German Army

[JR]

After the 2nd world war. when were the german people allowed to have there own army? An were former members of the waffen ss allowed to join?

[cpa95]

Hi,

see: http://www.janmaat.de/m_geschichte1.htm

Regards
Thomas

[pzrmeyer2]

German re-armament for the Bundesrepublik came in 1955-56, and yes there were many former Wehrmacht and SS officers and NCOs, including the heads Speidel for the Bundeswehr and Vincenz Muller for the NVA. The NVA followed shortly therafter (with Volkspolizei and Barracked Police eg militia units already in existance). There were several thousand former Wehrmacht soldiers in the NVA, including at least one Waffen SS officer, Reinhold Tappert. All of the former Wehrmacht officers were cashiered in 1958 in one of Ulbricht's purges but some other ranks remained until well into the 1970s (!).

An interesting side note to the appearance of the East German uniforms, always noted to bear such strong resemblance to the former Wehrmacht. Many other nations were sensitive to this, especially Poland, which had a very frosty relationship with the GDR. In 1958, The Poles expressed their unease about East German soldiers particpation in a Warsaw Pact excercise in Poland because many Poles would be uncomfortable seeing German soldiers rolling through the country presumably so soon after the war. The Polish leader Gomulka actually rasied the uniform issue to the Stalinst stooge Ulbricht as to why the similarity to the Wehrmacht uniforms. Ulbricht replied that it was a compromise to the East German populations' still-nationalistic tendencies. "We give the people their uniforms--a compromise--, but in this way we win them over and can more easily raise them to be good communists." Tricky bastard.


-Sikora, Sozialistiche Solidaritat und Nationale Intressen, Koln, 1977

[mightythor99]

i was an exchange student in 1978, and my exchange student's father joined the tank corp in 1936, and survived the war, being captured by the russians in '45, and was in a prisoner exchange with the americans then, for eastern germans. held for a time, then released. he ended up back in the army, and retired from the german army in the mid 1970's. not sure when he went back "in" service. never asked him that. he retired out as an oberfeldwebel, or master sgt. i do know that he trained in the US some, had to be in the 60's maybe.

[mightythor99]

they were highly respected in post war era, as they are today by the older germans as well. they were not shamed, at least not that i know or have heard about. the waffen ss were combat trained, and functioned as combat troops on the front lines. maybe you are thinking about the earlier algemeine SS, the black uniformed guys. you have to keep in mind, that they had friends in high places........so they were not shunned either. most probably would not have gone into the army in post war times. those guys were more political then military. liebstandarte adolf hitler guys probably the same.........but would have been gladly recieved in the ranks of the bundesarmee...........why wouldnt you want someone fighting next to you, that had sworn an oath to the nation, and willing to fight to the death? sounds like a good guy to have watching my back, and vise versa.
one guy i interviewed, said his first sgt in vietnam war was an old SS guy. (he was in the american army in vietnam). also, many ss vets went into the french foreign legion, and fought for the french, got new identities, etc.

[sid guttridge]

Hi mightythor,

It is apparently a myth that many W-SS veterans joined the French Foreign Legion. The number was small. There are a couple of useful threads on Feldgrau in this regard.

Cheers,

Sid.

[sid guttridge]

P.S. The following is a copy of a post by George Lepre, a published author on the Waffen-SS and then a Feldgrau moderator, to Feldgrau member Imad:

"Here is an excerpt from a message I posted on this subject several years ago. Keep in mind that there is a difference betwen "former members of the German Wehrmacht" serving in the post-war Legion (there were 3000-5000 of these) and "former members of the Waffen-SS" serving in the post-war Legion (there were probably fewer than 100 of these).

"... The "SS in Indochina" myth began even before the release of the novel The Devil's Guard. It originated from Soviet-bloc Communist sources and the PCF in France itself. In addition, several memoirs were published by Legion deserters in the DDR in the 1950s that further perpetuated the story. However, all of the serious historians of the Legion agree that it was false. Their analyses can be summed up as follows:

The best book on the subject by far is Eckard Michels' Deutsche in der Fremdenlegion, 1871-1965: Mythen und Realitaeten. Although he was denied access to the Legion's own archive in Aubagne, Professor Michels was able to view some great files in the SHAT at Chateau Vincennes. Michels studied the available data and concluded that a (very) small number of ex-Waffen-SS men were able to enter the Legion before 1947. This is when the Communist press embarassed the French government with the story and the latter demanded a crackdown. After that, Legion recruiters screened prospective volunteers very carefully. One French officer stated that the number of SS men accepted into the Legion shortly after the war was "not more than sixty or seventy."

