Wehrmacht

History, Myth, Reality

Häftad, Engelska, 2007

389 kr

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This book is a profound reexamination of the role of the German army, the Wehrmacht, in World War II. Until very recently, the standard story avowed that the ordinary German soldier in World War II was a good soldier, distinct from Hitler's rapacious SS troops, and not an accomplice to the massacres of civilians. Wolfram Wette, a preeminent German military historian, explodes the myth of a "clean" Wehrmacht with devastating clarity.This book reveals the Wehrmacht's long-standing prejudices against Jews, Slavs, and Bolsheviks, beliefs that predated the prophecies of Mein Kampf and the paranoia of National Socialism. Though the sixteen-million-member German army is often portrayed as a victim of Nazi mania, we come to see that from 1941 to 1944 these soldiers were thoroughly involved in the horrific cleansing of Russia and Eastern Europe. Wette compellingly documents Germany's long-term preparation of its army for a race war deemed necessary to safeguard the country's future; World War II was merely the fulfillment of these plans, on a previously unimaginable scale. This sober indictment of millions of German soldiers reaches beyond the Wehrmacht's complicity to examine how German academics and ordinary citizens avoided confronting this difficult truth at war's end. Wette shows how atrocities against Jews and others were concealed and sanitized, and history rewritten. Only recently has the German public undertaken a reevaluation of this respected national institution--a painful but necessary process if we are to truly comprehend how the Holocaust was carried out and how we have come to understand it.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2007-10-01
Mått134 x 217 x 27 mm
Vikt372 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska, Tyska
Antal sidor400
FörlagHarvard University Press
ISBN9780674025776
ÖversättareSchneider, Deborah Lucas
UtmärkelserNominated for Raphael Lemkin Award 2007

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Preface to the English-Language Edition by Peter Fritzsche Foreword by Manfred Messerschmidt List of Abbreviations 1. Perceptions of Russia, the Soviet Union, and Bolshevism as Enemies German Perceptions of Russia in the Twentieth Century National Socialists' Perceptions of Russia: "Jewish Bolshevism" Perceptions of Russia among the Wehrmacht Generals 2. Anti-Semitism in the German Military From Anti-Semitism to the Holocaust? Germany under the Kaiser and the First World War The Revolutionary Era of 1918-19 The Postwar Period: War Continued by Different Means The Weimar Republic The National Socialist Era up to 1939 3. The Wehrmacht and the Murder of Jews Issuing Orders and Propaganda in the Wehrmacht Some Theaters of War Anti-Semitism as a Soldier's Duty 4. Generals and Enlisted Men The Military Elites in the Grip of a War Ideology Hitler and the Generals The "Little Guy" in Uniform Soldiers of the Wehrmacht in Light of Recent Research The Will to Survive in the War's Final Phase 5. The Legend of the Wehrmacht's "Clean Hands" The Birth of a Legend The War Crimes Trials Writing History from the Wehrmacht's Point of View The Cold War Begins Wehrmacht Crimes, the Justice System, and the Statute of Limitations 6. A Taboo Shatters Historical Research Perceptions of the Wehrmacht in the Bundeswehr After Fifty Years a Taboo Is Broken 7. Conclusion Notes Index

This is a powerful book, provocative, enlightening, disturbing. Based on three decades of solid research, Wette debunks the myth, created by former Wehrmacht officers and continued by their Allied counterparts, that the German military fought a "clean" war in the East 1941-45. He strips away the layers of obfuscation and cover-up to set the record straight: Wehrmacht and SS hand-in hand conducted a campaign of racial extermination in the USSR. The book is a must read.