Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 115- The Myth of the Clean Wehrmacht

Episode Date: August 3, 2020

Folks, it turns out Nazis are in fact, bad. Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys *CORRECTION* A correction is needed regarding our answer to the question from the Legion in this episode. We originally thought the Army Esports team was just a Esports team staffed by soldiers who got a sweet gig. We were wrong. It is staffed by Recruiters. We officially retract our statement and encourage everyone to troll them until they go away. Children should not be targeted for military recruitment Sources: The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006 https://www.dw.com/en/the-wehrmacht-and-the-holocaust-on-the-battlefield/a-53366016

Hey everybody, Joe here from the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. If you enjoy what we do here on the show and you think it's worth your hard-earned money, you can support the show via Patreon. Just a $1 donation gets you access to bonus episodes, our Discord, and regular episodes before everybody else. If you donate at an elevated level, you get even more bonus content. A digital copy of my book, The Hooligans of Kandahar, and a sticker from our Teespring store. Our show will always be ad-free and is totally supporter-driven. We use that money to pay our bills, buy research materials that make this show possible, and support charities like the Kurdish Red Crescent, the Flint Water Fund, and the Halo Trust. Consider joining the

Legion of the Old Crow today. But they don't relate to yourself. One way to say it, blow yourself. You ain't hardcore when you bite your hair. One shot's the length of the side of your head. Not to pounce, not to pounce, not to pounce. Fuck off! Not to pounce, not to pounce, not to pounce. And welcome to yet another episode of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. The Hurricane Edition.

I'm Joe. And with me, as always, is Hurricane Doug. Sorry, I mean me as always is Hurricane Doug. Sorry, I mean Nick. Oh, lizard name. Lizard name alert. It's the hurricane. So for people unaware, by the time this comes out, I guess we'll know how this hurricane ends.

But I'm currently in Oahu, Hawaii, and Hurricane Douglas is barreling towards us. The least intimidating hurricane name on earth. It's almost like Peter from Deadpool too. It's Dougie. It's like fucking, uh, uh, from Austin powers.

Like, Oh, you're Dougie. It's Dougie. Except like I have to stock up on water. Cause Dougie might come fuck my shit up. Hopefully the lizard sticks it out with you. Yeah, I mean, if the

geckos start running, I know I should follow them because they're here first. They know how this shit works. And I bet you he's probably questioning why you're not boarding stuff. I don't know. I wouldn't board anything knowing me. None of my neighbors are. As someone who is a complete outsider

here, none of my neighbors are boarding anything up. Which means I am taking that as a comfort blanket that they know what they're doing. Either that or they're lazy as shit and they're like, yeah, whatever. And I'm not sure which one it is. But you'll find out after your first one. I will find out tomorrow. If someone's boat comes sailing through my window I know should have boarded it up

yep like oh should have put some plywood over that motherfucker so Nick today we are going to tackle something that we have been talking about for literally years and before I get into the topic I am going to say a few things to you and see if you can figure this out.

And these phrases probably will sound familiar. They were just following orders, or they were just fighting for their homeland. They were just soldiers. The Wehrmacht. Clean Wehrmacht! Hit the hip-hop siren. We're fucking doing it.

Nice. I am so sorry. For the hip-hop siren. We're fucking doing it. I am so sorry. For the hip-hop this time that we have or for the... The everything. So before we get super far into this, we will be talking about horrible war crimes in the eastern front of World War II.

If that bothers you, go ahead and log off. You don't want to listen to this one. So the reason why this came up is one i'm petty and i don't like it when people do bad history and um it's it's it's pretty much accepted now uh by most reputable historians i will say actual historians, that the clean Wehrmacht myth is just that, it's a myth. But the fact that they came to it is actually a relatively new school of research. And we'll talk about how we got to that point.

But this kind of belief permeates Western thought still, assuming you're not German, for the most part. Germans are pretty good on their education, this sort of thing. Now, that's good. But recently, with all the protests going on, everything, a lot of people are looking into the history of law enforcement and how it prompts up fascism, which you should. But you should do it correctly. And there's a large stream of tweets that came out i won't say who did it about how cops not soldiers were the perpetrators of the holocaust that's incredibly wrong in so many different ways so that is finally the catalyst that got me because this this shit got a lot of traction

and historians everywhere were like wait no no no no this isn't right but you know how that works we were only ignored oh yes so i'm gonna be old so i'm gonna bitch about it more the old water in the bucket trying to take down the fire yeah i i sir i understand that you literally have a phd in uh researching this very particular part of history but i saw it on facebook uh which means you suck um so before i get into it, the German reserve and order police, Gestapo, et cetera, very obviously did have a role in the Holocaust. That part is not being argued here. But we are talking about the myth of the clean Wehrmacht, that being they were an apolitical army that was simply a victim of having a despot in charge of their country. that was simply a victim of having a despot in charge of their country. And we're going to talk about how in the hell we are sitting in the year 2020 and we are talking about how the fuck the Wehrmacht of World War II was in fact bad.

We're still having this conversation. Because I'm going to say, I'm preaching to the choir here. I'm willing to bet the vast majority of our listeners are probably already aware of this, or at least suspicious of this. Cool. Use this as a tool. Put it in your pocket and throw it out next time someone wants to make a fucking ass of themselves and they talk

about Erwin Rommel. It'll happen. I promise. Reenactors somehow find themselves saying, they just follow orders. So, like, congratulations, you literally used the nuremberg defense well done um so in order to get to this point we have to start all the way back in 19th and 19 or the late 1930s when world war ii started i'm kidding we're not doing a thousand part series in world war ii just so i can point out that Nazis are bad. So I'm going to yada yada yada my way through the entirety of World War II until 1945.

Which might be our biggest yada yada yada so far. Anyway, Nazi Germany was defeated and thankfully world peace happened afterwards and nothing bad ever happened again. That would be awesome. The Allied powers represented by Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Harry Truman all got together at the Potsdam Conference.

They're doing body shots off each other. Fuck yeah. This has happened about eight weeks after Victory in Europe Day on May 8th. So Churchill would be replaced by Clement Attlee, his prime minister, after the elections. Not that that's super important. I just think that's kind of incredible that the conservative party who managed to lose an election after seeing the party through or seeing the country through one of the most destructive wars in human history. Well done, everybody. You did it. Normally, it's supposed to engender, like, I don't know, confidence.

