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.