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Cambridge Military Histories
Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front: The German Infantry's War, 1941 - 1944
By 1944, the overwhelming majority of the German Army had participated in the German war of annihilation in the Soviet Union and historians continue to debate the motivations behind the violence unleashed in the east. Jeff Rutherford offers an important new contribution to this debate through a study of combat and the occupation policies of three frontline infantry divisions. He shows that while Nazi racial ideology provided a legitimizing context in which violence was not only accepted but encouraged, it was the Wehrmacht's adherence to a doctrine of military necessity which is critical in explaining why German soldiers fought as they did. This meant that the German Army would do whatever was necessary to emerge victorious on the battlefield. Periods of brutality were intermixed with conciliation as the army's view and treatment of the civilian population evolved based on its appreciation of the larger context of war in the east.
440 pages, Hardcover
First published June 16, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 7, 2018
This book examines the behaviour of 3 different German infantry divisions in Army Group North on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1944. One of the most significant reasons he chose these units was that due to the stability of their position in the AG and the AG's own stability over the period made the traceable documentation much greater. He ceased his study in mid 1944 as one of the divisions disintegrated in 1944 and documentation for the other 2 heavily reduced in the retreat from Russia.
This builds a solid description and comparison between the conditions the troops were in, where they were recruited, the level of indoctrination and orders passed down to the divisions and battalions and how these combined generated behaviour.
Germany tried to to keep divisions unified through raising them from a single area so the could build an identity from their region. The author ties this to the early behaviour of the divisions. He highlight's the division raised from the more communist supporting Berlin area was the most accepting and forgiving of the Russian population during the first few months of the war. This contrasts with the Rhinelanders who were the most aggressive with the population. The latter he ascribes to their being the most indoctrinated of the 3, coming from an area that had been occupied by France after WWI. This was apparent in how they did everything from treating partisans to stealing food. Despite these differences they all hung civilians from lamp posts for crimes. However the regional differences didn't survive long as once a division was put in extended combat they became brutalised and only saw survival and combat.
It highlights the contrasting orders given to the divisions of trying to 1) pacify the countryside, 2) feed from the land and supply labour for both their own rear areas and the Reich. You cannot make people happy while taking their food (to starvation point) and shipping family members off to the rear for forced labour. This in turn was overlayed by the rounding up of Jews and people who were too frail to work and shipping them to the rear. Given there was only death camps or hostile locals, who were were already starving themselves, waiting for them it was mostly a death sentence.
Well referenced with most points argued supported from multiple references including a good spread of primary sources.
This builds a solid description and comparison between the conditions the troops were in, where they were recruited, the level of indoctrination and orders passed down to the divisions and battalions and how these combined generated behaviour.
Germany tried to to keep divisions unified through raising them from a single area so the could build an identity from their region. The author ties this to the early behaviour of the divisions. He highlight's the division raised from the more communist supporting Berlin area was the most accepting and forgiving of the Russian population during the first few months of the war. This contrasts with the Rhinelanders who were the most aggressive with the population. The latter he ascribes to their being the most indoctrinated of the 3, coming from an area that had been occupied by France after WWI. This was apparent in how they did everything from treating partisans to stealing food. Despite these differences they all hung civilians from lamp posts for crimes. However the regional differences didn't survive long as once a division was put in extended combat they became brutalised and only saw survival and combat.
It highlights the contrasting orders given to the divisions of trying to 1) pacify the countryside, 2) feed from the land and supply labour for both their own rear areas and the Reich. You cannot make people happy while taking their food (to starvation point) and shipping family members off to the rear for forced labour. This in turn was overlayed by the rounding up of Jews and people who were too frail to work and shipping them to the rear. Given there was only death camps or hostile locals, who were were already starving themselves, waiting for them it was mostly a death sentence.
Well referenced with most points argued supported from multiple references including a good spread of primary sources.
June 1, 2017
Decades of thorough scholarship have established beyond any doubt the German army's active complicity in Nazi atrocities. What this volume contributes is an in-depth discussion of which factors motivated that complicity with regime and SS ideologues and facilitated the troops' descent into barbarism.
