Thoughts on the Waffen-SS ?

[VonClausewitz]

I'm writing a (University level) history paper on the Waffen-SS arm of the German war machine of the 1939-1944 period, before the total collapse of order and capitulation. I'd like to open this thread as a place to gather some left-leaning ideas about the political, military, and moral qualities of the fighting forces of the SS.

Make no mistake - I am not interested in knee-jerk rants about death camps and Hitler, I am writing a paper on (primarily), Panzer-Grenadier divisions such as the 12th "Hitlerjugend", and the 1st "Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler". I have already completed the section of my paper on the more atrocity-based divisons; 1st - 4th regiments of the SS-Totenkopf, and the 14th Galacia division.

The main points of my paper are to establish whether or not (for example), the Hitlerjugend was really any worse in it's conduct than say the Canadians under General Foster who executed many Germans they captured. The other major point is to explore whether the fighting-arms were motivated more by national-pride, personal pride or by nazism.

If some of you have some balanced, sourced arguments to present a valid point of view, I would be very interested to hear, read and debate with you.

(I would have of course opened this in the relevant section, 'History', but my restriction prevents that, so if people could refrain from flaming me for that, thankyou)

[redstar2000]

As you've probably already learned, military history is a highly specialized field of study...and one that has generally been of little interest to leftists.

For example, I'm aware of the names of the SS divisions to which you referred...but have no idea of "where they fought" or "how they conducted themselves in battle" or "how they treated civilians in conquered territories", etc.

I would surmise that the SS Divisions in question carried out their orders like all professional military units do by definition.

What those orders were probably varied from place to place and time to time: "massacre here" or "be nice there".

Just as is the case with American military units around the world today: do something "humanitarian" here and "kill all" there.

The problem with your project, as I see it, as that it's based on the assumption that military units are "subjects" of history and can behave as "autonomous actors" in the situations they find themselves in.

With extremely rare exceptions, I don't think that's the case. To speak of "morality", for example, in connection with a professional military unit makes no more sense than to speak of the "morality" of a tank or a bomb.

Indeed, a professional soldier is "a tool capable of speech" in the most literal sense of that phrase.

It is the most extreme form of slavery...for in no other form does one's "duty" to one's "master" encompass one's own violent death.

Perhaps it would be more useful to examine the biographies of the field commanders of these units. How did they find themselves in such a position and what did they do after the war was over?

It's known that some German officers unsuccessfully conspired to overthrow Hitler and the Nazis and that a number of others took "early retirement" rather than carry out some Nazi orders. Where would "your guys" fit in this...and what did they have to say for themselves after the war was over and they could speak freely?

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Guerrilla22]

The other major point is to explore whether the fighting-arms were motivated more by national-pride, personal pride or by nazism.

Either way they committed some of most horrorific crimes against humanity in history.


The main points of my paper are to establish whether or not (for example), the Hitlerjugend was really any worse in it's conduct than say the Canadians under General Foster who executed many Germans they captured.

Almost every military that was involved in WW2 did something that could have been considered war crimes. The Americans, British and Soviets all carried out plenty of executions against prisoners. Also there was the bombing of Dresden, the fire bombing of Toyko and other Japanese towns, not to mention the two a bombs.

However, the SS was responsible directly in the deaths of millions. I really don't think one can compare the crimes of the SS with anything the Canadians or the Americans did.

If anything you should write about the rape of Nanking. Japanese war crimes may very well have been as bad as those committed by the Nazis, they just werent all that well documented. The Japanese military also tested chemical and biological weapons test of civillians in China and Manchuria. The Japanese government to this day denies these crimes happened.

[VonClausewitz]

Thankyou redstar2000, I have been looking into a few of the available biographies and war-diaries of the commanders, notably Kurt "Panzermeyer" Meyer, Jochen Peiper, and others, and the divisional history records of the "Liebstandarte" (don't ever read those things, it can get so bloody dull lol).

With regards to what was said after the war, most of the highest ranking officers were taken out and shot, or absconded. I've only really got the testimonies of Kurt Meyer and Sepp Dietrich to work on, and they, as I think should be recognised, were fighting men, and their accounts do pretty much read like the British or American accounts. It's just a shame that anyone but these Germans simply reels-off propaganda without exploring the actual events.

Reading what Himmler and his sort had to say for themselves would be interesting, but the cowards took "early retirement" when captured after the fighting had finished. (btw, any ideas where I can get a reliable source of the Nuremburg transcripts ?, it's difficult to find good un-altered sources)

With regards to the Hitler bomb-plot, it was mostly "Normal" army officers that took part - Rommel, Von Stauffenberg etc, as all arms of the SS swore and took very seriously a "Blood-Oath" to their fuhrer. Interesting idea though, I'll be doing a little more looking into opinions and perhaps indirect involvement in that one, thankyou !

