The Wehrmacht and its soldiers were not innocent of the Nazis' crimes. Craig's sentimentality and valorization of warfare are horribly misplaced in the story he's telling (even more horribly misplaced if he were actually writing history), and his belief that the battle of Stalingrad is a tragedy, the "gradual moral and physical disintegration of the German soldiers" (xii), is predicated on the idea that the Germans weren't morally bankrupt before they ever crossed the Don.


I totally agree that a sentimental valorization of warfare is a horribly inappropriate lens through which to view the Battle of Stalingrad, but I have to take issue with the sweeping generalisation that the German soldiers were all, to a man, morally bankrupt before they ever crossed the Don. Because it's all much more complicated than that. Because it's easy with hindsight, and coming from another country, to say Nazis = Evil, and everyone who didn't realise that and start fighting against them = evil. It's a lot harder when you're embedded in a specific historical and social context. The German soldiers did go through hell on earth on the Eastern front - and they were drafting pensioners and teenagers by that point, basically anyone male who still had all four limbs - which isn't to say that they weren't fighting on the wrong side.
But it's not as simple as saying "The Germans were all already morally bankrupt, therefore their suffering doesn't count." Craig's book sounds dreadful, but it's possible to oversimplify in the other direction, too.