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Germans protesting theWehrmachtexhibitionin 2002. The touring exhibition, organised by theHamburg Institute for Social Research,began to erode the myth for the German public in the 1990s. The signs state "Glory and honour to the German soldier!".[1]
Two German soldiers look at polish bodies in a pit
About 300 Polish prisoners of war were murdered by soldiers of the German 15th Motorised Infantry Regiment in theCiepielów massacreon 9 September 1939.

Themyth of the cleanWehrmacht(German:Mythos der sauberen Wehrmacht) is thenegationistnotion that the regular German armed forces (theWehrmacht) were not involved inthe Holocaustor otherwar crimesduringWorld War II.The myth, heavily promoted by German authors and military personnel after World War II,[2]completely denies the culpability of the German military command in the planning and perpetration of war crimes. Even where the perpetration of war crimes and the waging of an extermination campaign, particularly in theSoviet Union– the populace of which was viewed by the Nazis as "sub-humans"ruled by"Jewish Bolshevik"conspirators – has been acknowledged, they are ascribed to the" Party soldiers corps ", theSchutzstaffel(SS), but not the regular German military.

The myth began during the war, being promoted in theWehrmacht'sofficial propagandaand by soldiers of all ranks seeking to portray their institution in the best possible light; as prospects for victory faded, these soldiers began to portray themselves as victims.[3]After Germany's defeat, the verdict of theInternational Military Tribunal(1945–1946), which released many of the accused, was misrepresented as exonerating theWehrmacht.Franz Halderand otherWehrmachtleaders signed the Generals' memorandum entitled "The German Army from 1920 to 1945", which laid out the key elements of the myth, attempting to exculpate theWehrmachtfrom war crimes.

The victoriousWestern Allieswere becoming increasingly concerned with the growingCold Waragainst their former ally, the Soviet Union, and wantedWest Germanyto begin rearming to counter the perceived Soviet threat. In 1950, West German chancellorKonrad Adenauerand former officers met secretly atHimmerod Abbeyto discuss West Germany's rearmament and agreed upon theHimmerod memorandum.This memorandum laid out the conditions under which West Germany would rearm: their war criminals must be released, the "defamation" of the German soldier must cease and foreign public opinion of theWehrmachtmust be raised. U.S. PresidentDwight D. Eisenhower,had previously described theWehrmachtas Nazis, but his deep concern over Soviet dominance of Eastern Europe led him to reverse course and facilitate rearmament. The British became reluctant to pursue further trials and released already-convicted criminals early.

As Adenauer courted the votes of veterans and enacted amnesty laws, Halder began working for theU.S. Army Historical Division.His role was to assemble and supervise formerWehrmachtofficers to create a multi-volume operational account of theEastern Front.[4]He oversaw the writings of 700 former German officers and disseminated the myth through this network.Wehrmachtofficers and generals produced exculpatory memoirs distorting the historical record. These writings proved enormously popular, especially the memoirs ofHeinz GuderianandErich von Manstein,and further disseminated the myth among a German public eager to cast off the shame of Nazism.

The year 1995 proved to be a turning point in German public consciousness. TheHamburg Institute for Social Research'sWehrmachtexhibition,which showed 1,380 graphic pictures of "ordinary"Wehrmachttroops complicit in war crimes, sparked a long-running public debate and reappraisal of the myth.Hannes Heerwrote that the war crimes had been covered up by scholars and former soldiers. German historianWolfram Wettecalled the cleanWehrmachtthesis a "collective perjury". The wartime generation maintained the myth with vigour and determination. They suppressed information and manipulated government policy. After their passing, there was insufficient motive to maintain the deceit in which theWehrmachtdenied having been a full partner in the Nazis' industrialised genocide.

Outline of the myth

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TheWehrmachtwas the combined armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945, the Army (Heer), Navy (Kriegsmarine) and Air Force (Luftwaffe) totaling about 18 million men, created on 16 March 1935 withAdolf Hitler's Defence Law introducingconscription.[5]Approximately half of all German male citizens performed military service as conscripts or volunteers.[6][7][8]

The term "cleanWehrmacht"(saubere Wehrmacht) means German soldiers, sailors and airmen had "clean hands"; in other words, it claims they didnot have bloodon their hands from murdered prisoners of war, Jews, or civilians.[9]The myth asserts that Hitler and theNazi Partyalone designed thewar of annihilationand that war crimes were only committed by the SS, the Nazi Party's special armed force.

In reality, the general officers of theWehrmacht,and many lower ranks down to common soldiers, were willing participants in Hitler's war of annihilation against perceived enemies of Germany.Wehrmachttroops were complicit in or perpetrated numerous war crimes, routinely assisting SS units with tacit approval from officers.[10]In the aftermath of the war, the West German government deliberately sought to suppress information of such crimes to absolve former war criminals and allow their reintegration into German society.[11]

Background

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Map showing Eastern European territories the Nazis intended to conquer
The Nazi leadership aimed to conquer Eastern European territories,exterminate the Slavic populationsandcolonise the territorywith ethnic German settlers as part of a "Greater Germanic Reich".
Dozens of Wehrmacht officers performing the Nazi salute
GroßadmiralKarl Dönitzand severalKriegsmarine(Naval branch of theWehrmacht) officers performing theNazi salutein 1941

War of extermination

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During World War II the government of Nazi Germany, the Armed Forces High Command (OKW) and the Army High Command (OKH) jointly laid the foundations for genocide in the Soviet Union.[12]From the outset, the war against the Soviet Union was designed as a war of annihilation.[13]Theracial policy of Nazi Germanyviewed the Soviet Union andEastern Europeas populated bynon-Aryan "sub-humans",ruled by "Jewish Bolshevik" conspirators.[14]It was stated Nazi policy to murder, deport, or enslave the majority ofRussianand otherSlavicpopulations according to theMaster Plan for the East.[14]

Before and duringOperation Barbarossa,the German offensive into the Soviet Union, German troops were repeatedly subjected toanti-Bolshevik,antisemitic,andanti-Slavicindoctrination.[15]Following the invasion,Wehrmachtofficers described the Soviets to their soldiers as "Jewish Bolshevik sub-humans", the "Mongol hordes", the "Asiatic flood" and the "Red beast",[16]and many German troops accepted this racialist ideology.[17]In a speech to the4th Panzer Group,GeneralErich Hoepnerechoed the Nazi racial plans by claiming the war against the Soviet Union was "an essential part of the German people's struggle for existence", and that "the struggle must aim at the annihilation of today's Russia and must therefore be waged with unparalleled harshness".[18]

The murder of Jews was common knowledge in theWehrmacht.During the retreat from the Soviet Union, German officers destroyed incriminating documents.[19]Wehrmachtsoldiers actively worked together with theSchutzstaffel(SS) paramilitarydeath squads,theEinsatzgruppen,and participated in the mass killings such as atBabi Yar.[20]Wehrmachtofficers considered the relationship with theEinsatzgruppento be very close and almost cordial.[21]

Crimes in Greece, Poland, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia

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Three men about to be hanged in front of a large crowd ofWehrmachtsoldiers
Officers of the16th Armyexecuting Soviet civilians, 1943

