Tracing the Resurrection of a Reputation - How Americans Came to Love the German Army
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Rona ld M. Smelser , Edward J. Davies II. The Myth of the Eastern F ro nt: The Nazi-S oviet War inAmerican Popular Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008. xii + 327 pp. $75.0 0 (cloth) , ISBN 978-0-521-83365-3; $21.99 (paper), ISBN 978-0-521-71231-6. Reviewed by Kelly McFall (Department of History, Newman University) Published on H-Genocide (November, 2010) Commissioned by Elisa G. von Joeden-Forgey Tracing the Resurrection of a Reputation: How Americans Came to Love the German Army Unusually, I want to begin with a personal anec- dot e. In 1995 I wa s a graduate stu dent in Vie nna researching my dissertation. Through great good for- tune I was able to join a friend chaperoning Austrian tee nag ers on a field tri p to Londo n. I found myselfaccompanying the students as they ventured across Lon don to museums, gal ler ies , and stores. During one shopping expedition, my friend and I lagged be- hind our charges and surveyed the selection of fine fro zen foods. Ahe ad of us, a pair of Engl ish stock boys whispered and laughed as the Austrians passed by . Sudde nly , one of the employ ees walked out into the aisle and performed a credible goose step behind the girls for sev eral seconds while simu ltane ously ex- tending his arm in a Hitler salute. Being teenagers, the girls didn’t notice. I did and briefl y exc hange d some unpleasa nt wor ds with the young man, who clearly couldn’t understand why I wa s sti cking up for people he had misident ifie d as Germans. The mocking ended quickly (if a bit reluc- tantly) and we went on our way. I start with this story because it contrasts so di- rectly with the American attitudes toward the Ger- man army explored by Ronald Smelser and Edward Davies II in their The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture. The book is a fascinating immersion into a simple but im- portan t question: How did the German soldiers who fought on the eastern front during World War Two become hero figures to so many Americans? The au- thors address a narrow topic and investigate it thor- oughl y . Preci sely because they frame their questio n so narrowly, they leave ample room for other scholars to explore. Accor dingly , American historians, mili- tary historians, and perhaps historians of genocide will wa nt to read thi s book. But the y will do that with note pads (or lapto ps) handy , scribb ling down ideas for future research projects as they go. The book breaks down into three sections. In the first, the authors summarize the prevailing American view of Germany and the German military (and SS) during and immed iately afte r the war. They review newspapers, magaz ines, and other sourc es to show that American public opinion viewed the Soviets sym- pathetically while seeing Germany and its soldiers as enemies and war crimina ls. In my opini on, this is the best and most convincing part of the book. The extensive survey of reports and articles about the So- viet Union demonstrates clearly reporters’ successful attempts to present the Soviet Union as honorable and its people as similar to Amer ica ns. The sub - sequent discussion of the postwar trials shows how widespread kno wledg e of German war time miscon- duct wa s. American opinion is apt ly summa rized with the words of Dwight Eisenhower, who wrote his wife toward the end of the war that“the German is a beast.... God, I hate the Germans” (p. 75) and who in 1944 advocated “exterminat[ing] all of the general staff” (p. 40). Toward the end of the decade, however, attitudes toward the German army cha nged decisiv ely. They did so for two broad rea sons. Fir st, the adve nt ofthe Cold War changed the geopolitical climate sig- nificantly. The need to integrate West Germany into the new alliance system meant rethinking accepted narrat ives abou t the Second Worl d War. Onl y by erasing memories of Germans as fascist and crimi- nal could Americans see them as allies and friends. Just as important, a campaign by German officers to defend the German army and soldiers against accusa- tions of war crimes and dishonor proved enormously successful. This effort took sev eral forms. 1
