David Stahel writes in his 2023 book Hitler’s Panzer Generals: Guderian, Hoepner, Reinhardt and Schmidt Unguarded:
A common set of beliefs that all four generals shared was their relationship to the Protestant Church and the significance this assumed in explaining their values and behaviour.
Germany under Hitler was made up of 95 per cent Christians, and of these some 55 per cent were Protestants.101 The elite of the German officer corps was overwhelmingly made up of Protestants. This predominance had its roots in the Protestant Kingdom of Prussia, which dominated the German officer corps before the First World War and
constituted the birthplace of Hoepner (Frankfurt an der Oder, 1886), Guderian (Kulm, 1888) and Schmidt (Berlin, 1886). Reinhardt was born in the likewise predominantly Protestant Kingdom of Saxony (Bautzen, 1887). Indeed, in 1907 only some 16.6 per cent of German officers were Catholic, which not surprisingly predetermined an enduring
dominance of Protestants in the German high command of the Second World War.102 While one might assume a natural opposition between the Protestant Christian faith and the realities of wartime Nazism, the generals’ letters reflect no hint of confusion or contradiction in that regard. All four generals alluded to God in their letters,
sometimes in moments of open reflection, but also to buttress their periods of dejection and melancholy. Indeed, references to God in
their letters show a remarkable increase as the year progresses. During
the first fourteen weeks of the campaign (from June to the end of
September) there were only nine separate mentions of God, but in the
following nine weeks (October and November) this rose to thirteen
references. Most remarkably, however, in December alone, when the
harsh winter conditions took hold and the Soviet counter-offensive
began, the number of references jumps to seventeen. This suggests an
anecdotal correlation between adversity and religious motivation,
a trend that parallels the decline of Germany’s fortunes in 1941.
In order to ascertain the role and importance of religious belief
among the generals we must look at context. While references to God
are common to all of the letter collections, the devotion to faith was
much less conspicuous in letters written by Hoepner and Schmidt. Both
thanked God on a number of occasions, but less as explicit references to
deeply held beliefs and more as simple turn of phrase. For example, in
July Hoepner wrote to Irma: ‘The heat has been unbearable for the last
eight days, 30° in the shade, 48° in the sun. Thank God that we’ve found
ice here.’103 Similarly, on 27 November he wrote: ‘We’re advancing,
thank God.’104 Such casual allusions to God are instructive because they
artificially inflate the number of recorded references without seriously
engaging with the idea or meaning of faith. More to the point, Hoepner,
unlike the other generals, never engages in anything more substantive.
There is no further discourse on the importance of God or his faith,
which, given the emotional demands and unrelenting pressures of the campaign, is suggestive of Hoepner’s diminished faith or perhaps lack
thereof.
Schmidt, by contrast, is somewhat more ambiguous. In his small
number of letters from the early months of the war Schmidt made just
one reference to God when, after a period of wet weather had ended in
August, he noted simply ‘thank God’.105 Infrequent and cavalier usage
would seem to fit with Hoepner’s indifference, yet Schmidt seems to
have fallen back more and more on his faith as the war dragged on and
his position became steadily more desperate. Fighting against superior
Soviet forces at Tikhvin in November, Schmidt for the first time
included an explicit appeal to God’s providence and good grace. After
tallying the formidable Soviet forces arrayed against him Schmidt concluded,
‘These will be difficult days. God willing, they will be successfully
overcome.’106 Later in the hard winter fighting, after detailing to
Fridel his lack of strength and the impact of the cold weather, he
concluded: ‘It isn’t easy . . . But, God willing, it will come right.’107 In
such a context it is impossible to differentiate between a literal and a
figurative meaning in Schmidt’s mind, but importantly the references to
divine intercession only appeared once the material strength of his
forces had sunk so low that the enemy threatened to overwhelm him.
If Hoepner and Schmidt exhibited a more circumspect relationship
to their faith, the letters of the Guderians and Reinhardt attest to far
stronger religious feelings. Yet here too one can observe a progression
both in the aggregate number of references to God and in the increasing
earnestness of those discussions. In fact, throughout the summer months
none of the generals engaged in a substantive discourse about God or
their faith, rendering their portrayal of the German advance essentially
a secular affair won exclusively through strength of arms. Unlike later
periods, God was evoked neither to aid victory nor in gratitude for it.
Yet as the campaign dragged on and the conditions worsened,
Reinhardt found himself reflecting more and more on his faith and
writing about it to Eva.
