It would be interesting to study how knowledge of those Soviet atrocities interacted with and was used to justify the Germans' own mass crimes after June 1941. One sometimes gets glimpses, e.g. in the diaries of general Gotthard Heinrici he mentions an ethnic German from Ukraine who had lost relatives to Soviet terror, then served the Wehrmacht as an interpreter and became an enthusiastic hunter of partisans. Also something like Walter von Reichenau's notorious order from October 1941 which stated that the German soldier in the East had to be a merciless avenger of Bolshevik atrocities committed against Germandom and related ethnicities (in mainstream accounts it's usually left unexplored what Reichenau could have meant with that, so you get the impression it might merely have been a total figment of the imagination, not something partly based in reality that was used to justify crimes of one's own). iirc you mentioned a study about ethnic Germans from Ukraine who took part in mass killings of Jews and claimed revenge as a motivation. It seems like an under-studied aspect. Maybe there's an understandable fear that researching it could come across like granting legitimacy to Nazi claims of merely acting in self-defense. Given the role mythologized versions of WW2 still play in political discourse, it seems unlikely to change.
It would be interesting to study how knowledge of those Soviet atrocities interacted with and was used to justify the Germans' own mass crimes after June 1941. One sometimes gets glimpses, e.g. in the diaries of general Gotthard Heinrici he mentions an ethnic German from Ukraine who had lost relatives to Soviet terror, then served the Wehrmacht as an interpreter and became an enthusiastic hunter of partisans. Also something like Walter von Reichenau's notorious order from October 1941 which stated that the German soldier in the East had to be a merciless avenger of Bolshevik atrocities committed against Germandom and related ethnicities (in mainstream accounts it's usually left unexplored what Reichenau could have meant with that, so you get the impression it might merely have been a total figment of the imagination, not something partly based in reality that was used to justify crimes of one's own). iirc you mentioned a study about ethnic Germans from Ukraine who took part in mass killings of Jews and claimed revenge as a motivation. It seems like an under-studied aspect. Maybe there's an understandable fear that researching it could come across like granting legitimacy to Nazi claims of merely acting in self-defense. Given the role mythologized versions of WW2 still play in political discourse, it seems unlikely to change.
You should write more about your daily life
Also make option for paid subscription
I think you’d get more interest
People are more interested in the grocery store than Yagoda
Just some friendly advice
Btw I think you’re one of the most interesting intellectuals in America