The Generals

A dossier study of twelve men who planned and led Germany's war — from the desk generals who turned Hitler's intentions into signed orders to the field marshals who carried them out — each filed with the campaigns they ran and what became of them.

It exists because the popular picture of these men — brilliant, apolitical professionals — was largely written by the men themselves, in their post-war memoirs. The file sets that myth beside the record.

What to take from it: competence and guilt are separate questions. The archive answers both, and never lets the first excuse the second.