The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

German SS and Waffen-SS 1923-1945.
stcamp
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Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by stcamp »

Hello,

The Einsatzgruppen

How many actual Waffen SS were attached to an EG or its sub-units? Very few. Yes, they assisted but probably not as often, or in the same numbers as did the Wehrmacht Security Divisions.

An EG was a cadre of political soldiers (SD) and professional police (ShuPo, KriPo, SiPo). They did have Waffen-SS men assigned but I believe they were in a different category from the ones assigned to a numbered division or a named regiment. EG's were the management team with the actual killing contracted out to Schupo battalions or local auxillaries. The exception being the SS troops assigned to the HSSPF.

While not an "official einsatzgruppe" SS-Infantry Regiments and the SS-Calvary assigned to the RF-SS were actual einsatzgruppes and killed in numbers just as large. These were part of the RF-SS Kommando Stab. Someone described this them as a Waffen-SS inside the Waffen-SS. I think of these SS-infantry brigades as more like Eickes TK in the pre-war days. Performing the same duties were Police Regiments North, South, and Middle.


How well known was the killings in the east known to the SS and regular troops? My guess is anyone who had been in the east for more than six months knew what was happening. Why do I think that? Because I have read where there was a problem with men talking on leave on the train. You didn't have to see a crematoria to have a clue. Partisan actions were not about reaching out for "Hearts and Minds." It was about killing everyone who fit a profile, maybe shipping some back for labor, and slaughtering or liberating the livestock. How many took a ghetto tour? I think fotos from a ghetto were as common in foto albums as dead horses, wreckage of tanks, and buddy hugs. I have also read the German population had a clue also. As in the belief that the allied bombings were punishment or payback for what had been done to the Jews.

I would think over 3% of a division officer corp who had camp time knew full well what was happening. I would be surprised if they did not talk about it. Most time spent in the military is spent doing mundane tasks and talking.

Steve
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haen2
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Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by haen2 »

Hi Steve
It sounds that you have a lot of knowledge aboyt things that happened more than half a century ago.
Also an in dept insight of the military as a whole.
So, tell us a little about yourself, like your age, where have you been, where did you get all that insight ?
Looking forward to your response.
Cheers
HN
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Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think !
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Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by sid guttridge »

Hi Tom,

While working in a camp did not necessarily mean personally committing a crime, I would suggest that it does involve the sort of collective responsibility Goldsworthy suggests for the whole Waffen-SS. For example, counting and weighing gold fillings is inocuous in itself, but not if one knows their source.

While one might debate to what degree a Waffen-SS man at the front was aware of these activities, one can't plausibly maintain that anyone working in the camps was completely ignorant of their function or wasn't to some degree complicit in their activities. It is even less possible to plead ignorance on behalf of any members of the Einsatzgruppen, who necessarily had a "hands on" approach to their job.

The Waffen-SS, as an organisation, becomes complicit due to the free flow of personnel between it and the camps and einsatzgruppen. However, this does not necessarily mean that individual Waffen-SS men were complicit, or even aware.

Cheers,

Sid.
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Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by sid guttridge »

Hi stcamp,

According to Goldsworthy, a third of Einsatzgruppe A were from the Waffen-SS and, as there was apparently a set formula to their composition, it is probable that the same held true for other einsatzgruppen.

I think you are right that a non-specific knowledge of einsatgruppen activities was pretty universal, even if not personally experienced by most German troops. For example, the diary of the Slovak General Turanec, who was serving at the front, mentions at least two specific massacres of Jews, and he was not exactly "in the loop" for the official disemination of such information.

Cheers,

Sid.
Paddy Keating

Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by Paddy Keating »

Any attempt to simplify apportioning of blame for the Final Solution by trying to nail one or two groups of men for the crime is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest. The embarrassing fact of the matter is that so many people actively facilitated things and even more assented in a passive manner, including Allied leaders who saw the photographic evidence in 1942 and did nothing about it. The same can be said of the Vatican. The then Pope was a dubious character, as we all know, but had the Vatican threatened automatic excommunication for all Catholics involved in the massacres, that would have posed quite a problem, given that so many of the killers were Catholics.

