Stephen Fritz - Frontsoldaten

Given the generally deeper ideological intensity displayed by the Landser, another factor that set him apart from the GI was the much harsher discipline to which he was subjected. This is a paradox not easy to explain; it cannot simply be dismissed with the facile excuse that the U.S. Army was remarkably lenient and permissive. In part, harsh discipline was the logical result of a political order that demanded unquestioning loyalty and obedience from both military authorities and the rank and file. Omer Bartov has noted that the politicization of discipline went hand in glove with a politicization of the army as a whole, as Nazi ideological and legal concepts, as well as codes of behavior, made their way into the ranks. 10As a consequence, actions and behaviors that otherwise might have been disregarded or merely reprimanded were deemed political crimes warranting often draconian punishment. Moreover, as Nazi racial ideology seeped into the ranks, a curious and multifaceted process of brutalization ensued. Encouraged by Nazi doctrine (and his senior officers), the Landser in Russia was free to engage in virtually any criminal behavior, be it plunder, rape, or murder, as long as it was directed against so-called racial enemies of the German Volk; he was not only rarely punished but often praised for his racial and ideological consciousness. It could hardly have come as a surprise, therefore, when Soviet soldiers retaliated with gruesome atrocities of their own. As the fighting on the eastern front reached an intensity unknown elsewhere in World War II, and as increasing numbers of Landsers sought to evade the battlefield, the Wehrmacht responded with brutal disciplinary measures designed to make the men more fearful of their own authorities than they were of the enemy. Since this was an ideological war on behalf of the Volksgemeinschaft, anyone seen as doing less than his duty was considered a traitor to Führer and Volk who had to be punished accordingly. Finally, as the Nazi Reich crumbled in the latter part of the war, an iron discipline was seen as the only means by which to avert catastrophe. At the most concrete level, the Landser in the foxhole was thus subjected to ideological indoctrination designed to clarify the purpose of the war and create in him a willingness to sacrifice for this higher cause, while simultaneously threatening him with the most brutal disciplinary measures if his efforts on behalf of the Volk were deemed insufficient.

Perhaps because of the prevalence of death, which seemed to be a creature lurking all around, the letters and diaries of the German soldiers possess a brooding and reflective quality rarely seen in the far more practical and straightforward accounts of American soldiers. Not only did the Landser seem more fatalistic about the likelihood of death; he also projected a view of the world and his place in it that was more inclined to emphasize the role of fate, both as an individual matter and as a “community of fate.” Moreover, he tended to imbue war with a romantically nihilistic quality. The Landser reflected on the intoxicating nature of war, dwelt on its innermost nature and essence, saw it as a drama of horribly beautiful power. War was of necessity a struggle for survival in which destruction was inevitable; and within this process of destruction men were released, allowed to savor the ultimate freedom from restraint, to enter the promiscuous realm of death where they could vent their most primitive feelings and desires. The notion that one had to destroy in order to live, that one could learn of life only while facing death, that the dangerous life was the most liberating, or that sacrifice fulfilled a higher spiritual purpose would seem out of place in a letter from a GI but not from a Landser. In a very real sense, the Landser came to think and act like a soldier, while most GIs were and remained civilians in uncomfortable uniforms.

Despite these differences, the Landser’s self-image was likely not dissimilar from the GIs. He saw himself as a decent person caught up in a vast, impersonal enterprise that threatened both his physical and spiritual well-being. He worried about his wife or sweetheart and his family back home, especially that his marriage might deteriorate or that his wife or girlfriend might be unfaithful. He was apprehensive that his farm or business would suffer in his absence, or that he would not have a job when he returned. He fretted over his spiritual and psychological well-being and puzzled about how the war, with all its killing and violence, might alter him and the folks at home. He grappled with agonizing inner doubts and wanted to be told that what he was doing was right. He understood that he was expendable and that war from ground level was, as the American E.B. Sledge put it, “brutish, inglorious, and a terrible waste,” so he wanted desperately to know what he was fighting for. 11

As a soldier he fought for many reasons: for survival, for his home and family, for his comrades, from the exhilaration of combat. But as Omer Bartov has pointed out, Landsers also fought against “Asiatic barbarism,” against the alleged “Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy,” and in defense of German culture and the Nazi-inspired racialist Volksgemeinschaft. “In this sense,” Bartov concluded, “they fought for Nazism and everything that it stood for.” In a situation where many of them were becoming accustomed to war as a normal existence, where war had been transformed into the ordinary, the Landser might well have had “little influence and saw hardly any possibility of evading the escalation of violence,” as one of their number, the historian Hans Mommsen, has argued. 12Perhaps many individual Landsers did see the reality of war as simply death and destruction, giving little thought to the larger political or moral issues involved.

Nevertheless, the hard fact is that they fought courageously and with great determination in the service of a deplorable regime engaged in unprecedented atrocities. To the very end of the war, Hitler retained an amazing popularity with German soldiers, who were obviously among his staunchest supporters. As late as November 1944 almost two-thirds of German prisoners of war in American hands professed support for the Führer, and a mid-December report prepared by the German military maintained that among the troops “there is a firm conviction that the tremendous military efforts of our people will lead us to victory.” Even in March 1945, when Nazi Germany was literally falling to pieces, Joseph Goebbels recorded in his diary that the troops had a “mystical faith” in Hitler, that the men had been fighting like “savage fanatics,” and that the Landser would continue to do his duty. More than is generally accepted, agreement with National Socialist goals had seeped into the consciousness of the rank and file. There were no mutinies by the common soldiers in the Wehrmacht; and the attempted assassination of Hitler by a conspiracy of officers was generally regarded by the men at the front as the traitorous action of an unrepresentative aristocratic clique. In a very real sense, the Landser had become “Nazified.” Field Marshall Wilhelm Keitel acknowledged the importance of the educational process leading from the Hitler Youth to the Labor Service to the army; when Hitler expressed concern about possible army opposition to the introduction of ideological instruction, Keitel replied, “No, my Führer, that is not to be expected…. We have already gone too far with their education.” 13In a cruel paradox, these men, often brimming with idealism to create a new and better Germany, in truth became the all-too-successful instruments of Hitler’s will. This is indeed a bitter truth, one that the years cannot erase.