The Wehrmacht fought a clean war
| The Wehrmacht fought a clean war | |
|---|---|
| FALSE | |
| "The regular German armed forces, the Wehrmacht, fought honorably during the Second World War, and atrocities and the Holocaust were committed by the SS and Nazi party organizations, not by ordinary soldiers." | |
| Domain | History |
| Tactic | Propaganda Technique False Context |
| Era | Historical |
| First seen | 1945 |
| Origin | Postwar memoirs by German generals, testimony at the Nuremberg trials, and studies written by former German officers for the US Army Historical Division, promoted during the Cold War when West Germany was rearming as a NATO ally |
| Last reviewed | 2026-10-27 |
| Further reading: books on History | |
The claim that the Wehrmacht fought a clean war is known as the "myth of the clean Wehrmacht." After the war, former German generals argued that the army had been an apolitical, professional force uninvolved in Nazi crimes. Historians have documented that the Wehrmacht participated extensively in war crimes and genocide, especially on the Eastern Front. Army units carried out mass shootings of civilians, assisted the SS Einsatzgruppen in murdering Jews, implemented the Commissar Order to execute Soviet political officers, and were responsible for the deaths of millions of Soviet prisoners of war through starvation and neglect.
What the evidence shows
- Criminal orders. Before the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, the army high command issued orders including the Commissar Order and a decree limiting prosecution of soldiers for crimes against civilians.
- Prisoners of war. About 3 million of the roughly 5.7 million Soviet soldiers captured by Germany died in captivity, mostly in Wehrmacht-run camps.
- Collaboration with the SS. Army commanders cooperated with Einsatzgruppen killing units, providing logistics and sometimes personnel for massacres.
- Exhibition. The Hamburg Institute for Social Research's traveling exhibition, "War of Annihilation: Crimes of the Wehrmacht 1941 to 1944," which opened in 1995, sparked intense public debate in Germany. After criticism of some photo captions, a revised exhibition in 2001 confirmed the core findings.
- Generals' memoirs. Historians, including Ronald Smelser and Edward Davies, have shown how memoirs by generals such as Erich von Manstein shaped Western perceptions.
Why it persists
The myth served Cold War needs: West Germany's rearmament and alliance with the West required rehabilitating its officers. Millions of German families also preferred to believe their relatives had not participated in crimes. Popular histories and war games often focus on military operations while ignoring atrocities.
Lessons for readers
- Memoirs by participants may be self-serving.
- Political needs can shape historical narratives.
- Ordinary institutions can participate in mass atrocities.
- Archival research can overturn comfortable myths.
See also
- The Civil War was fought over states' rights, not slavery
- Library:Denying the Holocaust
- Hitler escaped to Argentina
Sources
- Wolfram Wette, The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality (Harvard University Press, 2006).
- Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies II, The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture (Cambridge University Press, 2008).