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Wehrmacht Generals, West German Society, and the Debate on Rearmament, 1949-1959. By Alaric Searle. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2003. ISBN 0-275-97968-7. Photographs. Tables. Notes. Selected bibliography. Index. Pp. xviii, 316. $79.95.
Alaric Searle adds to the literature on West Germany's struggle with the Nazi past, here within the context of German rearmament in the 1950s. Using a vast selection of German records, Searle examines how Hitler's former generals involved themselves in debates over West Germany's integration into NATO and how their collaboration with Adolf Hitler defined their postwar role. This is a valuable study, to be read in conjunction with Jay Lockenour's Soldiers into Citizens (2001), which examines the integration of Wehrmacht officers into western democracy more generally and David Clay Large's Germans to the Front (1996), which examines rearmament specifically.
Searle reminds us...