Guerrilla22, Read the 2nd paragraph of my first post. The fighting divisions are at this stage of my project no worse than any other army unit, as redstar2000 so helpfully points out.

I'll see if it's possible to work on the Japanese element of the war in my third-year final piece, it's not a subject I've done much work on to be honest, the war in europe having directly affected my family itself. I'll look into the Japanese chemical tests though, sounds like it could be an interesting can of worms to open.

[Guerrilla22]

Its also interesting to point out that the uS army captured those who had been working on the chem/bio weapons project and agreed not to prosecute them in return for their research. In other words, the US chemical/bio weapons program came directly from the Japanese, just as their missile/space rocketry research came from German scientist.

[ComradeOm]

With regards to the Hitler bomb-plot, it was mostly "Normal" army officers that took part - Rommel, Von Stauffenberg etc, as all arms of the SS swore and took very seriously a "Blood-Oath" to their fuhrer.
Surely that was because the SS was a specially constructed organisation designed from its creation to serve the fuhrer? Contrast with the general staff of the Wehrmacht, primarily drawn from the aristocratic Junker class. They did not "buy into" the fascist dream/nightmare to the same degree as the "lower" classes. That didn’t stop them co-operating and carrying out Hitler’s orders but its safe to say that their heart, by and large, wasn’t in it as much.

[Orthodox Marxist]

I'm writing a (University level) history paper on the Waffen-SS arm of the German war machine of the 1939-1944 period, before the total collapse of order and capitulation. I'd like to open this thread as a place to gather some left-leaning ideas about the political, military, and moral qualities of the fighting forces of the SS.

Make no mistake - I am not interested in knee-jerk rants about death camps and Hitler, I am writing a paper on (primarily), Panzer-Grenadier divisions such as the 12th "Hitlerjugend", and the 1st "Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler". I have already completed the section of my paper on the more atrocity-based divisons; 1st - 4th regiments of the SS-Totenkopf, and the 14th Galacia division.

The main points of my paper are to establish whether or not (for example), the Hitlerjugend was really any worse in it's conduct than say the Canadians under General Foster who executed many Germans they captured. The other major point is to explore whether the fighting-arms were motivated more by national-pride, personal pride or by nazism.

If some of you have some balanced, sourced arguments to present a valid point of view, I would be very interested to hear, read and debate with you.


1st "Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler". The most elite of the verfugungstruppe (ss)
Totally loyal hitlers personal body gaurd unit made up of about 350-500 members at first Formed by Reichmarshall Henrich Himmler after rumors of assasination plots against the fuhrer this unit only answers to adolf hitler but is nominally under the control of Himmler himself when the manpower situation became desperate the unit was absorbed into the army they were given some of the best equipment and supplies under the command of General Dietrich

[Luís Henrique]

Richard Rhodes - Masters of Death (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375409009/103-9181174-5177457?v=glance&n=283155).

I don't know if this can be called a "left" POV, but it is quite well documented.

Luís Henrique

[VonClausewitz]

I'll have a look out for that book, thanks :)

Red Marxist Army - I've had it under fairly decent authority that the Liebstandarte was within the first/second wave of troops sent into Operation Barbarossa. I'll double check though.

[Orthodox Marxist]

Red Marxist Army - I've had it under fairly decent authority that the Liebstandarte was within the first/second wave of troops sent into Operation Barbarossa. I'll double check though.


Yes my apologies I had the dates wrong As I have said their origins were as a personal bodygaurd unit for adolf hitler they took part in many military campaigns on many different fronts during the war they did take part in the war on the eastern front

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2005, 04:31 AM
I'll have a look out for that book, thanks :)

You are welcome... but I must add that I realise you were seeking to material related to the Waffen SS. Considering the amount of time since I read the book, I am not sure that it is useful for that purpose - probably it only deals with Totenkopf or Allgemeine SS units.

But it's a good read even if not particularly useful for your present task.

Luís Henrique

[JazzRemington]

http://www.feldgrau.com/

http://www.feldgrau.com/ss.html

[Luís Henrique]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2005, 06:10 PM
http://www.feldgrau.com/

http://www.feldgrau.com/ss.html


In my opinion there is one reason which explains everything: the general hatred of the Soviet system, a hatred greater than inborn patriotism and loyalty to one's own government. Those who have not seen the limitless degradation of man in what was the Soviet hell cannot understand that a moment may come when a man out of sheer desperation will take up arms against the hateful system even at the side of an enemy. The responsibility for his mutiny falls on the system and not him. Here the notions of loyalty and treason lose their meaning. If, in the eyes of many people, Germans who fought against Hitler were not traitors, why should the Russians who fought against the Soviet system be traitors?

