Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis and War in the Third Reich (Revised)

This book is a "micro history" that uses a case study of three German army units, as well as information about other units, to detail the experience of the German army on the Eastern Front. Bartov seeks to prove and then to explain why and how the German army engaged in war crimes on the Eastern front that have previously been blamed on only the SS. The one fault I have with this book is there isn't really much new information that isn't in Bartov's previous work on the Eastern front. I do wish he would have included further information on additional units for this book.

I had to read Bartov's book for a college class years ago and recently re-read this wonderful book. As historians, I like to believe that most of us want to know why things have happened vs what has happened. Bartov's "Hitler's Army" does just that. It is common for Americans 50 years later to want to believe that the whole of WWII Germany were good, patriotic people fighting for a cause that they were brainwashed into believing. Bartov's "Hitler's Army" explains how the average German male, growing up in Nazi Germany, joining the Hitler Youth, and being just as patriotic as GI Joe was, came to be the tool of Nazi ideology, especially on the Eastern front. Bartov's comparisons of "average" soldiers on the Eastern front vs "average" soldiers on the Western front gives a prime example of how Nazi ideology had influenced the minds of German youth. Given the psychological and physical impact of such intense combat under the gruesome conditions the Eastern front soldier had to deal with, it is common for men to cling to beliefs in order to justify their actions. Beliefs instilled in them through years of conditioning, backed by severe punishment if they failed to follow such beliefs and actions forced upon them by their commanders. German soldiers were no different than Marines of the Pacific theater. Marines who collected Japanese ears and gold teeth as souvenirs. Bartov does a superb job of placing blame where it needed to be placed. At the same time, Bartov allows the reader to understand how the accused were breed into such positions of blame. An excellent read for anyone who wants to understand the mindset of the "average" German soldier during WWII.

Omer Bartov challenges the conventional wisdom that the Germany army was an apolitical organization that Hitler horribly misuses. He examines the degradation of the army on the Eastern front and shows how the apolitical army (if it ever existed) was largely destroyed in the first year of fighting and reconstituted with individuals who had not been steeped in the old independent army culture, but were products of the Nazi political state. I found it very persuasive.

Omer Bartov writes an extremely well organized, well written book about the life in the Third Reich for a soldier. He is my College Professor at Rutgers College and he is one of the foremost authorities on this subject.

Mr. Bartov provides the reader, especially college history students, with an unique insight into the psyche of the common German soldier and Hitler's Nazi Party policies.