Historiography of World War II

The historiography of World War II is the study of how historians portray the causes, conduct, and outcomes of World War II.

There are different perspectives on the causes of the war; the three most prominent are the Orthodox from the 1950s, Revisionist from the 1970s, and Post-Revisionism which offers the most contemporary perspective. The orthodox perspective arose during the aftermath of the war. The main historian noted for this perspective is Hugh Trevor-Roper. Orthodox historians argue that Hitler was a master planner who intentionally started World War II due to his strong beliefs on fascism, expansionism, and the supremacy of the German state.{{Cite book|title=The Wartime Journals|last=Trevor-Roper|first=Hugh|publisher=I.B.Tauris|year=2011|isbn=978-1848859906|location=London}} Revisionist historians argue that it was an ordinary war by world standards and that Hitler was an opportunist of the sort who commonly appears in world history; he merely took advantage of the opportunities given to him. This viewpoint became popular in the 1970s, especially in the revisionism of A. J. P. Taylor. Orthodox historians argue that, throughout the course of the war, the Axis powers were an evil consuming the world with their powerful message and malignant ideology, while the Allied powers were trying to protect democracy and freedom. Post-revisionist historians of the causes, such as Alan Bullock, argue that the cause of the war was a matter of both the evil and the banal. Essentially Hitler was a strategist with clear aims and objectives, that would not have been achievable without taking advantage of the opportunities given to him.{{Cite book|title=Hitler And Stalin: Parallel Lives.|last=Bullock|first=Alan|publisher=Knopf|year=1992|isbn=9780771017742|location=New York}} Each perspective of World War II offers a different analysis and provides different perspectives on the blame, conduct and causes of the war.

On the result of the war, historians in countries occupied by the Nazis developed strikingly similar interpretations celebrating a victory against great odds, with national liberation based on national unity. That unity is repeatedly described as the greatest source of future strength. Historians in common glorified the resistance movement (somewhat to the neglect of the invaders who actually overthrew the Nazis). There is great stress on heroes — including celebrities such as Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill and Josip Broz Tito — but also countless brave partisans and members of the resistance. Women rarely played a role in the celebrity or the histories, although since the 1990s, social historians have been piecing together the role of women on the home fronts. In recent years much scholarly attention has focused on how popular memories were constructed through selection, and how commemorations are held.

Causes and motives

= Self esteem and glory =

R.J. Bosworth argues the major powers have experienced intellectual conflict in interpreting their wartime stories. Some have ignored the central issues. Germany and, to a much lesser extent, Japan have experienced a collective self-analysis. But these two, as well as Great Britain, France, Russia, and Italy, have largely ignored many roles and have looked instead for glory even when it was lacking. In a lot of cases the countries deny any involvement in war crimes or objectionable historical occurrences.R.J.B. Bosworth, "Nations Examine Their Past: A Comparative Analysis of the Historiography of the" Long" Second World War." History Teacher 29.4 (1996): 499-523. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/494801 in JSTOR]

= Blame =

Blame as the driving force during World War II, is a widely known orthodox perspective. Especially directly after World War II, Nazi Germany was held to blame for starting the war. Orthodox historians cited several reasons for this. Germany was the one who initially invaded Poland against the recommendation of the allies, and also attacked the Soviet Union.{{Cite book|title=The Rabbi Saved by Hitler's Soldiers: Rebbe Joseph Isaac Schneersohn and His Astonishing Rescue|last=Rigg|first=Brian Mark|publisher=University Press of Kansas|year=2005|pages=11–35}} Also, the system of alliances between the Axis Powers was one that was only meant for war. The Tripartite Pact stated that if any country declared war on one of the Axis countries, the other two would also declare war on those countries. Another reason, historians saw, is that the policies of Hitler were overly aggressive; not only did Hitler preach war with France and the Soviet Union, but he followed a careful plan of expansion. The events that took place before the war such as the Remilitarization of the Rhineland, Anschluss, and the German involvement during the Spanish Civil War, showed that Hitler was anticipating the possibility of war and preparing for one.{{Cite book|title=History and Memory|last=Uldricks|first=Teddy J.|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=2009|location=Indianapolis|pages=60–82}}

