Any Waffen SS divisions not ACCUSED of war crimes?

heinz kling · Post by **heinz kling** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 6:08 pm

Since there are so many drummed up charges against the SS, I am interested to know if there was one whose reputation had not been slandered?

Tom Houlihan · Post by **Tom Houlihan** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 6:53 pm

As far as I know, 6. SS-Nord was the only division not to have any warcrimes alleged against it. Of course, I'm at work, so I can't verify that statement right now.

Mark C Yerger · Post by **Mark C Yerger** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 6:56 pm

10SS "Frundsberg" has a fully clean combat record to my knowledge.

Mark

Kimmo · Post by **Kimmo** » Mon Mar 17, 2003 11:57 pm

5. SS-Wiking was never accused of any war crimes.

sid guttridge · Post by **sid guttridge** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 8:13 am

Hi Heinz,

The implication of the word "slandered" is that a reputation is damaged by false accusations. Whilst there are undoubtedly numerous erroneous accusations made against the Waffen-SS, there are more than enough substantiated ones to make it very difficult to "slander" many Waffen-SS divisions as they already have justifiably soiled reputations.

The sad truth is that the Waffen-SS was much more likely than German Army units to commit atrocities. For example, after the war the French raised four major massacres of their civilians at Nurenberg. Three (75%) had been committed by the Waffen-SS. As the Waffen-SS contributed less than 5% of the German manpower that passed through France the conclusion is inescapable that the Waffen-SS had a major institutional problem that was not shared by the army.

A similar disproportion is observable in other theatres. Although only about 10% of the +/- 44 divisions used on occupation duties in the Balkans came from the Waffen-SS, it is one of them that has come away with the worst reputation - the 7th Prinz Eugen.

Cheers,

Sid
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Hi Tom,

I think the Nord is something of an exceptional case on a number of grounds. It seems to have spent most of the war in allied Finnland or in virtually unpopulated arctic regions. One could argue that it had little opportunity to commit war crimes. Anyway, lack of opportunity is not evidence of guilt, so the Nord has my vote as probably clean.

Cheers,

Sid.

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Hi Kimmo,

Not only has the Wiking been accused of war crimes, but by Finns! There was a thread on this very subject some months back. I will try to find it for you.

Cheers,

Sid.

sid guttridge · Post by **sid guttridge** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 8:24 am

Hi Kimmo,

The thread making accusations against the Wiking is "Waffen-SS Divisions and number of men served".

The particular contribution is by Juha Hujanen on 02 Jan. He gives lots of sourced details.

Cheers,

Sid.

Juha Hujanen · Post by **Juha Hujanen** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 9:46 am

Hello all.

I'm not accusing Wiking for warcrimes or trying "tarnish their shield".I'm just reporting accounts of some Finns who served in Wiking.These accounts are in Jokipii book about Finnish SS-volunteers and because book is only in Finnish language,i wanted share these with you non-Finnish speaking folks.

Wiking was never officially accused for warcrimes.Another SS units that was never accused was 17th SS-Panzergrenadier Division Gotz Von Berlichingen.

Regards/Juha

Kimmo · Post by **Kimmo** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 9:55 am

I wanted to test the ice with a stick, by saying 5. SS-Wiking, as it's quite popular belief in Finland, that those men were somewhat different than the rest of the SS-divisons.

Yes, it was never officially accused of war crimes, but at least I don't belief that it tells everything.

East Front being somewhat special front and I'm sure that not every possible crimes were ever documented and so many men escaped from accusations.

Just to make it clear, no direct attack against Wiking, from my part. I'm just saying, that there's no innocent people in a war.

TH Albright · Post by **TH Albright** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 12:48 pm

Like "Frundsberg", "Hohenstauffen" was never formerly accused of any war crimes, although the French unsuccessfully attempted to prosecute Willi Bittrich for indirect complicity in the execution of a small number of accused Maquis by the local Gestapo during the division's standup period in France in early 1944. 17 SS PzGd Division "GvB" also was never formerly accused of any war crimes, although some evidence exists that a "tit-for tat" execution of POWs by "GvB" and American personnel occured in the winter of 1945 that resulted in bad blood between the two foes for years after the war. No charges were ever placed against "GvB" personnel. A note on "Nord": during Operation Nordwind, the Americans found SS Division Nord to be a chivalrous enemy (see the book "Seven Days in January").
We also have very little evidence of any war crimes committed by the Western European SS Legions on the Eastern Front as well as division "Nordland", although they were accused of some foul play in Croatia while training, but coming from Tito's government, these accusations have to be suspect at best.

