The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

[Paddy Keating]

Oh Sid, you're trying a bit too hard to provoke people now, you little tinker. Stalin and his NKVD butchers made Hitler and the EG look like amateurs in the mass-murder sweepstakes and Stalin also employed his fair share of former Third Reich bogeymen after the war, including "Gestapo Müller" amongst other charmers.

PK

Moderator note -

it has always been a standard on the forum that when discussions on war crimes arise, the sins or not of one side are NOT measured against or excused by those of the other.

[phylo_roadking]

Moderators' Note -

A number of offtopic posts were removed here. in pursuivance of

And with that, let's veer away from the general discussion and back to the camps/E-gruppen/Waffen-SS knowledge/responsibility specifics before that Moderator cut-in cuts...in

It did.

[haen2]

Hi Steve
This is not a popularity contest, but a conglomeration of memories, and what people have learned from others, over time.
So, don't worry about popularity. As you may have read from some of my posts, there are THREE sides to every story.
Yours - Mine - and the Facts. So whatever you "learned" from heresay after the war or even during the war from Our lobsided (just like the Axis) propaganda machinery, you may wish to re-examine.
You will find on both sides : Lies !, BIG Lies, and Dammned Lies
I am by now an OLD criminal by association . I learned that things I learned BEFORE the war were not necessarily true; next came the other prop mach, guess what ? it was not even close to be true; AFter the war . . . .came the BIG lies and "half' truths from the good guys. Making a whole segement of damned good soldiers, criminals by association.
So for what it is worth. I agree the U.S. Marines were awesome, so were the Soviet "schock troops", and, like it or not, so was the Waffen SS ( not the campguards).
And NO ! I am not a born again nazi or the like; I am VERY ashamed about what some guys, dressed in the similar uniform as mine, have done to other people; ( and . . .that it is still going on everywhere, does not diminish that) but let's not throw the baby out with the washwater.
Let's cross swords again ! shall we ?
Cheers
H.n.

[stcamp]

[quote="haen2"]Hi Steve
This is not a popularity contest, but a conglomeration of memories, and what people have learned from others, over time.
So, don't worry about popularity. As you may have read from some of my posts, there are THREE sides to every story.
Yours - Mine - and the Facts. So whatever you "learned" from heresay after the war or even during the war from Our lobsided (just like the Axis) propaganda machinery, you may wish to re-examine.
You will find on both sides : Lies !, BIG Lies, and Dammned Lies
quote]

Ah yes. This how a system survives isn't it? They lie to the people. Then the people believe and more blood flows.

Hegel said: and here I paraphase. First history is written by the participants. Then after time it is rewritten using the documents, etc. available. Then much later it is written about how it effected events and sytems downstream.

Regards,

Steve

[phylo_roadking]

Hegel said: and here I paraphase. First history is written by the participants. Then after time it is rewritten using the documents, etc. available. Then much later it is written about how it effected events and sytems downstream.

Hegel - or me in the AHF harker thread? LMAO

Michael, it seems that the 1950s and very early '60s was the era of Allied personal memoirs and diaries being published, together with "offical histories" and Allied official regimental histories. Increasingly I'm coming across '60s and early '70s paperback editions of earlier memoirs to buy when I'm looking for stuff. Hence ten years after THAT we see the start of broad "popular histories" written using those memoirs as secondary sources, such as the various works on Crete, Dunkirk, D-Day, North Africa, the Battle of Britain etc. that we all know and grew up with, starting in the 1960's. THEN we get a "second" wave of broad histories contradicting the first wave or picking up on different points. Thus trends develop...

BUT that is why there is no big wave of Allied divisional and regimental histories and biographies coming out NOW, like there is of Axis units and personalities - a huge number have already been done, and are almost lost to public consciousness. It was a different generation of "personal literacy", especially in Britain - almost everyone with something to say or recall or put down for posterity did so THEMSELVES in the 1950s. The only Allied biog you're guaranteed at any given time to see now in the "fashion" bookshops (carrying current editions) is yet another "coffee-table" book on Monty or Winston LOL

...And it's also why there isn't a decent Allied equivalent of Feldgrau or AHF - there are relatively few totally blank areas to be filled by research. A LOT more detail is available to be found on dusty bookshelves somewhere.