= Taylor ''The Origins of the Second World War'' (1961) =

{{See also|Historical revisionism#Guilt for causing World War II|The Origins of the Second World War|label 1=Historical revisionism (World War II)}}

In 1961, English historian A. J. P. Taylor published his most controversial book, The Origins of the Second World War, which earned him a reputation as a revisionist—that is, a historian who sharply changes which party was "guilty." The book had a quick, profound impact, upsetting many readers.Gordon Martel, ed. Origins of the Second World War Reconsidered (2nd ed. 2002) p 1. Taylor argued against the standard thesis that the outbreak of the Second World War – by which Taylor specifically meant the war that broke out in September 1939 – was the result of an intentional plan on the part of guilty Adolf Hitler. He began his book with the statement that too many people have accepted uncritically what he called the "Nuremberg Thesis", that the Second World War was the result of criminal conspiracy by a small gang comprising Hitler and his associates. He regarded the "Nuremberg Thesis" as too convenient for too many people and claimed that it shielded the blame for the war from the leaders of other states, let the German people avoid any responsibility for the war and created a situation where West Germany was a respectable Cold War ally against the Soviets.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}

Taylor's thesis was that Hitler was not the demoniacal figure of popular imagination but in foreign affairs a normal German leader. Citing Fritz Fischer, he argued that the foreign policy of Nazi Germany was the same as those of the Weimar Republic and the German Empire. Moreover, in a partial break with his view of German history advocated in The Course of German History, he argued that Hitler was not just a normal German leader but also a normal Western leader. As a normal Western leader, Hitler was no better or worse than Stresemann, Chamberlain or Daladier. His argument was that Hitler wished to make Germany the strongest power in Europe but he did not want or plan war. The outbreak of war in 1939 was an unfortunate accident caused by mistakes on everyone's part.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}

Notably, Taylor portrayed Hitler as a grasping opportunist with no beliefs other than the pursuit of power and anti-Semitism. He argued that Hitler did not possess any sort of programme and his foreign policy was one of drift and seizing chances as they offered themselves. He did not even consider Hitler's anti-Semitism unique: he argued that millions of Germans were just as ferociously anti-Semitic as Hitler and there was no reason to single out Hitler for sharing the beliefs of millions of others.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}

Taylor argued that the basic problem with an interwar Europe was a flawed Treaty of Versailles that was sufficiently onerous to ensure that the overwhelming majority of Germans would always hate it, but insufficiently onerous in that it failed to destroy Germany's potential to be a Great Power once more. In this way, Taylor argued that the Versailles Treaty was destabilising, for sooner or later the innate power of Germany that the Allies had declined to destroy in 1918–1919 would inevitably reassert itself against the Versailles Treaty and the international system established by Versailles that the Germans regarded as unjust and thus had no interest in preserving. Though Taylor argued that the Second World War was not inevitable and that the Versailles Treaty was nowhere near as harsh as contemporaries like John Maynard Keynes believed, what he regarded as a flawed peace settlement made the war more likely than not.James S. Wood, "A Historical Debate of the 1960s: World War II Historiography-The Origins of the War, AJP Taylor, and his Critics." Australian Journal of Politics & History 26.3 (1980): 403-410.

