The Indoctrination of the Wehrmacht

In June 1939 the Wehrmacht hosted a “Summer Course for Officers” in the Bavarian resort town of Bad Tölz during which lower and mid-ranking officers received instruction concerning “National Socialism’s world-view and goals.” In addition to lectures on “Race and Population Policy,” “Race and Lebensraum,” and geopolitical topics, the officers took a trip to Eglfing, the site of a hospital for the physically and mentally disabled. After a lecture entitled “The Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring,” the tour culminated in “the patients being ... paraded before the officers in order for them to observe the mentally disabled up close” (p. 65). This disturbing anecdote buried in the Wehrmacht’s training files is just one of many Bryce Sait cites in his contribution. As Sait’s literature review indicates, scholars like Omer Bartov, Wolfram Wette, Jochen Böhler, and Alexander B. Rossino have meticulously cataloged the Werhmacht’s war crimes and adherence to National Socialist ideology. The myth of the “clean Wehrmacht” has been fully exposed. At first glance, it may seem like Sait’s monograph rehashes now old arguments. However, Sait manages to address a gap by examining the military’s ideological education program for incoming recruits and junior officers, men who had come of age during the Third Reich. Sait is less successful linking this training to wartime behavior—understandable given source limitations and the complex methodological issues he notes

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