The American historian Douglas Porch was permitted access to the Aubagne archive when he wrote his book The French Foreign Legion. (VERY few historians have ever been allowed in there.) He was allowed to see everything except the Justice Militaire files. He too concluded that there were very few SS in the Legion after the war. Interestingly, he says that of the few SS who were admitted, most were non-Germans, i.e. Flemish, Hungarians, etc.

Bernard Fall is unique among historians writing about the Legion because he actually witnessed the war in Indochina and interviewed Legionnaires. The idea of SS men serving in the Legion was something he took an interest in, as he fought against them in World War II (in the Polish and French armies) and because he was Jewish. He too found the story to be a myth and says so in his book Hell in a Very Small Place. Most of the German Legionnaires he met were too young to have fought in World War II.

Best regards,

George"

[mightythor99]

facts are always "skewed", and tell me honestly.............what is a german, who DID fight in the SS, going to tell a jewish guy, interviewing them about their nazi past,........especially when he, the german, is planning to get a new identity when he gets out. seems kinda like the questionaire they passed out my freshman year in high school..............health class...........asking "who's gotten laid, and who hasnt?" "dont worry...........your name isnt going to be on it...........no one will know your answers......". i bet there was only about 3 kids in the class who said they had never had sex,.................
i'd fear the same thing here.
just a little food for though. not saying he's wrong with his book...........just saying to think about it a little bit. i bet there isnt an SS veteran alive who doesnt know what the simon weisenthal organization is, and they dont need any more hassles...............life was pretty hard on em already.
i have a neat scrapbook/sketch book, from a guy who was captured in italy, and ended up being a prisoner of war, and moved to egypt for a couple more years of pow service. his name in inside it, and i did a search on yahoo germany for him, and came up with a match. i even got an email address, and it turned out to be his son. i corresponded with him several times, and was very interesting. his father had been a policeman, and served in italy. (he was in the polizei SS division, i think, but he never said that). he said his father's name was ACTUALLY different, and that his name changed when he was captured to "hans" with teh same last name. (lucky for me, hans was the son's name!)
he served out his pow time, and when he went back to germany,....guess what? his name remained "hans". what do you think HE would have told a jewish interviewer, had he had the oppertunity. think about it a little bit. if he tells the truth..........it throws up all kinds of red flags down the road,....enough that you just might end up in prison for a while,..........or worse.
ss polizei division guys carried two sets of id's. they got rid of one of them real quick, if it looked like they were going to be captured...........they were rounding up partisans (which his son did tell me), and executing them.
my guess is that not very many people would want to go fight for the french, unless they had been caught already, and had enough pressure put on them that they had to do it. remember also, that there were "french" who fought for the nazi's, even in the ss charlemane division, and many from the saar, alsace-lorraine, etc too. when those people got home,.........they had extra pressure for sure.
i bet there's a lot more then 60-70 who went into the FFL for sure. no one will ever know until someone can get into the archive, and see. bet it's gonna be a while though...........

[sid guttridge]

Hi mightythor,

No, facts are not always skewed.

And what on earth have Jews got to do with the recruitment of ex-Waffen-SS men into the French Foreign Legion?

Rational people can only go with the evidence they have before them. You have a choice. You can either credit the opinions of Lepre and others who have actually researched the subject or go with your blind "bet" in contradiction. I am sticking with the rational people who rely on evidence.

Enough people have wanted to fight for the French to keep the French Foreign Legion in continuous existence with foreign volunteers for about 170 years!

Cheers,

Sid.

[mightythor99]

i'm just saying think about it rationally. there were lots of people who would not have wanted to be interviewed. hell, the ones that are still alive today still dont want to talk much about it, or be interviewed still. that war changed a lot of people's lives, and gave lots of german families black eyes. many simply would not want to incriminate themselves, that's all i'm saying. i'm not a foreign legion expert, i know a little bit about them though. vieva la france'........... arreiva espania.......... hail,....ceasar

[mightythor99]

you dont know me, or anything about me. i've interviewed plenty of wwii veterans, both here, and in germany. i do a fair amount of research work myself, so i do know something about it. i'm not "blind".
just thought i'd add that.

[sid guttridge]

Hi MT99,

If you do a head count of veterans on Feldgrau you will find most claim to be ex-Waffen-SS. Look at the bookshelves and you will find more English language Waffen-SS divisional histories than German Army ones. Yet probably only about one in 25 or 30 members of the Wehrmacht were in the Waffen-SS.

I agree that most veterans of all services tend not to talk much about it, but of those that do, the Waffen-SS appear to be massively over represented.

As things stand, a Waffen-SS specialist author and former moderator here, and what he reckons are the best researched books on the subject, believe that very few ex-Waffen-SS men served in the French Foreign Legion after the war. It is therefore indeed "blind" to ignore the most authoritative opinions available or to assume that it had not occurred to them that W-SS veterans might have been reluctant to declare themselves at the time. Indeed, their blood group tatoos probably ensured that no declaration was necessary.

