[3] For those in the Western zones of occupation, the advent of the Cold War undermined the demilitarization process by seemingly justifying the key part of Hitler's foreign policies, the "fight against Soviet bolshevism".
[5] From 5 to 9 October 1950, a group of former senior officers, at the behest of Adenauer, met in secret at the Himmerod Abbey (hence the memorandum's name) to discuss West Germany's rearmament.
[6] The participants of the conference were convinced that no future German army would be possible without the historical rehabilitation of the Wehrmacht and so the memorandum included these key demands: The chairman of the conference summarised the foreign policy changes demanded in the memorandum with this comment: "Western nations must take public measures against the 'prejudicial characterization' of the former German soldiers and must distance the former regular armed forces from the 'war crimes issue'".
Prior to signing the declaration and discussing it with the press, Eisenhower met with former Wehrmacht Generals Adolf Heusinger and Hans Speidel, both of whom participated in the Himmerod conference, and was impressed by them.
[8] Eisenhower's public statement gave the former Wehrmacht generals the ability to expand on the revisionist work that they had already done for the United States Army Historical Division, thus getting their message beyond the small circle of Allied intelligence officers.