Don't mention the war!

Given that today's the anniversary of a certain 'visit' by several thousands of uninvited Germans to Russia, it's interesting to hear from an English historian her first-hand experience of how Germans today remember that excursion:

"I've been over to give some talks in Berlin [on the siege of Leningrad during World War II] and had quite a lot of feedback from German readers, and it's very, very interesting hearing what they have to say as well; because for them the Eastern Front is seen as a place of suffering for the German army - it was the place where you got frostbite and you were scared and you were herded into big prisoner of war camps and left to starve. It's not seen as a place where the army itself was involved in atrocities; and that is only just in the last few years coming to be understood in Germany - that the army was a) involved in the Holocaust and in rounding up and murdering Jews on the Eastern Front; and b) was directly responsible for the decision to besiege and starve Leningrad. We now have all the internal memos from to and fro within German high command on that, because it was a decision of the German army. It was the military high command which came up with this strategy - not the party: it was not a Nazi atrocity, it was an army atrocity. And that, I think, is something which is quite tough for Germans to come to terms with." Anna Reid, being interviewed (February 2012) about her book Leningrad: Tragedy of a city under Siege 1941-44.