The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality

By Wolfram Wette

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.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0674022130
• ISBN13: 9780674022133
• Release Date: May 2006
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 400 Pages
• Weight: 1.42 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 1.5" x 6.0"

Customer Reviews

Reforming the Debate on Nazi Germany

Don't be fooled by the title and cover of this book: you are not buying one of the many thousands of books readily available on the market today analyzing and reanalyzing the German military, or Wehrmacht, and its World War II exploits. This is hands-down one of the most important books to grace bookshelves since Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's "Hitler's Willing Executioners" was published in 1996 and started a brushfire in the debate on German involvement in the Holocaust. "The Wehrmacht" contains a well organized foray into the German military's participation in the Holocaust, especially its organized mass murder of Jewish and other minority populations in eastern Europe. This is everything a normal synopsis will tell you. But the author, Professor Wolfram Wette, also puts the killings in context: he looks at the broader anti-Semitic, anti-Russian, and anti-Communist views of German society in the context of imperial and Nazi Germany. Wette goes on the destroy the myth, held in common by countless Germans and non-Germans alike, that a separation can be made, primarily within the military, between "good" and "bad" Germans. Incredible research and passion have collaborated to bring this work into existence. Some readers may find the analysis of German sentiments towards eastern Europeans incredibly dry, and the myth of the good Wehrmacht, in essence the separation of German army from SS in popular collective memory, either obvious or completely unbelievable. An open mind and willingness to explore the endnotes for further study into facts or theories that may be too shocking to initially accept are recommended for this book. This is more than just military history.

Debunking the Myth of the "Clean" Wehrmacht

For some time now German historians have been hard at work writing the true history of the German Wehrmacht (Armed Forces) in World War Two. Almost 20 million young Germans served in the armed forces during the war and author Wolfram Wette shows that these young men were thoroughy involved in the Holocaust and the massive ethnic cleansing of the Soviet Union and Eastern Russia during the war. This extremely extremely well written, translated and organized book shows how all this was possible. It begins with German perceptions of Russia, the Soviet Union and Bolshevism throughout their history and then proceeds to an examination of anti-Semitism in the German military. From there it was but a short and not too difficult step to large-scale Wehrmacht complicity in the murder of Jews and Slavs. Wette also shows how the surviving officers of the Wehrmacht succeeded in creating and promulgating a myth that placed the blame for the mass murders on the SS. It was a myth the West was all too willing to accept in order to incorporate the new West Germany back into the collective defense of Europe following the war. But in the 1990s the taboo was finally shattered as a result of an exhibit which toured thirty-three cities in Germany and Austria. The photographs and documents, which left no doubt as to the involvement of the Wehrmacht in mass genocide, touched a raw nerve among the population and opened a debate in Germany which continues to this day. "This book is an awful indictment of soldiers who are mostly dead now," writes Wette, "but it is also a powerful statement of how Germany today acknowledges the crimes of the Wehrmacht."

A brilliant new work

This book fills a major gap, as noted it has been mostly convential wisdom that the Wehrmacht was mostly a fighting machine, a conventional army at war, freed from the vils of Nazism and therefore it should be studied as military history as those like David Irving would have. However it turns out there is much more to the story. Mostyl Holocaust history has wanted to seperate the 'average German' from the 'Evil Nazi' who is seen as an aberration like Sodom and Gammorah, more myth and tale than skull and bones. This book helps give us a more detailed look at the culture inside the Wehrmacht, the officer corps and the average man. We are exposed to the elite old guard of aristocratic officers and the new crass Nazis and we are given a cultural portrait of the German army at war, and perhaps a more nuanced look at its role in atrocities, probably a truly new account of that role. While there are many critiques of this book or its bias it is a needed account much so in order to widen our understanding of how the entire German nation was implicated in the Holocaust and how the Wehrmacht itself was infected by the ideology of hate more so than previously thought. Those 'pure' Germans such as Rommel and Guderien will now have more light she don their actions and it will finally be shown just how unique those like Rommel were, who opposed throughout their lives the evils of Nazism. Seth J. Frantzman

Exceptional; Very Well Written; Amply Documented

The SS was indicted as a criminal organization responsible for genocide at Nüremburg. Less attention was paid to other services (Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Wehrmacht) potentially involved in the same activities. Major defendants (Dönitz) received light sentences (10 years) based on the presumption of honorable (`clean') conduct. Geopolitical pressures in the nascent Cold War ultimately favored limited trial inquiry. The Wehrmacht's institutional honor survived, and grew into a legend of noble, heroic service innocent of crime. If anything, the myth said, the Wehrmacht was a victim of the same outlaws (Hitler, Göbbels, Himmler, etc) responsible for the war and Holocaust. This book ends that myth. Ubiquitous service racism from WW1 is skillfully documented, as are terrorist German veteran organizations dedicated to crushing Weimar democracy to return to authoritarian rule (justified by incendiary bigotry). Hitler merely built on conditions that existed throughout many parts of society. Wette exposes a Wehrmacht not only acquainted with criminal activity, but also a willing participant in a war of extermination (justified by racism at each level). Criminality in conquered Poland (killing the intelligentsia) grew into a demonic agenda for the destruction of whole peoples (Jews, Bolsheviks, Slavs, etc). The Wehrmacht not only knew about it, they were a willing partner and participant in the enterprise. Highly recommended.

Great addition to WWII history

At first I thought this book would be like previous others, mainly outlining what the Wehrmacht did, which SS or Einsatzgruppen they helped in the field, etc. But I was pleasantly surprised that this book is much more than that. It takes the history of the German Armed Forces and puts it into context with the development of the Weimar Republic and then through Hitler's rise to power from 1933-1939. The reader is presented with factual information from correspondences and speeches, etc, that show the anti-semitic attitude of the higher up echelons of the Armed Forces, eventually both the OKW and OKH. Men such as Manstein might have protested at some point against the fact that Jews (including half and quarter Jews) were being thrown out of the armed forces, but that was more so due to the fact that he had a Jew in his lineage rather than the idea that this was somehow wrong. All in all I was surprised to personally learn about Ludendorff's and Hindenburg's anti-semitism and how that helped with the 'stab in the back' myth after WWI which blamed the Jews, Communists, among others. Later on the book does dive into the criminal actions that the Wehrmacht perpetrated such as helping with the massacres at Belaya Tserkova and Babi Yar outside of Kiev. After the war itself has been gone over the author delves into the subject of how the myth and legend of the Wehrmacht's 'clean hands' came about. All in all a very useful addition to WWII history and it presents even more topics that at one point or another need to be covered, something to definitely think about. Well worth the money, the book definitely includes excellent research and well drawn out conclusions based on that research.