[1] Wette is an author or editor of forty books on the history of Nazi Germany, including the Wehrmacht (armed forces), its leadership and its relationship with Nazism.

Wette's works explored topics that at the time of their publication were considered taboo or not widely discussed in Germany, such as desertion, treason and aid to victims of the Nazi regime from military personnel.

Building on Omer Bartov's 1985 study The Eastern Front, 1941–1945: German Troops and the Barbarisation of Warfare, the book deconstructs the myth of the clean Wehrmacht.

According to The Atlantic, it shows that "the Wehrmacht—and not, as postwar accounts by German generals would have it, merely the SS—freely and even eagerly joined in murder and genocide, which were central, rather than incidental, features of its effort".

[2] The book complements the earlier studies that focused on the average Landser (soldier) and also discusses the complicity of the highest levels of the Wehrmacht.