TheWehrmachtcarried out war crimes across the continent including inPoland,Greece,Yugoslavia,and the Soviet Union.[22]The first significant combat for theWehrmachtwas theinvasion of Polandon 1 September 1939. In April 1939Reinhard Heydrich,the architect of theFinal Solution,had already arranged co-operation between the intelligence sections of theWehrmachtand theEinsatzgruppen.[23]TheWehrmacht'sparticipation in the large-scale killings of civilians andpartisansin Poland was a prelude to the war of annihilation in Russia.[24]On the first day of the invasion, Polishprisoners of warwere murdered by theWehrmachtatPilchowice,Czuchów,Gierałtowice, Bojków,Lubliniec,Kochcice, Zawiść, Ornontowice, andWyry.[25]: 11 During the invasion, theWehrmachtis estimated to have executed between 16,000 to 27,000 Poles.[26]: 16 

Soviet Belarushas been described as "the deadliest place on earth between 1941 and 1944".[27]One in three Belarusians died during the war. Most Soviet Jews lived in an area of Western Russia previously known as thePale of Settlement.[28]In this area, the Holocaust was carried out near populous towns rather than in extermination centres likeAuschwitz.[29]TheWehrmachtwas initially tasked with assisting theEinsatzgruppenin their task of complete extermination of the Jewish population. In the town ofKrupki,the army marched the Jewish population of approximately 1,000 a mile out of the town to meet their SS executioners. The frail and sick were conveyed by truck, and those who strayed were shot and killed immediately. German troops guarded the site, and alongside the SS, shot the Jews at the edge of a pit. Krupki was typical: theWehrmachtwas a full partner in systematic mass murder.[30]

A synagogue used as a military brothel. Three German soldiers can been seen entering
A synagogue in France that was used as a brothel. Girls as young as 15 were abducted by theWehrmachtto be used as sex slaves.

German military brothelswere set up throughout much of occupied Europe.[31]In many cases in Eastern Europe, women and teenage girls were kidnapped from the streets during German military and policeround-upsto be used as sex slaves.[32][33][34]The women were raped by up to 32 men per day at a nominal cost of threeReichsmarks.[34]ASwiss Red Crossmission driver Franz Mawick wrote about what he saw in 1942:

Uniformed Germans... gaze fixedly at women and girls between the ages of 15 and 35. One of the soldiers pulls out a pocket flashlight and shines it on one of the women, straight into her eyes. The two women turn their pale faces to us, expressing weariness and resignation. The first one is about 40 years old. 'What is this old whore looking for around here?' – one of the three soldiers laughs. 'Bread, sir' – asks the woman... 'A kick in the ass you get, not bread' – answers the soldier. The owner of the flashlight directs the light again on the faces and bodies of girls... The youngest is maybe 13 years old... They open her coat and start groping her. 'This one is ideal for bed' – he says.[34]

According to a study byAlex J. KayandDavid Stahel,the majority ofWehrmachtsoldiers deployed to the Soviet Union participated in war crimes.[35]

Yugoslavia and Greece were jointly occupied by theItaliansand Germans. The Germans began persecuting the Jews immediately, but the Italians refused to co-operate.Wehrmachtofficers tried to pressure their Italian counterparts to stop the exodus of Jews from German-occupied areas; however, the Italians refused. GeneralAlexander Löhrreacted with disgust, describing the Italians as weak.[36]He wrote an angry communique to Hitler saying the "implementation of theCroatian government's laws concerning Jews is being so undermined by Italian officials that in thecoastal zone– particularly inMostar,Dubrovnik,andCrikvenika– numerous Jews are protected by theItalian military,and other Jews have been escorted across the border toItalian Dalmatiaand Italy itself ".[37]

InSerbia,theWehrmachtbegan the murder of the Jews from mid-1941, independently of the SS.[38]In April 1941 in the early days of the occupation, Chief of Military AdministrationHarald Turnerdecreed the registration of Jews, including forced labor and curfews. This culminated in theGeiselmordpolitik,the reprisal killings by theWehrmachtfor insurgency and sabotage.[39]In September 1942, theWehrmachtwas also involved in a massacre of civilians inSamarica,where they reportedly killed 480 "enemy combatants" with a loss of one German soldier. At the same time theWehrmachtcondemned similar actions taken by the fascistUstasaparty of theIndependent State of Croatia.[40]

Start of the myth

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The Generals' memorandum

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GeneralFranz Halder,Chief of Staff of the OKH between 1938 and 1942, played a key role in creating the myth of the cleanWehrmacht.[41]The genesis for the myth was the "Generals' Memorandum" created in November 1945 and submitted to the Nuremberg trials. It was titled "The German Army from 1920 to 1945" and was co-authored by Halder and former field marshalsWalther von Brauchitschand Erich von Manstein, along with other senior military figures. It portrayed the German armed forces as apolitical and largely innocent of the crimes committed by the Nazi regime.[42][43]The arguments of the memorandum were later adopted byHans Laternser,the lead counsel for the defence of seniorWehrmachtcommanders at theHigh Command Trial.[42]The document was written at the suggestion of American generalWilliam J. Donovanof theOSS,who viewed the Soviet Union as the main global threat to world peace. Donovan served as a deputy prosecutor at Nuremberg; he and some other U.S. representatives believed the trials should not proceed, but that Germany should be recruited as a military ally against the Soviet Union in the growing Cold War.[43]

The Hankey lobby

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In Britain,Paymaster GeneralMaurice Hankeyhad been one of Britain's most established civil servants, holding a series of powerful posts from 1908 to 1942 and giving strategy advice to every prime minister fromH.H. AsquithtoWinston Churchill.[44]Hankey deplored the war crimes trials as an injustice to soldiers who had fought honourably, and also a blunder since Britain might need formerWehrmachtgenerals to fight against the Soviet Union in a possibleThird World War.[44]Though little known to the public, Hankey led a powerful lobbying group in Britain on behalf of theWehrmachtgenerals[45]as well asJapanese war criminals.[46]He regularly corresponded with Winston Churchill,Anthony Eden,Douglas MacArthur,andKonrad Adenauerabout the issue,[47]and personally conferred with Adenauer during a London visit in 1951.[47]When the leader of the main German veterans group, the VdS, AdmiralGottfried Hansen[de],visited Britain in 1952 to discuss the Kesselring case, the first person he visited was Hankey.[48]

Members of Hankey's group included Labour MPRichard Stokes,Field MarshalHarold Alexander,Lord De L'Isle,Frank Pakenham,Lord Dudley,Victor Gollancz,Lord CorkFrederic Maugham,lawyerReginald Paget,historiansBasil Liddell HartandJ. F. C. Fuller,and the bishop of ChichesterGeorge Bell.[49]As a master of bureaucratic in-fighting with excellent connections among the British Establishment and the media, Hankey was, in the words of German historian Kerstin von Lingen, the leader of the "most powerful" lobby group ever formed on behalf of theWehrmachtgenerals.[46]While Hankey was opposed to trying fellow soldiers on principle, some of his followers were outright Nazi apologists, such as military historianJ. F. C. Fuller.[45]

In 1950, after Field MarshalAlbert Kesselringwas convicted by a British military court of ordering the massacres of Italian civilians during 1943–45, including theArdeatine massacre,Hankey used his influence to have one of Kesselring's interrogators, ColonelAlexander Scotland,publish a letter toThe Timescalling the verdict into question.[50]Scotland's letter had considerable impact on British public opinion, and led to demands that Kesselring be freed.[51]Hankey and his circle drew a picture of Kesselring as a chivalrous leader unaware of the massacres by his men, who would have stopped them had he known. They argued that an officer as effective and thoroughly professional as Kesselring would not have stooped to war crimes, though Lingen dismisses this.