The Germans were enthusiastically assisted by the peoples of the countries they had liberated from the yoke of Bolshevism. It's a matter of record. There was a lot of resentment against Jews, not just for the old reasons but because so many NKVD oppressors, torturers and killers had Jewish names, as did so many of the leading Bolsheviks. Anyone with any knowledge of Tsarist pogroms can understand why Russian Jews decided to try the boots on for a change. Unfortunately, one cannot really say any of this in 'polite society', which is why there can be no resolution through discussion of this terrible period in mankind's history. We have to stick to the accepted formula. But the historical record shows that people all over the place behaved just like people: some behaved in an exemplary manner, standing up against barbarism but most went along with it, glad that they weren't the victims and a substantial minority participated, some more energetically than others.

And by "people", I mean Germans, Austrians, French, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, Greek, Yugoslav, Czechoslovak, Romanian, Hungarian, British (Channel Islands), Ukrainian, Polish, Belorussian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and so on. All of these groups fielded willing participants. Meanwhile, the British and American leadership sat on their hands. In fact, the only country that comes out of it with anything like intact honour is Bulgaria. That's human nature for you. All of this energy focused upon trying to prove that members of the Waffen-SS were guilty of crimes against Jews is futile. Everyone knows it already. It's a matter of record.

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. I think that history is important but mankind will never avoid repeating the mistakes of the past by studying history, as desirable as this might be. We should perhaps focus our energies upon trying to prevent the massacres planned for today and tomorrow, especially as there can be no honest discussion of the events of the early 1940s.

PK
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Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by phylo_roadking »

but mankind will never avoid repeating the mistakes of the past by studying history
Mankind's problem is it generally opts not to LEARN from history...very often the study is seen as an end in itself - UNLESS it comes to developing better and more imaginative ways of killing than it did "the LAST time"...whichever particular "last time" is being referred to.
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Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by Annelie »

I found an old email from a former poster of long ago. He earned his Ph.D. in Masters in HIstory.

He wrote to me, which I believe fits into this thread.........

"History being a detective story. It is also like putting the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together. But on top of it being like a mystery and a jigsaw puzzle - there is another crucial elelement: time.
Because history is never written once - it is written over and over again by each generation, with different aspects highlighted at different times. That is what makes history so rich - a certain set of facts happen once - and then analyzed and dissected over and over by different generations of scholars, each bringing their own skills and cultural biases. The name for this is HERMENEUTICS."

JFriedman
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Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by phylo_roadking »

Indeed.
Essentially, hermeneutics involves cultivating the ability to understand things from somebody else's point of view, and to appreciate the cultural and social forces that may have influenced their outlook. Hermeneutics is the process of applying this understanding to interpreting the meaning of written texts and symbolic artifacts (such as art or sculpture or architecture), which may be either historic or contemporary.

The meaning of hermeneutics and its range, depend strongly on the precision of definitions of such terms as: interpretation, understanding, point of view, and the choice of its domain of interest/(domain of intervention). On the other hand, as in the case of other abstract terms, definitions depend on the consensus of their users, and can evolve with time.

Hermeneutics interest includes also recognition and explanation of parables, metaphors and insinuations.
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
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Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by michael kenny »

Paddy Keating wrote:Any attempt to simplify apportioning of blame for the Final Solution by trying to nail one or two groups of men for the crime is disingenuous and intellectually dishonest.
Not if one of those groups group had at its core a belief that all Jews needed liquidating
The embarrassing fact of the matter is that so many people actively facilitated things and even more assented in a passive manner, including Allied leaders who saw the photographic evidence in 1942 and did nothing about it.
So knowledge of an act and the failure to do anything to stop it (even if there was nothing you could do) is complicity but belonging to the group doing the actual killing is not any indication of responsibility?
The same can be said of the Vatican. The then Pope was a dubious character, as we all know, but had the Vatican threatened automatic excommunication for all Catholics involved in the massacres, that would have posed quite a problem, given that so many of the killers were Catholics.
A great deal more of them were Nazi's and/or members of the SS. Would the commander of an SS Unit who supplied executioners be as guilty as the Pope?
The Germans were enthusiastically assisted by the peoples of the countries they had liberated from the yoke of Bolshevism.
Liberated? In what sense.
And by "people", I mean Germans, Austrians, French, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, Greek, Yugoslav, Czechoslovak, Romanian, Hungarian, British (Channel Islands), Ukrainian, Polish, Belorussian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian and so on All of these groups fielded willing participants.
Have you a figure in mind for the numbers killed by all these nationalities as compared to those killed by German Military Forces?
All of this energy focused upon trying to prove that members of the Waffen-SS were guilty of crimes against Jews is futile. Everyone knows it already. It's a matter of record.
I was thinking along the same lines. Yet every time a book shows up that is remotely critical of The SS or repeats this obvious fact some forum members get into a complete frenzy. The book/author are comprehensively attacked, trashed and insulted.
to accept this simple fact is to risk frank and open discussion of a subject that is extremely embarrassing for everyone,
It is embarrasing here because blatant anti-semitic views were posted. It got so bad that there was a big shake up and tthese views are no longer welcome. There are still posters who believe a certain race are the source of all the world's ills. That is why we can no longer talk rationaly about it.
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Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by phylo_roadking »

