War and trust: a sociological analysis of the results of surveys of German prisoners of war in 1941-1942

The work on the declassification of archival documents allowed researchers to familiarize themselves with the materials of surveys of German prisoners of war, organized by specialists and political workers of the Red Army. The purpose of this article was to analyze the trust of the Nazi soldiers to their military and political leadership, propaganda, as well as their attitude to the prospects for further combat operations in 1941-1942. Contributions to the study were made by reviews prepared by the Political Department of the North-Western Front. The documents present the dynamics of changes in the opinions of German prisoners of war on various military-political, social and cultural issues. The surveys were of a regular nature and were conducted anonymously. As a method, a secondary analysis of the results of the survey of captured soldiers and officers of German fascist units in the period from September 1941 to April 1942 was used. (N = 326). The analysis made it possible to trace the decrease in the level of trust in the Wehrmacht units, which was caused both by failures on the battlefields and by individual circumstances in which German soldiers found themselves. The prospects of further work on studying the reporting materials of the political organ of the Red Army were emphasized.