Library:The Myth of the Eastern Front
| The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture | |
|---|---|
| Author | Ronald Smelser & Edward J. Davies II |
| First published | 2008 |
| ISBN | — |
| Role | Analysis |
| Domains | History War, Conflict & Geopolitics |
| Tactics | Propaganda Technique False Context |
The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture is a 2008 book by Ronald Smelser & Edward J. Davies II.
Summary
Historians Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies II trace how Americans came to see the German army on the Eastern Front in World War II as honorable professionals rather than participants in a war of extermination. The image, they argue, was largely created by former German generals after the war.
During the Cold War, the US Army's Historical Division employed former German officers to write studies of the war against the Soviet Union. Their accounts, and memoirs such as Erich von Manstein's Lost Victories, blamed crimes on Hitler and the SS and cleared the regular army.
Key points
- The "clean Wehrmacht." Generals' memoirs presented the army as apolitical and uninvolved in atrocities.
- Cold War incentives. With the Soviet Union now the enemy, American institutions were receptive to German expertise and German framing.
- Popular culture. The myth lived on in war-gaming communities, novels, collectors' circles and websites that romanticized German units.
Relevance to Bullshitopedia
The book shows how a historical myth can be built by interested parties and sustained by popular culture long after historians have disproved it.