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Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded
David Stahel
Published online:

04 May 2023

Print publication:

04 May 2023
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Germany's success in the Second World War was built upon its tank forces; however, many of its leading generals, with the notable exception of Heinz Guderian, are largely unknown. This biographical study of four German panzer army commanders serving on the Eastern Front is based upon their unpublished wartime letters to their wives. David Stahel offers a complete picture of the men conducting Hitler's war in the East, with an emphasis on the private fears and public pressures they operated under. He also illuminates their response to the criminal dimension of the war as well as their role as leading military commanders conducting large-scale operations. While the focus is on four of Germany's most important panzer generals - Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt - the evidence from their private correspondence sheds new light on the broader institutional norms and cultural ethos of the Wehrmacht's Panzertruppe.

5 - The Military Generals
David Stahel, University of New South Wales, Canberra
Book:

Hitler's Panzer Generals

Published online:

04 May 2023

Print publication:

04 May 2023, pp 183-238
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Summary

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.

(a) - Northern and central Italy in the twelfth century
from 15 - Italy in the twelfth century
- By Giovanni Tabacco
Edited by David Luscombe, University of Sheffield, Jonathan Riley-Smith, University of Cambridge
Book:

The New Cambridge Medieval History

Published online:

28 March 2008

Print publication:

14 October 2004, pp 422-441
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Summary

This chapter discusses the kingdom of Italy and the papal states in the time of Lothar II and Conrad III. Conrad III deeply involved in the problems of Germany, never went to Italy after succeeding Lothar to the German throne, although he seriously entertained the idea of an Italian campaign to oppose Roger II of Sicily as an ally of the Byzantine empire. The developments in Rome were the most striking indication of the changes which were taking place throughout central and northern Italy to the advantage of the city-states. After the death of the king of Sicily, William II, in the autumn of 1189, a few months before Barbarossa himself perished in the east, Henry claimed the succession to the kingdom of Sicily, as he himself said, 'the ancient right of the Empire', based on the concept of an Italian kingdom, following a tradition going back to the Lombards and the Franks.