But generally speaking the enlisted soilder had not clue about the concentration camps
Perhaps not… but they sure as shit knew about - or witnessed and/or participated in - the carnival of mass-slaughter going on in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. People are quick to forget - the six million (estimated) victims of the Holocaust doesn’t even make up half of the genocide the Nazis committed. The actual number is more like thirteen million - and that’s a conservative estimate.
6 million Jewish people, 5 million and change Slavs (mostly worked to death, they viewed Slavs as like beasts of burden unfit to self determine, not dangerous to society like they viewed Jewish people), various and sundry people with disabilities, lgbt people, a good chunk of Roma.
The extermination machine of the Nazis was indescribable. There was no clean wehrmacht, there could not have been logistically. Maybe some soldiers lying to themselves but they must have wondered where all the prisoners went and why they never heard of them again.
Then of course the horrific slaughter in the eastern front in terms of military casualities. How many poorly armed conscripts do you have to gun down before you ought to be questioning your orders?
Perhaps not… but they sure as shit knew about - or witnessed and/or participated in - the carnival of mass-slaughter going on in eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. People are quick to forget - the six million (estimated) victims of the Holocaust doesn’t even make up half of the genocide the Nazis committed. The actual number is more like thirteen million - and that’s a conservative estimate.
The Nazis meant it when they said “lebensraum.”
6 million Jewish people, 5 million and change Slavs (mostly worked to death, they viewed Slavs as like beasts of burden unfit to self determine, not dangerous to society like they viewed Jewish people), various and sundry people with disabilities, lgbt people, a good chunk of Roma.
The extermination machine of the Nazis was indescribable. There was no clean wehrmacht, there could not have been logistically. Maybe some soldiers lying to themselves but they must have wondered where all the prisoners went and why they never heard of them again.
Then of course the horrific slaughter in the eastern front in terms of military casualities. How many poorly armed conscripts do you have to gun down before you ought to be questioning your orders?
They were guilty through and through.