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Submitted by: Jorg Bottger jxb171@psu.edu I read Guenter Bischof's contribution with great interest and a feeling of deja vu. Since the Wehrmachtsausstellung arrived in Munich early last year the pattern of reactions among politicians and the public has been very similar. After a local CDU/CSU chieftain (in Austria: OVP and FPO) comes out of the woodwork and denounces the exhibition with great vigor, a nice brouhaha ensues along the typical political faultlines: support for the exhibition from the left and opposition to the exhibition from the right. The Wehrmachtsausstellung has become too much embroiled in political controversy while its approach, methods, and substance are somewhat neglected. A brief discussion surrounding the exhibition flared up on this list in early 1997, and quickly petered out. I would like to stimulate another round of discussion by emphasizing two shortcomings of the Wehrmachtsausstellung giving the fact that the makers of the exhibition have claimed that no changes in the presentation were necessary. The sheer number of photographs depicting in graphic detail atrocities create the impression that many, if not most, soldiers of the Wehrmacht became killers or accomplices. However, the scope of participation of junior officers, NCOs, and other lower ranks in the killing of Jews, civilians, and POWs is still an open question. Also, the character of participation (perpetrator, accomplice, bystander) remains largely unexplored. The exhibition suggests that the Wehrmacht committed crimes only between 1941 and 1944, with particular emphasis on territories of the occupied Soviet Union. So far as I know, World War II started with the invasion of Poland. In fact, troops of the Wehrmacht carried out numerous mass shootings of Polish civilians (both Jews and non-Jews) and prisoners of war between September 1, 1939 and October 25, 1939. Probably some 20,000 people were killed, only a portion by the infamous Einsatzgruppen. The German military historian Juergen Foerster has argued, correctly I believe, that the barbarization of warfare started in Poland and not in the Soviet Union. Both in the exhibition as well as the companion book the behavior of Wehrmacht troops in Poland is completely ignored. A number of Polish historians have published countless books and articles about crimes of the Wehrmacht. Was it too much to ask one of them to contribute a chapter to the Heer/Naumann volume?
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