Alf Lüdtke
Mittelweg 36
Mittelweg 36
Eurozine
"The wrong choice of means" - options in the routine of military action
Alf Lüdtke
Cliché holds that the German military in general and the Nazi-Wehrmacht in particular demanded "blind obedience" on all levels of hierarchy. But regulations focussed on mission and did not imply that to follow an order meant mechanical execution of a given blueprint: Reports and ego-documents from different ranks show that "obedience" to a mission time and again stimulated individual's initiative and imagination as to most effective action (and violence) among both superiors and rank and file. Furthermore, this approach shows that individual soldiers did not once and forever 'switch' to either restraint or maximal usage of violence. To the contrary, people meandered back and forth.