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

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Summary: Excellent study of the German army in Russia in WWII.
Review: Bartov does a fine job revealing how the average German soldier thought, how the savagery of the combat combined with their own racialist attitudes towards their opponent to allow them to commit or tolerate the commission of atrocities. Bartov also describes how the vaunted mechanized Panzer army quickly bogged down into WWI-style infantry combat, and that the high rate of casualties destroyed German unit integrity. Bartov's description of German soldiers' "war tourism," including photographing mass executions of Jews, dispels myths about the "good" Germans. They may not have all been Nazis, and they were not all war criminals, but by and large they did share Hitler's racial attitudes. This accounts for their grim fanatical resistance as well as the atrocities. Highly recommended.

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Summary: This was a very informative incite into the third Reich
Review: Bartov gives some useful details but in the end his generalisations smack of the "guilt-by-ethnic-association" the Nazis used against Jews, just because a great number of Jews helped the Communists. It is political history in the worst sense. Read Christopher Browning for a common-sense study of what happened at the Eastern Front.

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Summary: A little truth in the blame game.
Review: 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.

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Summary: Very convincing
Review: 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.

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Summary: Absorbing and Thoughtful Book On Eastern Front!
Review: One of the most troubling and horrific aspects of the four-year long Eastern campaign begun in June 1941 by the Germans is the effect it had on their soldiers, who were pounded mercilessly by the evolving circumstances of the battle month after month along a thousand mile front. When that front gradually turned into a quicksilver panorama of different conflicts in quick succession over a variety of terrain, against an ever-changing cast of millions of Russian soldiers, the war became a living hell for the foot soldier of the Wehrmacht.

In this excellent exposition by Harvard fellow Bartov, the focus remains on the nature of the blood-thirsty struggle between the forces of the Wehrmacht on the one hand, and their seemingly indefatiguable Soviet opponents on the other. From the beginning the Germans were horrified by the fighting ferocity of their foes, who would fight literally until they were dead, who seldom surrendered, and who seemed propelled by an energy and life-force quite unlike anything the Germans had witnessed up to that point. They would fight until the ammunition was exhausted, and then fight on with fixed bayonets, with swords, and with knives, hand to hand, until they were all dead.

Of course, the Germans were no strangers to savage warfare, and had been forged in the crucible of prior conflicts into a rugged hardiness that made them formidable foes indeed. Yet they were singularly unprepared for the energy and determination the Russians showed them at every turn. The experience was quite educational, and made the Germans even more savage in their own execution of the war. Given the long chain for logistics support and the elusive nature of the much-hoped for collapse of the Soviet Army and a subsequent capitulation by the communist regime, the average German foot soldier found himself forced to commit his own series of personal day to day atrocities just to survive in the harsh and unforgiving winter conditions of rural, agrarian Russia.

This tome is an explorations of the depths of depravity and savage circumstances the German soldier found himself subjected to, and how this experience molded him more and more into the shape of the Hitlerian conception of the Eastern war as a war for the survival of the Aryan race against the sub-human Slavic hordes. Seen in this way, the German soldier fought for the survival not of himself and his comrades, but for the survival of the German race as well. Given the extraordinary set of existential circumstances present, it is not hard to understand how Hitler's world view and his racist ideas eventually became so widespread and so fervently believed among the German troops along the Eastern front. Stripped of their original comrades, and thrown together into a constantly changing set of organizations with an ever-changing cast of individual players, 0ne found oneself more and more hypnotized by the facile rhetoric and actions of the Third Reich. This is an absorbing and thought-provoking book, and one I am sure you will take pleasure in reading. Enjoy!

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Summary: Excellent well reasoned book
Review: 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.

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Summary: An Interesting Look at the Germany Army under Hitler
Review: This was one of the books we read in a seminar on Nazi Germany at Mary Washington College taught by Porter Blakemore. This was an excellent little read. The book offers an unique look at the German army during WWII under Hitler. It was unique in that it focused attention the non-SS, ordinary soldiers of the German army and their role and responsiblity in WWII. I recommend reading this book at Gordon Craigs's Politics of the Prussian Army.