But no, he lost. And FDR just died. So he was replaced by Truman. he lost. Um, and FDR just died. So he was replaced by Truman. Now,

a lot of this only matters because of interpersonal reasons. Like Churchill thought Stalin was the devil while FDR actually thought he wasn't that bad of a guy and, uh, and thought Stalin would actually work with the U S has spread world democracy. And look, that's a trustworthy mustache. You can't,

I mean, look, you only can just distrust people with small mustaches in the middle of their lip. Big, full mustaches. Sign of trust. Nope. Maybe FDR died from being a fucking idiot. But, in short,

all this shit makes for the worst sitcom in history and everybody pretty much hated everyone by the end of the Potsdam Conference because it started in July and went all the way through August. Jesus. So, like, a lot of changes happened, whereas so far during the war, pretty much everybody had remained in power, and Joseph Stalin certainly wasn't leaving power anytime soon. So he was the one standard bearer there, which is never good.

Now, the Potsdam Conference's goals were pretty much focused on how the hell these three powers with vastly different goals in mind were to govern over the defeated Germany. Spoiler alert, not great, but we will get there. At the end of the meeting, they came up with the Potsdam Agreement. The agreement hashed out the Allied occupation zones and proposed reconstruction efforts in Germany. occupation zones and proposed reconstruction efforts in Germany. Another part was like the creation of the London Charter, which led to the ground rules of the Nuremberg trials, which saw the worst Nazis who hadn't had the good manners to kill themselves or otherwise die,

get strung up by a badly trained American soldier who's almost certainly drunk while he carried out the executions. Good. Also, there's like a small subplot that uh charles de gaulle wasn't invited because fdr didn't like him and fdr was dead by the end of it and uh harry truman didn't invite him as a like a sign of respect to fdr so yeah so charles de gaulle got pissed uh even because the french got a zone of control but then did not implement Potsdam Agreement at all and just kind of did their own thing,

which included using, like, thousands and thousands of German POWs to clear mines. A lot of them died. I mean, I'm not here to, like, get sympathy for German POWs of World War II, but, like, most of the people captured were rather young. So they're using 18 and 17-year-olds, like, go stomp clear that landmine, Haas.

A lot of people died. Go DDR across the field. But it also went over the demilitarization of the former Nazi Germany. The thing that Americans only understand when it happens to other people, that being demilitarization. They were also to undergo very strict denazification efforts to cut out Hitler's bullshit like a cancer it was. The problem was that did not go over great, and it turned out that was kind of the design of Hitler's bullshit. Because he made sure to intertwine Nazism into every layer of fabric in German life.

The Allies would have to tear it out just as carefully, and they wouldn't be so good at it. This includes things like, I mean, Nazism was in society, it was in the culture, it was in the media. You had to have a party member certificate to clean your dishes. The economy, politics, and even the judiciary. Symbols were banned and destroyed,

which most of them still are today. I think we all remember the iconic footage of the giant swastika being blown up on top of the building. Some of that shit was sold in the black market. Yeah, and that's where a lot of it ended up surviving to this day. Mid and high-ranking members of the party that were still alive were detained, including around 400,000 who were thrown into Allied internment camps.

And when I say Allied, I mean American, British, French. I will specifically talk about Soviet internment camps later. Do you guys think there's a big difference between the two? Not great, yeah. On a human rights level, if you truly believe in karma, you will totally agree with what I'll talk about. level like if if you truly believe in karma you will totally agree with what i'll talk about it uh but yeah this is all made easier by the fact that uh a german anti-nazi activist got his hand on the entire party list like the member list and turned it over to the allied intelligence

um party another it's important to note here that party membership doesn't mean a whole lot in a world quite like Nazi Germany, because it was made to be a super important part of everyday German life. In order to get to college, you had to swear an oath to Hitler and the party, and they would take a note that you did. Back during our White Rose episode, that's why a lot of them dropped out of college because they refused to take that oath. So it was really hard to come up with an actual list of hardcore Nazis or just people who like happened

to become part of the Nazi party because they fucking wanted to major in history and then start a bad podcast later in life. Literally to do anything, even like a middle management job at a shitty dead-end manufacturer. You had to be a party leader.

Yeah, I mean, that was one of the things they did in order to make Nazi party or Nazism part of your everyday life. Should have been like a test. Are you a Nazi? Yes or no? Hold on, let me measure your thumb. Hitler sends a letter out to you do you like me circle yes or no uh now allied intelligence did a lot of footwork

when it came to like vetting and filtering this list of like okay these people were members like in like 1939 like they definitely believe in nazism or they like they had an actual organizational role within the party so that still whittled the list down to seven million fucking people christ yeah you gotta find those uh those hipster nazi people where they're like we liked it before it became mainstream in germany i hated Jews before Hitler did. Get in the camp, sir. Yeah, so they got the numbers out to 7 million people and then they realized they were going to have to

individually interview these people and decide it. That's a lot of fucking people. Now, the long-term goal was to remove these people from positions of power and influence within the government, public services, and the military, and make sure they could never do anything like that again. Now, this meant that these people became what are known as low labor. So if you were a verified member of the Nazi party, you could literally only do manual labor as a job.

They make it seem like a punishment. I like manual labor. God damn it. I do not. But thankfully, I'm as a job. They make it seem like a punishment. I like manual labor, god damn it. I do not. But thankfully I'm not a Nazi, so I'm good. I would just get thrown into the communist camps, which are different. This led to a pretty big problem

because the Allies were kind of stupid, and the reasons I just explained to you, that almost every qualified person doctor lawyer engineer were all party members because they had to be so this led to an accidental brain drain of qualified germans uh a full 42 percent of the public workforce was similarly fired jesus christ uh Almost every economic leader that even the ones that connected to

Nazi profiteering, like you slave labor and stuff like that had been fired. I mean, rightfully so. Fuck those guys. But also that meant like you unemployed an entire country and nobody has the experience or knowledge

to replace the people that you now made like digging trenches out back. So like, sir, the cardiologist is digging a hole. Like that meant nobody was really left how to run the country. So they did dig in pretty deep to find other people. So they left with a pretty big deficit of knowledgeable people to rebuild the country. On top of this, the Allies realized that their caseload of processing literally

millions of German people was so comically large, they simply couldn't do it. So they turned it over to the Germans themselves, who were not Nazi members. I mean, kind of. Was that them too? Yes, kind of. Not that them too? Yes, kind of.

