The Wehrmacht, Its Allies, and “Partisan Threats”

doi:10.1017/9781108990158.009

6 - The Wehrmacht, Its Allies, and “Partisan Threats”

from Part I - Structures, Players, and Processes

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 May 2025

Ben H. Shepherd

Edited by

Mary Fulbrook and

Jürgen Matthäus

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Mary Fulbrook: Affiliation:
University College London
Jürgen Matthäus: Affiliation:
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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Summary

This chapter highlights the importance of military aggression by the Nazis and their allies for radicalization of violence; explains key Axis war aims in East and West and methods used to achieve them (”pacification”); exemplifies the key role of the Wehrmacht for mass killing of civilians in the Balkans and “the East”; recaps historiography on the myth of the “clean Wehrmacht” and its persistence in public perception and German family memory.

Keywords

Military aggression radicalization mass violence Balkans

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of the Holocaust , pp. 146 - 168

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108990158.009 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2025

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