German Interior Ministry officials said they took the Wiesenthal Center complaint “very seriously” and would investigate. But in the meantime, companies that print and distribute Der Landser said they would continue doing so, noting that previous legal challenges had failed to find fault with the editorial stance of the magazine, whose relatively small circulation belies its lightning-rod role in Germany.

The new focus on Der Landser is the latest incarnation of a debate — one that has lasted decades — over the balance between free speech and efforts in Germany to eradicate the neo-Nazi movement and tamp down anti-Semitism.

The magazine, which advertises that it is based on true events but also clearly includes fictional elements, studiously avoids mentioning the word “Nazi” and does not overtly propagate anti-Semitism. But critics say Der Landser, with its failure to acknowledge atrocities and little sense of regret for the deaths of millions of people, is stuck in a World War II time warp that ignores efforts by broader German society to come to terms with Nazi crimes.

“The way they interpret it, everyone in the Wehrmacht was just like in the American Army or the Canadian Army or the British Army,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Wiesenthal Center, using the term for the German armed forces at that time. “They forget the most important point. People in this army were thugs and murderers who almost brought down Western civilization.”

He called Amazon’s refusal to stop selling the magazine “preposterous.”

But even some experts skeptical of the magazine’s pseudo-historical tales of military heroics and camaraderie among German forces question whether it violates the prohibition against glorifying Nazism or denying the Holocaust.