Firstly, there is the motivation of the German troops, which repeatedly returns to the question of ‘defending France’ or ‘defending a united Europe’ against various international forces. I found this surprising when I first read the interviews, but, when I investigated German propaganda of the late war period, I found that this was in fact a very common message. The presence of the idea in the interviewees’ statements shows, probably, how effectively this idea was communicated by the regime’s propagandists.