By geography

File:World War II in Europe, 1942.svg

The Nazis perfected the art of stealing, draining the local economies to the maximum or beyond, so that overall production fell.Hans Otto Frøland, Mats Ingulstad, and Jonas Scherner. "Perfecting the Art of Stealing: Nazi Exploitation and Industrial Collaboration in Occupied Western Europe." in Industrial Collaboration in Nazi-Occupied Europe (Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016). 1–34. In all occupied countries resistance movements sprang up.Ben H. Shepherd and Juliette Pattinson. "Partisan and Anti-Partisan Warfare in German-Occupied Europe, 1939–1945: Views from Above and Lessons for the Present." Journal of Strategic Studies 31.5 (2008): 675–693. The Germans tried to infiltrate and suppress them, but after the war they emerged as political actors. The local Communists were especially active in promoting resistance movements, as was the British Special Operations Executive (SOE).Tony Judt, Resistance and Revolution in Mediterranean Europe, 1939–1948 (1989).M.R.D. Foot, SOE: The Special Operations Executive, 1940-1946 (London: Pimlico, 1999).

= Canada =

Canada incorporated professional historians to Canadian Military Headquarters in the United Kingdom during the war and paid much attention to the chronicling of the conflict in the words of the official historians of the Army Historical Section and through art and trained painters. The official history of the Canadian Army was undertaken after the war, with an interim draft published in 1948 and three volumes in the 1950s. This was in comparison to the First World War's official history, only one volume of which was completed by 1939 and the full text only released after a change in authors some 40 years after the fact. Official histories of the RCAF and RCN in the Second World War were also a long time coming, and the book Arms, Men and Government by Charles Stacey (one of the main contributors to the Army history) was published in the 1980s as an "official" history of the war policies of the Canadian government. The performance of Canadian forces in some battles has remained controversial, such as Hong Kong and Dieppe, and a variety of books have been written on them from various points of view. Serious historians, mainly scholars, emerged in the years after the Second World War, foremost Terry Copp (a scholar) and Denis Whitaker (a former soldier).Tim Cook, Clio's Warriors: Canadian Historians and the Writing of the World Wars (UBC Press, 2011).

= Eastern Front =

{{anchor|Historiography of the Eastern Front|Historiography of the Eastern Front in World War II}}

It is commonly said that history is written by the victors, but the opposite occurred in the chronicling of the Eastern Front, particularly in the West. Soviet secrecy and unwillingness to acknowledge events that might discredit the regime led to them revealing little information, always heavily edited, leaving western historians mostly to rely on German sources. While valuable sources, they tended to be self-serving; German generals, in particular, tried to distance themselves and the Heer from the Nazi Party, while at the same time blaming them for their defeat (individuals supporting these arguments are commonly called part of the 'Hitler Lost Us The War' group). While this self-serving approach was noticed at the time, it was still generally accepted as the closest version of the truth.Clark, Alan. Barbarossa. Penguin Group (USA) Incorporated, 1966. {{ISBN|0-451-02848-1}} The result was a commonly held picture of the Heer being the superior army, ground down by the vast numbers of the 'Bolshevik horde' and betrayed by the stupidity of Hitler. Not only did this ignore Hitler's talent as a military leader, an erratic talent that was sometimes brilliantly incisive and sometimes grossly in error, it also severely undervalued the remarkable transformation of the Soviet armed forces, especially the Red Army, from the timid, conservative force of 1941 to an effective war-winning organisation.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Western historians were suddenly exposed to the vast number of Soviet records of the time. This has led to an explosion of the works on the subject, notably by David Glantz, Earl Ziemke and Richard Overy. These historians revealed the brutality of Stalin's regime, the recovery of the USSR and the Red Army in 1942 and the courage and abilities of the average Soviet soldier, relying on Soviet archival material to do so.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}} Phillips Payson O'Brien argues that it is a fallacy that the war was won on the Eastern Front. He argues instead that it was won by the air-sea battle, which immobilized the German and Japanese forces. They lost mobility, were unable to move munitions from the factory to the battlefield and ran out of fuel for their aircraft and ships. They became highly vulnerable and were helpless.Phillips Payson O'Brien, How the War Was Won: Air-Sea Power and Allied Victory in World War II (2015). [https://www.amazon.com/Air-Sea-Power-Allied-Victory-Hardback/dp/B00XGL9AMY/ Excerpt]. See the detailed review by Mark Harrison, "World War II: Won by American Planes and Ships, or by the Poor Bloody Russian Infantry?." Journal of Strategic Studies 39.4 (2016): 592–598. [https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/270017/files/twerp_1077_harrison.pdf Online].

