Astonishingly, a concept that does not occur at all in our sources is the idea of the Volk community. Considering how much attention has been given to this psychosocial category in recent research on Germans in the Third Reich, it is surprising that soldiers never once refer to what should be a central aspect of their mentality.⁵⁵⁷ Nor does the concept crop up in other sources, such as reports on state-sponsored “Strength Through Joy” vacations and other Nazi social provisions. This is even more baffling since the Volk community reflected civilian and not military organizational structures. The complete absence of this phrase should make future researchers skeptical about the extent to which such integrative elements permeated Nazi society.

All in all, in terms of soldiers’ mentality, we cannot say that the majority felt they were waging an “eliminatory” or a “racial” war. Above all, they were oriented around a military and wartime frame of reference in which ideology played only a subordinate role. But they also waged war within the frame of reference of their society, a National Socialist one, which in certain situations led them to act in radically inhumane fashion. Nonetheless, to perpetrate atrocities—and this is what is most disconcerting—soldiers did not need to be either racist or anti-Semitic.

MILITARY VALUES

Far more important than ideology for soldiers’ perceptions and interpretations, and thus for their concrete decisions and actions, was their military value system. It was firmly integrated into their frame of reference. Germany’s militaristic tradition had greatly eased the incorporation of millions of men into the Wehrmacht. They were already familiar with the system of norms that awaited them in the barracks. Although most of them were conscripts, they were more than willing as a rule to adapt to the military framework and carry out their tasks as well as they could. Skilled carpenters, bookkeepers, and farmers wanted to become good tank drivers, gunners, and infantrymen. This meant learning the concrete basics of the military craft, perfecting the use of weapons, and becoming obedient, disciplined, and hard. They wanted to achieve victories, demonstrate bravery and a willingness to sacrifice, and fight down to the last bullet in case of defeat. Ever since the wars of 1864–71 had unified the German nation, there had been a broad consensus in German society about what soldiers were supposed to be.

Germans’ sense of positive identification with the armed forces was reinforced both by Germany’s military triumphs early on in World War II and by internal structures within the Wehrmacht that promoted meritocracy. All soldiers were given the same food to eat, all were eligible for the same medals, and all were encouraged to take on responsibility, if they demonstrated leadership qualities. The high degree to which soldiers identified with the military is evident in countless conversations among POWs. They loved talking about how their units were structured and armed, how various forms of organization had fared in combat, what sort of training they had received, how their weapons worked, and what sort of promotions and distinctions they had earned. The POWs presented themselves as masters of their trades, committed, proud of their units and weapons, and irritated when things did not go according to plan. The military was viewed as something self-evident, as a world to which one belonged and in which one had found one’s true place.

Nonetheless, soldiers accepted norms and values like obedience, bravery, and devotion to duty so unquestioningly that they rarely mentioned them explicitly. The only ones who did so were high-ranking officers who had reason to reflect on general questions about normative issues. Colonel General Hans-Jürgen von Arnim, for instance, remarked: “A soldier who doesn’t stand firm is no soldier, and the more confused things are around him, the firmer he must stand—mentally.”⁵⁵⁸ Arnim was referring to the obedience and devotion to duty. These were all the more necessary in difficult times, as he himself had just experienced in the course of German defeat in Africa. Colonel Reimann, who was interned with Arnim in Trent Park, described the Wehrmacht’s mental corset in even more vivid terms: “We would do what our superiors, who have one star more [say]. We would do what our superior officers ordered us.” Reimann added that it was a “racial peculiarity of the Germans, when they are soldiers, that they obey orders.”⁵⁵⁹ Whether or not Germans were particularly and excessively obedient, though, is an open question.