The "Liberators:" Image and Reality in the Wehrmacht’s Invasion of the Soviet Union

Nazi leaders envisioned the invasion of the Soviet Union as a means to seize Lebensraum, annihilate the communist system, eliminate Jewish influence, and kill or enslave the USSR’s Slavic population. In the midst of what scholars have aptly termed a “war of extermination,” however, Wehrmacht units not only terrorized the population; they also distributed food supplies, claimed to offer protection from partisans, and worked to salvage local artwork. Soldiers sometimes went out of their way to hand out candy to Russian children or help civilians with their chores, all the while expressing disgust at what they considered the Soviet regime’s unjust social policies. Such gestures helped to foster a narrative that also gained currency among the wider German public. This narrative recast the invasion as a morally worthy act of liberation, one that would throw off the “communist yoke” and bring freedom to oppressed peoples.

Drawing from thousands of letters written by soldiers on the Eastern Front, as well as institutional documents, this paper explores how the Wehrmacht and its members attempted to style themselves as liberators and the role this played in legitimating a criminal war. The “liberation” rationale undermined the strict racial hierarchies that Nazi leaders sought to enforce, but it proved a powerful means for soldiers to justify the war as a morally-worthy endeavor. It also helps to explain why the Soviet population did not immediately turn against the Wehrmacht and why few soldiers ever admitted wrongdoing after the war.