Heavy Nazi propaganda within the ranks convinced troops they were fighting a "racial war" against "sub-human" Bolshevism.
This post draft focuses on Omer Bartov’s seminal historical work, The Eastern Front, 1941–45: German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare . The book is a critical study of how the German army (Heer) became complicit in atrocities and a "war of annihilation" during the invasion of the Soviet Union. The Eastern Front, 1941–45, German Troops and t...
How does a professional military force transform into a machine of ideological slaughter? Heavy Nazi propaganda within the ranks convinced troops
Bartov identifies three key factors that fueled this descent into brutality: How does a professional military force transform into
Draft Post
In his ground-breaking study, , historian Omer Bartov challenges the long-held myth that the German Wehrmacht remained "untarnished" by the crimes of the Nazi regime. By looking at three specific front-line divisions—the 12th Infantry, 18th Panzer, and Grossdeutschland—Bartov reveals a process he calls the "barbarisation of warfare" .
The physical misery of the Russian winter, constant supply shortages, and massive casualties turned soldiers into survivors indifferent to human life.