Previous explanations have focused on the continuity or growth of racist ideology in German society, or the desperate material situation on the Eastern Front. Rutherford convincingly argues that the notion of "military necessity", born of the Prussian army's traditional sense of weakness and contempt for irregular warfare, is the missing link that brought these factors to one horrifying culmination after another. By studying three German divisions, recruited from very different regions of Germany (the Rhineland, East Prussia and Berlin), he is able to demonstrate how military necessity could lead to both opportunistic short-term policies of conciliation with the civilian population and ferocious scorched-earth policies more in alignment with Nazi thinking. Regardless of outcome, however, military necessity was a view of warfare that saw civilians as free labour at best, racial enemies and impediments to victory at worst.
This was a military moral vacuum, coupled with the social one avidly encouraged by Nazi propagandists and a constant material crisis of the German army's own making. All this could make both a Berlin socialist, a staunchly conservative Rhineland Catholic, and anyone in between commit utterly reprehensible acts.
By going into the details of individual divisions' and soldiers' lives, Rutherford picks apart local complexities, but ultimately confirms the awful overall picture, while adding to our understanding of how it could come about.
Previous explanations have focused on the continuity or growth of racist ideology in German society, or the desperate material situation on the Eastern Front. Rutherford convincingly argues that the notion of "military necessity", born of the Prussian army's traditional sense of weakness and contempt for irregular warfare, is the missing link that brought these factors to one horrifying culmination after another. By studying three German divisions, recruited from very different regions of Germany (the Rhineland, East Prussia and Berlin), he is able to demonstrate how military necessity could lead to both opportunistic short-term policies of conciliation with the civilian population and ferocious scorched-earth policies more in alignment with Nazi thinking. Regardless of outcome, however, military necessity was a view of warfare that saw civilians as free labour at best, racial enemies and impediments to victory at worst.
This was a military moral vacuum, coupled with the social one avidly encouraged by Nazi propagandists and a constant material crisis of the German army's own making. All this could make both a Berlin socialist, a staunchly conservative Rhineland Catholic, and anyone in between commit utterly reprehensible acts.
By going into the details of individual divisions' and soldiers' lives, Rutherford picks apart local complexities, but ultimately confirms the awful overall picture, while adding to our understanding of how it could come about.
June 28, 2025
Rutherford's examination of the experiences of three Wehrmacht infantry divisions during the German war against the USSR, from the beginning of Operation Barbarossa on June 22nd 1941 to the final withdrawal from Soviet territory in late 1944, is a masterpiece of military history. Written in a most accessible prose style, leavening detailed academic research with eyewitness anecdotes and other supporting evidence, Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front: The German Infantry's War, 1941-1944 offers the student of World War Two history serious insights into how the war was fought by German soldiers on the Eastern Front, that the Nazi invasion was doomed from the start, and that whilst there is no argument as to the war crimes committed during the period, the motivations and methodologies that led to such barbarisms were not necessarily purely driven by ideological reasons. The connection between combat and genocide is explored through significant and learned historical analysis and, as conducted by the author, leads to the conclusion that at no point was the German war against the USSR ever fought without cruelty or for that matter a chance of victory. This is a most important military history text.
The approach that Rutherford takes to his topic is insightful and meaningful because he starts by placing the Wehrmacht's military ethos as seen in WW2 on the Eastern Front into a longer historical context. It is rewarding and hightly pertinent for the author to consider the operations of frontsoldaten in 1941-1944 as a continuance and expansion of previous combat policies exploited by Prussian and German forces during earlier wars. Rutherford cites the punitive actions undertaken by Prussian troops against franc tireurs in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, as well as atrocities that evnetuated during the imperial war against the Herero in German South West Africa (Namibia) in the 1900s, and the crimes committed in Belgium during the opening months of WW1. It is a fascinating and compelling argument to see the Wehrmacht of the Second World War inheriting the 'need' to supress partisan/guerilla/popular enemy opposition (real or imagined) as an operational dictum of German war making, and of course when this is united with the genocidal rhetoric of the Nazi regime it is no surprise that German soldiers could easily 'lapse' into war crimes. That Rutherford enphasies this historical and philosophical continuity by speaking of the 'Prussian-German Army', with all the attendent connections to a particular manner of military thinking, makes this argument even more effective.