Not so great. The numbers were so large, it was very easy for someone to fall through the cracks. As long as you weren't like an SS member, you could probably get away with eventually prosecuting people that you knew and worked with. But the Germans also ran into the same problems.

Like, we have so many people to process and not enough people so the program quickly expanded and expanded and expanded and it soon grew so large that oversight was impossible and it was still not nearly big enough to actually screen everybody right um as the allies rushed to bring Germans on board, they accidentally hired several Nazi collaborators who then would oversee investigations into other Nazis.

They could have just pushed up under the rug like, oh no, he's good. He's one of the good ones. He has a Nazi tattoo on his neck that was forced on him. It turns out that Swastika tattoo has an X crossed through it that looks kind of fresh. Is that Sharpie?

The problem was they also employed a lot of judges. Almost all judiciary judges in Germany were party members because they had to be. Now, some of them were actual loyalists and believed in it. Others weren't. But at this point, it was very, very easy to tell an investigator, like, no, no, no, I just did it to further my career. And they're like, yeah, whatever, we need judges. Some of these judges were also incredibly corrupt. They would sell certificates. So when you got investigated and cleared for possible crimes or membership into the party, they would give you a certificate of clearance.

These were very easy to counterfeit. So the judges would sell these certificates to Nazi criminals and then sign them. God damn it. And there was no oversight to like, was this person investigated? Fuck it, sure, he has a certificate, he's probably good. That's pretty much how that went. And every state in Germany would have a minister for denazification. These varied wildly depending on their corruption level

and level of personal belief in the nazi ideology and membership in the in the case of bavaria which was uh you could call it a nazi heartland a guy named anton pfeiffer was the minister for denazification and after allied forces came through and pretty much cleaned house of everybody who party membership possible possible war crimes, profiteering, slavery, shit like that, fired them all. Pfeiffer went through and reinstated 75% of them. Imagine not being in that 75%

and finding out that Anton really didn't like you at the parties. How bad of a Nazi do you have to be for Anton to be like, yikes, no bro. You went one step too far. Now, I alluded before to the Soviet method of this. It turns out their method was much, much simpler. Are you ready for it?

Roll it. They handed you over to the NKVD and you disappeared. The NKVD are fucking rough. Yes. Oh, you didn't clap at Stalin's fucking joke? Dead. That's a disappearing now the nazi denazification process in the soviet zone of control which would eventually turn to east germany uh when it was handed over directly to the mkvd and almost every party member that was dumb enough to stick around in the soviet zone of control was thrown into the Gulag system. Why the fuck would they stay there? I have no idea.

The Summers? I'll stay for the Summers. Maybe they were hoping that, I don't know, that if you weren't a high-ranking Nazi, they'd leave you alone. What? But I have no idea. Even minor party members were chucked into the Gulag.

People that were connected to them were chucked into the Gulag. And, of course, there's a lot of interrogations that came up they're like i need like you need to name names so p and you know the nkvd interrogating people was if i happen to mow a lawn of a lower ranking nazi official i would get out of the country just for mowing their lawn if like if i like and the nkvd would torture the shit out of people, especially regional bosses of the party, until they gave up other people. Some of them were not even party members. They'd just give up names so they'd stop getting tortured. Ronald McDonald.

And the vast majority of people who ended up being sent into the gulags from East Germany would die there. By the time the prison system was handed over to the East Germans in 1950, 80,000 people had died. Oh, wow. So if you're a believer in karma, there you go. That's all I'll say. Now, this was not – I don't mean to say I agree with the Soviet version of denazification because they did not send away people who had special skills, like people in the Abwehr or like the German intelligence,

high-ranking SS members who happen to know stuff, scientists who were party members. They were pretty much folded right back into East German society, and several high-ranking members of the Gestapo ended up being in the Stasi, which was the East German KGB. Yeah. So if you were like a bastard who happened to be good at something that the Soviets needed, congrats. You weren't going to the Gulag. Oh, wow.

And if you didn't want to work with the Soviets, congratulations, you're going to the Gulag. And so is your family. So like you had people who absolutely sent jews to death camps who would then end up working in the stasi um and that happened a lot uh nobody's entirely sure how how much that happened but it is not a rarity okay now the next part of allied demilitar the next part of all this allied demilitarization was much more straightforward. German soldiers were demobilized by the

millions, and a ton of their war supplies, like tanks, artillery, stuff like that, would eventually be folded into both the future Bundeswehr and the East German, I believe they call it the Volks Army or something like that.

I don't remember. The People's Army of Democratic Freedom, probably. A lot of that would be folded over temporarily until the Warsaw Pact and NATO could flood their own weapons into those forces. But a lot of them were destroyed because there's just so much war material, right? There's just so much war material, right? A couple units in the Wehrmacht were kept active for a short amount of time as local police forces to augment Allied forces. But the Allied Control Council put out Proclamation 2 on September 20th, 1945 that said, quote, said, quote, all German land, naval and air forces, the SS, the SA, the SD, the Gestapo, and all organizations, staffs and institutions, including the general staff, the officers' corps, the reserve corps, military schools, war veterans organizations, and any other military or quasi-military organizations, together with the clubs and associations which

to serve and keep alive the military traditions of Germany, shall now be and finally completely abolished in accordance with the methods and procedures laid down by allied representatives the hammer came down so hard they abolished the weapons organizations outstanding i think we need to do that in america take down the vfw like i i'm i'm not one for proclamations coming from the white house but i might support one that abolished like the american legion i think that would be a good idea uh though the official order to actually dissolve the wehrmacht did not come until 1946 most of the high command was either dead or in prison for war crimes and obviously all was right in the world, right?

Right? Everything's good from here. Nope. Of course not, or we wouldn't be talking about this shit. Now, as the 40s turned into the 50s, a little thing started to happen throughout Europe, throughout the world, that made the Allied forces go through all of this trouble of demobilizing a mostly functioning military with training and a command structure.

