Main articles : Wehrmacht Clean Wehrmacht War crimes of the Wehrmacht Subsequent Nuremberg trials The Security Divisions of the '' Wehrmacht '' were responsible for a large number of war crimes and in many cases for systematic programmes of repression against the civilian population . This occurred most notably on the Eastern Front , particularly in the rear areas of Army Group Centre , where they acted with extreme brutality . The British historian Ian Kershaw concludes that the '' Wehrmacht '' 's duty was to ensure that the people who met Hitler 's requirements of being part of the Aryan '' Herrenvolk '' ( " Aryan master race " ) had living space . He wrote that : The Nazi revolution was broader than just the Holocaust . Its second goal was to eliminate Slavs from central and eastern Europe and to create a '' Lebensraum '' for Aryans . ... As Bartov ( '' The Eastern Front ; Hitler 's Army '' ) shows , it barbarised the German armies on the eastern front . Most of their three million men , from generals to ordinary soldiers , helped exterminate captured Slav soldiers and civilians . This was sometimes cold and deliberate murder of individuals ( as with Jews ) , sometimes generalised brutality and neglect . ... German soldiers ' letters and memoirs reveal their terrible reasoning : Slavs were ' the Asiatic-Bolshevik ' horde , an inferior but threatening race Several high-ranking '' Wehrmacht '' officers , including Hermann Hoth , Georg von Küchler , Georg-Hans Reinhardt , Karl von Roques , Walter Warlimont and others , were convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the High Command Trial given sentences ranging from time served to life
War crimes of the Wehrmacht
War crimes of the Wehrmacht
Security Division (Wehrmacht)