The myth of 'clean' Wehrmacht is far from dead
editPlease see #Explanatory notes below
By David Stahel, May 2018
The myth of the clean Wehrmacht is far from dead, with two major sources still fuelling the legend in the Anglo-American world. The first is the persistent presence of the German generals' memoirs, where "half-truths, lies, omissions, and distortions coexist alongside truth."[1] The second challenge is sometimes Wikipedia, where historical accuracy, at least on topics related to the Wehrmacht, can be altogether missing.
I have read many of the debates that take place behind the scenes among contributors of Wikipedia's Military History project. The project dominates discussions and forms a caucus of opinion on the Wehrmacht’s pages, including on suitable sources. There is too often a lack of critical engagement with historical standards (what makes history a discipline), and contributors who have evoked these have at times been rejected or even ridiculed.
Some of the links, including the Talk page of the Erich Hoepner article, reflect this most clearly. The "explanations" justifying content removals were simply untenable. There are more than enough first-rate studies available in English to suggest this is more than simply unfamiliarity with recent historical scholarship or lack of language skills.[2]
The problem is as much about what is written as what is sometimes left out, by editors acting, consciously or unconsciously, to preserve the myth of a "clean Wehrmacht". Considering the great advances scholarship has made over the past twenty-five years, too many of Wikipedia’s self-styled Wehrmacht "experts" seem to be stuck in the 1950s. This may be owing to outdated libraries and what people were taught at some earlier stage, but precisely because Wikipedia matters and has such an influence (not least on some of my students), it is important to get it right.
References
- ^ Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies, The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture (Cambridge, 2008) p. 90.
- ^ For studies in English, see: Geoffrey P. Megargee, War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front 1941 (Lanham, 2006); Hannes Heer and Klaus Naumann (eds.), War of Extermination: The German Military in World War II 1941-1944 (New York/Oxford, 2006); Wolfram Wette, The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality (Cambridge MA, 2006); Alex J. Kay, Jeff Rutherford and David Stahel (eds.), Nazi Policy on the Eastern Front, 1941: Total War, Genocide and Radicalization (Rochester, 2012).
David Stahel, PhD, is a military historian who specialises in the Soviet-German war. He is senior lecturer in history at the University of New South Wales in Canberra / Australian Defence Force Academy. Stahel is the author of The Battle for Moscow (2015), Operation Typhoon: Hitler's March on Moscow, October 1941 (2013), and Kiev 1941: Hitler's Battle for Supremacy in the East (2012); all books were published by the Cambridge University Press.
Explanatory notes
edit- I asked the author (Stahel) to review the Erich Hoepner Talk page, specifically the discussion that I linked above as "Talk page of the Erich Hoepner article", plus a few other related discussions.
- Footnotes have been provided by the author.
- The statement is replicated verbatim, apart from the added Wikilinks, from the email that the author sent to ArbCom as part of WP:Arbitration/Requests/Case/German war effort/Evidence#Evidence presented by K.e.coffman.
- ArbCom has confirmed receipt of the email here: 31 May 2018.