I fear that that site is working for the rehabilitation of Nazism...

Luís Henrique

[sovietsniper]

I see the papers on waffem-ss units, non of which was involved in the holocaust. Many of these joined because they wanted to be elite troops (not unlike american paratroopers or russians in gaurds divisions). Most of these (something like 95 per-cent) wernt involved in war-crimes.

http://www.panzerace.net/english/index.asp

http://www.panzerace.net/english/pz_wss.asp

[Scars]

Fledgrau are not nazi sympathisers, they just do not subscribe to the stereotypes regarding the German military during WWII.

Anyway, warcrimes are a hard thing to deal with because of the issue of moral relitivism. Many of the things that the allies hung Axis soldiers for were, in fact, also carried out by Allied soldiers who went unpunished. For instance, several German U Boat Commanders were brought before Allied courts on charges of warcrimes for sinking civilian ships. They were aquitted when it was pointed out that the Allies sunk hundreds of civilian ships from Axis and neutral countries.

And as you pointed out, the 12th Waffen-SS Division carried out warcrimes, but so did the Canadians they were fighting at Caen in '44 and there have even been arguements made that the atrocities carried out on Canadian POWs were reprisials for initial ill treatment of Waffen-SS prisoners by the Canadians.

Things are not as clear cut as people like to think. The Allies carried out many warcrimes and there are even orders that are no different to German ones (An American Paratrooper division was formally ordered to shoot anyone who surrendered to them during the Normandy Landings). And when it comes to battlefield warcrimes (as opposed to crimes against humanity i.e. the holocaust etc) the Japanese are far worse than the Germans, but this is not acknowledged and often, not even known by most people due to post-war politics. Germany started the war, thus Germany was the scapegoat.

Because of this I think what is important is the motivation for warcrimes. I believe that there is a difference between shooting someone who killed your best friend and has spent the last half an hour attempting to kill you before surrendering and killing someone who has surrendered to you because you deem them to be subhuman, and killing them is no worse than squashing a cockroach. Thus warcrimes should be divided into two groups- warcrimes of passion and warcrimes of ideology. This is why the Waffen-SS stand apart from even the worst Allied units. Many of their warcrimes were ideological, they were based on their National Socialist beliefs regarding race, power, domination etc as opposed to it being revenge, or anger or whatever motivating them.

But even then, when looking at the Waffen-SS you have to make the distinction between different units. The 1st (LSAH), 2nd (Das Reich), 3rd (Totenkopf) and 12th (Hitlerjugend) were most definately Nationalist Socialist in character. LSAH was decended from Hitler's original body guard, Totenkopf was made up of former concentration camp guards and Hitlerjugend was made up of...Hitlerjugend. But the Nord and Wiking (7th and 8th? I'm a bit rusty) who were made up nearly completely of non-German volunteers (largely Nordic- Danish, Swedish etc) many of whom were motivated by anti-communist sentiment. In fact part of the agreement that paved the way for the creation of the Freikorp Danmark, a volunteer Danish unit that was eventually absorbed by Nord, was that it would only ever fight in the USSR and if you look at many of the Waffen-SS recruiting posters (particularly in the East) they use much anti-communist imagery.

The Waffen-SS was not as hemogenous or unified as people like to think. Not every in it was a National Socialist and as the war progressed standards for joining steadily decreased until some units were made up solely of conscripts from the occupied territories. Many units performed incredibly poorly and many divisions existed only on paper, or in Himmler's wee, confused brain. Because of this when one looks at the warcrimes commited by teh Waffen-SS many things must be taken into account:

1) What was the racial make up of the unit? What level of National Socialist feeling was present in the unit?

Germanic, Nordic and other 'Ayran' units were often more likely to be National Socialist and thus warcrimes commited by them are more likely to be ideological. However, this is not universal, particularly for non-Germanic units who may be motivated by anti-communist sentiment or nationalism spurred on by Soviet expansionism (for instance in the Baltic).

In addition to this, particularly in teh Balkans, one must think about ethnic fueds. For instance Albanians killing Serbs would be a warcrime based on ethnic passion, as opposed to any sort of ideology. Even people who are not particularly nationalistic often stick to ethnic fueds with suprising gusto.

2) When was the unit formed?

As a rule of thumb, the earlier the unit was formed, the more National Socialist its character will be.

3) What was its purpose?

In the Balkans several Waffen-SS divisions were raised specifically to carry out anti-partisan operations, often playing on ethnic hatreds (so Croat soldiers would be sent to deal with Bosnak partisans etc). Anti-Partisan operations inevitabily have higher rates of warcrimes carried out, because of the nature of the conflict and because there is simply more oppotunity.

