Violence in Defeat

The Wehrmacht on German Soil, 1944-1945

Inbunden, Engelska, 2021

Av Bastiaan Willems, Bastiaan (University College London) Willems

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In the final year of the Second World War, as bitter defensive fighting moved to German soil, a wave of intra-ethnic violence engulfed the country. Bastiaan Willems offers the first study into the impact and behaviour of the Wehrmacht on its own territory, focusing on the German units fighting in East Prussia and its capital Königsberg. He shows that the Wehrmacht's retreat into Germany, after three years of brutal fighting on the Eastern Front, contributed significantly to the spike of violence which occurred throughout the country immediately prior to defeat. Soldiers arriving with an ingrained barbarised mindset, developed on the Eastern Front, shaped the immediate environment of the area of operations, and of Nazi Germany as a whole. Willems establishes how the norms of the Wehrmacht as a retreating army impacted behavioural patterns on the home front, arguing that its presence increased the propensity to carry out violence in Germany.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2021-02-18
Mått160 x 235 x 25 mm
Vikt650 g
FormatInbunden
SpråkEngelska
SerieCambridge Military Histories
Antal sidor366
FörlagCambridge University Press
ISBN9781108479721

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List of Figures; List of Maps; List of Tables; Acknowledgements; Chronology; List of Abbreviations; Introduction; 1. Regionality and Total War in East Prussia; 2. Eastern Front Battles on German Soil; 3. The City as a Fortress-Community; 4. Redefining Königsberg: Historical Continuity in Practice; 5. The Evacuation of East Prussia; 6. Königsberg as a Community of Violence; Conclusion; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.

'In this fresh examination that restores the army's centrality to the defense of Königsberg, Willems demonstrates that the Wehrmacht's mobilization of civilians in East Prussia closely resembled the ruthless practices it developed in the Soviet Union. An important study that demonstrates the evolution of total war during the Third Reich's death throes.' Jeff Rutherford, author of Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front: The German Infantry's War, 1941-1944