If you apply the same methodology to your selection and interview of veterans, then I fear you are going to waste a valuable opportunity.

Cheers,

Sid.

[mightythor99]

i'll interview anyone, from any branch, army, navy, country, etc. i will even interview women, and listen to what they have to say. it's called oral history, and it is designed to show the efforts and actions of everyone's participation in the war, or any war, for that matter. i interviewed a wwi veteran, who was/is my oldest, through the vietnam war. i am not "fixated" on the waffen SS, in any way, shape, or form. i do not claim to have been in wwii, only interested in preserving history, from "the common man" (or woman), and their experiences. that is what is important to me. not some bs in a text book, saying what happened and where, but having personal interviews, with people who were there, and participated.
to date, i have not made one red cent off of it,.............money is NOT the motivation,.........getting interesting tid bits of history, that you wont find in a book, is what i have gained from it, so far anyway. the wwi guy was one of the first ones.............and after talking to this poor old guy for about 4 hours, digging out memories from memory banks he surely never thought he would find again, let alone talk about,.............on the way home, at midnight, i popped in the cassette tape, and listened to what i had taped........TWO HOURS OF THE RADIO!!!,................needless to say, i went back the next day, and got more stories, as he had more time to think about what he had wanted to say about it.
not everyone i have interviewed has told the truth,..........but most of the time, you can see through their story, and at least tell the person is lying, or exadurating their story. you get what you get, but if i was planning on getting someone's story, who wanted to change their identity, i dont think i'd be getting the truth about everything, that's why they want a new identity. i dont know teh reason my cousin's wife's father was in there...........i dont know for sure, but i dont think he was french.
i wasnt knocking the guys who have done the research, just stating that people in that position, especially in the 40's and 50's, were doing it for a reason. that's all.

[sid guttridge]

Hi MT99,

I am not sure I understood all you posted.

None of what you write seems to indicate you have been given any insight into the Waffen-SS presence in the French Foreign Legion, yet you are prepared to take up a stand against authors who have studied the subject without offering any evidence whatsoever. This makes no sense to me.

Who are these unnamed researchers of the 1940s and 1950s "doing it for a reason"? Where do they fit in here? What is "it" and what is the "reason"?

Why do you despise "text books"? How do you know they contain "BS"? Have you some examples? What makes you think you have been given a handle on the truth of events that thousands of trained historians haven't? Do you think they don't interview people or conduct oral history as well?

Cheers,

Sid.

[mightythor99]

I am not sure I understood all you posted.

None of what you write seems to indicate you have been given any insight into the Waffen-SS presence in the French Foreign Legion,

YES, THIS IS TRUE.............I HAVE NOT BEEN GIVEN ANY INSIGHT, ONLY WHAT I HAVE HEARD IN THE PAST ABOUT IT......


yet you are prepared to take up a stand against authors who have studied the subject without offering any evidence whatsoever. This makes no sense to me.

ONCE AGAIN,....I AM IN AGREANCE WITH YOU........I AM NOT TAKING UP A STAND AGAINST WHAT AUTHORS WHO HAVE STUDIED THE SUBJECT.


Who are these unnamed researchers of the 1940s and 1950s "doing it for a reason"? Where do they fit in here? What is "it" and what is the "reason"?