Himmerod memorandum

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Portrait of Dwight D. Eisenhower looking at the camera
U.S. PresidentDwight D. Eisenhowerchanged his opinion of theWehrmachtto facilitate West German re-armament.

The Western Allies were concerned with the possibility of war with the Soviet Union and a communist invasion.[52]In 1950, after the start of theKorean War,it became clear to the Americans that a German army would have to be revived against the threat of the Soviet Union.[53]Equally concerned, the British were desperate to convince the West German government to join theEuropean Defence CommunityandNATO.[54][55]

Konrad Adenauer, the West German chancellor, arranged secret meetings between his officials and formerWehrmachtofficers to discuss the rearmament of West Germany. The meetings took place atHimmerod Abbeybetween 5 and 9 October 1950, and includedHermann Foertsch,Adolf Heusinger,andHans Speidel.During the war, Foertsch had worked underWalter von Reichenau,an ardent Nazi who issued theSeverity Order.Foertsch became one of Adenauer's defence advisors.[56]

TheWehrmachtofficers made a number of demands to cooperate in West German rearmament, laid out in theHimmerod memorandum:all German soldiers convicted as war criminals would be released, the "defamation" of the German soldier, including theWaffen-SS,would cease, and "measures to transform both domestic and foreign public opinion" of the German military would need to be taken.[53]

The chairman of the meetings summarised the foreign policy changes demanded in the memorandum as follows: "Western nations must take public measures against the 'prejudicial characterisation' of former German soldiers and must distance the former regular armed forces from the 'war crimes issue'".[57]Adenauer accepted the memorandum and began a series of negotiations with the three Western Allied Forces to satisfy the demands.[53]

In response, U.S. generalDwight D. Eisenhower,soon to be appointed asSupreme Allied Commander Europeand future President of the United States, changed his negative rhetoric on theWehrmacht.In January 1951, he wrote that there was "a real difference between the German soldier and Hitler and his criminal group". Chancellor Adenauer made a similar statement in aBundestagdebate on the Article 131 of theGrundgesetz,West Germany's provisional constitution. He stated the German soldier fought honourably, as long as he "had not been guilty of any offence".[56]The declarations by Eisenhower and Adenauer reshaped Western public perception of the German war effort and laid the foundation for the myth of the cleanWehrmacht.[58]

West German public opinion

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In the immediate aftermath of World War II, there was a great deal of German sympathy for their war criminals. The British High Commissioner in occupied Germany felt compelled to remind the German public the criminals involved had been found guilty of participating in the torture or murder of Allied citizens.[59]In the late 1940s and 1950s a flood of polemical books and essays demanded freedom for the "so-called 'war criminals'",whose guilt was thrown into doubt.[59]German historianNorbert Freiwrote that the widespread sympathy for the war criminals was an indirect admission of the whole society's enmeshment in National Socialism. The war crimes trials painfully reminded ordinary Germans of their fervent support for the disastrous Nazi regime, and exculpating the generals allowed them to distance themselves from it.[60]TheWehrmachtwas a central founding institution of Germany, tracing its descent back to thePrussian Armyof the "Great Elector"Frederich Wilhelm,and its complicity with Hitler presented problems for those who wanted to portray the Nazi era as a "freakish aberration" from the course of German history. So many Germans had served in theWehrmachtthat there was a widespread demand for a version of the past that allowed them to "...honour the memory of their fallen comrades and to find meaning in the hardships and personal sacrifice of their own military service".[61]Wette writes: the founding years of West Germany saw the wartime generation cement over its past and make outraged claims that innocence was the norm.[62]

Growth of the myth

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Political climate

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Dr. Hans Speidel, Adolf Heusinger and Theodor Anton Blank at the establishment of the new German army, the Bundeswehr, in 1955
TheBundeswehr,modern Germany's armed forces, was established in West Germany in 1955, employing numerous World War II veterans as senior leaders and instructors; the first eightInspector Generals of the Bundeswehrwere wartime veterans.

In the early 1950spolitical parties in West Germanytook up the cause of the war criminals and entered a virtual competition for the votes of wartime veterans. A wide political consensus existed that represented the view that it was "time to close the chapter".[60]West German chancellor, Konrad Adenauer, initiated policies that included an amnesty, the end to denazification programmes, and an exemption from punishment law. Adenauer courted the votes of veterans by making a highly public visit to the remaining war criminals' jail. This gesture helped him win the federal elections of 1953 with a two-thirds majority.[60]Adenauer successfully limited the responsibility for war crimes to Hitler and a small number of "major war criminals".[63]In the 1950s, criminal investigations into theWehrmachtwere halted and there were no convictions. The German ministers of justice had enacted a war crimes law, which in practice was awkwardly defined. Adalbert Rückerl, the investigative chief, interpreted the law as meaning only the SS, the security police, concentration camp guards, ghettos and forced labour criminals could be investigated. The myth was firmly established in the public mind and German prosecutors were unwilling to challenge the prevailing national mood and investigate suspected war criminals in theWehrmacht.[64]The new German armed forces (theBundeswehr) was established in 1955 with prominent members of theWehrmachtin positions of authority. If large numbers of formerWehrmachtofficers were indicted on war crimes theBundeswehrwould have been damaged and discredited both in Germany and abroad.[65]

Following the return of the lastprisoners of war from Soviet captivity,600 former members of theWehrmachtand theWaffen-SSswore a public oath on 7 October 1955 in the Friedland Barracks, which received a strong media reaction. The oath said: "[W]e swear that we have neither committed murder, nor defiled, nor plundered. If we have brought suffering and misery on other people, it was done according to the Laws of War".[66]

Memoirs and historical studies

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Former German officers published memoirs and historical studies that contributed to the myth. The chief architect of this body of work was Franz Halder. He worked for the Operational History (German) Section of the U.S. Army Historical Division and had exclusive access to the captured German war archives stored in the U.S. He supervised the work of other former German officers and wielded a great deal of influence.[67]Formally Halder's role was to assemble and superviseWehrmachtofficers to write a multi-volume history of the Eastern Front so that U.S. Army officers could obtain military intelligence about the Soviet Union.[68]However, he also formulated and disseminated the myth of the cleanWehrmacht.[68]German historian Wolfram Wette wrote that most Anglo-American military historians have a strong admiration for the "professionalism" of theWehrmacht,and tended to write about theWehrmachtin a very admiring tone, largely accepting the version of history set out in the memoirs of formerWehrmachtleaders.[69]Wette suggested this "professional solidarity" had something to do with the fact that for a long time most military historians in the English-speaking world tended to be conservative former Army officers, who had a natural empathy with conservative formerWehrmachtofficers, whom they identified as men much like themselves.[69]The picture of highly "professional"Wehrmachtcommitted to Prussian values that were allegedly inimical to Nazism while displaying super-human courage and endurance against overwhelming odds, especially on the Eastern Front, does appeal to a certain type of historian.[70]Wette described Halder as having a "decisive influence in West Germany in the 1950s and 1960s on the way the history of the Second World War was written".[71]