Now, you can say that you probably shouldn't give command to Nazi war criminals, and I would definitely agree with you. But the fact remains that the Wehrmacht was still largely functioning by the end of the war. But what do you think happened that made them go from demobilizing that to suddenly thinking maybe west germany needs an army again made me think the cold war the cold war now in 1949 the soviets detonated their first atomic bomb the rds1 and then in 1950 the korean war started uh this led to something of a re-evaluation of the defensive needs in their first atomic bomb, the RDS-1. And then in 1950, the Korean War started. This led to something of a re-evaluation of the defensive needs in Western Europe, should old Uncle Joe decide that the Soviet Union

needs some more front yard space on the other side of East Germany. Also, watching North Korea steamroll into South Korea with Soviet support made people start to wonder if East Germany might get the same fucking idea about West Germany. And this is when the idea of a new West German army began to be

floated. Now, if you would think who would support this idea the most, who do you think it'd be? Like NATO, the US, something like that, right? German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer. He's the Chancellor chancellor of western germany arden adenauer thought that the best way for west germany to assert its sovereignty and break away from its appearance of like an allied puppet government which it was um i mean east and west germany at this point on when it comes to their own independence and sovereignty, is that Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man thing?

Neither one of them are in control of their own destiny. Because we saw it happen last time Germany was in control of their own destiny. Now, he thought that if we have a military, we can join NATO, and then we would be a partner rather than a subordinate. military we could join nato and then we would be a partner rather than a subordinate um now the only real opponent to this in nato and the rearmament plan in western germany was france because they'd already fucking seen what happened the last goddamn time germany rearmed and they didn't want to see that shit again there was a problem though a pretty big problem who in the fuck would want to join up in a German army that Dwight Eisenhower himself

called a criminal organization full of Nazis? Furthermore, who the hell was going to lead and organize it? Because everybody was dead, or if they had survived the war, they were in prison. Adenauer and the U.S. leadership quickly came to the conclusion that they were going to have

to rehabilitate the image of the fucking Vermont. Really? Oh, yeah. They weren't alone. Thankfully for them, this legwork had already been started all the way back in 1945. memorandum written by General Franz Halder and Field Marshal Erich von Manstein and submitted to the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. In it, they attempted to portray the regular army, that being the Wehrmacht, as apolitical and

blamed all of the grievous war crimes on the Nazi regime itself or the SS and other party functionaries. It should be noted. Go ahead and prepare a seat for our third host that this gathering of high ranking Germans to write this memorandum happened at the suggestion of William J. Donovan. In case you're unaware, William J.

Donovan would eventually become the founder of the hit the hip hop siren, the CIA. It's been a while. It's been a while it's been a while CIA welcome back boys but he was not alone this was not like an original idea of Donovan's he just happened

to talk to them in person though at the time it was thought that the German army could be reformed and used as a bulwark against communist expansion and that the regular commanders, regardless of their crimes, should not be prosecuted.

A lot of this has to do with the Wehrmacht officers being old, conservative, church-going men. A lot of especially British and a lot of Americans, not so many French, to be fair,

um, because like they lived through it. They were occupied by them. Thought that, uh, these men can't be that much different than I am. Look how much we like we have in common. Like obviously Hitler was the problem.

Look at, but the U.S. Yeah. Like, you know, they, almost all of them were from a lot of the German officer class, like this Prussian aristocratic class of officers, like gentlemen types who could trace their lineage back to some fucking inbred noble somewhere. Or they like fought World War One like a lot of people did. OK, so they weren't they weren't they were thought of as being military leaders independent of Nazi control.

And like, you know, they're they're normal, God fearing men. Like, how could they be so much different than I am? And like, they're just soldiers. They did soldier stuff like and this is not true. And we'll talk about that. like uh and this is not true and we'll talk about that but they thought like war crimes such as like bombing cities or like killing civilians uh quote unquote on accident or a quote unquote as a mistake uh should not be a crime and a lot of the soldiers especially in the uk did not think uh like they didn't they were not comfortable punishing soldiers in like because they thought they saw themselves in the Wehrmacht command.

Like they rightfully said if the if the positions were flopped, the Nazis would be prosecuting us. And then I would say you're correct, but not the way you think you are. They would just prosecute you because you fought the Nazis. But the U.S. was not alone in this batshit insane fuckery to use a science term. On an hour met with British General Maurice Hankey

Go ahead and laugh at his last name, I know I did. This piece of Christmas shit who believed that the very concept of war crimes trials were wrong Hankey eventually gathered together a lobby of people who believed much of the same way much the same things that he did this included people from both the conservative and labor parties various field marshals lords and other people like religious

leaders and historians including jfc fuller uh who was a british historian noted nazi apologists using this lobby they managed to pressure Colonel Alexander Scotland, who was the head interrogator for Nazi war criminal Albert Kesselring. Now, Colonel Scotland interrogated a lot of Nazi war criminals, but he was the head interrogator for Kesselring, who was a pretty big deal. But he got pressured so hard. Now, I don't know if this is a Scotland personally believe this or his career was threatened, and not a lot of it's said.

But it's one hell of a 180 to go from interrogating this guy for horrible, grievous war crimes and then writing a letter to the Times in 1950 to call his own guilty verdict into question. Really? Yes. Now, it should be noted that Kesselring was found guilty and sentenced for ordering the massacre of Italian civilians as well as pressing thousands of Jews into slavery and deporting thousands more to

die in the gas chambers at Auschwitz his guilt is not in question hit like memos with his name on it and his signature survived to this day and he had been sentenced to death. Through the efforts of this collection of assholes I just named, as well as Winston Churchill and Bertrand fucking Russell, his death sentence was commuted and he was eventually released from prison. Really? Oh, yeah.

Now, Kesselring was one of several former German leaders who'd go on to work for the U.S. Army Historical Division after the war. The Historical Division, by the way, still exists to this day. And they were the main driving factor of the clean Wehrmacht myth. And this is why. Kesselring was joined

by noted assholes such as Heinz Guderian, Fritz Halder, Lothar Rendelich, and a few other people. Heinz Guderian, Fritz Halder, Lothar Rendelich, and a few other people. Now, Guderian was one of the few people that the historical division employed that was not convicted of war crimes, though he was

a Nazi, and he was suspected of ordering the massacre of civilians, but nobody could place it at his feet. While working in the historical division, it would be their job to write the operational history of the German side of World War II. Most importantly, the Eastern Front. This little detail allowed a collection of Wehrmacht high command to effectively write their own history. Sounds a little fives.

