Although not directly involved in criminal activities, the bulk of Landsers were indirectly complicit in that the racial assumptions and norms of the regime infused all thought and activity in the Third Reich, making it relatively easy to justify violence and killing. Not only did they tacitly accept the radical racial and ideological premises of Barbarossa, but their successes on the battlefield also enabled the regime to carry out its murderous plans. As with the issue of criminal complicity, the question of why they fought is complex and multifaceted. For many, of course, it was a straightforward matter of obligation, of being conscripted into the military and sent to fight. Some fought from old-fashioned patriotism and a misguided belief in the German cause. Still others were nationalists who, motivated by a strong sense of grievance, hoped to correct what they saw as the injustices of Versailles, to recover German honor and international preeminence, or to restore the nation’s lost provinces. Many, troubled by the reality of war and fighting to maintain a sense of self, struggled on out of a sense of duty, if not to their country, then to their comrades, whom they were unwilling to abandon in a difficult situation. Pride, honor, and a willingness to sacrifice themselves if necessary also played a role as the focal point became the small group of comrades surrounding oneself. In the last phase of the war, when hundreds of thousands of Germans were dying every month, hope in miracle weapons, fear of Soviet (and Allied) revenge, and harsh, terroristic measures on the part of their own regime sufficed to keep many doing their hard duty as the racial community became fully militarized in the heat of total war.
Yet others were staunch Nazi supporters who wholeheartedly embraced the anti-Semitism, anti-Bolshevism, and belief in a racial mission in the east promoted by National Socialist ideology. The impetus for mass murder might well have come from the Nazi elite in the SS and the party, but many of those who acted out of conviction understood, in a form of anticipatory obedience, what was expected and required of them and, thus, did not have to be given explicit orders. At the same time, faith in Nazi ideology could induce a more positive emphasis on the new society, the much-heralded Volksgemeinschaft of unity, opportunity, and (not least) material benefits promised by Hitler. The very economic and foreign policy successes of the regime in the 1930s, which led many Germans to support the general thrust of Nazi policy, thus elicited a sense that Hitler really was creating a new society that would redeem the myriad hardships and injustices suffered by Germany in the recent past. Once begun, acceptance of moral compromise became a habit, one not easily changed in the midst of war. Although most Landsers saw themselves as decent fellows, they nonetheless participated in a wantonly cruel war.11
Much the same was true of average Germans in the Volksgemeinschaft, who often accepted the logic in the system not so much because they were ardent Nazis as because it rewarded them. Not only did significant numbers of professional and business people benefit from the Aryanization of property and the theft of Jewish wealth, but ethnic Germans, for example, were also the recipients of the property of deported Poles and murdered Jews. Similarly, Germans left homeless and destitute by Allied bombing profited from the receipt of plundered Jewish clothing, household possessions, and apartments. Moreover, Germans as a whole enjoyed a relatively high standard of living during the war, including low taxes, in part because of the theft of food, property, and wealth from the occupied territories. The euthanasia program directed resources at “healthy” elements of the population, while few Germans could fail to notice the prevalence of foreign, forced workers in industry and agriculture, a fact that kept the German economy and food production going during war. Germans not only benefited from the suffering of others but also witnessed it in their daily lives without much moral distress. Indeed, the Nazis’ genius seemed to be their ability to combine rational self-interest with a sense that this was just retribution for past inequities in a system that balanced belief in a new society with racism and exploitation to create that New Order.12
It is, in fact, disconcerting to realize that so many Germans supported the Nazi regime either from mistaken notions of idealism or from crass materialistic motives, but it is also disturbing that the average Landser fought so long and so well on behalf of such a murderous system. This raises yet another, final, question: Could Germany have won? As with the others, this is a complex issue that involves a number of factors that must be considered. In contrast to the generally accepted view, when Germany began World War II, its armaments economy was relatively unprepared, both organizationally and in terms of raw materials. The quick victories in 1939–1940, moreover, promised more than they delivered. Both at Dunkirk and during the Battle of Britain, the Germans lacked the resources to compel the British to negotiate an end to the war, while, in North Africa and the Mediterranean, they were dependent on weak and unreliable allies. All this revealed German weakness, not strength. Great Britain remained in the war, so blitzkrieg had failed, while Western Europe, for all its value industrially, proved a drain on Germany precisely at its weakest and most vulnerable point: foodstuffs and basic raw materials. Once the British secured American aid, the time pressure on Hitler rose significantly. His pact with Stalin had made Germany blockade-proof, at least temporarily, but that very dependency opened the Reich to blackmail and pressure from the hated Bolshevik enemy. In any case, war had to come with the Soviet Union sooner or later, for the simple fact that Hitler’s entire ideology, with the central role of Lebensraum in all its racial and economic manifestations, demanded it. Hitler did not, contrary to what many Western historians argue, blunder into war with the Soviet Union, for that constituted the entire purpose of Nazism and was what differentiated Hitler from the run-of-the-mill German nationalists who simply wanted a revision of the Versailles system. The Führer envisioned instead a complete reordering of Europe, for which the destruction of the Soviet Union was the necessary first step. Having decided to break the Gordian knot through an invasion of the Soviet Union rather than driving Great Britain from the war, itself an implicit admission of German weakness, he found that the tyranny of time again asserted itself. He needed a quick victory in the east before American power could assert itself in the west.
As early as late July 1941, with the unexpectedly fierce Soviet resistance at Smolensk, some in the German leadership worried that the gamble had already failed, but events in early December resulted in the decisive change in the nature of the war. The setback in front of Moscow, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and the German declaration of war on the United States all combined to transform what had remained an essentially European struggle into a global war of resources, manpower, and industrial prowess that put Germany at a distinct disadvantage. An additional dimension to the conflict was created by Hitler’s deliberate intention to wage a war of extermination in the Soviet Union. In a terrible irony, the failure to knock Great Britain out of the war, combined with the initial successes in the Soviet Union, had as a consequence the transition of the original intention for a territorial solution to the Nazis’ self-imposed Jewish problem to an exterminationist one. Even as the Ostheer began to struggle against its Soviet opponent, however, the murderous activities of the Einsatzgruppen coalesced with efforts to implement the hunger policy and Generalplan Ost, with the result being a stunning level of violence directed against the occupied peoples of the Soviet Union. Having unleashed a war of annihilation, Hitler now redoubled his efforts to see it through, characteristically perceiving a short window of opportunity for action. If Germany could defeat the Soviet Union in 1942 or at least render it incapable of further resistance, the vast resources of European Russia would be available for use in a global war of attrition against the Anglo-Americans.