Various historians across the political spectrum such asGordon A. Craig,General J. F. C. Fuller,Gerhard Ritter,Friedrich Meinecke,Basil Liddell Hart, andJohn Wheeler-Bennettall found it inconceivable that the "correct"Wehrmachtofficer's corps could have been involved in genocide and war crimes.[72]Claims by Soviet historians that theWehrmachthad committed war crimes were generally dismissed as "communist propaganda", indeed in the context of the Cold War, the very fact that such claims were being made by the Soviets helped serve more persuasive in the West that theWehrmachthad behaved honourably.[72]The tendency on the part of many people in the West to see the main theatres of war in Europe as being in Western Europe with the Eastern Front as a side-show further increased the lack of interest in the topic.[72]

Erwin Rommel's memory was used for post-war propaganda.

After the warWehrmachtofficers and generals produced a slew of memoirs that followed the myth of the cleanWehrmacht.[73]Erich von Manstein and Heinz Guderian produced best-selling memoirs.[74]Guderian's memoirs contained numerous exaggerations, untruths and omissions. He wrote that Russian people greeted German soldiers as liberators and boasted about the personal care he had taken to protect Russian culture and religion.[75]Guderian endeavoured to get German officers released in return for German military support in the defence of Europe. He fought particularly hard for the release ofJoachim Peiper,theWaffen-SScommander found guilty of murdering U.S. prisoners of war at theMalmedy massacre.Guderian said that GeneralThomas Handy,Commander in Chief,U.S. European Command,wanted to hang Peiper and that he would "cablePresident Trumanand ask him if he is familiar with this idiocy ".[76]

Erwin Rommeland his memory were used to shape perceptions of theWehrmacht.Friedrich von Mellenthin's memoirs,Panzer Battles,went through six printings between 1956 and 1976. Mellenthin's memoirs use racist language such as characterising the Russian soldier as an "Asiatic dragged from the deepest recess of the Soviet Union", a "primitive", and "[lacking] any true religious or moral balance, his moods alter between bestial cruelty and genuine kindness".[77]Over a million copies ofHans-Ulrich Rudel's memoirs,Stuka Pilot,were sold. Unusually, he made no secret of his admiration for Hitler.[77]Rudel's memoirs describe dashing adventures, heroic exploits, sentimental comradeship and narrow escapes. One American interrogator described him as a typical Nazi officer. After the war he went to Argentina and started a rescue agency for Nazis called "Eichmann-Runde", that helpedJosef Mengeleamong others.[78]

Historians outside Germany did not study the Holocaust in the 1960s and there were almost no studies of theWehrmacht'sinvolvement in the Final Solution.[69]Austrian-born American historianRaul Hilbergfound that in the 1950s successive publishers rejected his later critically acclaimed bookThe Destruction of the European Jews.He was told that nobody in America was interested in the topic.[79]Until the 1990s, military historians writing the history of World War II focused on the campaigns and battles of theWehrmacht,treating the genocidal policies of the Nazi regime in passing.[80]Historians of the Holocaust and the occupation policies of Nazi Germany often did not write about theWehrmachtat all.[80]

Franz Halder

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Franz Haldercovered up the crimes of theWehrmachtthrough his work with the U.S. Army Historical Division.

As the Cold War progressed, the military intelligence provided by the German section of U.S. Army Historical Division became increasingly important to the Americans.[4]Halder oversaw the German section of the research programme which became known as the "Halder Group".[81]His group produced over 2,500 major historical manuscripts from over 700 distinct German authors detailing World War II.[82]Halder manipulated the group into reinventing another war-time history from truths, half-truths, distortion, and lies.[41]He set up a "control group" of trusted former Nazi officers who vetted all the manuscripts and required the authors to change the content.[83]Halder's deputy in the group was Adolf Heusinger who was also working for theGehlen Organisation,a U.S. military intelligence organisation in Germany.[70]Halder expected to be addressed as "General" by the writing teams and behaved as their commanding officer while dealing with their manuscripts.[84]His aim was to exonerate German army personnel from the atrocities they had committed.[85]

Halder laid down a version of history that all the writers had to abide by. This version stated the army was Hitler's victim and had opposed him at every opportunity. The writers had to emphasise the "decent" form of war conducted by the army and blame the SS for the criminal operations.[84]Halder enjoyed a privileged position, as the few historians working on World War II history in the 1950s had to obtain historical information from him and his group. His influence extended to newspaper editors and authors.[86]Halder's instructions were sent down the chain of command and were recorded by former Field MarshalGeorg von Küchler.They said: "It is German deeds, seen from the German standpoint, that are to be recorded; this will constitute a memorial to our troops", "no criticism of measures ordered by the leadership" is allowed and no one is to be "incriminated in any way". The achievements of theWehrmachtwere to be emphasised instead.[87]Military historianBernd Wegner,examining Halder's work, wrote: "The writing of German history on the Second World War, and in particular on the Russian front, was for over two decades, and in part up to the present day – and to a far greater extent than most people realise – the work of the defeated".[88]Wolfram Wettewrote: "In the work of the Historical Division the traces of the War of Annihilation for which theWehrmachtleadership was responsible were covered up ".[86]

In 1949, Halder wrote,Hitler als Feldherrwhich translates into English asHitler as Commanderand was published in 1950. The work contained the central ideas behind the myth of the cleanWehrmachtthat were subsequently reproduced in countless histories and memoirs. The book describes an idealised commander who is then compared to Hitler. The commander is noble, wise, against the war in the East and free from any guilt. Hitler alone was responsible for the evil committed; his complete immorality is contrasted with the moral behaviour of the commander who had done no wrong.[89]

The Americans were aware the manuscripts contained numerousapologia.However, they also contained intelligence the Americans viewed as important in the event of a war between the U.S. and the Soviet Union.[85]Halder had coached former Nazi officers on how to make incriminating evidence disappear.[90]Many of the officers he coached such as Heinz Guderian went on to write best-selling autobiographies that broadened the appeal of the apologia.[83]Halder succeeded in his aim of rehabilitating the German officer corps, first with the U.S. military, then widening circles of politics and finally with millions of Americans.[91]Ronald SmelserandEdward J. Davieswriting inThe Myth of the Eastern Frontsaid: "Franz Halder embodies better than any other high German officer the dramatic difference between myth and reality as it emerged after World War II".[92]

Erich von Manstein

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Erich von Manstein,alongside Franz Halder, was instrumental in the cultivation of the CleanWehrmachtmyth.

