Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich.

Abstract

Although acknowledged as a highly professional military organization, the Wehrmacht has been traditionally exonerated of the crimes attributed to the SS during World War II. However, in this study the author shows how the relentless Nazi propaganda machine produced conscripts for Hitler's army who were fully convinced of his horrific views on inferior peoples, and that it was these ideas, and not the exigencies of war, that motivated their atrocities. Concentrating on the organized and spontaneous crimes committed against Communist officials and Jews in the Soviet Union, this reappraisal challenges many military theories long thought to be truths.