And rehab their own image with no historical oversight or peerage at all. This meant that the U.S. military bankrolled their own clean Wehrmacht myth before they actually bought into it a few years later after what they thought was necessity. Goddammit, U.S. Now, a few people that worked with the division knew that the Nazis were up to some bullshit. They knew straight up that they were up to some bullshit they knew straight up that they were lying about some things but these collections of war history uh these these this collection of war criminals had something that nobody else in the u.s army had experience fighting the soviets so they saw that this operational history of the Eastern Front as a key of figuring out how to prosecute

a future war against the USSR. Huh. That was their reasoning. Oh, yeah. And what they actually created was probably the most effective Nazi propaganda machine that's existed since the fall of Nazi Germany. Jesus Christ. What the fuck?

Halder produced 2,500 manuscripts from around 700 different German officers, all detailing their personal experience during World War II. The problem? Halder edited every single one using truth, half-truth, and straight-up lies. He would then run these edited versions through several different layers of control groups

from other Nazi officers who then vet the content, edit it further in case something slipped through that made them look bad. Who would have thought they would have done that? Yup. Through Hadler, or Haldler, whichever, a narrative was crafted that should the Wehrmacht is an apolitical army that was as much of a victim as Hitler as anyone else, and they stood against him every step of the way. That the army conducted a gentleman's war,

and anything and everything that was bad was to be blamed on the SS and the SS alone. Halder was not alone in this. Through him, very popular published memoirs were pushed through from Heinz Guderian that would laud and praise the soldierly skills, professionalism, and discipline of the common German soldier. Does that sound familiar yet? It's bullshit. It should. That's what's known as pretty much American World War II history until like the year 2000. year 2000 now probably the worst person in this whole group was eric von manstein who was almost certainly responsible for the deaths of around a hundred thousand jews in the crimea uh he also

took part in the group writing about uh how good of a working relationship he had with the locals while he uh while he was in charge of the crimea uh would stop and do kissing babies, handing out food. It's important because Eric von Manstein and Heinz Guderian and Erwin Rommel are all pretty much given a pass on a lot of stuff. And I remember having tankers recommend reading the Desert Fox's book. Or like his notes and autobiography and research and stuff. That was all put out by the

historical division. Do I know people like that? You read Nazi propaganda. Way to go. Now, when Erich von Manstein died in the 70s, he was given a full military burial by the German government that was attended by hundreds of soldiers in full dress uniform this man killed over a hundred thousand people probably i know i could i could libel a dead nazi right yeah fuck him he killed a hundred

thousand people uh so what kind of war crimes were they covering up? What kind of war crimes was the Halder cell of the historical division covering up? Why did they go so far in order to cover their own ass? Well, the number of war crimes is so high that nobody will ever be entirely sure of the number. It's impossible to know straight up. impossible to know straight up but it can be said with almost 100 certainty that every single unit every single unit of the wehrmacht that took part in operation barbarossa which is the invasion of the soviet union participated in some extent to unspeakable war crimes some of which are the worst that the human race has ever seen this includes mass rape, genocide, forced deportation, human trafficking, slavery, and sex slavery. Now, most people know the main functionaries of some of these worst crimes on Earth of being the SS or the Aizen Group and Death Squads, as well as some collaborationist units such as the Ustashi.

But, like, these would be, and rightfully, those were the beginning crawl stages of the Holocaust. Like they had the Eizengruppen death squads and like the order and reserve police do the Holocaust by hand effectively until they realized that people can't do that for very long without falling apart. So that's what led to gas chambers. that's what led to gas chambers. But it is true that the SS and the Eisengruppen and all these other collaborationist groups, their crimes cannot be overstated, but neither can the Wehrmacht's. Formations of the regular army worked hand in hand with the SS and the Eisengruppen in almost every theater of mass murder throughout the Eastern Front. In Soviet Belarus, which is one of the worst, most hard-hit parts of the entire USSR during this time, one in three Belarusians died before even being sent to a death camp.

Like, they killed so many of them, they didn't even bother sending them off to the death camps. And almost all of this murder was done at the hands of the regular army, working hand-in-hand with the Eizen Group and together. I don't know what made me think that today was going to be a good episode yep bub put up put on your sad pants you're gonna get sad now historian botman vade born wrote that in his book marching into darkness that vermont soldiers played sadistic

jew hunting games as a pastime while in Belarus. In towns where the Eitzengruppen operated, they did so under the protective perimeter of Wehrmacht soldiers. Because this is important, the Eitzengruppen actually sucked at fighting. They were only good at

shooting unarmed people. So like, when partisans or Red Army units attacked them, they pretty much just dropped their weapons and ran oh wow uh so like the vermont had to go and protect them now nick if you were to rob a bank now to be your lookout guy and you killed someone what do you think i'm being convicted of i just because i know you i feel like you wouldn't be there but if you were there i'm just a hypothetical heist where you're now a murderer okay like i'm being i'm also being convicted of murder because you're right now do that a million times is the very mocked innocent no god no and the idea that the

regular army did not know about the holocaust is in all honesty and i mean this in the most academic way possible, total fucking bullshit. Not only did regular soldiers take part of it in the East, their generals actively forced it along, meaning their leadership also knew about it. Their generals were like the area commanders of their operational zone, sending millions of Jews to their deaths. For instance, one of the generals that worked for the historical department, Rendalic, was begged by a subordinate to protect the Jews in his area of Italy by reclassifying them as labor,

thus sparing them from deportation and murder. Rendalic refused and thousands of people were sent to their deaths within 24 hours. Oh, now, now it could, it could be argued if I'm playing devil's advocate with myself as it could

be argued that Rendulic did not know what was going to happen to them. I would call that person fucking stupid. And this is why. If Rendulic and his subordinates did not know about the Holocaust, I cannot stress this enough, that conversation could have never taken place because why would his subordinate be concerned about the deportation?

