The Myth of the Eastern Front

Professor Ronald Smelser has been a Professor of History at the University of Utah since 1974. An expert on twentieth-century German history, Smelser is a former president of the German Studies Association (1989–91), a former member of the executive committee at the Czechoslovak History Conference (1992–5), a delegate from the GSA to the ACLS (1995–9), and current president of the Conference Group for Central European History. He has published extensively in German and English on the subject of twentieth-century German history and received numerous accolades for his scholarly work from the University of Utah, the Holocaust Education Foundation, and the German Studies Association, of which he is a founding member, among others. Professor Edward J. Davies II is the author of The Anthracite Aristocracy and The United States in Global Perspective and has also served on the advisory board for National Geographic's recent book of world history. He has published articles in professional journals such as the Journal of Social History and the Journal of Urban History and reviewed manuscripts for the Journal of Military History and other university presses.

• 1. Americans experience the war in Russia, 1941–5; 2. The Cold War and the emergence of a lost cause mythology; 3. The German generals talk, write, and network; 4. Memoirs, novels, and popular histories; 5. Winning hearts and minds: the Germans interpret the war for the United States public; 6. The gurus; 7. Wargames, the internet, and the popular culture of the Romancers; 8. Romancing the war, re-enactors, and 'what-if' history.

"Ronald Smelser and Edward Davies vividly show how the pernicious idea of an honorable German war on the Eastern Front permeated the American consciousness with devastating consequences not only for the broad understanding of German atrocities in the East, but ultimately for the Cold War itself. From its lucid discussion of the former Hitler generals who whitewashed their military records after World War II to its disturbing look at the self-proclaimed gurus of army minutia who still pose as authorities on the Wehrmacht, The Myth of the Eastern Front is a masterful and incisive combination of military and cultural history." -Norman J.W. Goda, Ohio University