Erich von Mansteinwas a key figure in the creation of the myth of the cleanWehrmacht.His influence was second only to that of Halder.[93]After the war his declared lifetime task was burnishing the memory of theWehrmachtand "cleaning" it of war crimes.[94]His military reputation as a capable army leader meant his memoirs were widely read, however, they followed the myth of the cleanWehrmachtfaithfully. His memoirs do not discuss politics or offer a condemnation of Nazism.[95]Manstein was involved in the Holocaust, and he held the same antisemitic and racist views as Hitler.[96]In his memoirs Manstein emphasised the supposedly good relations the German army had with Soviet civilians. He wrote: "Naturally, there was no question of our pillaging the area. That was something the German army did not tolerate". From the outset the German army had treated the populace with savagery.[97]Manstein became overall commander of theCrimeawhile he was in command of the11th Army.During this time his troops co-operated with theEinsatzgruppenand the peninsula becameJudenfrei– 90,000 to 100,000 Jews were killed.[98]Manstein was sent to trial, convicted on nine charges of committing war crimes and sentenced to 18 years in jail.[98]The charges he was convicted of included: not preventing murders in his command area, shooting Soviet war prisoners, carrying out theCommissar Order,and allowing subordinates to shoot Soviet civilians in reprisals.[99]At the time of his trial, the first major crisis of the Cold War, theBerlin Blockade,had just ended. The Western powers wanted Germany to begin rearming to counter the Soviet threat. The West Germans indicated "not a single German soldier would don a uniform as long as anyWehrmachtofficer remained in custody ".[100]Consequently, a campaign started to secure the release of Manstein and the other jailed West German war criminals.[100]

Manstein's defence attorney during his trial wasReginald Paget.William Donovan, who had earlier helped Franz Halder, intervened and recruited his friend Paul Leverkuehn to assist the defence.[100]Paget helped strengthen the myth of the cleanWehrmacht,he defended the army'sscorched earthpolicy on the basis that no army would fight by the rulebook. He defended the shooting of civilians who were armed but not engaged in any partisan action.[99]Both during and after the trial Paget denied Operation Barbarossa was a "war of annihilation". He downplayed the racist aspects of Barbarossa and the campaign to exterminate Soviet Jews. Instead, he argued that "theWehrmachtdisplayed a large degree of restraint and discipline ".[101]Paget's closing statement echoed the core of the myth of the cleanWehrmachtsaying "Manstein is and will remain a hero amongst his people". He echoed the Cold War politics with the words: "If Western Europe is to be defencible, these decent soldiers must be our comrades".[99]

Captain Basil Liddell Hart, the British historian who was the most influential military historian in the English-speaking world during his lifetime, endorsed the "cleanWehrmacht"myth, writing with undisguised admiration about how theWehrmachthad been the mightiest war machine ever built that would have won the war if only Hitler had not interfered with the conduct of operations.[74]Between 1949 and 1953, Liddell Hart was deeply involved in a public relations campaign for freedom for Manstein after a British military court convicted him of war crimes on the Eastern Front, which Liddell Hart called a gross miscarriage of justice.[102]The trial of Manstein was a turning point in the British people's perception of theWehrmachtas Manstein's lawyer, the Labour MP Reginald Paget, waged a well oiled and energetic public relations campaign for amnesty for his client, enlisting many politicians and celebrities in the process.[103]

One celebrity who joined Paget's campaign, left-wing philosopherBertrand Russellwrote in a 1949 essay that the 'enemy today' was the Soviet Union, not Germany, and, given how Manstein had become a hero to the German people, it was necessary for the Allied forces to free him so he was able to fight on their side in the Cold War.[102]Liddell Hart joined Paget's campaign for freedom for Manstein, and as Liddell Hart often wrote on military affairs in British newspapers, he played a key role in winning Manstein his freedom in May 1953.[102]Given Liddell Hart's general sympathy with theWehrmacht,he depicted it in his books and essays as an apolitical force that had nothing to do with the crimes of the Nazi regime, a subject that did not much interest Liddell Hart in the first place.[74]

In arguing for Manstein, Paget had made contradictory arguments at the same time; namely Manstein and otherWehrmachtofficers had known nothing of Nazi crimes at the time while at the same time they were opposed to the Nazi crimes that they were supposedly unaware of.[104]Paget lost the Manstein case with the British military tribunal presided over by Lieutenant GeneralFrank Simpsonfinding Manstein supported Hitler's "war of annihilation" against the Soviet Union, enforced the Commissar Order, and as commander of the 11th Army assistedEinsatzgruppeC with massacring Jews in the Ukraine, sentencing him to 18 years in prison for war crimes.[105]However, Paget did win the war for public opinion, persuading much of the British people that Manstein was wrongly convicted, and in May 1953 when the British government released Manstein, it caused no great controversy in Britain.[106]British historian Tom Lawson wrote that Paget was greatly helped by the fact that most of theBritish "Establishment"naturally sympathised with the traditional elites in Germany, seeing them as people much like themselves, and for members of the "Establishment" like ArchbishopGeorge Bellthe mere fact that Manstein was a German Army officer and aLutheranwho went to church regularly "...was enough to confirm his opposition to the Nazi state and therefore the absurdity of the trial".[107]

After the war, the West German government bought the release of their war criminals.[108]The British government, concerned with the growing threat, wanted to encourage the West Germany to join the proposed European Defence Community and NATO. The British decided that releasing a few "iconic" war criminals was a price worth paying to prevent any part of West Germany from joining the East.[54]Celebrities and historians joined the campaign to secure the release of Manstein.[102]

The "Lost Cause" of Nazi Germany

[edit]

American historiansRonald SmelserandEdward J. Daviesnoted the close similarities of the "untarnished shield" myth of theWehrmachtto theLost Cause of the Confederacymyth, starting with the way that formerConfederateofficers such asJubal Earlyand formerWehrmachtofficers such as Franz Halder were most active in promoting these myths after their respective wars.[109]Both myths glorify theConfederate militaryand theWehrmachtas superior fighting organisations led by deeply honourable, noble, and courageous men who were overwhelmed by inferior opponents by sheer numbers and material together with bad luck.[110]Just as the Lost Cause myth portrayed the Confederate leaders as honourable, but misguided American patriots who were wrong to try to break up the United States, but were still admirable men and great American heroes; the "cleanWehrmacht"myth likewise portrayed theWehrmachtleaders as honourable German patriots who might have been wrong to fight for Hitler, but were still men worthy of the highest admiration.[111]Both myths seek to glorify the respective militaries of the Confederacy and Nazi Germany by first portraying the military leaders as men of the highest honour, and secondly by disassociating them from the causes that they fought for. In the Confederates' case, it was denied that they fought for white supremacy and slavery while in the case of theWehrmachtit was denied that they fought for thevölkischideology of Nazi Germany.[111]