Front line units that have high rates of warcrimes will, most likely, have some ideological basis to the crimes beyond simple revenge etc. This is particularly true if the crimes are more extreme- I imagine POWs wwould have got beaten up fairly regularly by every army, having a policy of executing all prisoners is rarer and worse.

4) Were the warcrimes part of standard procedure, or the norm?

As has been said, almost every division in WWII would be charged with some war crime of some sort, most of which would be crimes of passion. But were their warcrimes part of an underlying policy, or 'culture' within the character of the unit?




This post is much longer than I expected, however the Waffen-SS do interest me (as you probably will have noticed), particularly volunteer units and the 12th Division 'Hitlerjugend'. The main point is, things are not simple or clear cut and you cannot afford to be simplistic in your judgements regarding warcrimes commited by anyone, especially by the Waffen-SS. They were not tall, blonde haired, blue eyed killbots, nor were they all National Socialists. Hell, there was even an Indian unit! You also have to make the distinction between the SS and the Waffen-SS. In addition, you have to accept that the allies did some fairly horrible things too during the war, particularly the Soviets who commited various barbaric actions, the most disgusting example being the rape (very literally) of East Prussia.

The only book I can remember off the top of my head is:

Meyer, Hubert - The History of the 12.SS-Panzerdivision "Hitlerjugend"
(excellent book on 12th, written by a Hitlerjugend officer in the division. However it brushes over many of the warcrimes, for obvious reasons)

Voss, Johann- Black Edelweiss: a Memoir of Combat and Conscience By a Soldier of the Waffen-SS
(Memoir of a Waffen-SS soldier. Mainly about his combat service, but also has stuff about his motivations for joining and about finding out about what the SS was responsible for)

[Orthodox Marxist]

Many units performed incredibly poorly

thats what happens when you mix criminals political idealists and those looking to avoid the german labour camps most of the foreign divisions were very poorly equiped they were often given captured poor quality weapons

[Scars]

Originally posted by Red Marxist [email protected] 22 2005, 10:34 PM

Many units performed incredibly poorly

thats what happens when you mix criminals political idealists and those looking to avoid the german labour camps most of the foreign divisions were very poorly equiped they were often given captured poor quality weapons
Plus many were conscripted. Not only that, often the conscripts were not of Germanic origin and did not support Hitler in any way shape or form. For instance, my Grandfather (who's Dutch) only escaped being conscripted into the Waffen-SS by hiding under a bridge and his family claiming he was dead. If he had of been conscripted I seriously doubt he would have been an enthusiastic soldier (he wasn't happy about being conscripted into the Dutch army to fight in Indonesia either).

As for the poor quality weapons, although the Waffen-SS were the 4th branch of the Wehrmacht (the armed forces as a whole), the Heer (ground forces) still largely had control over where arms went and they were not at all happy about the creation of the Waffen-SS, as part of the agreement with Hitler that got the Army on his side was that they were to be the sole military organisation in Germany (leading to Rohm's execution, who was starting to form SA military units). So they would favour Heer units over Waffen-SS and would often do all in their power to stop the Waffen-SS get weapons. This said, the Waffen-SS did get their hands on new and shiney weapons thanks to high level political influence (Himmler), and on several occations they bought arms directly from the arms manufacturers, often with slaves. However many Waffen-SS units had to make do with inferior, captured and old arms. They even used captured French tanks and produced a copy of the Russian Katushya ('Stalins Organs').

[sovietsniper]

By the end of the war, the whole german millitry was despratlly shourt of supplys. However many of the waffen-ss units were relitivlly well supplied right up to the end of the war.
Also many of the forein ss performed well, including the the 6th "nord" and the Wiking division.

[Scars]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2005, 02:28 PM
By the end of the war, the whole german millitry was despratlly shourt of supplys. However many of the waffen-ss units were relitivlly well supplied right up to the end of the war.
Also many of the forein ss performed well, including the the 6th "nord" and the Wiking division.
But a lot of that was due to Hitler's constant meddling in arms development programmes, for instance his irrational dedication to bolt-action rifles. He even went so far as to ban all weapons development in various fields after '43, meaning that German sub-machineguns were called 'machine pistols' to avoid this boycott. Other idiocies include deciding to make the first jet fighter a fighter-bomber, negating its main advantage and pushing its production back to a point where they made no difference.

The other problem was towards the end of the war German was, simply, running out of people to fight. The Volksturm and Volksgrenadier units are a testiment to this.

Hitler lost the war, not the German army. If the German Generals had been allowed to do their job the war would have played out very differently. Good thing it didn't.