You have heard about the latest figures of nazi internment camps, topping 40 000 and counting. It has been widely reported in the American media and, of course, in Germany.
What you may not have heard about are a couple of books that irrefutably dismiss one of post World War II Germany's most beloved myth.
The myth that the regular army stayed "clean", that all the atrocities that formed the holocaust the the war were committed by the select SS, Gestapo and a few other well-defined nazi organisations.
Based on British and American interrogation records and surveillance of prisoners of war, the book Soldiers from 2011 and the book Kameraden from 2012 bring to the general public what many experts had known all along.
Pretty darn awful.
This being said, our resident military history expert and military museum guide had this to say: Hearing it from the simple soldiers is an important confirmation of things we have known for a while. To me, the reception of these books was a lot more telling than their research. There continues to be a vocal minority of Germans who will acknowledge the facts but immediately turn around and point at British and French colonialism, Soviet brutality, or American aggression, or simply any war past and present for their "it was not only us", or "these guys were even worse" stance.
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