And why would and why would there be deportations going on? They knew what the final solution was. And there's a good reason why we think that they knew that, because in 1941, 1.3 million cables that were sent between the SS and the Wehrmacht units fighting in the Eastern Front were intercepted and decrypted by British intelligence. They unveiled that not only was the Wehrmacht freely taking part in mass murder, but they were coordinating it with the SS and the Eizengruppen to ensure that they could team up and do it even better. More importantly, it showed that not only were generals and field marshals aware of the Holocaust, company and field grade officers were as well, meaning that common soldiers absolutely fucking knew what they were taking part in then there was the barbarossa decree of 1941

an order given to wehrmacht soldiers by a general prior to their invasion of the soviet union decreeing that the war against the ussr would be quote one of extermination wow and openly discussed the murder of political and intellectual elites within russia you might also recognize that as the commissar order when they kill anybody connected to the political branch of the communist party of the soviet union most importantly it underlined that nobody would be held accountable of war crimes saying quote german soldiers who commit crimes against humanity the ussr and prisoners of war are to be exempt from criminal responsibility, even if the criminal acts are punishable

according to German law. They actually used the term crimes against humanity. They knew what they were doing. They knew, and normal soldiers were told this. Now, here's where things get really fucking dark. Have you ever heard of

the Baba Yar Massacre? No. So it is the single largest act of genocide committed in probably human history, and certainly during the Holocaust. It happened in Babayar, Ukraine. Regular German soldiers, along with the SS, the Sonderkommando, the Eizen Group, and various other functionaries, killed 35,000s over the course

of about two days by rifle and machine gun fire regular soldiers did that and bob uh the bobby yar massacre scene would be used as a future massacre scenes at the end of the war they said it's upwards of like 100 000 people would be murdered there but the bobby yar massacre over But the Babi Yar Massacre, over the course of about 48 hours, killed 35,000 people. So that's where we have to wonder, like, OK, so how did this end up becoming more of a thing? Right. So after the footwork of the of rehabilitation was underway, the German chancellor met with several other high ranking Wehrmacht members that were still free and alive. One of them was Hermann Forschtisch. I think his name is, I'm not sure. He worked directly under Field Marshal Walter von Rickenau,

who had ordered the Severity Order. Now, the Severity Order laid the groundwork for huge amounts of war crimes that regular soldiers would go on to commit on the Eastern Front. I won't read the whole order, but it starts with, quote, the most important objective of this campaign against the Jewish-Bolshevik system is the complete destruction of its sources of power and the extermination of the Asiatic

influence in European civilization. Certainly sounds like a genocide order to me. Yep. So, yeah, the Chancellor met with that guy's buddy and a few other people uh and this gathering of former nazi leadership came together to put a list of demands that the allies and the west german government would have to meet in order for them to support rearmament and a

and a new western german military a western german military this memorandum known as the heimrude memorandum demands that all German soldiers convicted of war crimes should be released, and the, quote, defamation of the German soldier, including the Waffen-SS, would have to stop, and their images would have to continue being rehabilitated for the domestic and foreign public. The Chancellor agreed. Jesus. Yep. They agreed and took the memo to Allied Powers, who also agreed. What? Making the memo public?

Yep. Yep. Yeah, we did that. We did that. Whoops. Though they did not make the memo public, though it is very easy to see uh as like all around like the the various prisons where uh war criminals were being held like the war criminals that were not executed all the executions had mostly taken place a lot of commutations to

life imprisonment were made and then those commutations of life imprisonment were then released yep and then the people who got like 25 years would then like get brought down to like time served a lot of that happened um then a public declaration from the supreme allied commander dwight eisenhower said quote say something good i have come to know that there is a real difference between the german soldier and hitler and his criminal group for my part i do not believe that the german soldier has lost his honor dick now about two years before he said that there were criminals and nazis why the 180 was it because of the movie he saw the movie he's like oh fuck yeah i think it like it it all has to do with the red peril. Like they were so worried about like the Soviet storming across the fold,

a gap or whatever that they decided like, yep, I guess we're settling up to hang out with some Nazis. And this wasn't even like the worst plan that they came up with. Winston Churchill, I think I've talked about this before, but Winston Churchill had a plan called operation unthinkable. The name is a hint that as soon as World War II ended,

they would immediately rearm the Wehrmacht and then invade the Soviet Union. Really? Oh. Yes. Yeah. Huh. Yeah. Harry Truman, who, remember, nuked Japan, was like, that's too much.

Really? Yes. That's it. What? I didn't know any of this. That's fucking crazy. Yep. It almost certainly would have ended the world because it involved a whole lot of nukes.

Huh. Because what it came down to is everybody understood that the Soviets would eventually get their hands on a nuke. And they had to invade them before they had them. And we had nukes. But we also only had like four at the time because they were still really hard to build. But we definitely would have used them all having no idea that marching soldiers straight through the cloud afterwards

would have fucking killed them. Now, after all those happened, the German Chancellor made a speech at the halls of government saying that German soldiers had fought honorably and for their motherland. Soon afterwards, officer pensions were restored. German soldiers had fought honorably for their motherland. Soon afterwards, officer pensions were restored. God damn it.

Now, not all of them. Only some. Even then. Yeah, yeah. And the Chancellor visited war criminals in prison in order to court the veteran vote. What? Now, if that sounds ridiculous to you as an American,

it's because it is. In America, you have to pardon war criminals in order to court the veteran vote. Now, if that sounds ridiculous to you as an American, it's because it is. In America, you have to pardon war criminals in order to court the veteran vote. That's right. The German war crime law was then suddenly redefined. So it meant only that the SS, the security police, the concentration

camp guards, or guards of the ghetto, and people who helped to force labor could be investigated for breaking the law. Only them? This is fucking bullshit. I want to change the definition to stuff now. So in 1955, the German Bundeswehr was formed. Now, I do have to point out that Ahnauer actually wanted to stick with the name Wehrmacht, but even NATO thought that was too far.

Like, no, you can't do that! You know, the old school classic, you know, Wehrmacht. Everybody already knows the name. Now, I do have to point out, because I'm going to be shit-talking the Bundeswehr here, I worked with guys in the Bundeswehr, great dudes, and... Did you?