Will · Post by **Will** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 1:06 pm

there was also SS 'Europa' it also has a clean record but that particular formation was only formed in the spring of 44 and consisited mainly of east european volunteers it too has a clean record!-peace

vergissmeinicht

George Lepre · Post by **George Lepre** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 3:20 pm

Hi guys -

As for the 17th SS-Division "GvB," the only accusations that have been leveled against it stem from the last days of the war, when a certain number of SS troops and NSDAP officials executed German civilians for displaying white flags, etc. (West German courts referred to these cases as "Verbrechen der Endphase").

In the case of GvB, here are the incidents I know of:

- On 28 April 1945, two division members murdered a civilian in the town of Ebrantshausen, Holz (near Bad Wiessee) for possessing a white flag. The two were tried by the Landesgericht Landshut in 1950 and convicted. One of the soldiers was sentenced to five years, the other to three years.

- A West German court preferred charges against one division member for shooting the mayor of Burgthann, after the latter allowed white flags to be raised in the town. The charge was later dismissed due to lack of evidence.

- In Dietfurt, a division member was acquitted by a West German court for murdering a Jewish dentist, Dr. Aranofsky. The victim had managed to avoid deportation as he was married to an Aryan woman.

Best regards,

George Lepre

Marc Rikmenspoel · Post by **Marc Rikmenspoel** » Tue Mar 18, 2003 3:57 pm

Research into operations on the American 7th Army front in early 1945 has indeed shown that GvB and some American units did take turns shooting each others prisoners in small numbers. Bonn (author of When the Odds Were Even and the instigator in getting Seven Days in January and Black Edelweis published) has traced this back to the 7. Fallschirmjäger Division shooting some Americans, with the American unit responding by shooting the next prisoners they captured in camouflage uniforms. These happened to be men of GvB, who had nothing to do with previous incidents.

About the West Europeans, I had always believed that Nederland Brigade/Division commander Jürgen Wagner was extradited to Yugoslavia, and there tried and executed, because of his unit's time training and fighting partisans in Croatia. However, my friend Lennart Westberg found some papers concerning Wagner in the UK a few years ago, and these show that he was actually extradited after being accused of crimes while in charge of SS-Infanterie Regiment 11 as part of the Reich Division during the April 1941 occupation of Yugoslavia.

The Nord Division has been accused of burning down the town of Rovaniemi (capital of Finnish Lappland) during the autumn 1944 retreat to Norway (Unternehmen Birke). However, Finnish veterans have since come forward (as related in Seven Days in January) to admit that a ski commando team attacked the German train parked at the town's station, without realizing it was an ammunition train, and their assault detonated massive quantities of explosives, which destroyed the heart of the small town (1944 population of 3000, who had been evacuated already by the Finnish authorities).

heinz kling · Post by **heinz kling** » Wed Mar 19, 2003 3:21 am

No quarters were given, on both sides. So I cannot see any reason that PE came out as the most tarnished. It was just doing its job, and Otto Kumm got the Schwerter for his leadership.

sid guttridge · Post by **sid guttridge** » Wed Mar 19, 2003 5:40 am

Hi Juha,

Just to clear up a misunderstanding probably caused by my sloppy phraseology.

I was not suggesting that you, personally, were making any accusations against the Wiking. The great merit of your contribution was that you provided sourced quotes for people to make up their own mind without forcing an opinion on them.

Cheers,

Sid.

Juha Hujanen · Post by **Juha Hujanen** » Wed Mar 19, 2003 8:45 am

No worries Sid.Actually it was my mistake.I though that you said accused by Finn,when you said Finns referreing to my earlier post. Mayby i should go back to school for addional reading lessons

Cheers/Juha

Feldgrau.net

Any Waffen SS divisions not ACCUSED of war crimes?

Any Waffen SS divisions not ACCUSED of war crimes?

War Crimes

as well as

Prinz Eugen was fighting partisans