The Myth of the Eastern Front
Book cover of The Myth of the Eastern Front; image adopted from cover art of the 1987 wargame The Last Victory: Von Manstein's Backhand Blow, February–March 1943, which depicts the Third Battle of Kharkov.
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| Author | Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | History; Historiography |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
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Publication date
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2008 |
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The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture is a 2008 book by the American historians Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies of the University of Utah. It discusses perceptions of the Eastern Front of World War II in the United States in the context of historical revisionism. The book traces the foundation of the post-war myth of the clean Wehrmacht, its support by U.S. military officials, and the impact of Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS mythology on American popular culture, including at the present time.
The book garnered largely positive reviews, for its thorough analysis on the creation of the myth by German ex-participants and its entry into American culture. One reviewer described the book as a "tour de force of cultural historiography", and another observed that it “present[s] a discomforting portrait of the American views of the Eastern Front”. It was also praised for its compelling analysis of contemporary war-romancing trends. Several reviews noted limitations of the book in its discussion on the myth's role in the contemporary culture and the extent of its impact on wide popular perceptions of the Eastern Front, outside of a few select groups.
At the time of the publication of The Myth of the Eastern Front, the authors, Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies, were colleagues in the history department at the University of Utah. According to one reviewer, they are "well qualified for the task" of deconstructing the myth in the book's title: "Smelser is a widely published historian of Nazi Germany, while Davies, a self-confessed former adherent to the Ostfront myth, specializes in U.S. history". In the preface to the book, Davies calls the book's writing a "personal journey" and describes how his interest in the Soviet-German war has grown out his reading Hitler Drives East by Paul Carell. Davies became a devotee, with hundreds of books on the Eastern Front in his library. His private collection of wargames is part of the source material in the book.
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