It is noted in Bundeswehr history, they do not claim lineage to anything to do with the Wehrmacht. Unfortunately, that is not always the case. There's a bit of a Nazi problem within the ranks of the Bundeswehr. I wonder how that happened. Oh, I see. When the Bundeswehr was formed, literally hundreds of former Wehrmacht officers were within its ranks.

And one of them would eventually become the Allied Commander of NATO in Europe. Really? Yes. How? How is this happening? I think it was in the 60s. What? So, and for a long time, that's just how this was.

The Wehrmacht was rehabilitated, and the Bundeswehr even named dozens of bases after former Wehrmacht leadership and German historians. Kind of just went real hands-off for a while when it came to researching the brutalities of World War II. I will give them credit. Probably a good call. Like, you know, maybe you guys don't need German voices talking about this right now. Good on them. Unfortunately, this meant that literal Nazi war criminal propaganda writing about their own history became the main popular narrative throughout the Western world, including Germany itself. That is when a group of German historians said, wait a minute, fuck this shit.

And then what became known as the historikreitscheit. And I probably butchered that, but I meant historical quarrel. It sounded like you just had a stroke. I did. But German historians in the 1980s, mostly those in the left wing pointed out just how terrible germans were at researching their own history though it it could be rightfully argued that the movement actually began in the 60s with a few deep dives into things like the commissar order and uh studies into the political indoctrination of wehrmacht by academics like manfred mescher

schmidt and hans adolfolf Jakobsen, but those didn't quite blow up like it was in the 80s, and they pretty much got told to shut the fuck up. Conservative elements of German academia and society kind of sort of just simply followed along with the explanation that Habler had given

while lying his ass off and manipulating the narrative. That was kind of just accepted as history. Though, admittedly, some of these elements and these supposed historians went even further. Like a guy named Ernst Tnolt, who was a professor at the Berlin Free University, thought that the Holocaust was, quote,

not a unique event, end quote. The German people bore no responsibility for the actions of their government. Not a unique event. Bro, Jesus. Did not see that coming. Oh, probably a related note. Nolt eventually won an award for his efforts in historical research.

You want to guess what that award was called? Tell me. The Conrad Adenauer Award. Oh, wow. In the year 2000. With all these guys winning awards in history and whatnot, there's a chance for you

to win something. At the very least, i'm not a nazi like i got that's that's gonna be my tagline vote joe kasabian not a nazi which honestly is a bit of a is like a bit of a thing these days because we have so many actual nazis running around again i'm i'm sure rehabilitating literally millions of nazi soldiers had nothing to do with that at all. So in this dispute between historians, which lasted years and was covered by editorials and televised debates, the actual good German historians kind of did a really good job. They fought these assholes. Yeah, they fought these assholes in order to reject Hitler's Nazi propaganda. That's good.

Which had largely become just the field of studying World War II history at that time. I mean, that will happen. And Hitler knew what he was doing. If I literally saturate the market with historical texts written six months after the fucking war ends it's going to become the predominant voice right and that's and that's what he did but slowly the actual historians were

winning however the conservative historians were not going to take this defeat lying down and by that i mean they stopped attempting to be historians and just turned into Nazis. Really? Yeah. They literally quoted Nazi propaganda of World War II by saying that the Wehrmacht was holding back the quote, Asiatic flood. Oh, wow. Which, if you note, was literally in the severity order.

They went back to their roots. Yeah. And another historian said that the Holocaust was quote a natural defensive action against the Soviet Union yep huh

and that's when you have to realize that these guys hadn't just bought into Nazi propaganda turned out by the historical division they were actually just Nazis now a real break came in 1995. So we're talking about pretty recent history. When a touring museum exhibit put on by the Hamburg Institute for Social Research hit the road,

it curated thousands of war crimes and evidence of them committed by the Wehrmacht. It toured 33 different German cities over the course of four years. And it was almost certainly the first time that the vast majority of Germany was confronted by the reality of the Wehrmacht. Their exhibit included photographic evidence, letters, and personal accounts of crimes committed by regular German soldiers. I mean, Holocaust education was absolutely nothing new to the German people, but that education was pretty much what Halder laid out. He pushed all of the blame out to the SS and the groups around it.

This is the first time that people literally saw thousands of pictures of someone who very easily could have been their grandfather, smiling, laughing, and joking while shooting innocent people into a ditch. And remember, all of these pictures were taken by German soldiers because they probably were really proud of what they were doing.

Now, this tour was not a silver bullet when it came to fixing decades of ahistorical bullshit, but it certainly helped. Now the overwhelming historical consensus, that being people who can actually research on brain-dead nationalists, is that the Wehrmacht was really not much different than any other arm of the Nazi murder machine. Now, when this started coming around about the

mid-90s, and even today, the Bundeswehr began changing the names of its bases. No, they never really ruled out Fort Hitler, or like post-Goring. But like, they did have, I think like 70 bases, sorry,

50 bases, named after people connected to the Wehrmacht. They did start to change them. Unfortunately, there are still at least two bases named after Erwin Rommel. That might not change. Nah, probably not. He was part of

the von Stauffenberg clique of people that the Bundeswehr could rely on. See, look, not all German soldiers were bad, but Erwin Rommel and von Stauffenberg were Nazis 100% von Stauffenberg may have tried

to kill Hitler well he did try to kill Hitler and there's a small chance that Rommel was included in that but all the way up until that point their careers were dependent on loyalty to the Nazi regime and von Stauffenberg was a fucking anti-Semite.

Yeah. He just didn't think Jews should be killed, but he didn't want them in Germany. So, like, split that fucking hair if you want to. I'm not going to. But, yeah. Now, in the West, if you're still spouting off on this shit, congratulations. You fell for literal Nazi propaganda, you absolute idiot. I don't think we'd have anybody listening to this show that would actually believe any of that.