Especially here the provided data gets interpreted differently. When it comes to casualties, there are massive differences, which are often influenced by the political or societical structure of a country. This cannot be really proven though, because the provided data from that time is already manipulated and may not be true or fabricated.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}

Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory (2006) by Welsh historian Norman Davies sought to correct common misconceptions about the war, such as that contrary to popular belief in the West, the dominant part of the conflict took place in Eastern Europe between the two totalitarian systems of the century, communism and Nazism; that Stalin's USSR was as bad as Hitler's Germany.{{cite magazine|url= https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/capsule-review/2007-03-01/europe-war-1939-1945-no-simple-victory-europe-east-and-west |magazine=Foreign Affairs |first=Philip H. |last=Gordon |title=Review of Europe at War, 1939–1945: No Simple Victory; Europe East and West |year=2007}} The subtitle No Simple Victory does therefore not just refer to the losses and suffering the Allies had to endure to defeat the Axis but also the difficult moral choice the Western democracies had to make when allying themselves with one criminal regime in order to defeat another.{{cite book |first=Norman |last=Davies |author-link=Norman Davies |title=Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory |year=2006 |location=London |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=9780333692851 |pages=63–67}}

= France =

{{Further|France during World War II|German military administration in occupied France during World War II}}

== Battle of France, 1940 ==

The German victory over French and British forces in the Battle of France (10 May – 22 June 1940) was one of the most unexpected and astonishing events of the 20th century and has generated a large popular and scholarly literature.For historiographical overviews see Martin S. Alexander, "The fall of France, 1940." Journal of Strategic Studies 13#1 (1990): 10–44; Joel Blatt, ed. The French Defeat of 1940: Reassessments (1997); John C. Cairns, "Along the Road Back to France 1940" American Historical Review 64#3 (1959) pp 583–603; John C. Cairns, "Some Recent Historians and the" Strange Defeat" of 1940." Journal of Modern History 46#1 (1974): 60–85; Peter Jackson, "Returning to the fall of France: Recent work on the causes and consequences of the 'strange defeat' of 1940." Modern & Contemporary France 12#4 (2004): 513–536; and Maurice VaÏsse, Mai-Juin 1940: Défaite française, victoire allemande sous l'oeil des historiens Étrangers (2000).

Observers in 1940 found the events unexpected and earth-shaking. Historian Martin Alexander notes that Belgium and the Netherlands fell to the German army in a matter of days and the British were soon driven back to their home islands:

:But it was France's downfall that stunned the watching world. The shock was all the greater because the trauma was not limited to a catastrophic and deeply embarrassing defeat of her military forces - it also involved the unleashing of a conservative political revolution that, on 10 July 1940, interred the Third Republic and replaced it with the authoritarian, collaborationist Etat Français of Vichy. All this was so deeply disorienting because France had been regarded as a great power....The collapse of France, however, was a different case (a 'strange defeat' as it was dubbed in the haunting phrase of the Sorbonne's great medieval historian and Resistance martyr, Marc Bloch).{{cite book |author=Martin S. Alexander |chapter=The Fall of France, 1940 in |editor=John Gooch |title=Decisive Campaigns of the Second World War |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8zYVvfZb_I4C&pg=PA10 |year=2012 |page=10 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781136288883}}

One of the most influential books on the war was written in summer 1940 by French historian Marc Bloch: L'Étrange Défaite ("Strange Defeat"). He raised most of the issues historians have debated since. He blamed France's leadership:

:What drove our armies to disaster was the cumulative effect of a great number of different mistakes. One glaring characteristic is, however, common to all of them. Our leaders...were incapable of thinking in terms of a new war.Marc Bloch, Strange Defeat: a Statement of Evidence Written in 1940 (Oxford U.P., 1949), p 36

Guilt was widespread. Carole Fink argues that Bloch:

:blamed the ruling class, the military and the politicians, the press and the teachers, for a flawed national policy and a weak defense against the Nazi menace, for betraying the real France and abandoning its children. Germany had won because its leaders had better understood the methods and psychology of modern combat.Carole Fink, "Marc Bloch and the drôle de guerre Prelude to the '"Strange Defeat'" p 46

==Resistance==

The heroism of the French Resistance has always been a favoured topic in France and Britain, with new books in English appearing regularly.Robert Gildea, Fighters in the Shadows: A New History of the French Resistance (2015).Olivier Wieviorka, The French Resistance (Harvard UP, 2016).

==Vichy France==

After 1945 the French ignored or downplayed the role of Marshal Petain's puppet government in Vichy France. Since the late 20th century it has become a major research topic.Henry Rousso and Arthur Goldhammer, The Vichy syndrome: History and memory in France since 1944 (Harvard Univ Press, 1994).

==Collaboration==

Collaboration with the Germans was long denied by the French, but since the late 20th century has generated a large literature.Philippe Burrin, France under the Germans: Collaboration and Compromise 1996).Bertram M. Gordon, Collaborationism in France during the Second World War (Cornell UP, 1980).

==Civilian conditions==

The roles of civilians,Richard Vinen, Unfree French: Life under the Occupation (2006) forced labourers and POW's has a large literature.{{citation needed|date=January 2023}}

There are numerous studies of women.Hanna Diamond, Women and the Second World War in France, 1939-1948: choices and constraints (2015).Sarah Fishman, We Will Wait: Wives of French Prisoners of War, 1940–1945 (Yale UP, (1991).Miranda Pollard, Reign of Virtue: Mobilizing Gender in Vichy France (U of Chicago Press, 1998).Francine Muel-Dreyfus, Kathleen A. Johnson, eds., Vichy and the Eternal Feminine: A Contribution to a Political-Sociology of Gender (Duke UP, 2001).Paula Schwartz, "Partisianes and Gender Politics in Vichy France". French Historical Studies (1989). 16#1: 126–151. {{doi|10.2307/286436}}. {{JSTOR|286436}}.

==Alsace-Lorraine==

Germany integrated Alsace-Lorraine into its German Empire in 1871, France recovered it in 1918, it was again in occupation 1940–45. There was widespread material damage. The first wave of destruction in 1940 was inflicted by German forces, the second was caused by Allied bombers in 1944, and the final wave surrounded bitter fighting between German occupiers and American liberators in 1944–1945.Hugh Clout, "Alsace–Lorraine/Elsaß–Lothringen: destruction, revival and reconstruction in contested territory, 1939–1960." Journal of Historical Geography 37.1 (2011): 95-112.

= Denmark =

Beginning with the German occupation of Denmark in 1940 and lasting until 1943, the Danish government had a "Policy of Cooperation" (da) with Nazi Germany. This meant the Danish government tried to do a balancing act of officially cooperating with the Nazis, while at the same time also working against them and aiding the Danish resistance. Due to this cooperation, Adolf Hitler labelled Denmark as the "model protectorate". When the Policy of Cooperation collapsed in 1943, the resistance helped about 7,000 Jews (and about 500 non-Jewish spouses of Jews) escape across Øresund to neutral Sweden. This operation is known as the rescue of the Danish Jews, and was a great source of frustration for the Nazis.Tatiana Brustin-Berenstein, "The historiographic Treatment of the abortive Attempt to deport the Danish Jews." Yad Vashem Studies 17 (1986): 181-218.Gunnar S. Paulsson, "The 'Bridge over the Øresund: The Historiography on the Expulsion of the Jews from Nazi-Occupied Denmark." Journal of Contemporary History 30.3 (1995): 431-464. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/261157 in JSTOR]Hans Kirchhoff, "Denmark: A Light in the Darkness of the Holocaust? A Reply to Gunnar S. Paulsson," Journal of Contemporary History 30#3 (1995), pp. 465-479 [https://www.jstor.org/stable/261158 in JSTOR]

