Author:
Willems, Bastiaan, author.
ImprintCambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Descriptionxvii, 348 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm.
Note:Regionality and total war in East Prussia -- Eastern Front battles on German soil -- The city as fortress-community -- Redefining Königsberg : historical continuity in practice -- The evacuation of East Prussia -- Königsberg as a community of violence.
Bibliography Note:Includes bibliographical references (pages 303-338) and index.
Note:"In the final year of the Second World War, as bitter defensive fighting moved to German soil, a wave of intraethnic violence engulfed the country. Bastiaan Willems offers the first study into the impact and behaviour of the Wehrmacht on its own territory, focusing on the German units fighting in East Prussia and its capital Königsberg. He shows that the Wehrmacht's retreat into Germany, after three years of brutal fighting on the Eastern Front, contributed significantly to the spike of violence which occurred throughout the country immediately prior to defeat. Soldiers arriving with an ingrained barbarised mindset, developed on the Eastern Front, shaped the immediate environment of the area of operations, and of Nazi Germany as a whole. Willems establishes how the norms of the Wehrmacht as a retreating army impacted behavioural patterns on the home front, arguing that its presence increased the propensity to carry out violence in Germany."-- Provided by publisher.
