Valhalla's Warriors -Waffen-SS Eastern Front

[John P. Moore]

Sid - I'm pleased to see that you have decided to purchase Valhalla's book so you can give us all a good critique of the book afterwards. However, I'm wondering if you have already ordered Doug Nash's excellent book "Victory Was Beyond Their Grasp" since I know that your primary interest lies with the Wehrmacht, rather than the Waffen-SS?

John

[Paddy Keating]

I doubt if Terry is too keen to clarify anything.

PK

[Richard Hargreaves]

Page 5 already and the Waffen SS ping-pong shows no sign of abating.

It's the Peiper book all over again, two sides utterly opposed, vehemently entrenched, lobbing shells at each other. It's like watching the bloody Chuckle brothers. To me, to you, to me, to you...

[phylo_roadking]

Which they're free to do as long as they remain within the rules - given the title of the thread and the first opening post LOL It's an emotive subject for some, just as long as the synapse from emotion centre to typing fingers doesn't short past the brain.

I do however have one MAJOR reservation with the way this thread is panning out - for a severely large amount of Brownie Points can anyone work out what it is?

[Frederick L Clemens]

I just wish we could have a better clue as to what we are fighting about.

I'm not gonna buy the book unless the author sells me on the idea that there is something new to his "product". I might go ahead and read through his PhD thesis since his silence on the book versus thesis matter suggests that there may well be no difference.

[valhalla]

Yeesh! Can someone please throw in some examples from the Japanese occupation of Korea or maybe the Sumerian genocide against the Babylonians?

It looks like any attempt to keep a narrow focus on the topic is pointless. Of course, since Valhalla has not truly defined the topic, it is no wonder.

I motion that the thread be closed unless the author is more clear in what this is all about. So far, he has contributed only a plea to buy his book followed by some random observations.

Fredrick, I came on this forum to get feedback about the book, which I had mistakenly assumed those interested in the Waffen-SS may have read, as I said my mistake.

I don't intend to reporduce the book in full on this forum or any other. Suffice to say many of the arguments that have been raised here are not really worth the effort to discuss that are just so far off the ball.

I was looking forward to someone perhaps addressing the issues I raised rather then just writing them off as done to death which is an easy way to kill the conversation. After all I received a storm of criticism when I came on this forum to dare suggest that the Waffen-SS was a criminal organisation not just the innocent soldiers that many portray them as. Well I put out a few tidbits for people to discuss and justify these attacks and it seems that these just slip through to the keeper. The point of the book is this, the concept of evil has relevance in dealing with criminological events and history shows that the Waffen-SS was an organisation that committed some of the most evil acts in recent history, that is the focus of the book, which I thought was made clear at the start by posting the poster of the book.

[valhalla]

They already had the SD, and they already had the camp guards (the difference betwixt Camp Staff, and Camp Guards is a different argument). The SS-VT which evolved into the Waffen-SS, had to be created separately. So, even from the beginning, there was a separation.

Of course, Himmler blurred that separation when later in the war by stroke of pen he administratively moved all those camp men and Einsatzgruppen into the Waffen-SS. We all know, though, that there is a difference between administrative and operational assignment.

Tom, could you outline what you see the difference between camp guards and camp staff are?

With regards to the Einsatzgruppen, the Waffen-SS men were transferred to them not the other way around. The movement was very fluid back and forth as has been acknowledged by a number of high ranking Waffen-SS officers.

[phylo_roadking]

The point of the book is this, the concept of evil has relevance in dealing with criminological events and history shows that the Waffen-SS was an organisation that committed some of the most evil acts in recent history, that is the focus of the book, which I thought was made clear at the start by posting the poster of the book.

Terry - exactly WHAT relevance has the Waffen-SS to MODERN criminology? That's over SIXTY-THREE years ago - why not "Chopper" Read, the Unabomber, the Beltway Sniper, Son of Sam, the Atlanta Child Killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, Denis Neilsen, Peter Sutcliff, Dr. Harold Shipman etc.*? You may as well be discussing who was Jack The Ripper (again) or who carried out the Phoenix Park Murders or how evil was John Wilkes Booth or using modern criminology to work out which of all those lil injuns popped an arrow in Custer's ass. Why not case studies that are

1/ Relevant to TODAY'S policing?

2/ Relevant to the person in the street?

3/ Inquiries that pushed the limits of TODAY'S criminology?

4/ That the vast majority of your potential readers are actually MORE familiar with courtesy of the tabloid press?

Was it becasue the information is in the public domain? That you could say what you liked without a lawyer's writ landing on your desk? That they were an easy target, who like in TODAY'S Germany noone can stand up and defend across the board without in SOME particular case defending the indefensible? Who can't stand up and argue with you fairly without risking being labelled nazis and Deniers - as YOU have on at least one occasion resorted to doing?

Like it or not - the Waffen-SS were 1/ serving uniformed personnel acting on orders that came down their chain of command - or 2/ in other circumstances had a chain of command that did not restrict them from criminal actions. In the end their "reign of terror" was ended NOT by the work of a policeman or jurisprudence - but by MILITARY ACTION i.e. the military defeat of Germany and them being held to account by main force by the victors in that WAR.

the concept of evil has relevance in dealing with criminological events

...may be true - but ONLY as far as it goes, because

the Waffen-SS was an organisation that committed some of the most evil acts in recent history

...the Waffen-SS were in an entirely different place regarding the German legal and law enforcement process than modern criminals are to the law enforcement agencies and legal system of their particular nation. Like it or not - 1933-1945 they were on the SAME SIDE as the legal law enforcement bodies and law courts of their own nation of Germany, and by the Hague Conventions were on the same side as the government temporarily responsible for the enforcement of local laws in nations under Occupation.