Denmark has a large popular literature on the war years, which has helped shape national identity and politics. Scholars have also been active but have much less influence on this topic. After the liberation two conflicting narratives emerged. A consensus narrative told how Danes were united in resistance. However, there was also a revisionist interpretation which paid attention to the resistance of most Danes, but presented Danish establishment as a collaborating enemy of Danish values. The revisionist version from the 1960s was successfully adopted by the political Left for two specific goals: to blemish the establishment now allied with the "imperialist" United States, and to argue against Danish membership in the European Community. From the 1980s, the Right started to use revisionism to attack asylum legislation. Finally around 2003, Liberal Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen started using it as his basic narrative of the war years (partly to legitimize his government's decision to join the war against Iraq in 2003). The occupation has thus played a central role in Danish political culture since 1945, although the role of professional scholars has been marginal.Nils Arne Sørensen, "Narrating the Second World War in Denmark since 1945." Contemporary European History 14.03 (2005): 295-315.

=Netherlands=

Dutch historiography of World War II focused on the government in exile, German repression, Dutch resistance, the Hunger Winter of 1944-45 and, above all, the Holocaust. The economy was largely neglected; it was robust in 1940-41 then deteriorated rapidly as exploitation produced low productivity, impoverishment and hunger.Hein A.M. Klemann, "Did the German Occupation (1940–1945) Ruin Dutch Industry?." Contemporary European History 17#4 (2008): 457-481.

=Norway=

The memory of the war seared Norwegians and shaped national policies.Clemens Maier, "Making Memories The Politics of Remembrance in Postwar Norway and Denmark." (Doctoral Dissertation European University Institute, 2007) [http://cadmus.eui.eu/bitstream/handle/1814/6996/2007_07_Maier.pdf?sequence=1 online] Bibliography pp 413-34. Economic issues remain an important topic.Harald Espeli, "Economic Consequences Of The German Occupation Of Norway, 1940–1945." Scandinavian Journal of History 38.4 (2013): 502-524.Rodney Allan Radford, "The Ordinariness of goodness: Myrtle Wright and the Norwegian non-violent resistance to the German occupation, 1940-1945" (Diss. University of Tasmania, 2015).[http://eprints.utas.edu.au/22543/1/Whole_Radford_Rob_%202015.pdf online]Hans Otto Frøland, Mats Ingulstad, Jonas Scherner, eds. Industrial Collaboration in Nazi-Occupied Europe: Norway in Context (Palgrave Macmillan UK, 2016).

= Poland =

On August 1, 1944, the clandestine Polish Home Army, owing allegiance to the exiled government in London, initiated an uprising in Warsaw against the occupying Germans. There is a large literature in several languages. The Warsaw Rising Museum (WRM), opened in Warsaw in 2004 to commemorate it.Monika Żychlińska and Erica Fontana, "Museal Games and Emotional Truths: Creating Polish National Identity at the Warsaw Rising Museum." East European Politics and Societies 30.2 (2016): 235-269. [https://www.academia.edu/download/51531225/Museal_Games_and_Emotional_Truths_Creating_Polish_National_Identity_at_the_Warsaw_Rising_Museum.pdf online]{{dead link|date=July 2022|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}

Polish Jews made up about half of Holocaust victims. There is a large literature on the Holocaust in Poland and its memory and memorials,Michael C. Steinlauf, Bondage to the Dead: Poland and the Memory of the Holocaust (Syracuse UP, 1997). and also the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943.Markus Meckl, "The Memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising." European Legacy 13.7 (2008): 815-824.

