I’m still reading Panzer Leader. Yes, it’s taking me a while, but you try to follow the campaigns in Russia with the “maps” that are included in the book. At one point, I had to read the book with Google Earth open so I could figure out where in the world 4th Panzer was attacking.

Anyway, the book was written by German General Heinz Guderian, the father of modern tank warfare. Since the book was written in the early 1950’s, I have been taking his pronouncements with a few grains of salt. After all, after the horror of WWII and the complicity of the German military, leaders and citizens in said horrors, I’m sure he was writing with an eye on his legacy.

Sometimes you can almost feel his shame and see how he tries to deflect criticism.

When writing about the preparations for Operation Barbarossa - the invasion of the Soviet Union - he refers to the orders which unleashed the Eeinsatzgruppens and the “Commissar Order”, which set in motion hell on earth for the Russians and then for the Germans, but then he quickly adds:

At that time I dutifully informed the Commander-in-Chief of the Army Group that I was not publishing or obeying this order.

The equally notorious, so-called ‘Commissar Order’ never even reached my Panzer Group. No doubt Army Group Centre had already decided not to forward it. Therefore the ‘Commissar Order’ was never carried out by my troops either.

Looking back, one can only deeply regret that neither the OKW nor the OKH blocked these two orders in the first place. Many brave and innocent soldiers would have thus been saved bitter suffering, and the good name of Germany would have been spared a great shame. Regardless of whether the Russians had signed the Hague Agreement or not, whether or not they had approved the Geneva Convention, German soldiers must accept their international obligations and must behave according to the dictates of a Christian conscience. Even without harsh order the effects of war on the population of an enemy country are cruel enough, and the Russian civilians were as innocent of causing this war as were our own.

Right….

Sorry dude, history shows that by and large the German soldier entered Russia all too willing and eager to kill off the inferior race they encountered. Yes, the Russians did things that made the Germans look like mere juvenile delinquents, but the Germans started the war and started the wholesale slaughter. The Russians were just paying them back. You reap what you sow.

There are other instances in the book where he tries to make the German soldiers and the Generals look better to the post war world.

Look, there are reasons it is unfitting to have memorial services for the dead German soldiers, to dress up in jack boots, to fly the Nazi flag and why there are so few monuments to their “achievements”. The reason is because of what they stood for.

After 1942, I would hazard to guess that the majority of the German army was fighting to save Germany from the swarming hordes attacking from the East. They knew what was in store for their families and their lives if the Russians won the war. They knew because they had inflicted the same fate on the Russians in 1941-42. The German soldier fought admirably and it is amazing they lasted as long as they did in the East, but the fact remains that they stood for absolute evil. I’m not giving the Russians a pass here. Stalin and his boys killed more people than Hitler even dreamed of killing.

The same analogy can be made here in the U.S. in regards to the American Civil War.

NO I’M NOT COMPARING THE SOUTH TO NAZI GERMANY AND HITLER.

Now that we have that out of the way..

What I am saying is that in many ways the reason there is a backlash against having Confederate memorials and flying the Rebel Flag is because of what the soldiers and the flag stood for.

Oh sure, you can say that the average Southerner did not own slaves and was only fighting for States Rights or for the protection of his home, but ultimately the Confederate armies were fighting to preserve a way of life which was and is wrong.

The Confederate soldiers were amazing fighters who succeeded against tremendous odds, but in the end, they were fighting for something that was not good.

Not totally unlike the German armies of WWII.

Anyway, it’s an interesting book and I’m about 3/4 of the way through it.