Such works "emphasized love of family, professions of Christianity, charity toward the enemy, and heroic self-sacrifice, [while ignoring] mass murder, anti-partisan warfare (deliberately mislabeled by the Nazi regime in 1942 as 'combating bandits,' or Bandenbekämpfung), property confiscation, complicity in forced labor roundups, and wanton destruction".

[6] In the words of one reviewer, the central myth described in the book boils down to the following:[8] The German army, or Wehrmacht, fought a "clean" and valiant war against the Soviet Union, devoid of ideology and atrocity.

The German officer caste did not share Hitler's ideological precepts and blamed the SS and other Nazi paramilitary organizations for creating the war of racial enslavement and extermination that the conflict became.

The work discusses how state propaganda shaped popular perceptions during World War II,[1] then proceeds to the inadvertent role that the US Army Historical Division played in providing the German military commanders with an opportunity to put down their recollections of the Soviet–German conflict.

[9] Lawrence Freedman in Foreign Affairs magazine called the book a "fascinating exercise in historiography", highlighting its analysis of how "a number of Hitler's leading generals were given an opportunity to write the history of the Eastern Front to help develop lessons for the Americans on fighting the Russians, and in doing so they provided a sanitized version of events".

White observed that the book "should nonetheless provide food for thought in classroom discussions about the German army", but noted that an assumption of specialized knowledge and the concomitant lack of a chapter about war crimes committed by the Wehrmacht undermined the authors' efforts to challenge the myth.

[3] Historian Lawrence N. Powell lamented in his review how "The swiftness with which Cold War America embraced vanquished Nazi officers, along with their sanitization of Wehrmacht criminality on the Eastern Front, is a chilling reminder of how historical memory often follows the flag."

He noted Smelser's and Davies's analysis of the post-war mythology that presented the Wehrmacht and even the Waffen-SS as "above reproach, knights engaged in a crusade to defend Western civilization against the barbaric hordes of Bolshevism.

[1] Edward B. Westermann, historian and author of Hitler's Police Battalions: Enforcing Racial War in the East, called it "A superb and insightful study of the premeditated manipulation of history and memory in the fabrication of the myth of a 'clean Wehrmacht'."

However, the review also concluded that the authors' analysis of their material "is not entirely convincing", and also observed that they underplayed key divergences in their analogy between neo-Confederate ideas of the American Civil War and the mythic views of the Eastern Front.

Due to the lack of perspective, the book tended to lump together "those with an interest in military history and those who actually subscribe to neo-Nazi beliefs", and Hartwell concluded: "As it stands now, however, this tome has the feel of a dissertation that is trying too hard to find a niche that hasn't seen the light of day".

[12] Kelly McFall of Newman University described the book as a "fascinating immersion into a simple but important question: How did the German soldiers who fought on the eastern front during World War Two become hero figures to so many Americans?"

He also described how the Soviet World War II historiography, overly dogmatic and propaganda-driven, remained untranslated in the West, allowing the German view of the conflict to dominate academic and popular perceptions.

The reviewer concludes that opening of the archives since the dissolution of the Soviet Union has enabled "balanced analysis at academic levels", leading to a new interest in the Red Army operations from the popular history writers and the World War II enthusiasts.

The book further notes that the accompanying materials "praise Manstein for his brilliance and his ability to recognize the assets of extremely able commanders under him", such as Paul Hausser, who led a Waffen-SS panzer corps during the battle.