"In the early 1980's, when this book was first conceived, historical research of the Nazification of the Wehrmacht and its complicity in the regime's crimes was both limited and largely out of the public eye."
"Most Historians of the Third Reich at the time rejected the notion that studying the military could teach them anything worthwhile about German society. Military historians were seen as politically conservative, methodologically backward and primarily concerned with issues of tactics and strategy."
"Why was the Wehrmacht historiography 'from below' or 'within' seen so little progress? In part, at least, this is related to the methodological conservatism of German scholars and of military historians more generally. But the reluctance to engage with this approach is also related to its ideological and historical ramifications. Indeed, the core of the problem is the continuing aversion in wide circles in Germany to accept the implications of postwar society of a growing number of studies indicating the deep complicity in the involvement of Wehrmacht troops in crimes on a massive scale throughout the Second World War, especially in the east."
"Ordinary German Men, up to 20 million of them, served in the Wehrmacht. This was the most representative and, in its own way, egalitarian institution in Nazi Germany."
