How to Manage a Total War and Perish

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Notes

NOTES

1. See the preface to Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg (Stuttgart: DVA, 1988), vol. 5, part 1, xi; and the revised edition of vol. 4, Der Angriff auf die Sowjetunion (Frankfurt a/M: Fischer, 1991), 17.

2. Hans Derks, Jew, Nomad or Pariah (Amsterdam: Aksant, 2004), 204ff. This was a continuing story in the FRG and seems to be becoming one in Germany as well. The latest defence, now more complicated—thanks to the exhibition-row (see note 3)—is Klaus Arnold, Die Wehrmacht und die Besatzungspolitik in den besetzten Gebieten der Sowjetunion. Kriegführung und Radikalisierung im “Unternehmen Barbarossa” (Berlin: Ducker & Humblot, 2004).

3. This exhibition was organized by the civilian “countervailing power” of the MGFA, the Hamburger Institut für Sozialforschung, financed by the Reemtsma family. It toured Germany and Austria (1995–2000), was reorganized after some minor criticism and started a new tour in 2002. See its excellent catalogue Verbrechen der Wehrmacht. Dimensionen des Vernichtungskrieges, 1941–1944 (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2002), and its best commentator, Hannes Heer, ed., Wie Geschichte gemacht wird. Zur Konstruktion von Erinnerungen an Wehrmacht und Zweiten Weltkrieg (Vienna: Czernin Verlag, 2003), and Vom Verschwinden der Täter. Der Vernichtungskrieg fand statt, aber keiner war dabei (Berlin: Aufbau Verlag, 2004).

4. I largely agree with the rather positive review of Dietmar Süß on the historian's website H-Soz-u-Kult (accessed 24 January 2006).

5. Vol. 5, Part 2 (English edition), 905; in the original, the expression “administrative infighting” was “administrative Darwinismus” (p. 847). A serious mistranslation appears at the beginning of paragraph h. about the conscription of foreign nationals (p. 895 English edition; p. 837 German original): the original concerns plans of the Wehrmacht for the year 1942 to go to the ground with exploiting its last reserves; in the translation the Wehrmacht itself is already “completely exhausted,” which for several reasons is incorrect.

6. An example: in the midst of a story about the hunger in the occupied countries and the amounts of available calories—here relating to Belgium—Umbreit recounts the many strikes held in protest (p. 245). Instead of emphasizing the courage of the strikers, Umbreit accuses the Belgian Communists of exploiting the strikes for their party aims. Apart from the fact that every political party exploits events for its political aims, here it concerns the usual organizers of resistance against a criminal occupation. Furthermore, Umbreit reproduces the classic complaint of the German occupiers at the time, repeated time and again during the Cold War, when the militaries proudly announced how quiet they could keep Belgium during the war. See Hans Derks, “German Westforschung, 1918 to the present …,” in German Scholars and Ethnic Cleansing, 1920–1945, ed. Ingo Haar and Michael Fahlbusch (New York: Berghahn Books, 2005), 175–200. Umbreit's reaction is typical of the general argument of the MGFA-scholars against all those, like the partisans, who protested and fought against occupation, murder and starvation.

7. Vol. 5, part 1 (German edition), 1003.

8. It is a reworking of Table 4 from Lutz Budrass et al ., Demystifying the German Armament Miracle during World War II …, Center Discussion Paper no. 905, January 2005 (Economic Growth Center, Yale University); available at: http://ssm.com/abstract=661102.