but belonging to the group doing the actual killing is not any indication of responsibility?
Correct. 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. Responsibility devolved UPWARDS. To put things bluntly - Terry's hypothesis is that responsibility devolved downwards to the individual, contrary to the IMT's judgement. It's a personal opinion flying in the face of legal precedent - that doesn't seem to be overly supported by the evidence he musters.

Given that he talks about evil and the responsibility of the individual - I'd have thought his hypothesis would have been better supported by psychological evaluation and profiling of proven war criminals who were members of the SS and Waffen-SS...or not; remember, a hypothesis is there to be proven or disproven. A good thesis is not merely proving a hypothesis - it's doing the work involved to the depth required by any accepted scientific/statistical/research rules within the appropriate discipline to prove OR disprove a hypothesis.
It is embarrasing here because blatant anti-semitic views were posted. It got so bad that there was a big shake up and tthese views are no longer welcome.
Moderator's Note - that was only one of the issues involved - and not the largest. The general behaviour of a number of members were what caused the shake-up; anti-Semitic views have ALWAYS been unwelcome on Feldgrau - not everyone kept to that rule, however. THAT was the issue with it.
"Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle." - Malcolm Reynolds
Paddy Keating

Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by Paddy Keating »

As I said, open, frank discussion is impossible as long as there are people who deny the shades of grey between black and white. And as for anti-semitic remarks, it is true that some posters here have in the past made what might be described as anti-semitic remarks but there have also been posters who have falsely accused members here of anti-semitism and other unpleasant things, to the extent that moderators have had to warn them off. I would not agree that a core belief or raison d'être of the Waffen-SS was the need to liquidate Jews. That is a false statement, rooted in ignorance or a deliberate desire to subvert fact. Most ordinary soldiers of the Waffen-SS were too busy trying to survive to give much thought to Jews and Nazi racial theories. Of course people knew what was happening to the Jews. But the fact is that white people do not really care much about other ethnic groups. It has always been that way and current events indicate that this is not about to change. I mean, apart from a civilised minority, who cares about Darfur, Rwanda and Burundi? Who cares about the natural disasters in Burma and China? We cared about the Tsunami because so many white, middle class people were killed. But we didn't give a toss about the non-whites, if we're really honest with ourselves, did we? It was troubling for Nazi killers and their helpers when they had to kill people who looked and behaved like them. Read the remarks from EG commanders about their men being unhappy when shooting down middle-aged and elderly Jewish men holding up their 1914 Iron Crosses. When we think of the victims of the Final Solution, do we think more about the chic, assimilated Western Jews or do we mourn the smelly, dirt poor, shambling alien masses cleared from the Eastern Territories? Perhaps I am offending some readers but people tend to be offended by difficult, unpalatable truths. We can get our heads around Anne Frank, the cute little Dutch-Jewish girl to whom we can relate, but what about some unwashed Belorussian peasant girl missing most of her teeth, dressed in stinking rags, smelling like the street people sleeping in doorways all over town? Does her memory excite the same sympathy in you? The killers found it much easier to snuff people like that out. They were responding to a more developed form of the kind of reaction people like us have when we are importuned in the street by dirty, nasty, stinking homeless people from Russia and other places. Sorry to be harsh but there you are. The fact is that we are indifferent in the main, as long as whatever nastiness is going on isn't directly affecting us. But it isn't just a white thing. It's mankind in general. We're a bunch of venal blackguards, which is what makes the occasional saints amongst us so special.