I WAS REFERING TO THE AUTHORS YOU ARE REFERING TO, WHO HAVE DONE ALL THIS RESEARCH ON THE SUBJECT. NO ONE I KNOW,.........I HAVE NOT TALKED WITH ANY OF THESE PEOPLE, NOR HAVE I READ THEIR BOOKS. I AM NOT REALLY INTERESTED IN THE FRENCH FOREIGN LEGION AT ALL, I RESPECT THEM, BUT DONT KNOW A LOT ABOUT THEM. I AM MEARLY STATING, THAT, IF YOU WATCH ANY OF THE COP SHOWS ON TV, YOU GET MORE CONFESSIONS TO PEOPLE WHO ARE ALREADY CAUGHT, AND DONT WANT TO GET A DEATH PENALTY...........IF THEY CAN STILL BE FOUND GUILTY, AND SENTENCED TO DEATH, THEN THEY JUST DONT SEEM TO BE ABLE TO RECALL WHO, OR HOW MANY THEY KILLED.
THE SAME IDEOLOGY APPLIES HERE...............IF SOMEONE IS JOINING THE FFL, IN ORDER TO GET A NEW IDENTITY...........WHY WOULD THEY EVER WANT TO BE INTERVIEWED...........AND "EXPOSED"?
THE GERMAN GOVERNMENT JUST CAME OUT A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO, AND SAID THAT THEY HAD JUST GONE THROUGH THE LAST WAR CRIMINAL TRIAL THEY WERE GOING TO PROBABLY DO........AND HOW MANY YEARS LATER IS THAT FROM WHEN THE ACTIONS OCCURED? WHEN DID YOUR AUTHORS DO ALL THIS INTERVIEWING? MORE THEN A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO? GEE,...........THEN I DONT THINK YOU ARE GOING TO GET 100% TRUTHFULNESS IN INTERVIEWS. THAT IS WHAT I AM SAYING. HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE EXACT INTERVIEWS..........BUT THE PEOPLE BEING INTERVIEWED. I AM SURE THAT THERE ARE PLACES YOU COULD GO.....IN SOUTH AMERICA, AND PLACES IN AFRICA.........AND IF YOU WENT JUST SNOOPING AROUND, ASKING "NAZI" QUESTIONS...........YOU JUST MIGHT END UP NOT COMING BACK OUT OF THE WOODS. MANY OF THOSE GUYS TAKE THAT STUFF PRETTY SERIOUSLY, AND DONT WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT, AND WHO'S TO SAY? I KNOW SOMEONE WHO LOOKED INTO BUYING A HOSIENDA FROM ONE OF THOSE GUYS, AND THE PLACE CAME WITH 120 PEOPLE IN THE "VILLAGE", WHO ALL WORKED FOR .........WHOEVER OWNED IT. AND IT WASNT THAT MUCH $$ EITHER.............




Why do you despise "text books"?

NEVER SAID I DISPISED TEXT BOOKS. NOT SURE WHERE YOU GOT THIS FROM.


How do you know they contain "BS"?


EVERYTHING HAS BS IN IT...............I'M SURE YOU HAVE LIVED LONG ENOUGH TO FIGURE THAT OUT BY NOW. IF NOT.............GO OUT AND BUY A FORD EXPLORER. THE BS WILL FIND IT'S WAY TO YOU. YOU WONT HAVE TO LOOK VERY FAR. (SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE.....I OWN ONE).


Have you some examples? What makes you think you have been given a handle on the truth of events that thousands of trained historians haven't?

........................
I HAVE BEEN HANDED THE TORCH OF KNOWLEDGE..............AND SO I KNOW THE TRUTH.

LET'S TAKE THE EXAMPLE OF THE GERMAN COP THAT I TOLD YOU ABOUT EARLIER. HE DIED IN THE 1970'S, BUT, HAD HE LIVED, AND LET'S SAY ONE OF YOUR "THOUSANDS OF TRAINED HISTORIANS" GOT A CRACK AT INTERVIEWING HIM. ...... OR, EVEN HIS SON,...........
DO YOU THINK,......EITHER ONE OF THEM, WOULD SAY THAT THE FATHER ROUNDED UP CIVILIANS, AND EXECUTED THEM, IN THE FIELD, QUITE OFTEN? THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT THE GUY WHO WAS THE LAST GERMAN TO BE PROCECUTED DID. HE GAVE AN INTERVIEW, FOR TELEVISION, AND HE SAID THAT HE WAS A 2ND LT, IN CHARGE OF A SQUAD OF GUYS, WHO WERE GIVEN THE TASK OF PULLING SO MANY ITALIAN CIVILIANS INTO THE HILLS, AND SHOOTING THEM, AS REPRISAL FOR AN ITALIAN PARTISAN SETTING OFF A BOMB IN A GERMAN MOVIE HOUSE. SOME ITALIAN SAW THE TV PROGRAM, AND TAPED IT, AND TOOK IT TO ITALY, AND GOT THE ITALIAN GOVT COOKED UP, AND THEY BITCHED ENOUGH THAT THE GERMAN GOVT ARRESTED HIM,...........A 90+ YEAR OLD MAN, AND PUT HIM ON TRIAL FOR THIS...............JUST A COUPLE OF YEARS AGO. GIVEN THAT AS AN EXAMPLE.............WHO IS GOING TO COME FORWARD, AND SAY THAT THEY WERE IN THE SS, AND TELL ALL THAT THEY SAW AND DID DURING THE WAR? I'M SURE, IF IT WAS YOU, YOU'D NOT MISS A BEAT, AND GET RIGHT IN THERE, AND GIVE THAT INTERVIEW. I'M SIMPLY SAYING THAT,.........I, AS WELL AS 90+% OF THE REST OF THE WORLD, WOULD NEVER LEAP FORWARD AND BE INTERVIEWED FOR SOMETHING LIKE THAT. THAT IS WHAT I AM SAYING. DONT TWIST ANYTHING ELSE THAT I SAY. STOP PLAYING WORD GAMES.


Do you think they don't interview people or conduct oral history as well?