Another key aspect of the success of Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front: The German Infantry's War, 1941-1944 is that Rutherford focuses on three infantry divisions, each with different backgrounds, yet all operating for the most part in the same 'limited' geographical theatre. The 121st, 123rd and 126th Infantry Divisions are the subjects of detailed study, with the author beginning each unit's history with a consideration of their recruitment from specific regions of the Reich (East Prussia, Berlin-Brandenburg and the Rhineland respectively), their equioment and training as Barbarossa is formulated, and continues this focus through to the end of their involvement in the war on Soviet soil. The result of such a close, yet broad, historical study is that the author offers the reader some narrow, highly specific insights into the nuances and differences between how soldiers of these units fought and committed war crimes, whilst also supplying more broad conclusions reflecting the totality of the Wehrmacht's policies and actions in their genocidal war.
As part of this study it is highly significant that the author reveals the relative 'poverty' of the Wehrmacht and by associated the Third Reich as it endeavoured to defeat the USSR, an enemy that Hitler and others in the regime thought and hoped would collapse like a house rotten inside and out. From the June 1941 invasion all the war through to the end of the occupation of Soviet territory, Rutherford makes it abundantly clear that food, labour and other materials that were crucial for Germany's war effort were in short supply, and that so much of what the Ostheer did during operations against both the Red Army, partisans and Soviet citizens was predicated by the need to fulfil operational requirements. Poor logistics and lack of war making resources combined to produce a dangerous Achilles' heel for the German army in the USSR, and whilst left unsaid by Rutherford surely the conclusion the reader must take away from his book is that the whole Nazi war effort was mortally flawed from the get go.
Rutherford maps the experiences of trhe three studied divisions to great effect and in great detail, with much of his focus spent on the 12-18 months of the Army Group North campaign. It is somehwat of a revelation to read of how severely damaged each division, and by association the Wehrmacht was, during this period, especially in the opening months of Barbarossa. Popular history suggests that the Germans flayed the Soviets, without too much damage incurred on their own forces until the winter offensives of late 1941/early 1942. Instead Rutherford establishes very clearly that casualties were draining the Germans white as early as autumn 1941, and as the Eastern Front became bogged down into attritional warfare the Third Reich was never able to answer the challenge so as to ensure victory.
The core consideration of Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front: The German Infantry's War, 1941-1944 is how the Soviet citizenry suffered as a result of German war crimes, and Rutherford is again most insightful in his considered study of what transpired for each of the three studied divisions, and how these histories could be used to provide a wider assessment of motivations and actions across the entire Ostfront. Whilst direct and violent actions such as the hunting down of partisans, public executions of Soviet 'criminals' and coordination between the soldiers and members of Einsatzgruppen are given suitable precedence, Rutherford posits two other genocidal practices of the WSehrmacht as being more widespread and just as egregious. The famines enforced by the Wehrmacht, in part inspired by the need to take much needed food from peasants etc to fulfil their own shortages, and in part inspired by ideological inhumanity, are shown by Rutherford to be so crucial in udnerstanding how the Germans committed war crimes in the USSR. Then, as the war turned against them, the forced evacuation of Soviet citizens for slave labour and other reasons and the 'scorched earth' actions undertaken by the Germans is positioned as another criminal act. The barbarism and genocidal acts made by the German army in WW2 on the Eastern Front can be readily seen as a combination of operational pragmatism and ideological weltschaaung.
For me this book has been something of a revelation, and as I read what Rutherford wrote I was again and again provoked to consider how intriguing and insightful his narrative was, whilst also seeing how convincing his historical argument was as well. This is not a pleasant book to read, nor should it be. However, for those of us fascinated by the history of the Third Reich and World War Two, Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front: The German Infantry's War, 1941-1944 is a major text that reveals so much about what happened and why, and to what effect. The depth of Rutherford's research, seen through the copious and well organised footnotes and supporting bibliography, means that it's well nigh impossible to argue with the book's academic validity. Whilst books like Antony Beevor's Stalingrad provide compelling popular history of the war on the Russian Front, it is books like Rutherford's that offer a more scholarly and intellectually satisfying approach to the same subject.