PK
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Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by haen2 »

Thank you Paddy
Well put, and to the point.
As for who did what to whom ? Hindsight is always 20 - 20 . We can now say from the safety of our well protected homes: "this should have been done", or "that should not have been done". Having been there, I can say that it's not that easy.
Anti semitism, is as old as the sub-race itself; Europe was awash in it, from Ferdinand of Spain, to God knows who, every- where else.
So when they (Jews) were given the "opportunity" to give up everything they had, to get an auswanderungs visa, many did, and many of us gentiles or even "mischlings" (half breeds?) more or less said or thought "good bye".
And since no one wants to believe that "my people" are capable to, or are performing dasterdly deeds, we chose to believe the propaganda stories that the deporteds were to be re-located to : . . . . Russia - - Madagascar - - - Libia - - - and/or temporary model "workcamps" like Theresianstadt.
When postcards came backto tell us how well things were working out, from these "workcamps", we also wholeheartely chose to believe this. And working for their existance ??? Actually, since they had been "branded" as traders, and non producers anyway, "good ! let them work for a change ! :(
So, another diaspora happened. Sadly, the first one to Babylon, we don't know WHAT happened to the hundreds of thousands of israelites who had to walk from Palestine to what's now the Euprahties valley. How many fell by the wayside ? How many were beaten to death by their arch enemies the babylonians ? Who knows.
More sadly though, in hindsight we DO know what happened to those "deported" during the Nazi era.
Since we cannot change the past, all we can do is pray that we have learned something and will try that such never happens again.
Don't hold your breath though, our civilization veneer is VERY thin, and genocide is still taking place all over the world, while the western world is occupied with "Dancing with the stars", or the Oscars", or other very important :down: things.
Just my two cents.
HN
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Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by phylo_roadking »

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 :?
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Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by stcamp »

haen2 wrote:Hi Steve
It sounds that you have a lot of knowledge aboyt things that happened more than half a century ago.
Also an in dept insight of the military as a whole.
So, tell us a little about yourself, like your age, where have you been, where did you get all that insight ?
Looking forward to your response.
Cheers
HN
Hello Haen,

A lot of Knowledge? I don't think so. Like everything in life you find the more you learn the less you actually know. I would like to have you read my book SS-Polizei: Memories of Poland. You may flame it but I would be interested in your opinion of the parts about combat and the pure boredom of actual duty. If you PM me I will mail you a copy.

I am not a young man anymore. I am a vet and come from generations of vets. From my research I would say my families military service could best be described as "They showed up and went home as soon as possible." You could add to mine "and stayed drunk whenever possible."

Great insight? Thanks but I will think you will agree age and time makes everything less black and white. Yet I am no fan of the SS. I would have to say the 20th century best troops were the US Marine Corp.

Regards,

Steve
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Re: The Camps, Einsatzgruppen, and Waffen SS

Post by stcamp »

sid guttridge wrote:Hi stcamp,

According to Goldsworthy, a third of Einsatzgruppe A were from the Waffen-SS and, as there was apparently a set formula to their composition, it is probable that the same held true for other einsatzgruppen.

snip

Sid.
Yes, that number is about right for EG A which was the largest at 1200 men approx. Then that is only 3 companies. Subtract illness, deaths, and men found unfit for duty and the number drops even more. These were Waffen-SS only loosely.
These were RF-SS personal troops. Looking at the the KIA reports I was amazed at how low the SS numbers were. These were hand picked men just as the SD were for the EG with the exception of the SiPo personnel. The EG people also had a history with prior EG's in Poland, Austria, Bohemia, Sudentland etc. They were not virgins to this kind of duty. It was their career path.

As far as the camps? I would have shot everyone who served in one for more than 6 months without asking for transfer out to a combat unit for war crimes.

To make myself even more popular here: I would also have shot every senior NCO an officer of the SS who had a date of membership prior to 1939. Every member of the SD would also have gone to the wall. NSDAP members with a date of entry prior to 1932 would have done 20 years hard labor. I have long thought Stalin was much to soft on members of the party during the post-war period. The Americans, their policy of post-war recruitment of NAZI's reeks of cynical hypocrisy at best.

Regards,

Steve
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