A Fair Call, esteemed Librarian.
I’ve always had difficulty choosing between 5 SS Wiking, 21 SS Panzer, and Panzer Lehr.
A substantial case can be made for either SS Grossdeutschland, or
SS Das Reich.
All in all, I’m still pondering, in some ways, though inclined, based on combat record, to go 21 SS Panzer, then 5 SS Wiking, then Panzer Lehr.
Yes, I consider them Waffen SS.
Regards, Uyraell.
There is no 21st SS Panzer, 21st SS was the highly unsuccesful Albanian Division. Under no circumstances can Lehr or Grossdeutschland be considered SS, mainly because they were not.
You beat me to it.Both Lehr and Großdeutschland belonged to the Heer.
Also the 21. Pz.Div wasn’t such a successful division anyway.There are far better Panzer divisionen than the 21st, the 7th and 10th for example.
Yes Totenkopf was an outstanding formation.
But i heard some of 3 SS-division units participated in crimes agains civils in East in 1942-44.
Look for a SS-Division that wasn’t involved in some kind of war crimes or another and you’re up for a very long and very frustrating search… :neutral:
Within the T-Division there was a regular exchange with KZ personnel (the original CO Theodor Eicke was one of the key figures in the establishment of concentration camps). Hence the division contained a share of scumbags next to some outstanding soldiers.
The probably most infamous war crime of the division occured at Le Paradis/France in May 1940 when about 97 British POW’s were executed by the order of Fritz Knöchlein, commander of 3rd Company/SS-Totenkopf-Infanterie-Regiment 2. He was trialed and sentenced to death for this incident (January 21, 1949).
They started against British troops in Le Paradis back in the Franch campaign and never really stopped since then so yes Totenkopf wasn’t the best division regarding war crimes towards civilians or PoWs.
As a fighting unit it was one that any German division would have been happy to fight alongside though.When you think that the division was decimated after Demyansk ,refitted and still maintain an outstanding combat record is nothing short of extraordinary.
I think 6. SS-Nord and 33. SS-Charlemagne never comitted any.Not sure about Nordland,Hohenstaufen(as far as I know examplary behaviour during the battle of Arnhem),Wiking and Frunsberg?
One division I must admit I don’t know much about is the 4. SS-Polizei,I need to read “In good Faith” to know more about it.
so many books,so litle time…:rolleyes:
If anybody knows more,please share it.
I hardly might to reproach mr redcoat fot that frank point.
Look at “hamble” list of documented crimes , commited by the SS/Waffen-SS, that Wiki provides…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS#War_crimes
Wormhoudt massacre by SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, 1940, Belgium
Le Paradis massacre by SS Totenkopf, 1940, France
Oradour-sur-Glane massacre by SS Das Reich, 1944, France
Tulle massacre by SS Das Reich, 1944, France
Marzabotto massacre by SS Reichsführer-SS, 1944, Italy
Malmedy massacre by Kampfgruppe Peiper part of 1st SS Panzer Division, 1944, Belgium
Ardeatine massacre by two SS Officers, 1944, Italy
Distomo massacre by 4th SS Polizei Panzergrenadier Division, 1944, Greece
Sant’Anna di Stazzema massacre by SS Reichsführer-SS, 1944, Italy
Ardenne Abbey massacre 12th SS Panzer Division, 1944, France
Please , notice gentlemens, this is ONLY the CRIMES commited in the Western Europe and Greese. That in fact JUST TINY part of crimes commited in the East
I’m far from thought that all the SS soldiers were just bunch of utter criminals, but the FACT is fact.
the nature of SS troops as “political devoted” makes them to be useful in “special cases” kinda mass execution of civils and ets, the “bissiness” that GErman command can’t charge to Wermaht.
So , honestly the SS and especially their “national addition” ( that sometimes lost any human faces and behaved themself like a beasts) -Waffen-SS looks for me as a criminal organisation.Becouse its’ just a fact.
I know about their glorious deeds in front, sure the ALWAYS better ecupped and motivated SS trops had a odds in froms , compared to Wermacht.But i strongly doubt that the average SS-soldier was fighting better that the average Wermacht one.
4th SS was accused of reprisal actions in Distomo/Greece in June 1944 where about 230 civilians were massacred. The responsible officer was court-martialed but he was KIA before sentenced.
Fighting better? Doubtful. But fighting more fiercely? Very likely.
As you said, Chevan, they were political soldiers. They didn’t fight because they were drafted or because they considered it a job. They fought because they thought they fought for the right side, and considered the enemy - especially the Slavic/Russian ones - as inferiors who were trying to destroy them.
This is obviously a double-edged sword, as one the one side it made them fiercer fighters on the front lines, which is something they deserve respect for. At the same time, however, this made them much more likely to commit crimes they were ordered to do by their political and ideological leadership, the Nazis, which is something they deserve to be despised for.
The big question everybody has to ask themselves is how they weight those two sides:
Do you respect them for being fierce fighters?
Or do you hate them for being murderers and criminals?
Maybe a medium between the two?
Exactly my friend.
This is the point that i was trying to explain.
the entire nature of “Political soldiers” , makes the SS as an ideal “instrument” for any dirty job ,include the crimes. The Wermacht wasn’t such “devoted” as SS, so in mind of Nazis leaders the ONLY SS can be charged for special mission.
The political propogand made the SS as perfect troops.But other side of medal was that the SS always were supplied and armed in the FIRST turn.Especialy during the last period of war, when Wermach , felt shortage of everything, the SS was always fully completed , and armed with newest weapon.
