Did the Wehrmacht participate in the genocide of the Jews? If so, what was the nature and extent of its complicity? Did it provide primarily logistical support, or did its soldiers also aid in the actual killing? If the latter, how common was participation by the men of the Wehrmacht? Was it predominately rear occupation and security units that engaged in criminal actions, or did combat units partake as well? For at least the last two decades historians have grappled with these questions, largely exploding the myth of the “clean” Wehrmacht. In Marching into Darkness, Waitman Beorn seeks to take the investigation further and provide definitive answers by looking at the involvement of soldiers at the local level. Here he finds that the German Army cooperated willingly and extensively in implementing a variety of criminal activities, culminating in murder on a large scale.

In choosing to investigate Wehrmacht activities in Belarus, Beorn picked the region at the epicenter of Nazi criminality. Here, more than perhaps anywhere else, the Nazis revealed the true nature and gamut of their murderous racial policy. Beorn is at his best in detailing the process by which rank-and-file soldiers, the now much discussed “ordinary men,” evolved from hesitant helpers into willing accomplices at all levels of the genocidal project. In using a case study approach, he is able to describe, at the local level, just how this evolution occurred, the key factors involved, and the consequences for the men themselves. In Krupki, a small town in central Belarus, for example, an apparently improvised killing of Jews in September 1941 revealed a number of key elements that not only allowed murder to occur in this instance, but would also make further, and more extensive, actions in the future much easier. Although recently arrived in the area, the men of the 354th Infantry Regiment had prior experience with occupation and security duties in Poland, as well as with guarding Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) in Minsk. This meant that they already had an acquaintance with murderous SS, Sicherheitsdienst (SD), and Einsatzgruppen activities, the shooting of political commissars, and the dreadful conditions suffered by POWs. Upon arrival in Belarus, they also participated in anti-partisan sweeps. When orders arrived that the local battalion was to cooperate with an Einsatzkommando in murdering the Jews of Krupki, the battalion commander at first expressed reluctance, sought further clarification from his superior (who confirmed the order), met with the SS commander (who himself seemed a rather enigmatic killer) to discuss details of the operation, specified that his men would not participate in the actual shooting but merely provide security, and then asked for volunteers among his platoon leaders (two of whom expressed reluctance, while a third seemed eager). As for the actual killing, the soldiers largely confined themselves to security duties, although some, at the urging of their platoon leader, “volunteered” and seem to have participated in the shooting.

In Krupki, we can see some key factors characteristic of later operations: German troops already familiar with the brutal nature of the occupation; orders from the top to cooperate with the SS killing squads combined with situational factors (limited SS manpower and ammunition) to force more extensive military involvement than initially anticipated; a hesitant local commander who largely deferred to an eager subordinate, who in turn engaged his men in murder; and men who, if they so desired, could avoid shooting simply by agreeing to participate in other ways. In this, Beorn largely confirms the results of earlier studies, but does not break new ground.

The key to his argument, though, is what followed these initially improvised actions. Beorn emphasizes the importance of a little-studied three day conference in late September 1941 at Mogilev, which can only be termed a workshop on applied murder. There, high-ranking officials such as Arthur Nebe and Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, as well as men already experienced in the implementation of killing operations, presented talks aimed at making the entire process more efficient. What emerged, apart from practical lessons in murder, was what Beorn terms a “Jew-Bolshevik-partisan” calculus that served, at least in rear areas of Army Group Center, as cover and justification for accelerated killing actions aimed primarily at Jews. Although it is difficult to prove a definitive cause-effect relationship at the local level, Beorn effectively assembles a mass of circumstantial evidence, including numerous contemporary references to the conference, to argue for its significance in accounting for the increased participation of Wehrmacht units in shooting operations. Given the imprimatur of legitimacy, junior officers at the local level exhibited greater initiative both in cooperating with SS killing squads and in organizing their own “Jew hunts.” Since these actions predated the turnabout in German fortunes, Beorn looks to other explanations for this increased brutality. Among more standard arguments, such as ideology, racism, and conditions in the East, he identifies the decisive impact of unit culture, largely driven by the actions and conduct of a key leader, in promoting behavior that could be either complicit or evasive. Throughout, Beorn stresses the element of choice, with depressingly few men opting not to participate in some form or another.

How typical were the units he studied? Here his argument is less convincing. In comparing his units with a control group of thirteen divisions that passed through the same area, Beorn struggles to show anything like the same degree of complicity. Indeed, he admits that combat tended to preclude genocidal activity; overwhelmingly, occupation and security units engaged in killing civilians, for the simple reason that they had the time and opportunity. Still, this is a good, well-researched book that confirms the extent of criminal activities by Wehrmacht rear and security divisions, illuminates the interaction of official and grassroots initiatives in driving policy, and offers new insight into motivation at the local level.