Figure 1.--Here we see a German family, there is no accompaning information, but it is obviously during World War II. And it seems to us to be an urban middle-class family. We believe that the portrait was taken in Spring 1943, although the yearis only a guess. While we believe that it was common knowledge within the Wehrmacht that Jews were being avtiveky murdered, we kso believe that knowldge of what was transpiring was not uniformly dispersed throughout the German military, even the Heer (Army). The soldier here looks to be a recently drafted middle-aged man. The dafting of such men occurred as German military fortunes declined after late-1942. It is at this time the Germans faced inceasing manpower shortage as the Allies closed in. If this was indeed the case, the low-ranking soldier here would have known less about the Holocaust than German troops earlier in the War. By 1943, most of the killing was being done behind barbed wire in the carefully sealed off death and other camps run by the SS. Ntice the rather grim expression on the solfier';s face. We suspct what was probably on this father's mind was the safety of his family, both from the expanding Allied bombing and the surging Red Army in the East.

We believe that large numbers of Wehrmacht soldiers were aware that Jews were being killed, but we also believe that knowledge varieswidely as the scale and ewxtent bif the killing. After the War began, not only the SS but Wehrmacht units were involved in mass roundups. In the West the Wehrmacht was mostly involved in the roundups, but in the East they could be involved in the murder actions as well. Many must have talked about their experiences in the East. Soldiers wrote home describing the killings. (Unlike Allied mail, the mail of German soldiers was not censored.) Recordings made by the British of German POWs show that the killings of Jews was common knowledge among the Wehermact officer corps, but the killing that came up in conversation was primarily the public killings in the Soviet Union and not the industrialized death camp killings. [Netzel] It seems to us that even in thei conversations among each other that they were eluctant to admit hiw much they knew. And all the transcripts we have fail to show anyoe admitting any level of involvement. As best we can tell, however, the degree of undustrialized efficency was less commonly known even among the officer corps. If so, it would have then been known by a relatively small number of Germans. And we are less sure about the average enlisted Whermacht soldiers. And here we also need to descriminate between the men which participated in Barbarossa (summer 1941) and the young conscripts called up subsequently (1942-45). While most of the killing was done by the SS, Wehrmacht units unitswere primrily used in the round-ups. Except in the East, the actual killing was done in the Ghettoes and camps. But this varied widely and Wehrmacht units were involved in some killing actions, especially in the East. We find it diffiucult to believe that Wehrmacht soldiers did not know Jews were beung killed, but knowledge of the scale of killings, probably varied widely depending on where and in what capcity they were posted. It should be noted that the great bulk of the Germny military, especially the Heer (Army) was deployed in the East--beginning in 1941 somethiung like 80 percent. Soldiers deployed there (1941-42) wiukd have been aware of large-scale killing. After 1942, thus was somewhat less common--basically because most of the Jews in the occupied areas had already been killed.

Sources

Neitzel, Sönke. Ed. Tapping Hitler's Generals (Frontline Books, Lobdon, 2007), 418p.

Created: 12:18 PM 6/20/2022
Last updated: 12:18 PM 6/20/2022