Glorification of Nazism

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#81

Really? 12,000 German prisoners were left in a barbed wire compound with enough food for 2,000, no shelter in the middle of -35C temperatures and then if they ran for their food, shot dead to encourage the others to queue properly?

Maybe by the Soviets, but if you can find any evidence of WIDESPREAD atrocities against German POWs by the British or US armies, I’ll show my arse in Littlewoods window.[/quote]
And that particular atrocity (Novo-Aleksandrovsk?) was committed by the Heer, not the SS. Even if the SS were no worse than the Heer, that still makes them war criminals on a massive scale.

#82

which heer division committed this crime?

#83

http://www.oradour.info/

The 2nd Waffen SS Pz Div, “Das Reich” murdered 642 men, women & children in a small French town on the 10th June 1944.

Note well - a Waffen SS Div, NOT Einsatzgruppen.

If you think that anything to do with the SS or Nazi party is,was or ever shall be “cool” then you are sadly deluded.

The uniforms and ceremony attendant on the Nazi regime, including the SS of all flavours, was designed to appeal to the malleable and weaker minded individual. It still does.

“I was only obeying orders” is not a valid defence. It wasn’t then, and it isn’t now. If something is clearly morally wrong, like shooting prisoners, raping people or invading peaceful countries then you don’t need the Geneva Conventions and Law of Armed Conflict lectures to tell you so.

In any Army (including the British I’m ashamed to say) there are some individuals who cross the line. In the British Army it is very few, and when they are found, they are disciplined.

The recent case where a British Army soldier was found to have taken pictures of Iraqi prisoners naked & simulating sexual acts springs to mind.

His defence was that he didn’t know he was doing wrong.

I must have missed the bit of the LOAC lecture where you were told that it was wrong to photograph prisoners being forced to pretend to b*gger each other.

I don’t need a lecture to tell me that is wrong. I wouldn’t have needed a lecture to tell me gassing Jews/Gypsies/Poles etc was wrong either. How anyone could think otherwise is a mystery to me.

The difference is that when the British soldier was caught, he was tried by Court Martial and is being punished. Punished for something that didn’t even cause physical harm to the prisoners involved, but was wrong nonetheless.

We must all be on our guard at all times to prevent abuse, whether by government, military, quasi-military or just sad individuals making their own petty way in the World.

A statement that you think SS uniforms are “cool” is the thin end of the wedge, and it should be blunted.

#84

and, if your wondering, a battalion of japanese volunteers were attached to 16th SS in Italy.

Really? any details on that?

BTW, there were many Russian and other Soviet national units\contingents. Citizens of the Soviet Union made up the largest non-German group within the German Armed Forces.

It’s worth pointing out (if it hasn’t been already, i haven’t read the whole thread) that many national contigents started out within the control of the Heer, Himmler, in his efforts to expand the SS convinced Hitler that all foreign contingents should come under his control.

A word on Oradour.

I think you should read what the author of that website has to say. The massacre was certainly illegal but it wasn’t without reason. similar things have happened since in other wars, My Lai springs to mind and it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if we end up seeing something similar in Iraq if things continue the way they are.

#85

he Dachau Massacre was a war crime committed by American troops at Dachau, Germany on April 29, 1945 during World War II.

Following the surrender of the town of Dachau to soldiers of the 45th Division of the US Seventh Army, more than 560 unarmed German Prisoners of War were lined up along a wall with their hands in the air and gunned down outside a Waffen SS barracks. Many of the POWs were wounded soldiers from the Eastern front unfit for duty and housed in a nearby Red Cross hospital; despite this, US soldiers entered the hospital and ordered everyone out. Hours earlier, 122 unarmed POWs had already been killed by machine gun fire, including Lieutenant Heinrich Skodzensky, the Commander of the garrison. Those killed included members of the regular Wehrmacht and Waffen SS volunteers from Germany, Hungary, the Netherlands, and Denmark. The mass execution had been ordered by Lieutenant Jack Bushyhead, without authorization from the Seventh Army command. Bushyhead claimed the prisoners had “moved forwards when ordered to move back” but this cannot explain why the POWs were lined up in a row and two machine guns placed in front of them, and that those killed were piled up against the wall where they fell. None of the US medics present assisted any of the wounded POWs.

