World War II Daily Podcast · WorldWarII_Daily

Episode 17 - The Myth of “Clean Hands” in War Games – with Dr. Beorn and Kaluven The British

·1 hr 38 min·5 clips

The guests argue that Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were not comparable to Soviet war crimes.

1. World War II Daily Podcast Episode 17 centers on the 'myth of the clean hands' and how World War II games portray Nazi Germany. 2. The episode features historian Waitman Born, also called Waitman Beorn, and Kaluven the British, also called Kevin, a YouTuber, computer programmer, and strategy gamer. 3. The discussion asks what the episode is for: whether games like Company of Heroes sanitize the Wehrmacht and why that matters. 4. Born says he is an historian of the Holocaust at Northumbria University in Newcastle and the author of a first book on the German army and the Holocaust in Belarus. 5. He also names his second book, Holocaust in Eastern Europe, and his new book, Between the Wires, about a little-known camp in Lviv in Ukraine. 6. Kevin says he has no academic background, no military service, and built his channel around talking about strategy games rather than showing gameplay. 7. Kevin says the Company of Heroes video began with him replaying the game and becoming 'continually bewildered' by its direction. 8. He says he rewrote the script after deciding to examine how the Axis forces are portrayed and why that portrayal 'had to be that way when it probably didn't.' 9. Kevin says the video got around 70,000 views five weeks after release, after his usual audience of a couple of thousand viewers had already seen it. 10. Born defines the clean Wehrmacht myth as the claim that the German military was sealed off from Nazi war crimes, mass atrocities, and genocide. 11. He says the myth was generated first by German generals and then reinforced by Western allies who wanted intelligence on fighting the Soviets. 12. Born cites von Manstein's memoir Lost Victories as a classic example of a Nazi general presenting a sanitized war story. 13. He says the public reckoning intensified in the 1990s with the Wehrmacht exhibition, which used letters, diaries, and photographs from soldiers. 14. Born says the myth persists because 17 million Germans served in the Wehrmacht, making the subject personal for many German families. 15. Kevin says comments beneath his video often use whataboutism, especially by comparing Nazi crimes with Japanese atrocities, Soviet crimes, or British colonialism. 16. Born answers that the scale and organizational buy-in of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan were different from the Soviet Union, even though every combatant committed war crimes. 17. Kevin distinguishes 'abstract games' from narrative games, saying War Thunder is abstract because it does not try to tell history. 18. He says Company of Heroes becomes a problem because it presents itself seriously while copying film language, using grim cut scenes and historically distorted characters. 19. Listeners interested in Holocaust history, game design, and World War II memory will get the most from this episode. 20. Listeners who want light gameplay talk without moral debate may skip it.

As heard by us

A blunt discussion of how wartime stories in games can soften occupation, collaboration, and responsibility.

The episode ties the myth of clean hands to gaming and YouTube, and that angle gives Born and Kevin room to connect popular storytelling with the harder record behind wartime narratives.

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Why you'd press play

Press play if you want WWII myth, video games, and plainspoken pushback on tidy war stories.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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