I’m left wondering how much the average German soldier knew about the plans for the inhabitants of the land they were invading. Did they realize that, ultimately, all Poles were to be made slaves or exterminated? That all Jews were considered subhuman, and the “logical” consequences of that?

I’m reading Blitzkrieg in their Own Words: First-Hand Accounts from German Soldiers 1939-1940.

The jacket description explains that the book was written during World War II.

Written in the naive, fresh style of young men new to combat, the texts recounts the ruthless destruction of the Polish and French armies in language that shocks in its brutal enthusiasm.

One writes about the “criminal insanity of the Poles.”

Also striking is the awful irony of some of the descriptions. One soldier writes about being ambushed in a Polish village. “Civilians and soldiers out of uniform are engaging in nasty, criminal warfare.” It doesn’t require perfect hindsight shows us the hypocritical irony of the soldier’s statement: it was true even as he wrote the words.