The Axis side is VERY different. Yes, there have been unit histories - and the occasional private memoirs - but not the same coverage and bulk as in the "Allied" nations, and they very rarely got translated and reprinted abroad. NOW they are, and NOW a lot of gaps are being filled - gaps that grew up because people that perhaps SHOULD have...didn't want to remember. The problem is - of course - in many cases...it's in the main too late for memoirs instead they are biographies. My point being - the DEMAND is out there - because the Net allows people who are interested to see what ISN'T there for them, as well as what is. There are more blanks on the Axis side than the Allied - and "Nature abhors a vacuum"

[haen2]

There is a Dutch saying : "of je door de hond of door de kat word gebeten, maakt geen verschil; gebeten wordt je toch"
( wheter the dog or the cat bites you, makes no difference, you are getting bitten anyway )
Keep on searching ! As Paul said, "Go, and research all things ,and behold (retain) the good".
I would like to see a history(sic) book about 2000 years from now and see what they have made of our era.
Probably the same nonsense as we now read about the pyramids etc.
Oh well.
HN

[phylo_roadking]

You can do it a LOT sooner than that....pick up a "modern history" book written for the Catholic side of the parallel school system in Northern Ireland and turn to "Irish History"....

You know the old sci-fi film about a parallel Earth on the other side of the sun?...

[stcamp]

Ah yes. This how a system survives isn't it? They lie to the people. Then the people believe and more blood flows.

I am quoting myself. Somewhat lame.

What I meant was any system. Including the one in my country.

Yes, I am aware that a SS veteran who was drafted or volunteered for a SS unit at age 18 in 1944 was not a war criminal usually. They were just a grunt in the field doing what the job entailed. Most were lucky probably to even have a clue where they were exactly.

A member of an EG was not a 18 year old war virgin. They were dedicated Nazi's. A Waffen SS officer who started with the Freikorp was yet another who had drank from the cup. Don't kid yourself because they didn't. They knew what they were doing was contrary to laws of the Weimar Republic. Later, after 1933, they knew the downside was the Bolsheviks would win in which case they would be stood up against a wall. If they won, the Bolshevik would take their turn. This is the way of revolutions everywhere.

At least they, Bolshevik or Nazi had the balls to throw those dice.

Steve

[phylo_roadking]

At this point let's make sure everyone is singing from the same hymnbook...

What constitutes a "war crime" is a breach of the various treaties defining the laws of warfare, treatment of non-combatants, destruction of property, treatment of POWS, etc. - or the commonly-held "customs of war" underpinning them...

Feldgrau regards "War Crimes" as specific breaches of ANY internationally-agreed rules of conduct or treatment bearing on warfare that are in effect and legally-binding at the time the crime/alledged crime occured. The Forum management does not condone the application of ANY other standard or criteria - everything else is supposition with no bearing on the realities of the crime. The only exception is where crimes are judged to have been against the underlaying intermationally-accepted "laws and customs of war" underpinning these conventions, and if not "judged" per subsequent events, then there needs to be suitable levels of proof that such laws and customs were indeed customary.

...to be a "war criminal" you have to have COMMITTED a "war crime", and be judged to have before a military tribunal, court martial, or court of law. Thus -

a SS veteran who was drafted or volunteered for a SS unit at age 18 in 1944 was not a war criminal usually.

...the situation is the other way round; as i said up the thread "that's the legal situation and precedent the IMT left us with - whether we like it or not, whether we agree with it or not. That the SS was a criminal organisation - but membership of it was NOT a crime."

So whether an 18-year old conscript in 1944 or an "Alter Kampfer" - "war criminal" - or criminal of ANY sort - is not a default, it requires a sin of COMmission.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Paddy,

To be a war criminal you don't necessarily have to be formally judged one. There is little doubt that most war crimes went unpunished and that most war criminals, regardless of their nationality, never went before a court. One only has to look at the disproportion between the number of victims of war crimes and the number of convicted war criminals to see that most people who transgress the laws of war have tended to get away with it. Perhaps we should all be a little clearer by prefixing "war criminal" with "convicted" and "alleged", where appropriate.

Otherwise, I agree with your last post.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Paddy Keating]

Good point, Sid. Many war criminals were, indeed, never judged but we can be fairly safe in seeing them as war criminals. But we cannot call them war criminals unless, of course, we describe them as "alleged war criminals" or, even, "suspected war criminals".

Cheers,

PK

[phylo_roadking]

Unfortunately, being away yesterday, Paddy noticed and replied to what I would have done.

Anyone who is supected of involvement in ANY crime is indeed a "suspect" in an "alledged crime" UNTIL they should be found guilty.

[Reb]

Steve

One note - your willingness to shoot anyone enlisted before a certain date etc is in itself symptomatic of the problems we face as men. (Disclaimer - I've of course got a list of folks I think should be shot too).

One combines that willingness with a real or percieved threat to one's country and the "idealists" like Kurt Meyer are soon jumping on board. Would I? That's always the question.

Paddy

Your post was very good - it is truly easier to shoot folks who don't look like us. I don't think this is just about white people either - the Japanese were very enthusiastic about terminating their 'inferiors' and among African tribes genocide lurks not too far below the surface. One thinks of Peachy and Danny asking an Afghan - "do you have any enemies?" "oh yes - the tribe upstream from us pisses in the river - very bad!"