Both myths emphasised the respective militaries as forces of order and protection against chaos by inferior elements. In the case of the South, theReconstruction periodwas portrayed by the Lost Cause mythologists as a nightmarish time when black men freed from slavery supposedly ran amok in a violent crime wave at the expense of the law-abiding white population of the South, thus implicitly justifying the Confederate struggle.[112]In the case of Germany, the war on the Eastern Front is portrayed as a heroic defensive struggle to protect "European civilisation" against the "Asiatic hordes" of the Red Army, who were always portrayed in the darkest of terms.[112]Israeli historianOmer Bartovnoted that Nazi propaganda during the last days of the Nazi dictatorship pictured the war of the Eastern Front in the starkest and most extreme terms, as it was asserted that theWehrmacht"... were defending humanity against a demonic invasion while simultaneously hoping to sow dissent between the Soviet Union and the Allied Forces. Though not successful in preventing the total collapse of theThird Reich,these efforts did bear fruit in another important sense, for they both prepared the ground for the FRG's [Federal Republic of Germany] eventual alliance with the West, and provided theWehrmacht'sapologists with a forceful and politically useful argument, even if it conveniently confused cause and effect ".[113]And finally just as the "Lost Cause" myth promoted the image of the faithful black slave, happy to serve his or her masters, the "cleanWehrmacht"myth by emphasising the role of theRussian Liberation Armyand other collaborationist units fighting alongside theWehrmachtsimilarly gave the image of the Slavs happy to welcome theWehrmachtas their liberators and saviours.[112]By focusing on theWehrmachtas liberators, the narrative tended to distract attention from war crimes committed in the Soviet Union.[112]The involvement of thecollaborationist units raised in the Soviet Unionin the Holocaust was never mentioned.[114]

Initially, when Operation Barbarossa was launched in 1941, the peoples of the Soviet Union were portrayed in Nazi propaganda asuntermenschen(sub-humans) who were threatening "European civilisation", and for whom there was to be no sympathy or compassion.[112]From 1943 onward there was a change in Nazi propaganda as the peoples of the Soviet Union with the exception of the Jews were portrayed as oppressed by the "Jewish Bolsheviks" whom Germany was fighting to liberate.[112]Both strands of Nazi propaganda found their way into the "cleanWehrmacht"myth. On one hand, the emphasis on atrocities committed by the" Asian "Red Army soldiers echoed the wartime propaganda theme of the" Asiatic hordes "laying waste to civilisation. On the other hand, the theme of theVlasov Armyas allies of theWehrmachtechoed the wartime propaganda theme of the war against the Soviet Union as a noble struggle to freedom.[112]In this respect, there was a difference in the sense that the "Lost Cause" myth portrayed slaves who did not want their freedom while by contrast the "cleanWehrmacht"myth portrayed theWehrmachtas liberators.[112]However, just as the "Lost Cause" myth portrayed submissive slaves who rejected freedom because their masters treated them so well, in the "cleanWehrmacht"myth, there is never any suggestion of equality between the Germans and the Soviet peoples, and theVlasov Armyare always portrayed as submissively looking up to their German liberators for guidance and leadership.[112]The exotic members of theVlasov Armysuch as theCossackswere portrayed as romantic, but savage; people worthy enough to be allies of theWehrmacht,but not really their equals.[115]

End of the myth

[edit]
See also:HistorikerstreitandWar crimes of the Wehrmacht
Protesters against theWehrmachtExhibitionin 2002. The exhibition detailed thewar crimes of theWehrmacht.One of the posters reads: "Our fathers were not criminals."

The myth of the cleanWehrmachtdid not come to an end with any single event; rather, it ended with a series of events over many decades.[116]The myth predominated in the public mind in 1975. Omer Bartov praised "the efforts of a few outstanding and courageous German scholars" to challenge the myth starting in 1965.[72]The first German historian to challenge the myth was Hans-Adolf Jacobsen in his essay on the Commissar Order in the 1965 bookAnatomie des SS Staates.[117]In 1969, Manfred Messerschmidt published a book on ideological indoctrination in theWehrmacht,Die Wehrmacht im NS-Staat: Zeit der Indoktrination,which did not deal with war crimes directly, but challenged the popular claim of an "apolitical"Wehrmachtthat had largely escaped Nazi influence.[117]The year 1969 also saw the publication ofDas Heer und Hitler: Armee und nationalsozialistisches Regimeby Klaus-Jürgen Muller and the essay "NSDAP und 'Geistige Führung' der Wehrmacht" by Volker R. Berghahn, the former dealing with the army's relationship with Hitler and the latter with the role of the "educational officers" in theWehrmacht.[117]In 1978, Christian Streit publishedKeine Kameradendealing with themass murder of three million Soviet POWs,which was the first German book on the topic.[117]1981 saw two books dealing with the co-operation of theWehrmachtwith theEinsatzgruppen,namelyDie Behandlung sowjetischer Kriegsgefangener im "Fall Barbarossa" Ein Dokumentationby war crimes prosecutor Alfred Streim andDie Truppe des Weltanschauungskrieges: Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, 1938–1942by historians Helmut Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm.[117]In 1978, Streit'sKeine Kameradenexposed the responsibility of theWehrmachtfor the death of over 3 million Soviet prisoners of war.[118]Starting in 1979, historians of theMilitargeschichtliches Forschungsamt(Military Research Office) started publishing the official history of Germany in the Second World War, and the successive volumes have been very critical of theWehrmacht'sleaders.[117]

German historians critical of the myth were denounced[by whom?]and were told they had "fouled their own nest".[119]In 1986, theHistorikerstreit( "historians' quarrel" ) began. The debate was supported with television programmes and by newspapers and publishers.[1]TheHistorikerstreitdid not contribute any new research, but the efforts of the "revisionist" conservative historians such asErnst NolteandAndreas Hillgruberwere marked by an angry nationalist tone.[120]Nolte and Hillgruber sought to "normalise" the German past by portraying the Holocaust as a defensive reaction to the Soviet Union and demanding "empathy" for the last stand of theWehrmachtas it attempted to stop the "Asiatic flood" into Europe.[120]Bartov called theHistorikerstreita "rear-guard action" against the trends in German historiography.[120]Bartov noted that even historians who were critical of theWehrmachttended to write history very much in the traditional manner, namely history "from above" by focusing on actions of the leaders.[121]The tendency for social historians to write "history from below", especiallyAlltagsgeschichte( "history of everyday life" ) beginning in the 1970–80s opened up new avenues of research by looking at the experiences of ordinary German soldiers.[121]Such studies tended to confirm what the ordinary soldiers claimed to be up against on the Eastern Front, thanks to indoctrination propaganda,[15]many German troops regarded the Soviets as sub-human, leading to what Bartov called the "barbarisation of warfare".[122]

The year 1995 proved to be a turning point in German public consciousness with the opening in Hamburg of theWehrmachtsausstellung( "WehrmachtExhibition "); theHamburg Institute for Social Researchinitiated the touring exhibition, which exposed war crimes of theWehrmachtto a wider audience focussing on the hostilities as a German war of extermination.[1]The exhibition was designed byHannes Heer.The tour lasted for four years and travelled to 33 German and Austrian cities. It created a long-running debate and reappraisal of the myth.[1]The exhibition showed graphic photographs of war crimes committed by theWehrmachtand interviewed those who had been party to the war itself. The soldiers who had been in the war mostly acknowledged the crimes but denied personal involvement. Some former soldiers offered Nazi-like justifications.[123]The impact of the exhibition was described as explosive. The German public had become accustomed to seeing "unspeakable deeds" with images of concentration camps and the SS. The exhibition showed 1,380 pictures of theWehrmachtcomplicit in war crimes. The pictures had been taken mostly by the soldiers themselves, out in the countryside, far away from the concentration camps and the SS.[124]Heer wrote: "The creators of these photographs are present in their images – laughing, triumphant, or businesslike" and "this place is, in my opinion, at the centre of Hitler'sWehrmacht,standing inside the 'heart of darkness'".[125]Heer argues the war crimes had been covered up by scholars and former soldiers.[124][126]An outcry then ensued with the breaking of an age-old taboo. The organisers did not quantify the number of soldiers who had carried out war crimes. HistorianHorst Möllerwrote the number was "many tens of thousands".[127]