Lt. Col. Joseph Whitaker, the Seventh Army’s Assistant Inspector General, was subsequently ordered to investigate after witnesses came forward testifying to the massacre. The soldiers involved in shooting the POWs were courtmartialed; however, General George Patton ordered that they receive no further penalties. Many of the documents and name tags of the POWs were subsequently destroyed and the victims buried in unmarked mass graves, in violation of the Geneva Convention in regard to the treatment of war dead.

#86

umm, the Major at Ordur was court martialed by Stadler, commander of Das Reich, but he was KIA before he could be put to trial.

Adolf Diekmann, the commanding officer who had ordered the reprisal at Oradour-sur-Glane, returned to his headquarters in the late afternoon, and did not even mention the murder of the women and children in his first report to his superior officer, perhaps because he had not ordered his men to set the church on fire and maybe he left without knowing that the women and childen had perished. According to the lone woman who survived, the killing of the women and children did not begin until 4 p.m. which may have been the time that Dieckmann was just leaving. Robert Hebras, one of the survivors from the Laudy barn, wrote that the shooting of the men started immediately after a loud explosion around 4 p.m. which he assumed was a signal to begin the massacre. The burning of the whole village, on Diekmann’s orders, did not begin until 5 p.m., according to the survivors.

Some former waffen-SS men believe that Diekmann committed suicide by deliberately getting himself killed at Normandy. He had been court-martialed because, in ordering the reprisal, he had exceeded his orders and he knew that he would soon be put on trial by the SS.

German Army General Erwin Rommel demanded the court martial of Diekmann, and even said that he would conduct it himself. Compare this with General George S. Patton tearing up the court-martial papers of the American soldiers who commited the Dachau massacre. Ironically, the killing of over 500 Waffen-SS Prisoners of War, who had surrendered at Dachau, was motivated by the anger that American soldiers felt after seeing dead bodies of prisoners on a train outside the camp, while the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre may have been touched off by the anguish of the SS soldiers at seeing the charred bodies of wounded Waffen-SS men who had been burned alive in an ambulance just outside the village.

#87

Dachau, you say?

#88

WTF…

You dont bloody read anything anyone else posts here at all!

You asked how you become a MOD or an Admin!

You dont do it by rewriting history to say that the SS (the freeking political Army of the Nazis). Were only like any other guys.

There was one big diffrence between the SS and the Western Allies. Tolerance for other races and political systems and thoughts.

Please stop trying to compare a whole countries systematic barbarity and abrogation of normal laws with the few cases of allied soldiers commiting barbarous acts!

SS = Nazis - no buts or maybes.

IT IS A FACT… and to deny it means that the thin end has started its push and that it could happen again!!!

#89

Yes apparently the Allies committed horrible war crimes on innocent Nazis just there to take the ‘Cure’.

#90

Good couple of posts there Hosenfield, do you have a source for the gen ?

While both massacres were triggered by the horror of what had been seen by the perpetrators, there can be no doubt that both were illegal and against all ideas of civilised behaviour.

#91

The ambulance thing doesn’t tally with the research of the person who wrote the site on the subject posted earlier. According to this chap, apparently it was to do with the kidnap of a German officer. The orders for the massacre apparently issued by Diekmann before arriving at the village. And I believe he was to be done for “excess of zeal” in carrying out his orders - not the massacre of women and children per se.

I’m quite interested by the fact there is a Waffen-SS barracks at Dachau in your account of the “Dachau Massacre”. I thought the Waffen-SS weren’t involved in those dispicable places… [edit: according to some on here] Apparently not. Ah well. While the law is the law and should be upheld, my sympathy strangely evapourated at the first mention of the location.

#92

the waffen-ss had concentration camp divisions with specialized personnell trained by Theodor Eicke’s staff.