I'm very concerned about the slip to left of the conservatives in the US (McCain, Bush et al) because the right wing (which is epitomized by libertarians) tend to be anarchic by nature and not as given to mass murder. I've read comments from left wing bloggers that chill my blood. to fbe air though, lots of supposed conservatives blather constantly about "turning the middle east into a glass parking lot." When I ask them why I get these vague answers about "enemies."

Is loose talk about killing lots of folks just talk? Or does it go deeper? History suggests its various dangerous indeed.

Having seen up close and personal just how murderous eighteen year old recruits (from good families) can be I'm not sanguine about the future.

In the case of Einzatzgruppen one can only shudder. But we don't dare say that was a phemomenom only of the nazis, the Germans, the eastern rabble who helped them or even of the communists. All men seem to be capable of those sort of things since most are sadly, just serfs looking for a master for whom they will do much for a pat on the head.

To life then, and to hell with all those who would have us murder in the name of some stupid political slogan.

cheers
Reb

[valhalla]

Paddy Keathing claimed - But the majority of Waffen-SS men had nothing to do with mass-murder. However, to accept this simple fact is to risk frank and open discussion of a subject that is extremely embarrassing for everyone, especially since events have now shown us that Jews, contrary to Nazi racist rantings, are exactly like anyone else, as the Israel model shows us.

What a historically inaccurate statement. Maclean clearly shows that the Waffen-SS were heavily linked into the camps. Indeed some 43 per cent of concentration-camp officers served in the Waffen-SS.

No. - Name of Division - Number of camp officers
1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler 16
2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich 39
3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf 159
4th SS Panzergrenadier Division SS-Polizei 29
5th SS Panzer Division Wiking 45
6th SS Gebirgs Division Nord 57
7th SS Freiwilligen-Gerbirgs Division Prinz Eugen 23
8th SS Kavallerie Division Florian Geyer 28
9th SS Panzer Division Hohenstaufen 22
10th SS Panzer Division Frundsberg 20
11th SS Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier Division Nordland 12
12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend 6
13th Waffen-Gebirgs Division Der SS (Kroatische NR1) Handschar 9
14th Waffen-Grenadier Division Der SS (Ukrainische NR 1) 5
15th Waffen-Grenadier Division Der SS (Lettische NR 1) 5
16th SS Panzergrenadier Division Reichsführer-SS 17
17th SS Panzergrenadier Division Gőtz Von Berlichingen 15
18th SS Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier Division Horst Wessel 7
19th Waffen-Grenadier Division Der SS (Lettisches NR 2) 3
20th Waffen-Grenadier Division Der SS (Estnische NR 1) 7
21st Waffen-Gebirgs Division Der SS (Albanische NR1) Skanderberg 4
22nd Freiwilligen-Kavallerie Division Der SS Maria Theresia 3
23rd Waffen-Gebirgs Division Der SS Kama later to become Panzer division Nederland 5
24th SS Gebirgs Division Karstjager 1
25th Waffen-Grenadier Division Der SS (Ungarische NR1) Hunyadi 2
26th Waffen-Grenadier Division Der SS (Ungarische NR 2) Hungaria 3
27th SS Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier Division (Flamische NR 1) Langemarck 5
28th SS Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier Division Wallonien 0
29th SS Waffen-Grenadier Division Der (Russische NR 1) later to become the (Italienische NR 1) 3
30th SS Waffen-Grenadier Division Der (Weissruthensche NR 1) 2
31st SS Freiwilligen-Grenadier Division 2
32nd SS Freiwilligen-Grenadier Division 30 Januar
33rd Waffen-Kavallerie Division Der SS (Ungarische NR 3) later to become Waffen-Grenadier Division Der SS (Franzosische NR 1) Charlemagne 1
34th Waffen-Grenadier Division Der SS Landstorm Nederland 6
35th SS Polizei Grenadier Division 1
36th Waffen-Grenadier Division Der SS 7
37th Freiwilligen-Kavallerie Division Lűtzow 0
38th SS Grenadier Division Nibelungen 0
(MacLean, 1999:282)

Comments like this are misleading and fail to take consideration of the facts.

Terry

[Tom Houlihan]

Comments like this are misleading and fail to take consideration of the facts.

That statement is quite true. According to my calculator, adding up all those officers from MacLean's research gives a total of 569. Mathematically, that supports Keating's line of thinking.

Now, Maclean has shown that there was movement between the Camps and the Waffen-SS, both ways. Where did the 43% figure come from that you mentioned?

As part of my research into 6.SS-Nord, I have a list of just about every officer that served in that division. There are over 1600 names in that list! The 569 you quoted above (and yes, I used his book as part of my research) would only account for 35% of NORD's officer corps! How can that account for the 43% you mention?