Historian and author Dr Jeff Rutherford talks about the combat motivation of Wehrmacht soldiers fighting on the Eastern Front during WW2. The interview is based on Jeff’s recent book ‘Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front: The German Infantry’s War, 1941–1944’ (Cambridge: CUP, 2014) that explores the combat experience and the occupation policies of three frontline infantry divisions. The interview covers the role of Nazi racial ideology and how this provided a legitimizing context in which violence was not only accepted but encouraged and it was the Wehrmacht’s adherence to…