Most of Germany’s generals, in the dark recesses of their souls, knew that they had made their nation and its entire army—it was a myth that only the SS committed atrocities—complicit in crimes against humanity, and especially Russian humanity, such as their enemies would never forgive, even before the Holocaust began. They saw nothing to lose by fighting on, except more millions of lives: it deserves emphasis that a large majority of the war’s victims perished from 1942 onwards. Only victories might induce the Allies to make terms. Hitler’s April directive for the summer operations called for
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