I think there might be a fair amount of people who did not know of the severity of the length of the Wehrmacht. Or how the U.S. literally helped rehab the Wehrmacht. Now, we've done a lot of terrible things for fear of other people especially like the soviets i mean we had nazi we had nazi and japanese war criminals working for our government after the war because we wanted to get a leg up on the soviets like this is nothing new like the commandant of unit 731 worked in maryland oh yeah on, man. Come the fuck on. Though, to be fair, I think, personally, I would rate rehabbing literally tens of millions

of people that were absolute monsters is worse than employing one or two people. Though, I mean, the Wehrmacht killed a lot more people than Shiro Ishii did, so I'm not going to be the one to decide which one of those is worse or better. Honestly,

I can't judge that shit. I'll let you do it. So Nick, how do you feel, man? Feeling all right? This episode sucked. New of the clean Wehrmacht that didn't know that far into it.

Definitely. Yeah. I, I have to admit when I started researching it, I knew a fair amount, but I didn't know that it was actually like had a lot to do with the german government and which is interesting because conrad adenauer was a noted anti-nazi and like didn't and very

nearly got sent off to camps on multiple occasions during world war ii like he wasn't as like as far as i know he never worked with the Nazis, though Hitler didn't dislike him personally. He just disliked his politics. Like, as a person, he was fine. Right. Like, if he disliked him that much, he would have been murdered.

So, like, maybe that's a warning sign. I don't know. But a lot of that can be hoisted on, like we talked about in our White Rose episode, that so many facets of German society had pretty much turned professional snitch that i mean silence was your best bet of surviving even if you were an anti-nazi so like i don't know man i'm not i'm not gonna judge how anybody survived world war ii unless like you were in the german military in which case yeah yeah in which case go yeah, yeah, in which case,

go fuck yourself. I don't know. Rest in piss, bitch. So, Nick, I know more lighthearted now. We do a thing on this show

called Questions from the Legion. That's the best part of the show. This one's pretty good. And I've been meaning to not address it, but now I will. Have you heard of the U.S. Army eSports team? I have. Okay,

so the question of the Legion is, how do you feel about people trolling the U.S. Army'sSports team. I have. Okay, so the question of the Legion is, how do you feel about people trolling the U.S. Army's eSports team's Twitch stream? Oh, it's fucking amazing. It's hilarious. Now, a lot of this is happening from, like, quote-unquote left-wing activists. I don't consider trolling a Twitch page activism.

I mean, I get that, like, people are really mad and they want to do something and this makes you feel good. Do it. I think it's hilarious. I don't think you're affecting change. No, yeah, it's hilarious. I don't think it's a form of activism. No.

I mean, we grew up in an era where the Army was already using video games to target recruits, right? Like, America's Army was doing that for free. And how many people do you think they recruited? None, right? First of all, the game sucked. But did I buy two? Yes.

I mean, think of it this way. I see the amount of people thinking that they're going to get tricked into recruiting or whatever. One, I think that takes a lot of agency away from 18 and 19 year olds. They're smarter than people give them credit for. What's the first thing people told you when you went and talked to a recruiter?

Oh, he probably lied to you. Everybody fucking knows they lied. Now, could they be targeting the gullible? Sure. But I think the same amount of people that are going to be inspired to enlist because of an esports team is the same amount of people that are going to be inspired to enlist from a

fucking NASCAR advertisement. It's the lowest common denominator here. And they were probably going to enlist anyway. Now, obviously I am not super pro-military. I was in it. I hate it for a very personal reason on top of everything else that we talk about literally every week on the show. Now, if you're out there and you're an activist and you really want to affect military recruitment, you should attempt to get recruiters out of schools.

And you should attempt to address some of the underlying issues that lead people into joining, like lack of health care or affordable education. By affordable, I mean free. Those will affect recruitment numbers. I'm not saying don't shitpost in a Discord or a Twitch page. I think that shit's hilarious. And to be fair, the Army did shut their esports team down. Didn't really shut them down. The army did shut their esports team down.

Didn't really shut them down. Well, they had to stop their Twitch page. Because what happened was, is a lot of people were asking them about war crimes. And immediately getting banned from the Twitch channel. That ended up being, I believe, a violation of Twitch's user agreement. That they could ban people for that i assume that you could be banned for any reason i'm the first amendment does not apply to social media we all know that because like the government is not twitch but the army is a government institution

so people rightfully made the argument to twitch, like, they're an arm of our government. They should not be able to censor us. And Twitch is like, oh, good point. So the army shut it down. Wow. But this did lead to a whole bunch of hilarious people doing what they called speed runs on the Discord and seeing how fast they could get banned, which, like, is hilarious. I mean, did that affect recruitment? Probably not at all in any way.

But I mean, you got it shut down, which is hilarious. Good job, shit posters. You did it. I don't disagree with that at all. I just don't think it's going to affect any real change. I can't see anybody like, I was really on the fence about enlisting until I watched this fucking Twitch channel.

Yeah, and just watched them. I don't see that either. No. And then again, times have changed and people are in... It's true. I wouldn't know how it is now. Personally, I strongly disagree

with the military being able to use any kind of video games or entertainment to recruit people. I think that's kind of video games or entertainment to recruit people i think that's kind of gross uh mostly because how do you think they're fucking paying for it oh yeah like they have an obscene budget uh but like yeah i mean don't stop trolling now i'm not saying that would i do it myself no because like i, what it comes down to is I feel bad harassing some, like, specialist who got a sweet

fucking gig playing Call of Duty. And, like, because I would fucking do that. That's, like, one of my jobs in the Army is working in the tax center. Your unit would not send you. No. Like, when I worked in the tax center, coming to the front desk and yelling at me

about federal tax reform isn't going to do anything i don't control it um i don't know man like keep trolling them if they pop back up i think the navy's is still up tell them i said hi uh but like i don't know i mean times are changing but also i i strongly agree with um I don't know. I mean, times are changing, but also I strongly agree with Representative Ocasio-Cortez when she submitted a or Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez when she submitted a bill that would ban anything like that, like using video games to recruit or like movies to recruit and stuff like that. Like, I'm totally fine with that. But like the trolling at Twitch page isn't burning your draft card. Y'all calm down. Like let's, let's be real here. It's like Twitter is an activism and either is trolling people on Twitch.

It doesn't mean it's not funny. It's just not activism. That's awesome. All right, y'all until next time. Thank you for joining us next time. Nick, thank you for suffering through this. And until next time thank you for joining us next time nick thank you for suffering through

this and until next time um don't rehabilitate nazi war criminals to own the communists later