Photo Gallery 'What Did You Do in the War, Granddad?'
Moritz Pfeiffer, 29, a historian based at the SS museum at Wewelsburg Castle in northern Germany, took the unprecedented step of asking his grandparents what they did in the Third Reich, and then fact-checking their statements. His book "My Grandfather in the War 1939 - 1945: Reminiscences and Facts Compared" has just been published. It is based on an interview Pfeiffer conducted with his grandfather in 2005, originally for a personal family history.
Hans Hermann K. was an infantry officer in the Wehrmacht and fought in France, Poland and the Soviet Union. The picture shows him and his wife Edith in 1942. Both of them supported the Nazi regime and Pfeiffer admits that they were morally "contaminated," like millions of ordinary Germans of that generation. He describes his grandmother Edith as a "committed, almost fanatical Nazi."
Hans Hermann in 1939. In 1941, he took part in Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, as lieutenant in Infantry Regiment 208 of the 79th Infantry Division, part of the 6th Army. Pfeiffer's research found large gaps, contradictions and evasive answers in Hans Hermann's testimony, for example regarding his purported ignorance of mass executions of civilians.
German infantry in Stalingrad. Hans Hermann lost an eye in a shell explosion weeks before his unit was transferred to Stalingrad, where it was virtually wiped out. The injury likely saved his life.
Wehrmacht soldiers tearing down a barrier at a border crossing between Germany and Poland on the first day of the war, September 1, 1939. Hans Hermann took part in the invasion of Poland and described the civilians as "friendly." Pfeiffer said he found his grandfather's indifference to the suffering of the Polish population, six million of whom died in the war, "staggering" but, again, typical of the response of many Germans of his generation.
German prisoners of war being marched through Aachen, in October 1944, the same month when Hans Hermann was taken prisoner in Metz. He didn't see his wife again until March 1946. Pfeiffer wanted to grill his grandfather about inconsistencies in his testimony, but Hans Hermann died in July 2006, before he had a chance to complete the interview.