Surely if you wanted a case study in evil relevant to modern "criminology" you should have used a MODERN criminal...AND you should have used someone who holds a criminal's place in relation to civil law enforcement and the civil legal system.

Noone in MODERN criminology and law enforcement CARES about the Waffen-SS any more except as a historical entity. Exactly how many Waffen-SS war criminals do you or they expect to unearth living in luxury in Sydney's leafy suburbs? As has happened in Britain when a number of SS-OAPS nigh onto death from sheer old age were unearthed recently - how many Australian citizens do you expect to CARE if you happen to find any?

*I WAS going to add Martin Bryant to that list above...but that's a questionable can of worms not for discussion on THIS site

[phylo_roadking]

Fredrick, I came on this forum to get feedback about the book, which I had mistakenly assumed those interested in the Waffen-SS may have read, as I said my mistake.

Regarding this - I presume you came STRAIGHT to http://www.feldgrau.net...and bypassed http://www.feldgrau.com entirely? For there it would have been ABUNDANTLY clear to you in an entire QUARTER of the front page of the site under "Welcome to Feldgrau - May *, 2008" that Feldgrau was not a place frequented by those with any gratuitous and voyeuristic interest in WWII war crimes, no matter who they were committed by?

[John P. Moore]

Valhalla - I understand that there may be some Feldgrau members with a copy of your book in their possession following this topic who have not yet commented. Could you please provide the page numbers in your BOOK that support your different positions when making any further comment. You have probably seen that practise being followed in other threads here with other books under discussion. Thanks.

John

[Paddy Keating]

I know what Phylo means but I am way past the stage where brownie points could redeem me so I will leave it to others.

Terry,

Answer the Adenauer question, you dissembling policeman, you!

PK

[Frederick L Clemens]

I came on this forum to get feedback about the book, which I had mistakenly assumed those interested in the Waffen-SS may have read, as I said my mistake.

And you are doing a piss-poor job of promoting it, I might add. You have come off like "Hey guys! Look at me! I wrote a book! What do you think of that?"

I don't intend to reporduce the book in full on this forum or any other. Suffice to say many of the arguments that have been raised here are not really worth the effort to discuss that are just so far off the ball.

For the love of Hillary, no one asked you to reproduce the whole book here! You wrote a book and yet you can't summarize your main points?

...The point of the book is this, the concept of evil has relevance in dealing with criminological events and history shows that the Waffen-SS was an organisation that committed some of the most evil acts in recent history, that is the focus of the book, which I thought was made clear at the start by posting the poster of the book.

Finally, an attempt on your part to provide the bare bones of a thesis statement. Now, having looked at your thesis, from a grammatical point alone, I can't imagine anyone wanting to buy the book. And if you think that statement is clear (it is gibberish), then I can better understand now why you would think the cover blather from your book should have excited the masses.

Valhalla, I am sure you are a very smart person in your own field, but you have tackled a subject that is bigger than yourself. May I suggest that you focus on why particular W-SS soldiers committed atrocities. Do case studies on ten or twelve criminals and perhaps look at several of their comrades (out of thousands) who did not join them in that behavior. That would provide for you the narrow focus which keep you from getting lost while pretending to examine the moral culpability of hundreds of thousands of soldiers simultaneously.

[valhalla]

Phylo,
re the below.

Terry - exactly WHAT relevance has the Waffen-SS to MODERN criminology? That's over SIXTY-THREE years ago - why not "Chopper" Read, the Unabomber, the Beltway Sniper, Son of Sam, the Atlanta Child Killer, Jeffrey Dahmer, Denis Neilsen, Peter Sutcliff, Dr. Harold Shipman etc.*? You may as well be discussing who was Jack The Ripper (again) or who carried out the Phoenix Park Murders or how evil was John Wilkes Booth or using modern criminology to work out which of all those lil injuns popped an arrow in Custer's ass. Why not case studies that are

1/ Relevant to TODAY'S policing?

2/ Relevant to the person in the street?

3/ Inquiries that pushed the limits of TODAY'S criminology?

4/ That the vast majority of your potential readers are actually MORE familiar with courtesy of the tabloid press?

I will attempt to answer these.

1. I contend that the Waffen-SS was largely responsible for the Genocide on the Eastern Front. Agree or disagree. This is relevant today because in our now supposedly civilised 21st century we still have geoncides occurring, why?

2. I think most people would like to think that they would not commit genocide, however history has shown time and time again that we probably would with the right combination of factors. Hopefully the person in the street would find this interesting and resist the urge should it ever occur.

3. I am not sure what this one is getting at but I will give it a shot. We all hear the term evil, but is it relevant? Do we as a society need to use such an evocative term or is it just a hang over from the past?

4. It is all took easy to look at the individual and write them of as an "evil person", I discount this and argue that there are only evil acts. To do this I needed to look at a broad organisation where the role of the individual could be minimised, hence the reason I choose my organisation the Waffen-SS.

TG

[valhalla]

Frederick,
now whilst I am a keen follower of US politics I am not a lover of Hillary, although she might do an alright job...

For the love of Hillary, no one asked you to reproduce the whole book here! You wrote a book and yet you can't summarize your main points?

[valhalla]

Tom,
if you are out there I am still keen to here what you have to say.

Tom, could you outline what you see the difference between camp guards and camp staff are?

With regards to the Einsatzgruppen, the Waffen-SS men were transferred to them not the other way around. The movement was very fluid back and forth as has been acknowledged by a number of high ranking Waffen-SS officers.