= Soviet Union =

{{Further|Home front during World War II#Soviet Union|History of the Soviet Union (1927–1953)#Wartime developments|German occupation of Byelorussia during World War II}}

Popular behaviour has been explored in Byelorussia under the Germans, using oral history, letters of complaint, memoirs, and reports made by the Soviet secret police and by the Communist Party.Franziska Exeler, "What Did You Do during the War?" Kritika: Explorations in Russian & Eurasian History (Fall 2016) 17#4 pp 805-835.

By theme

=Common themes: heroic liberation from Nazis=

Almost all national narratives of the Second World War—ranging from historiography in liberal democracies to that of Communist dictatorship, fit the same European pattern. The French-German historian Etienne Francois has identified the common themes, as paraphrased by Johan Östling:

:Fundamental to them all...was the victory over Nazi Germany. In descriptions of the end of the war and the liberation, national unity was often stressed. This newly won liberty opened a door to the future and marked the beginning of a new, bright chapter in history. A common characteristic in most national narratives was the glorification of the resistance movement, while in countries that had been liberated by foreign troops, domestic efforts tended to be highly praised. In addition, the 'heroisation' of the war was another common denominator in the narratives – not only were charismatic victors such as Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill and Josip Broz Tito designated as heroes, but also brave partisans and members of the resistance.Johan Östling, "Swedish Narratives of the Second World War: A European Perspective" Contemporary European History. May2008, 17#2 pp 197-211, quote pp 199-200.

= ''Historikerstreit'' =

=Holocaust denial=

A field of pseudohistory has emerged which attempts to deny the existence of the Holocaust and the mass extermination of Jews in German-occupied Europe. The proponents of the belief, known as Holocaust deniers or "negationists",{{cite book |last1=Rosenfeld |first1=Alvin H. |title=Deciphering the new antisemitism |date=2015 |location=Bloomington and Indianapolis |publisher=Indiana University Press |isbn=9780253018694 |pages=250, 350 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ibfkCgAAQBAJ |quote="In the 1970s, Holocaust denial took up more sophisticated pseudoscientijfic methods and began to portray itself as a movement of historal revisionists..."}} are usually associated with Neo-Nazism and their views are rejected by professional historians.{{cite book |author=Stephen E. Atkins |title=Holocaust Denial as an International Movement |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M9Uj6u6b-ZIC |year=2009 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-0-313-34538-8 |quote=Holocaust denial has played an important role in the revitalization of the Neo-Nazi movement. There was a smaller but nonetheless vocal number of supporters in other Western European countries and the United States. These neo-Nazis realized that a Hitlerite regime was impossible, but a reasonable facsimile was possible in the future. These neo-Nazis and their allies realized that any rehabilitation of Nazism could be accomplished only by discrediting the Holocaust.}}

= War crimes of the Wehrmacht =

At the Nuremberg Trials, the Schutzstaffel (SS) was declared a criminal organization, but the regular armed forces (Wehrmacht) were not. Although some high-ranking field marshals and generals were convicted of war crimes for issuing criminal orders, Nazi war crimes were mostly blamed on the SS-Totenkopfverbände (concentration camp guards) and the Einsatzgruppen (death squads), overlooking the participation of Wehrmacht soldiers in the Holocaust. More recent scholarship has challenged this view. An exhibition on the war crimes of the Wehrmacht sparked demonstrations.{{cite book |last1=Beorn |first1=Waitman Wade |title=Marching into Darkness |date=6 January 2014 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-72660-4 |pages=14–16 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S8cXAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA14 |language=en}}

= Women =

References

=Works cited=

{{cite news |last=Cohen |first=Roger |url=https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9406E4D61331F932A15755C0A9669C8B63 |title=Hitler Apologist Wins German Honor, and a Storm Breaks Out |newspaper=New York Times |date=June 21, 2000 }}