The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau, 1939-1945 - Aftermath

Aftermath

In the 1990s, the book became controversial in the context of a debate on war crimes committed by the Wehrmacht. While the book mentions investigations of German war crimes in Poland, the Soviet Union and elsewhere, about half of the archival records of the Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau are missing, according to de Zayas, and those extant files concern primarily Soviet war crimes.

De Zayas lectured at All Souls' College Oxford on 17 May 1990 on the Wehrmacht Bureau and published a summary article on the book.

As a follow-up to this book de Zayas published "Völkermord als Staatsgeheimnis" (genocide as state secret, Olzog Verlag, Munich 2011), which looks into the question of who knew what, and when, about the Holocaust. As he explains in the new book (and already suggested in "Wehrmacht"), Hitler's Order Nr. 1 of 11 January 1940 imposed secrecy under severe penalties, thus making the passing of information dangerous and the carrying out of investigations practically impossible. Thus, in spite of rumours and occasional BBC broadcasts since 1942, a relatively small percentage of soldiers and civilians were confronted with the reality of the Holocaust during the war. It was not until the Russians overran the camps in the East that the horror became evident, which was then proven in the Nuremberg trials . This book is yet to be published in English.