In the dawn of April 9, 1940, two obsolete Norwegian armoured ships Eidsvold and Norge were engaged by the German invasion flotilla outside Narvik. The German Navy declared they were coming as friends, but soon torpedoed both ships without mercy. Almost 280 Norwegian sailors died, which in Norway became one of the symbols of German cruelty.

Executions of civilians committed on the verdicts of various quasi-legal Wehrmacht and SS courts or drum courts martial, but also in the form of killing hostages. The first victim was the resistance fighter Carlo Santi from Trondheim, sentenced to death in July 1940. He managed to escape underground, but after his wife was taken hostage, he turned himself to the court.

Generaloberst Lothar Rendulić was prosecuted in Nuremberg for ordering forced evacuation and burning of civilian settlements in Norway. The tribunal acquitted him, accepted that he saw this as „militarily necessary“ to secure the retreat of his army. Allowing bad judgement to initiate war crimes caused outrage at the time and still remains highly controversial.

Exhibitions change minds! After the war, the narrative became widespread in Germany that the regular military had fought honourably. War crimes were attributed to the SS and the Nazi party. In public, this myth of an „unblemished Wehrmacht“ was finally shattered in 1995 and again in 2001 by the famous art exhibition, which clearly showed that the Wehrmacht was actively involved in war crimes from the very beginning.

THE FALSE MYTH OF THE HONORABLY FIGHTING WEHRMACHT

The German uniform became a symbol of unlimited power and cruelty of the occupiers on one hand, and humiliation, fear, and hatred on the other, for the population of the occupied European countries. The inhabitants soon realized that the greatest danger came from the Gestapo and the members of the SS, but every occupier, regardless of whether in uniform or in civilian clothes, posed a potential threat. This overall view of all Germans as cruel enemies has, in fact, not changed in the affected countries to this day.

On the contrary, in Germany and Austria, a completely different situation arose after the war. The Germans were experiencing general condemnation by the world public. The most active Nazis were tried and punished. However, the majority of society, those who supported the Nazi regime lukewarmly, pragmatically, or out of necessity, minimally or not at all, faced a crisis of identity. For the sake of self-respect, they sought to exonerate themselves from the undeniable crimes. They often found self-justification in the claim that they were merely fulfilling their duty to the homeland. Family histories focused on their own suffering, hardship, Allied bombings, losses of relatives on the front, violence by the Red Army, and post-war expulsions. However, the support for the National Socialist regime was overlooked. This also applies to former soldiers. Gradually, the assertion of a fundamental difference between the Gestapo, SS formations, and other components of the Nazi regime, and the regular army, which supposedly fought an ‚honorable fight‘ on the front and did not participate in war crimes, began to take hold. Thus, the myth of the ‚unblemished,‘ ‚clean,‘ ‚honest‘ Wehrmacht was born.

It was, however, a reluctance to admit their own complicity and moral failure. Although many instances can be documented where ordinary soldiers and high-ranking generals objected to certain orders, the Wehrmacht as a whole fully participated in the Nazi plan to enslave Europe. War crimes, crimes against humanity, and violations of the laws of war became a common norm, starting with the invasion of individual countries without prior declarations of war and the mass bombing of civilian targets and entire cities. The Norwegians also encountered these practices, as German soldiers acted treacherously during the invasion of the country, in many cases using civilians as human shields, resorting to tactics that were on or beyond the edge of the rules, and bombing cities like Elverum, Namsos, and Narvik indiscriminately.

Nevertheless, the behavior of the Germans in Norway was far surpassed by the actions of the Wehrmacht in other countries. Executions of numerous groups of prisoners or civilians occurred, and especially in the East and in the Balkans, the Wehrmacht was directly involved in the Nazi genocide of Jewish, Romani, and Slavic populations.

The myth of the “unblemished Wehrmacht” not only persisted in post-war Germany but was even strengthened. Responsibility for the crimes was attributed to the highest leadership of the Nazi Party. High-ranking officials, police officers, and even members of the SS tried to exonerate themselves. Only later generations, unburdened by their own involvement, brought about a gradual change. The schizophrenia of family memory, surviving ideological prejudices, and poorly concealed falsehoods of the social contract inflicted severe personal traumas on them as well.

Gradually, research findings conducted at various institutions were presented, but the real breakthrough that captured the attention of the majority of the German public came at the very end of the 20th century, in the form of a traveling exhibition dedicated to the crimes of the Wehrmacht. It was no coincidence that it was precisely the myth of the “clean army” that finally broke through the wall of pretense regarding personal and societal failings of the past. This resulted in a domino effect on the transformation of social memory regarding the period of National Socialism. It became evident that the path to denazification would be much longer than initially thought.

However, it is not just about unmasking the practices of totalitarian regimes. Every attempt to revise “obvious” social narratives encounters difficulties. The significance of a single excellent German exhibition can suggest how necessary it is to address the “uncomfortable” phenomena of our own history, often cautiously hidden, rejected, and willingly forgotten.