What Has Remained of the Traditions under Attack? The Association of Mountain Troops' Veterans and its Attitudes to Traditional Military Virtues in Germany after the Debunking of the Myth of the "Clean Wehrmacht"
Abstract
This paper examines how Kameradenkreis der Gebirgstruppe, one of the last significant German associations of World War II veterans, has come to terms with the past of war crimes committed by the German Army (Wehrmacht) in the post-war period. It focuses on the reaction of this mountain troops association to a protest campaign organised by antifascist groups and various civic initiatives in a Bavarian town Mittenwald from 2002 to 2009.
One of the main aims of the protesters was to disrupt traditional meetings of the former and active soldiers to commemorate fallen "comrades" at the Mountain Troops Memorial near Mittenwald as a symbol of surviving "tradition of perpetrators". The study analyzes if and how the leaders of the association have changed their interpretation and attitudes towards the war crimes committed by their "comrades" and predecessors as a result of the biggest and most intensive protest campaign against their activities so far.