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Wikipedia's Myth of the Clean Wehrmacht and What You Can Do About it |
By: K.e.coffman
Note: This essay has been adapted from an article on the same topic in Society for Military History's Headquarters Gazette, Winter 2018.[1]
Despite the abundant World War II historiography published in the last 20 years, the popular perceptions of the German armed forces as an apolitical and professional institution that stood apart from the Nazi regime largely remains intact in the Anglophone world. The myth of the "clean Wehrmacht"—and even clean Waffen-SS—lives on. Below are my experiences in dealing with the issues of historical distortions in Wikipedia articles, along with my outreach to outside experts and suggestions for the Wikipedia community.
- ^ Headquarters Gazette, Society for Military History, Winter 2018, p. 10.
- ^ Smelser & Davies 2008, p. 191.