I think this was wrong and unfair for other GErman soldiers- when somebody specially has created the “Elite troops”, undressing the REST army and stealing amunition and food from “common pot”.
Maybe a medium between the two?
Well , if ONLY you can prove( or think) National Socialism was a medium between two;)
Otherwise , how their best NS-soldiers , can be “between”
I’m not sure that I can claim to have a favorite SS unit but one I admire is the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking.
Not only for thier fighting ability but also thereasons they chose to fight.
Well, not having read nor studied the subject in any depth, I could be wrong and probably am. But I was under the impression that while no small numbers of SS troops were murdering assholes, many were, as previously stated in this thread, too busy being overrun by the Red Army or the Western armies to have had much involvement in killing civilians…
It should be noted that I’ve also heard various anecdotal stories that at least as far as the US Army was concerned, specific units were earmarked to deal with the SS and to essentially take as few prisoners as possible without embarrassing themselves in large scale massacres of their own. This was done in order to prevent any sort of ideological Nazi germ seed for an insurgency after the Allies inevitably stormed Germany. And there were summary executions of SS soldiers towards the end of the Battle of the Bulge in retaliation for the massacres of US troops at Malmendy and also for the massacres of Belgian civilians largely conducted to taunt US soldiers, specifically combat engineers, who had blown bridges effectively blocking any remaining chance of panzers reaching Antwerp. So yes, prisoners were killed by both sides…
Well certainly the bulgarian SS division formed in the end of the war as well the dutch forces didn’t made any killings of civilians neither prisoners of war they were fighting only against the commies .
Are you absolutely sure about that? We’re talking about a Division here - one innocent villager killed by one soldier/group of soldier and there is a war crime committed by the ‘division’.
And wasn’t Wiking the Dutch SS Division? I thought we had already established that they committed crimes…
If I was in error about the designations I used, then I stand corrected.
Plainly the info I used was dated or in error. Stet-citas.
The question I ask myself is similar in nature to one already posted, viz:
“If the SS, be it Waffen or Allegemeine, was a “criminal organisation” (which nomencalture I consider to be merely “Justice imposed by the Victor” as noted elsewhere in the thread) then what, if anything, makes the Soviet NKVD soldiery any LESS “criminal”?”
I regard both as comparable, and thus any attribution of the term “criminal” has to be seen in that context, else a plain admission of active double standard needs must be made. Logic demands no other course.
To return to the thread topic: regardless the political nature of the SS as an armed force in the field of combat, and regardless crimes by some, there were some very fine fighting troops, whose combat achievements and in some cases Honourable behaviour was hugely detracted-from by certain groupings (Dirlewanger has been cited as example) whose actions besmirched the entire SS as a force.
As such, I try to take a balanced mental approach to the matter.
Yes, I struggle with that at times, as I did many years ago sitting at a meal table, with a Chetnik to one side of me, and an Ustasi sitting to the other.
Believe me, gentlemen, `tis no easy thing to see the SAME thing in the eyes of each man. No more so than it is to see the same thing in the eyes of My 8th Army uncle, or the SS veteran I once knew.
With that, I amend my earlier post, to 5th SS as the combat force I admire most within the SS, and leave the matter there.
Regards, Uyraell.
THis is danger provocative question endeed.That better don’t ask.
Coz we can go further. And ask yourself- what make the biological nuclear testings over Japane LESS criminal that the madical experiment commited by sadly known Unit-731?
Or say, what makes the POST-war mass deportation of GErmans civils in Europe LESS criminal than the ethnic cleanings of Nazis regime?
I can’t agree with some of this.
“They didn’t fight because they were drafted or because they considered it a job. They fought because they thought they fought for the right side, and considered the enemy - especially the Slavic/Russian ones - as inferiors who were trying to destroy them.”
The business about them being not draughted is only true early on, vast numbers of men were conscripted into the SS, Volksdeutche were conscripted, vast numbers of Luftwaffe and Army personnel transferred in etc. By 1944 a lot of them actually were Slavs and Russians. They fought because they had to, like anyone else.
Also Chevan I have actually never seen any evidence that the SS was
“always were supplied and armed in the FIRST turn.Especialy during the last period of war, when Wermach , felt shortage of everything, the SS was always fully completed , and armed with newest weapon”
The SS experienced the same shortages and received no preference for equipment. The German supply situation was chaos and for example the SS have no more Tigers than the army units. Lehr, GD, etc all received extra equipment to the norm.
Alas, this is known for historians fact.
The Antony Beevour in his “Berlin Downfall” has clearly described the situation when becouse of Himler’s lobbing ( to the end of war his power increased seriously) , the all of new wearpon were FIRSTLY going right to SS.
May be you know but Henrich Himler was charged by Hitler as commander of “Group armyes of Vistula” in beginning of 1945.SO he worryed about their troops with “special care” - the supplies of SS-troops were all time better supplied then Wermacht ones.
The SS-tank units (kinda 502/501 heavy tank battalions)
were the first unit fully equiped with the newest tank Tigers and Panthers.
I doubt thay fought becouse they had to…
Indeed all forms of SS troops were voluntary, the Foreign units in Wermacht ( kinda ROA) as well.
You can’t make one to fight for Germany , unless he don’t want it himself.
True the certain figure of foreign Colloborators from East and West were fighting alongside with GErmans to the end in fear of retrebution ( excellent effective motivation:))But at hte same time some peoples and nations refused to serve the GErmans intrests and have joined to Aliies( Romania, Finland)with all their armies.