Newsweek recently interviewed historians about the loyalty of Hitler's generals. Professor Peter Fritzsche weighed in.
"Most of the military—from soldiers to officers to generals—were loyal and ideologically aligned with Hitler. The price of disloyalty was very high. There were differences over tactics, but these sorts of disagreements were also considered questions of loyalty.
On the whole, what is remarkable about Germany in World War II is the ideological cohesion among the military rather than any incoherence, something tightened by the initial victories and unraveling only at the very end, in 1944 and 1945.
By 1939, and certainly by 1941, Hitler's generals were fully aligned with his goals. They were committed to overturning the post-World War I order and attaining a German empire, and they were intoxicated by early successes.
A few generals honored old-fashioned military virtues or hesitated in participating in the slaughter of civilians, but they were in the distinct minority. For most of them, the rigors of fighting on the eastern front only increased the value of fighting a merciless war—Hitler's war."