Further confirmation of theWehrmacht'srole came with the publication in 1996 of 1.3 million cables sent from the SS and theWehrmachtunits operating in the Soviet Union in the summer and autumn of 1941 which had been intercepted and decrypted by the BritishGovernment Code and Cipher School,and then shared with the U.S.National Security Agency,which chose to publish them.[122]Bartov wrote: "Although much of this has been known before, these documents provide more details on the beginning of the Holocaust and the apparently universal participation of German agencies on the ground in its implementation".[122]

In 2000, historian Truman Anderson identified a new scholarly consensus centering around the "recognition of theWehrmacht'saffinity for key features of the National Socialist world view, especially for its hatred of communism and its anti-Semitism ".[128]HistorianBen H. Shepherdwrites, "Most historians now acknowledge the scale ofWehrmacht'sinvolvement in the crimes of the Third Reich ".[129]In 2011, German military historian Wolfram Wette called the cleanWehrmachtthesis a "collective perjury".[130]The war-time generation maintained the myth with vigour and determination. They suppressed information and manipulated government policy, with their passing there was insufficient pressure to maintain the deceit.[131]

Jennifer Foray, in her 2010 study of theWehrmachtoccupation of the Netherlands,asserts that: "Scores of studies published in the last few decades have demonstrated that theWehrmacht'spurported disengagement with the political sphere was an image carefully cultivated by commanders and foot soldiers alike, who, during and after the war, sought to distance themselves from the ideologically driven murder campaigns of the National Socialists ".[132]

Alexander Pollakwriting inRemembering the Wehrmacht's War of Annihilationused his research into newspaper articles and the language they used, to identify ten structural themes of the myth. The themes included focusing on a small group of the guilty, the construction of a symbolic victim event – theBattle of Stalingrad,minimising war crimes by comparing them to Allied misdeeds, denying responsibility for starting the war, using the personal accounts of individual soldiers to extrapolate behaviour of the wholeWehrmacht,writing heroic obituaries and books, claiming the naivety of the ordinary soldier, and claiming orders had to be carried out.[133]Heer et al. conclude the newspapers conveyed only two types of events: those that would engender a feeling of empathy withWehrmachtsoldiers and to portray them as victims of Hitler, the OKH, or the enemy; and those that involved crimes by the Allied forces.[134]

Pollak, examining the structural themes of the myth, said where blame could not be dismissed the print media limited its scope by focusing the blame firstly on Hitler and secondly on the SS. By the 1960s a "Hitler craze" had been created and the SS were being described as his ruthless agents. TheWehrmachthad been detached from involvement in war crimes.[135]The Battle of Stalingrad was invented as a victim event by the media. They described theWehrmachtas having been betrayed by the leadership and left to die in the freezing cold. This narrative focuses on individual soldiers who struggled to survive, engendering sympathy for the privations and harsh conditions. The War of Annihilation, the Holocaust, and racial genocide that had been carried out are not discussed.[136]The media minimised German war crimes by comparing them to the behaviour of the Allies. In the 1980s and 1990s the media became preoccupied with thebombing of Dresdento argue the Allies and theWehrmachtwere equally culpable. Newspaper articles routinely showed dramatic pictures of Allied crimes but rarely ones depicting theWehrmacht.[137]

Pollak notes that the honour of theWehrmachtis affected by the question of who started the war. He remarks that the media blame Britain and France for the "disgraceful"Treaty of Versailles,that they see as triggering German militarism. They blame the Soviet Union for signing theMolotov–Ribbentrop Pactwith Germany that subsequently encouraged Hitler to invade Poland. Some commentators discussed the need for a preventive war which supposed the Soviet Union intended to invade Germany.[138]The print media retold personal soldiers' accounts which, while an "authentic" recounting of perceived events, can be construed narrowly and placed in any wider context. The tragedies of "one soldier" are supposedly symptomatic of "tens of thousands of others", while the War of Annihilation, which the soldier had been part of, is airbrushed out.[139]A central theme of the myth is the description of soldiers as naïve, apolitical and without the mental faculty to understand the reasons for the war or its nature.[140]Soldiers are often described as having been forced to carry out orders, often under the fear of severe punishment, to excuse their actions. However, soldiers had a great deal of discretion and mostly chose their behaviour.[140]

Criminal orders

[edit]
Wehrmacht veterans' denials of adherence to the Commissar Order
Wehrmachtveterans' denials of adherence to theCommissar Order(pictured) were the cornerstone of the myth.
Main article:Criminal orders (Nazi Germany)

During the planning of Operation Barbarossa, a series of "criminal orders"were devised. These orders went beyond international law and established codes of conduct.[141]The Commissar Order and theBarbarossa decreeallowed German soldiers to execute civilians without fear they would later be tried for war crimes by the German state.[142]German historianFelix Römerstudied the implementation of the Commissar Order by theWehrmacht,publishing his findings in 2008. It was the first complete account of the application of the order by theWehrmacht'scombat formations. Römer's research shows that over 80% of German divisions on the Eastern Front filed reports detailing the murder of the Red Army's political commissars. Soviet statistics state 57,608 commissars were killed in action and 47,126 were reported missing, the majority of whom were killed utilising the order.[143]

Römer wrote the records which "prove that it was Hitler's generals who executed his murderous orders without scruples or hesitations". Wolfram Wette, reviewing the book, notes the sporadic objections to the order were not fundamental. They were driven by military necessity and the cancellation of the order in 1942 was "not a return to morality, but an opportunistic course correction". Wette concludes: "The Commissar Order, which had always had a particularly strong influence on the image of theWehrmachtbecause of its obviously criminal character, had finally been clarified. Once again the observation had confirmed itself: the deeper the research penetrates into the military history, the gloomier the picture becomes ".[144]

In 1941, theWehrmachttook 3,300,000 Soviet soldiers as prisoners of war. By February 1942, two million of these were dead. 600,000 were shot because of the Commissar Order. Most of the rest died from criminal mistreatment. Once captured, Soviet POWs were marched into holding pens where they had no shelter, no medical treatment, and given minuscule rations. Forced labour became a death sentence. German Quartermaster-GeneralEduard Wagnerdeclared, "prisoners incapable of work in the prison camps are to starve".[145]Friedrich Freiherr von Broich,while being secretly taped atTrent Park,recalled his memories of prisoners of war. He said the prisoners "at night howled like wild beasts" from starvation. Adding "we marched down the road and a column of 6,000 tottering figures went past, completely emaciated, helping each other along... Soldiers of ours on bicycles rode alongside with pistols everyone who collapsed was shot and thrown into the ditch".[146]Wehrmachttroops shot civilians on the slightest pretext of partisan involvement and massacred whole villages that were supposedly protecting them.[147]Omer Bartov writes inThe Eastern Front: 1941–1945 German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfarethat numerous interrogations by Germans had determined Soviet troops would rather die on the battlefield than be taken prisoner.[148]

