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Erich von Manstein: Vernichtungskrieg und Geschichtspolitik
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November 5, 2013
An indispensable work for understanding Manstein's significance to postwar historical revisionism. In general it's a pointedly critical look at Manstein's role in the war, war crimes, and postwar revisionism. Manstein's involvement in war crime trials - both at Nuremberg and his own rather late (1949) British Royal Warrant trial, as well as his postwar career as a "rehabilitated" West German notable and influential memoirist.
Particularly noteworthy - and, at least as of a few years ago, exclusive to Wrochem's book - is the treatment of Manstein's role in the 1945-46 4-power trial at Nuremberg. Wrochem establishes with a fair degree of certainty that Manstein was a moving force behind the Army's defence efforts with respect to the "High Command" organizational charge, something of a footnote (but an influential one!) in the postwar trials regime. This defence effort - which clearly articulated an early but quite evolved version of the "the myth of an unmblemished Wehrmacht" - should probably figure more prominently in the intellectual history of Cold War German revisionism, especially as it pertains to the Army.
Particularly noteworthy - and, at least as of a few years ago, exclusive to Wrochem's book - is the treatment of Manstein's role in the 1945-46 4-power trial at Nuremberg. Wrochem establishes with a fair degree of certainty that Manstein was a moving force behind the Army's defence efforts with respect to the "High Command" organizational charge, something of a footnote (but an influential one!) in the postwar trials regime. This defence effort - which clearly articulated an early but quite evolved version of the "the myth of an unmblemished Wehrmacht" - should probably figure more prominently in the intellectual history of Cold War German revisionism, especially as it pertains to the Army.
Displaying 1 of 1 review