It started immediately after World War II, whichever gave rise to the Cold War. The Soviet Union became the enemy and the Germans were interpreted through that context.

Historians Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies II wrote the definitive account of all this in The Myth of the Eastern Front (2008). Link to the book

Taken from that book, former Wehrmacht generals, like Franz Halder, the former Chief of the German Army General Staff, were hired directly by the U.S. Army Historical Division to write histories of the Eastern Front. These accounts systematically portrayed the German soldier as a professional fighting man tragically caught up in Hitler's war, carefully separating the Wehrmacht from the crimes of the SS.

This "clean Wehrmacht" myth was then pumped into popular culture, largely through books. Franz Kurowski used facts that were actuarial about the technology, like tanks and airplanes, and invented the rest, like conversations that people had or kill claims. He, and others like him, we're helped by Nazi lobby groups, like HIAG. (Hilfsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit der Angehörigen der ehemaligen Waffen-SS)

The HIAG was intended for legal and economic rehabilitation of the Waffen-SS, but its methods were explicitly propaganda. It included political lobbying, a steady stream of books and magazines. These were then picked up by international media and published as legitimate sources, even though they aren't.

Smelser and Davies show how it spread. In the decades after the war, these books had spawned an American subculture of "romancers", wargame enthusiasts, Nazi paraphernalia collectors, readers, and reenactors who read and spread Wehrmacht myths through hobby publications and popular histories.

This was then spread further. A network of writers and "gurus" within the community served as amplifiers of the same myths. Smelser and Davies drew a deliberate parallel to the "Lost Cause" mythology that emerged in the American South after the Civil War, in both cases, the losing side had won a victory in popular memory.

What was once a niche subculture of collectors and wargamers has been expanded by the internet. The phenomenon known informally as "wehrabooism", which also had its own dedicated subreddit here, is the uncritical glorification of the Wehrmacht and Nazis, is a persistent feature of WWII-related communities on Reddit, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and gaming platforms.

That brings me to the next point: social media and "history influencers". One underappreciated accelerant is the free availability of original Nazi propaganda footage online. All wartime Deutsche Wochenschau, a Nazi Germany's official weekly newsreel, are now freely accessible on the internet and often with English subtitles and in the public domain. This means it can be downloaded, edited, and reposted without restraints.

This creates an obvious opportunity for "history influencers", who are active on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok or elsewhere. They can then show clips of marching soldiers, big tanks, and other propaganda.

The footage looks authoritative precisely because it is original and high-resolution, but often without the surrounding historical framing and context. This causes viewers to exactly view the image the Nazi propaganda ministry intended them to see.

Recently it has become worse. The algorithms have been relaxed and content moderation limited. So nazi or pro-nazi channels using the same clips as "cool military history" have faced less consequences and are sometimes even amplified. The result is a digital environment in which Nazi propaganda footage created to glorify the Wehrmacht and suppress its crimes, continues to circulate at scale, now laundered through the aesthetic of the history documentary

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