You're getting downvoted because what you're saying is just historically wrong.
You can call them all "bad" if you want. But (regardless of whether they committed war crimes) the Nazis and the armed forces were different (though obviously overlapping) subsets. This is not an academic distinction at all, and is extremely important if one is to understand how the dictatorship and the Final Solution actually worked.
> This is not an academic distinction at all, and is extremely important if one is to understand how the dictatorship and the Final Solution actually worked.
Exactly. And understanding this is vitally important—labeling every member of the German military a "Nazi" can create the dangerous illusion that the ratio of nut jobs to normal people in 1930s Germany was dramatically different than it is in 2020s USA/UK/EU/wherever, but it's not. The ratios were about the same, and most people who were complicit in the Nazi atrocities were complicit in a very passive, "don't stand out" kind of way.
Exaggerating the number of true Nazis ironically makes it more likely that something similar will happen again because it creates the false impression that you need some sort of overwhelming consensus in favor of pure evil to end up with a Hitler in charge. It allows us to let our guard down because we know that we aren't surrounded by Nazis, so such a thing must be very far away indeed, right?
> The German Army (German: Heer, German: [heːɐ̯] ⓘ; lit. 'army') was the land forces component of the Wehrmacht,[b] the regular armed forces of Nazi Germany, from 1935 until it effectively ceased to exist in 1945 and then was formally dissolved in August 1946.[4] During World War II, a total of about 13.6 million volunteers and conscripts served in the German Army.
So far, seems one army existed. The German army. That army was the army of Nazi Germany. that army was Nazi Germany‘s army.
> The Wehrmacht (German pronunciation: [ˈveːɐ̯maxt] ⓘ, lit. 'defence force') were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe (air force). The designation "Wehrmacht" replaced the previously used term Reichswehr (Reich Defence) and was the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to rearm Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles permitted.[11]
Here’s probably the most important thing to read, because it directly disproves you
> After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, Adolf Hitler assumed the office of President of Germany, and thus became commander in chief. In February 1934, the Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg, acting on his own initiative, had all of the Jews serving in the Reichswehr given an automatic and immediate dishonorable discharge.[33] Again, on his own initiative Blomberg had the armed forces adopt Nazi symbols into their uniforms in May 1934.[34] In August of the same year, on Blomberg's initiative and that of the Ministeramt chief General Walther von Reichenau, the entire military took the Hitler oath, an oath of personal loyalty to Hitler.
Here’s probably the most important thing to read, because it directly disproves you
It's not the snippets you're quoting that are wrong. You're just reading them wrong, and drawing plainly broken inferences from them.
For example, the statement "Army X was a manifestation of the Y regime's Z" does not imply the statement "Army X is simply a subset of Y" or even "Everyone in Army X basically agreed with Y". Of course it doesn't. Any more than being a member of the Red Army meant that one was communist, simply because it happens to be true that "The Red Army was the army of Soviet Russia".
Similarly, this idea that people taking an oath to anyone or their platitudes means, in all cases, they actually believe that oath, and that what the oath says describes what they believe. In the context of the huge fact that not everyone who joined the various fighting units did so voluntarily -- in fact a large majority were outright drafted (or shoehorned from civilian law enforcement roles, including many regular policemen).
Does that excuse them of culpability in what they may have done -- obviously not. But to think they simply believed everything they were asked to believe at face value goes against everything we know about human nature, and the basic social reality of was going on in Germany and Europe at the time. And about the fundamental psychological and operational mechanics by which the Final Solution worked.
And then there's this:
That army was the army of Nazi Germany. That army was Nazi Germany‘s army.
As if simply calling Germany "Nazi Germany" adds some weight to the point you're trying to make. Of course it doesn't. As a simple, direct proof of this -- let's just drop the unnecessary instances of your favorite word in that sentence:
That army was the army of Germany. That army was Germany‘s army.
> After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, Adolf Hitler assumed the office of President of Germany, and thus became commander in chief. In February 1934, the Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg, acting on his own initiative, had all of the Jews serving in the Reichswehr given an automatic and immediate dishonorable discharge.[33] Again, on his own initiative Blomberg had the armed forces adopt Nazi symbols into their uniforms in May 1934.[34] In August of the same year, on Blomberg's initiative and that of the Ministeramt chief General Walther von Reichenau, the entire military took the Hitler oath, an oath of personal loyalty to Hitler.
You can call them all "bad" if you want. But (regardless of whether they committed war crimes) the Nazis and the armed forces were different (though obviously overlapping) subsets. This is not an academic distinction at all, and is extremely important if one is to understand how the dictatorship and the Final Solution actually worked.
See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42276731