Revising the ‘myth’ of a ‘clean wehrmacht’: generals’ trials, public opinion, and the dynamics of Vergangenheitsbewältigung in West Germany, 1948–60 Searle, DA Title Revising the ‘myth’ of a ‘clean wehrmacht’: generals’ trials, public opinion, and the dynamics of Vergangenheitsbewältigung in West Germany, 1948–60 Authors Searle, DA Type Article URL This version is available at: http://usir.salford.ac.uk/id/eprint/2140/ Published Date 2003 USIR is a digital collection of the research output of the University of Salford. Where copyright permits, full text material held in the repository is made freely available online and can be read, downloaded and copied for non-commercial private study or research purposes. Please check the manuscript for any further copyright restrictions. For more information, including our policy and submission procedure, please contact the Repository Team at:
[email protected]. ARTICLES REVISING THE ‘MYTH’ OF A ‘CLEAN WEHRMACHT’: GENERALS’ TRIALS, PUBLIC OPINION, AND THE DYNAMICS OF VERGANGENHEITSBEWÄLTIGUNG IN WEST GERMANY, 1948–60* Alaric Searle Among one of the most consistent claims made by the organizers and supporters of the ‘Wehrmacht exhibition’1 has been that the ‘myth’ of a ‘clean Wehrmacht’ took root in the Federal Republic of Germany in the early 1950s, lasting well into the 1980s, only to have been finally shattered by the exhibition itself in the mid-1990s. Although this the- sis has very little to do with the actual content of the exhibition— which examined the role of the Wehrmacht, and the army in particu- lar, in co-operating with SS units in the final solution in the Soviet Union, in executions of enemy personnel, and the extermination of countless civilians through the device of declaring them to be parti- sans—it is has been repeated consistently by a number of historians.2 * This article derives from a lecture given at the GHIL on 13 May 2003.