The approach that Rutherford takes to his topic is insightful and meaningful because he starts by placing the Wehrmacht's military ethos as seen in WW2 on the Eastern Front into a longer historical context. It is rewarding and hightly pertinent for the author to consider the operations of frontsoldaten in 1941-1944 as a continuance and expansion of previous combat policies exploited by Prussian and German forces during earlier wars. Rutherford cites the punitive actions undertaken by Prussian troops against franc tireurs in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, as well as atrocities that evnetuated during the imperial war against the Herero in German South West Africa (Namibia) in the 1900s, and the crimes committed in Belgium during the opening months of WW1. It is a fascinating and compelling argument to see the Wehrmacht of the Second World War inheriting the 'need' to supress partisan/guerilla/popular enemy opposition (real or imagined) as an operational dictum of German war making, and of course when this is united with the genocidal rhetoric of the Nazi regime it is no surprise that German soldiers could easily 'lapse' into war crimes. That Rutherford enphasies this historical and philosophical continuity by speaking of the 'Prussian-German Army', with all the attendent connections to a particular manner of military thinking, makes this argument even more effective.
Another key aspect of the success of Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front: The German Infantry's War, 1941-1944 is that Rutherford focuses on three infantry divisions, each with different backgrounds, yet all operating for the most part in the same 'limited' geographical theatre. The 121st, 123rd and 126th Infantry Divisions are the subjects of detailed study, with the author beginning each unit's history with a consideration of their recruitment from specific regions of the Reich (East Prussia, Berlin-Brandenburg and the Rhineland respectively), their equioment and training as Barbarossa is formulated, and continues this focus through to the end of their involvement in the war on Soviet soil. The result of such a close, yet broad, historical study is that the author offers the reader some narrow, highly specific insights into the nuances and differences between how soldiers of these units fought and committed war crimes, whilst also supplying more broad conclusions reflecting the totality of the Wehrmacht's policies and actions in their genocidal war.
As part of this study it is highly significant that the author reveals the relative 'poverty' of the Wehrmacht and by associated the Third Reich as it endeavoured to defeat the USSR, an enemy that Hitler and others in the regime thought and hoped would collapse like a house rotten inside and out. From the June 1941 invasion all the war through to the end of the occupation of Soviet territory, Rutherford makes it abundantly clear that food, labour and other materials that were crucial for Germany's war effort were in short supply, and that so much of what the Ostheer did during operations against both the Red Army, partisans and Soviet citizens was predicated by the need to fulfil operational requirements. Poor logistics and lack of war making resources combined to produce a dangerous Achilles' heel for the German army in the USSR, and whilst left unsaid by Rutherford surely the conclusion the reader must take away from his book is that the whole Nazi war effort was mortally flawed from the get go.
Rutherford maps the experiences of trhe three studied divisions to great effect and in great detail, with much of his focus spent on the 12-18 months of the Army Group North campaign. It is somehwat of a revelation to read of how severely damaged each division, and by association the Wehrmacht was, during this period, especially in the opening months of Barbarossa. Popular history suggests that the Germans flayed the Soviets, without too much damage incurred on their own forces until the winter offensives of late 1941/early 1942. Instead Rutherford establishes very clearly that casualties were draining the Germans white as early as autumn 1941, and as the Eastern Front became bogged down into attritional warfare the Third Reich was never able to answer the challenge so as to ensure victory.
The core consideration of Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front: The German Infantry's War, 1941-1944 is how the Soviet citizenry suffered as a result of German war crimes, and Rutherford is again most insightful in his considered study of what transpired for each of the three studied divisions, and how these histories could be used to provide a wider assessment of motivations and actions across the entire Ostfront. Whilst direct and violent actions such as the hunting down of partisans, public executions of Soviet 'criminals' and coordination between the soldiers and members of Einsatzgruppen are given suitable precedence, Rutherford posits two other genocidal practices of the WSehrmacht as being more widespread and just as egregious. The famines enforced by the Wehrmacht, in part inspired by the need to take much needed food from peasants etc to fulfil their own shortages, and in part inspired by ideological inhumanity, are shown by Rutherford to be so crucial in udnerstanding how the Germans committed war crimes in the USSR. Then, as the war turned against them, the forced evacuation of Soviet citizens for slave labour and other reasons and the 'scorched earth' actions undertaken by the Germans is positioned as another criminal act. The barbarism and genocidal acts made by the German army in WW2 on the Eastern Front can be readily seen as a combination of operational pragmatism and ideological weltschaaung.
