“We have taken perhaps an inordinate amount of time to discuss the Reader’s Digest offerings during the war. Yet, we believe it important to lay the foundation for a dramatic shift in memory that would ensue during the Cold War. Americans encountered a flood of information about the war in the East during the years 1941-1945. This information included detailed narratives about the battles, particularly the decisive Stalingrad conflict and the final chapter, the seizure of Berlin. The chapter also incorporated material from the media – books, newspapers, popular magazines, and radio – which examined with great sympathy the tragedy visited upon Russia by the Germans. These media forms also personalized this suffering and glorified the triumphs of Russian arms and the Russian people. Soon after the war, this memory faded under the strains of emerging USSR-USA tensions, the disappeared to the be replaced by a pro-German version, one that stressed Russian atrocities, German heroism and even a superhuman sacrifice to defend Western culture from the Eastern hordes. Soon, a sizable body of Americans would embrace this German view, profoundly at odds with our wartime understanding. Such a transformation occurred only because of the deep ambivalence Americans always held toward the Communist regime and for Slavic peoples in general, even at the height of the wartime alliance. Nowhere did this ambivalence appear more evident than in the pages of the Reader’s Digest.” (pp. 37-38)

Smelser, Ronald and Edward J. Davis II. The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet war in American popular culture. Cambridge University Press. New York. 2008.

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Myth-of-the-Eastern-Front/Ronald-M-Smelser/e/9780521712316/

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

I'm the "Confederate with a pipe"!! LOL

" Soon after the war, this memory faded under the strains of emerging USSR-USA tensions, the disappeared to the be replaced by a pro-German version, one that stressed Russian atrocities, German heroism and even a superhuman sacrifice to defend Western culture from the Eastern hordes. Soon, a sizable body of Americans would embrace this German view, profoundly at odds with our wartime understanding."

I have noticed this in other individuals other then just Americans LOL. And a few posters here lol.

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For the first time I have seen "History" at close quarters,and I know that its actual process is very different from what is presented to Posterity. - WWI General Max Hoffman.

I'm the "Confederate with a pipe"!! LOL

A very interesting read. Thank you. I will be looking forward to the book.

P.S.

The war-gamer sounds like our very own ZA.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Anyone who has done the least bit of study would find the German/Russian conflict to have been more or less equally nasty on both sides- so why write an entire book debunking a notion that is inaccurate in the first place?

Sounds to me like the author is taking a view held by a tiny minority, attributing it to popular culture, and proving it false. Quite an achievement there.

Unless I'm misunderstanding the author's aim...

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Seriously, all today is missing is free cotton candy and the annual Bay State Hooker Parade to make it any better.

Equally nasty? Such a statement only reinforces the authors intensions.

No pun intended.

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The war against Russia will be such that it cannot be conducted in a knightly fashion. This struggle is one of ideologies and racial differences and will have to be conducted with unprecedented, unmerciful and unrelenting harshness. -Adolf Hitler

Indeed I'd be interesting to read this book, a book not about the war itself but about perceptions on a war.

As for the Reader's Digest, I did read a LOT of them during the Cold War, and I did read a few dating from WW2. Well, let's just say RD presented a 'colourful' view... The ones from Sen. Joe McCarthy's period were tops!

For a more accurate view than the pulp press here is a Foreign Military Studies Office at Ft. Leavenworth, KS publication. Some of you will probably be aware of this already. And Colonel Glantz was a US Army colonel, not a Soviet one

If I may quote at length...

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Conclusions: The Reconciliation of Myths and Realities

The dominant role of German source materials in shaping American perceptions of the war on the Eastern Front and the negative perception of Soviet source materials have had an indelible impact on the American image of war on the Eastern Front. What has resulted in a series of gross judgments treated as truths regarding operations in the East and Soviet (Red) Army combat performance. The gross judgments appear repeatedly in textbooks and all types of historical works, and they are persistent in the extreme. Each lies someplace between the realm of myth and reality. In summary, a few of these judgments are as follows:

- Weather repeatedly frustrated the fulfillment of German operational aims.
- Soviet forces throughout the war in virtually every operation possessed significant or overwhelming numerical superiority.
- Soviet manpower resources were inexhaustible, hence the Soviets continually ignored human losses.
- Soviet strategic and high level operational leadership was superb. However, lower level leadership (corps and below) was uniformly dismal.
- Soviet planning was rigid, and the execution of plans at every level was inflexible and unimaginative.
- Wherever possible, the Soviets relied for success on mass rather than maneuver. Envelopment operations were avoided whenever possible.
- The Soviets operated in two echelons, never cross attached units, and attacked along straight axes.
- Lend lease was critical for Soviet victory. Without it collapse might have ensured.
- Hitler was the cause of virtually all German defeats. Army expertise produced earlier victories (a variation of the post World War I stab in the back. legend).
- The stereotypical Soviet soldier was capable of enduring great suffering and hardship, fatalistic, dogged in defense (in particular in bridgeheads), a master of infiltration and night fighting, but inflexible, unimaginative, emotional and prone to panic in the face of uncertainty.

A majority of Americans probably accept these judgments as realities . In doing so they display a warped impression of the war which belittles the role played by the Red Army. As a consequence, they have a lower than justified appreciation for the Red Army as a fighting force, a tendency which extends, as well, to the postwar Soviet Army. Until the American public (and historians) perception of Soviet source material changes, this overall perception of the war in the East and the Soviet (Red) Army is likely to persist.

Close examination of Soviet sources as well as German archival materials cast many of these judgments into the realm of myth. Recent work done on Eastern Front operations has begun to surface the required evidence to challenge those judgments. Continued work on the part of American historians, additional work by Soviet historians, joint work by both parties, and more extensive efforts to make public Soviet archival materials is necessary for that challenging process to bear fruit.

It is clear that no really objective or more complete picture of operations on the Eastern Front is possible without extensive use of Soviet source material. Thus definitive accounts of operations in the East have yet to be written. How definitive they will ultimately be depends in large part on the future candor and scope of Soviet historical efforts.

In the interim it is the task of American historians, drawing upon all sources, Soviet and German alike, to challenge those judgments and misperceptions which are a produce of past historical work. It is clear that the American (Western) perspective regarding war on the Eastern Front needs broadening, in the more superficial public context and in the realm of more serious historical study. Scholarly cooperation among Soviet and American historians, research exchange programs involving both parties, and expanded conferences to share the fruits of historical research would further this end and foster more widespread understanding on both sides.

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The historiography of WWII is an interesting subject. Not wishing to sound flippant, but the old 'Mad' magazine did a very amusing comic strip many years ago lampooning the changing Hollywood view of Axis nations in line with then-current 'political correctness' ( the WWII movie view of the brutal, thuggish, sadistic Nazis gradually changing to a portrayal of honourable, decent - but misguided - folk...etc)

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"Stand by to pull me out of the seat if I get hit" - Guy Gibson

Like Göring said, there will be statues of his head everywhere ( in Germany ), perhaps not big ones, but statues all the same....

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