. One of the consequences of such military celebrity, which was unique to the German Wehrmacht, was the autograph-hunting children who sent countless requests to the generals and often received favourable responses. The culture of public acclaim and mutual support fed the National Socialist ethos of front and Heimat united in struggle.

During the Second World War the German panzer generals were the subject of a great deal of myth-making, both in German and in Allied propaganda. After the war this entered a new phase with the publication of self-exculpating memoirs, studies for the US army historical division and uncritical biographies. Only relatively recently has a great deal of research been done to reassess their role both in a professional military capacity and in terms of their individual participation in Germany’s war of annihilation in the East. We therefore know a great deal more about what these men did and how they did it, but that does not always provide the answer why. If the image of the German panzer generals was built on a myth, then who were these men beyond the stylised propaganda images and resolute military orders?

For lowly German soldiers there were highly restrictive rules about what information could be included in their letters home, but the correspondence of the leading panzer generals were not subject to any form of censorship and they felt themselves at liberty to discuss all manner of military operations. This may have been militarily reckless, but it provides an unfiltered view of German operations and the personal relations among the high command. More specifically, one sees how the generals account for their successes and failures, with the former being routinely embraced, while the latter are typically blamed on individuals failing to support them. What is notable about these explanations are the relative absence of geographic, topographical or environmental factors in slowing their advance. Likewise, the countermeasures of the Red Army scarcely rate a mention and the same is true of German organisational or logistic difficulties. The letters offer an insight into a world view that suggests the army command alone will decide the outcome, if only the correct decisions are made.

From 1147 to 1149 Friedrich Barbarossa participated in the ill-fated Second Crusade serving under his uncle Conrad III (1093–1152). Forty years later, as Holy Roman Emperor, Friedrich called for a new Third Crusade to the Holy Lands, which he led in 1189. His soldiers came from across the empire’s vast European domain, which at that time spanned from Flanders to Moravia and from the Baltic Sea down into northern Italy. For his battlefield acumen, his political astuteness and his resolute determination, Friedrich was arguably the greatest of the Holy Roman Empire’s medieval emperors. Accordingly, recruitment for what he referred to as his ‘army of the Holy Cross’ was described by one contemporary as being led ‘by his own example, he inspired all the young men to fight for Christ’.