For me this book has been something of a revelation, and as I read what Rutherford wrote I was again and again provoked to consider how intriguing and insightful his narrative was, whilst also seeing how convincing his historical argument was as well. This is not a pleasant book to read, nor should it be. However, for those of us fascinated by the history of the Third Reich and World War Two, Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front: The German Infantry's War, 1941-1944 is a major text that reveals so much about what happened and why, and to what effect. The depth of Rutherford's research, seen through the copious and well organised footnotes and supporting bibliography, means that it's well nigh impossible to argue with the book's academic validity. Whilst books like Antony Beevor's Stalingrad provide compelling popular history of the war on the Russian Front, it is books like Rutherford's that offer a more scholarly and intellectually satisfying approach to the same subject.
February 18, 2021
Es un libro fascinante,nos permite apreciar otra perspectiva de la operación barbarroja,la invasión alemana a la union Soviética. Al leer sobre está operación se tiende a recalcar las batallas de los ejércitos sur hasta la derrota de Paulus en stalingrado. Sebastopol,kursk, Kiev,etc son las batallas que más se estudian,sin embargo con este libro nos vamos al norte,el frente del ostheer ,que fue inicialmente dirigido por el Mariscal Wilhem Ritter Von Leeb ,nos plantea la lucha de 3 divisiones de la wehrmacht ,la 121 ,123 y 126 , son divisiones de diferente partes de Alemania: prusia oriental, Berlín y Brandenburgo,nos explica cómo la educación en estás ciudades enfluye en el comportamiento en el campo de batalla. Otro componente importante de estudio en este libro es algo llamado "heimat" la cohesión o similitudes que ayudan al trabajo en equipo de la división que está formado por soldados de la misma ciudad . Además nos explica cómo se fue modificando el comportamiento de la wehrmacht con la población rusa, desde solo verlos como seres inferiores y salvajes hasta tener que convivir con ellos tras el primer invierno en la URSS y el sueño de una guerra rápida se haya destruido. Es interesante está parte ,ya que se creía que la wehrmacht no participo en la guerra de exterminó y genocidio,pero a lo largo de los años se a comprobado que participo directa o indirectamente con las SS. El sitió de Leningrado hasta la retirada a la línea panther son los acontecimientos que se estudian para entender el comportamiento de las 3 divisiones que se estudian en este libro.
Sin duda ameno de leer e indispensable para quien quiere aprender de la guerra de exterminó y el comportamiento de la wehrmacht durante la invasión a la unión Soviética.
Sin duda ameno de leer e indispensable para quien quiere aprender de la guerra de exterminó y el comportamiento de la wehrmacht durante la invasión a la unión Soviética.
October 21, 2020
In this dense monograph the author seeks to plumb the foundations of criminality in the German army in the Second World War and finds that while, yes, socialization into the Nazi worldview did contribute to the violence, the real catalyst was the German military's attitude that "military necessity" was the consideration that superseded all others; this being a polite term for how any extremity in the pursuit of victory was justified. As such, most of the damage done by German soldiers had less to do with field massacres, and more to do with the systematic looting of the Soviet civilian population for food, clothing and shelter. This is an important point to make, the only issue being that having read the works of David Stahel this is not exactly a fresh insight for me at this point.
Apart from this Rutherford also does a service by backing up the higher analysis with case studies of a number of German infantry divisions; the East Prussian 121st, the Berliners of the 123rd and the mostly Catholic Rhinelanders of 126th. Units that could be called "ordinary" if you will. The main point here being that Germany was still sufficiently variegated that Nazi calls for racial violence did have different degrees of traction depending on a unit's recruitment region.
On the whole, highly recommended.
Apart from this Rutherford also does a service by backing up the higher analysis with case studies of a number of German infantry divisions; the East Prussian 121st, the Berliners of the 123rd and the mostly Catholic Rhinelanders of 126th. Units that could be called "ordinary" if you will. The main point here being that Germany was still sufficiently variegated that Nazi calls for racial violence did have different degrees of traction depending on a unit's recruitment region.
On the whole, highly recommended.
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