The Myth of the Eastern Front  The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi–Soviet War in American Popular Culture is a 2008 book by the American historians Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies of the University of Utah. It discusses perceptions of the Eastern Front of World War II in the United States in the context of historical revisionism. The book traces the foundation of the post-war myth of the "Clean Wehrmacht", its support by US military officials, and the impact of Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS mythology on American popular culture, up to the time of its publication. The book garnered largely positive reviews. It was commended for its thorough analysis of the creation of the myth by German ex-participants and its entry into American culture, as well as its compelling analysis of contemporary war-romancing trends. One reviewer described the book as a "tour de force of cultural historiography", and another observed that it "presents a discomforting portrait of the American views of the Eastern Front". Critics regarded its theory of American perceptions of the Eastern Front to be unconvincing. At the time of the publication of "The Myth of the Eastern Front", the authors were colleagues in the history department at the University of Utah. According to one reviewer, they were "well qualified for the task" of deconstructing the myth in the book's title: "Smelser is a widely published historian of Nazi Germany, while Davies, a self-confessed former adherent to the "Ostfront" myth, specializes in US history". In the preface to the book, Davies called the book's writing a "personal journey" and described how his interest in the Soviet–German War grew from reading "Hitler Drives East" by Paul Carell. Davies became a devotee, with hundreds of books on the Eastern Front in his library. His private collection of wargames was part of the source material in the book. The first section of the book focuses on the prevailing American attitudes towards Nazi Germany, the Wehrmacht, and the SS in the period during World War II and its immediate aftermath. The authors' sources were newspapers, magazines, and other American media of the period. The book also discusses the role of war-time American propaganda in shaping a positive image of the Soviet Union as the United Kingdom's and the United States' ally. The book then covers positive views of the Germans, produced early in the Cold War era. These arose due to the changing geopolitical climate, the appearance of German military sources which vindicated their side of the conflict, and support of this effort by the American military.