The racist ideology of the campaign combined with "criminal orders", such as the Commissar Order, brought about a vicious circle of deepening violence and murder. TheWehrmachtendeavoured to "pacify" the population, but the civilians increased partisan activity. In August 1941, the II Corps ordered that "partisans are to be publicly hanged and left hanging for some time".[149]Public hangings became commonplace. Records of the reason for the murders included "feeding a Russian soldier", "wandering about", "trying to escape", and "for being an assistant's assistant of the partisans".[150]Bartov writes that the civilian population had also been de-humanised resulting in the barbarisation of warfare. The final phase of this barbarisation was the "scorched earth" policy utilised by theWehrmachtas they retreated.[151]

Participation in the Holocaust

[edit]
Photograph of a distraught female Romaniote Jew being deported to Auschwitz
TheWehrmachtenforced the deportation of theRomaniote JewstoAuschwitz concentration camp.[152]

Walter von Reichenauissued the Severity Order in October 1941 that stated the essential aim of the campaign was the destruction of the 'Jewish–Bolshevik system'. The order was described as a model by theWehrmachtleadership and relayed to numerous commanders. Manstein relayed it to his troops as: "The Jew is the middle man between the enemy at the rear [...] The soldier must summon understanding for the necessity for the hard redress against the Jews". To functionally justify the murder of Jews they were equated to partisan resistance fighters.[153]A wide-scale anti-Semitic consensus already existed amongst ordinaryWehrmachtsoldiers.[154]

Army Group Centrebegan massacring the Jewish population on day one. InBiałystok,Police Battalion 309 shot dead large numbers of Jews in the street, then corralled hundreds of Jews into a synagogue they set on fire.[155]The commander of rear military zone 553 recorded 20,000 Jews had been killed byArmy Group Southin his zone up to the summer of 1942. In Belorussia, over half the civilians and POWs murdered were killed byWehrmachtunits, many Jews were among them.[156]

American historianWaitman Wade Beornwriting in his bookMarching into Darknessexamined theWehrmacht'srole in the Holocaust in Belarus during 1941 and 1942. The book investigates how German soldiers progressed from tentative killings to sadistic "Jew games".[157]He writes that "Jew hunting" became a pastime. Soldiers would break the monotony of duty in the countryside by rounding up Jews, taking them to the forests and releasing them so they could be shot as they ran away.[158]Beorn writes that individualWehrmachtunits were rewarded for brutal behaviour and explains how this created a culture of ever deeper involvement with the regime's genocidal aims.[159]He discusses theWehrmacht'srole in theHunger Plan,Nazi Germany's starvation policy.[160]He examines theMogilev Conferencein September 1941 which marked a dramatic escalation of violence against the civilian population.[161]The book looks at several military formations and how they responded to orders to commit genocide and othercrimes against humanity.[162]

TheWehrmachtcarried out mass shootings of Jews, near Kiev, on 29 and 30 September in 1941. At Babi Yar 33,371 Jews were marched to a ravine and shot into pits. Some of the victims died as a result of being buried alive in the pile of corpses.[163]In 1942, mobile SS killing squads engaged in a swathe of massacres in conjunction with theWehrmacht.Approximately 1,300,000 Soviet Jews were murdered.[163]

See also

[edit]

Related to Nazi Germany:

Similar phenomena elsewhere:

References

[edit]
  1. ^abcdWette 2007,p. 269.
  2. ^Beorn 2014,pp. 12–17.
  3. ^Harrisville, David A. (2021).The Virtuous Wehrmacht: Crafting the Myth of the German Soldier on the Eastern Front, 1941-1944.Cornell University Press. pp. 12–13.ISBN978-1-5017-6006-8.
  4. ^abSmelser & Davies 2008,p. 64.
  5. ^Wette 2007,p. 157.
  6. ^Wette 2007,p. 158.
  7. ^Müller 2016,p. 16.
  8. ^"Chapter I – The German Military System".Handbook on German Military Forces.War Department. 15 March 1945. p. [I-57]. Technical Manual TM-E 30-451.Retrieved14 August2019– via Hyperwar Foundation.
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  10. ^Wette 2007,pp. 292–297.
  11. ^Wette 2007,p. 222.
  12. ^Wette 2007,p. 25.
  13. ^Förster 1988,p. 21.
  14. ^abStahel 2009,pp. 96–99.
  15. ^abEvans 1989,p. 59.
  16. ^Evans 1989,pp. 59–60.
  17. ^Förster 2005,p. 127.
  18. ^Ingrao 2013,p. 140.
  19. ^Wette 2007,pp. 199–201.
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  21. ^Hilberg 1985,p. 301.
  22. ^Beorn 2014,p. 16.
  23. ^Beorn 2014,p. 46.
  24. ^Beorn 2014,p. 48.
  25. ^Datner, Szymon (1962).Crimes Committed by the Wehrmacht During the September Campaign and the Period of Military Government.Drukarnia Univ.
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  28. ^Beorn 2014,p. 30.
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  30. ^Beorn 2014,pp. 65, 76.
  31. ^Herbermann, Nanda (2000).The Blessed Abyss: Inmate #6582 in Ravensbrück Concentration Camp for Women.Wayne State University Press.p. 34.ISBN978-0-8143-2920-7.
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  33. ^Lenṭin, Ronit. (2000).Israel and the daughters of the Shoah: reoccupying the territories of silence.New York:Berghahn Books.pp. 33–34.ISBN1-57181-774-3.OCLC44720589.
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  36. ^Wette 2007,pp. 134–135.
  37. ^Wette 2007,p. 136.
  38. ^Wette 2007,p. 137.
  39. ^Herbert, Ulrich; Aly, Götz (2000).National Socialist Extermination Policies: Contemporary German Perspectives and Controversies.Berghahn Books.ISBN978-1-57181-751-8.
  40. ^Gumz, Jonathan E. (2001)."Wehrmacht Perceptions of Mass Violence in Croatia, 1941–1942".The Historical Journal.44(4): 1015–1038.doi:10.1017/S0018246X01001996.ISSN0018-246X.JSTOR3133549.S2CID159947669.
  41. ^abSmelser & Davies 2008,p. 56.
  42. ^abHébert 2010,pp. 99–101.
  43. ^abWette 2007,pp. 206–207.
  44. ^abvon Lingen 2009,p. 161.
  45. ^abvon Lingen 2009,pp. 161–162.
  46. ^abvon Lingen 2009,p. 163.
  47. ^abvon Lingen 2009,p. 162.
  48. ^von Lingen 2009,p. 189.
  49. ^von Lingen 2009,pp. 162–163.
  50. ^von Lingen 2009,pp. 163–167.
  51. ^von Lingen 2009,pp. 163–164.
  52. ^Large 1987,p. 80.
  53. ^abcSmelser & Davies 2008,pp. 72–73.
  54. ^abvon Lingen 2009,p. 6.
  55. ^Smelser & Davies 2008,p. 74.
  56. ^abWette 2007,p. 236.
  57. ^Corum 2011,p. 24.
  58. ^Wette 2007,pp. 236–238.
  59. ^abWette 2007,p. 239.
  60. ^abcWette 2007,pp. 240–241.
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  62. ^Wette 2007,p. 240.
  63. ^Wette 2007,p. 241.
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