The myth of the clean Wehrmacht persists today. Proponents claim that the Nazi forces were the only perpetrators of the Holocaust, that the German military (the Wehrmacht) committed no war crimes, and that Edwin Rommel, the brilliant German general, was staunchly apolitical. But such a view is beyond ignorant; it is dangerous.
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| Luftwaffe paratroopers raise their rifles as they prepare to cut down civilians. |
The German military helped fulfill Nazism's racial, political, and territorial ambitions. Long after the war, a myth persisted claiming the German military was not involved in the Holocaust and other crimes associated with Nazi genocidal policy. This belief is untrue. The German military participated in many aspects of the Holocaust: in supporting Hitler, in the use of forced labor, and in the mass murder of groups targeted by the Nazis. The military's complicity extended not only to the generals and upper leadership but also to the rank and file...The German army was the most complicit...but all branches participated.
—United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumWithin the Wehrmacht's ranks, officers followed Schutzstaffel orders to carry out the Holocaust. The Wehrmacht worked with the Einsatzgruppen, or extermination squads, and marched Jews and undesirables to be shot and kicked into mass graves.
Yet the "Clean Hands" doctrine that states that the Wehrmacht did nothing to carry out Nazi actions remains today. It is often restated by neo-Nazis and far-right groups, but, ironically, historians also tend to adopt this view. There is no real evidence of widespread anti-Nazism in the Wehrmacht, and it is time to abandon the delusion that the German army was anything but complicit in these heinous crimes.
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| Neo-Nazis protest the Wehrmacht Exhibition |
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