"than 560 unarmed German Prisoners of War were lined up along a wall with their hands in the air and gunned down outside a Waffen SS barracks. Many of the POWs were wounded soldiers from the Eastern front unfit for duty and housed in a nearby Red Cross hospital; despite this, US soldiers entered the hospital and ordered everyone out. "

they weren’t killing just the concentration camp guards, but also wounded heer soldiers in a nearby hospital.

#93

Depends who you ask: My bold.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_concentration_camp

1933-1945
Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp and served as a prototype and model for the others that followed. The basic organization, camp layout as well as the plan for the buildings were developed by Kommandant Theodor Eicke and were applied to all later camps. He had a separate secure camp near the command center, which consisted of living quarters, administration, and army camps. Eicke himself became the chief inspector for all concentration camps, responsible for molding the others according to his model.

In total, over 200,000 prisoners from more than 30 countries were housed in Dachau. Beginning in 1941, Dachau was also used for extermination purposes. Camp records list 30,000 persons killed in the camp, with thousands more who died due to the conditions in the camp. In early 1945, there was a typhus epidemic in the camp followed by an evacuation, in which large numbers of the weaker prisoners died.

Due to the number of deaths and killings, the cremation facility had to be expanded, as the existing one was unable to keep up with the number of bodies to be disposed of. At the same time, a gas chamber was added to the camp. This, however, was never put into use, as the prisoners destined for death were transferred to other camps.

Among the most famous inmates of the Dachau concentration camp were Hans Litten, Fred Rabinowitz (aka Fred Roberts), and Alfred Gruenebaum.

Dachau also served as the central camp for Christian religious prisoners. According to records of the Roman Catholic Church, at least 3000 religious, deacons, priests, and bishops were imprisoned there. Particularly notable among the Christian residents are Karl Leisner (Catholic priest ordained while in the camp, beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1996) and Martin Niemöller (Protestant theologian and Nazi resistance leader). In September 1944 a women’s camp opened inside Dachau. Its first shipment of women came from Auschwitz Birkenau. Only nineteen women guards served at Dachau, most of them until liberation, and only sixty-three served in the Dachau complex. We know fifteen female overseers by name; Fanny Eleonore Baur, Leopoldine Bittermann, Ernestine Brenner, Anna Buck, Rosa Dolaschko, Maria Eder, Rosa Grassmann, Betty Hanneschaleger, Ruth Elfriede Hildner, Josefa Keller, Berta Kimplinger, Lieselotte Klaudat, Thereia Kopp, Rosalie Leimboeck, and Thea Miesl[1]. Women guards were also staffed at the Augsburg Michelwerke, Burgau, Kaufering, Muhldorf, and Munich Agfa Camera Werke subcamps.

The last head of the camp was Oskar Müller, who later became minister of labor for Hessia. According to the report of Father Johannes Maria Lenz, Müller sent two prisoners to bring the U.S. army to free the camp, because orders had come in to kill all the prisoners.

[edit]
Liberation of the camp, 1945
The camp was freed by the 45th Infantry Division of the U.S. Seventh Army on April 29, 1945. These American forces were led by Lieutenant Colonel Felix S. Sparks. It was used for many years thereafter as a residence for refugees. [2]

It holds a significant place in public memory because it was the second camp to be liberated by British or American forces, and therefore it was one of the first places in which the West was exposed to the reality of Nazi brutality through first-hand journalist accounts and through newsreels. After the camp was surrendered to Allied forces, the troops were so horrified by conditions at the camp that they summarily shot all of the camp guards, in what some call the Dachau Massacre. However, according to other versions, only 35 Nazi guards were thus executed. The other 515 presumably were either arrested, or managed to escape. The Americans found 32,000 prisoners, dying slowly and crammed 1600 to each of 20 barracks, which had been designed to house 250 people each. The US troops also found 39 railroad cars, each filled with one hundred or more corpses.

The U.S. 7th Army’s version of the events of the Dachau Liberation are available in Report of Operations of the Seventh United States Army, Vol. 3. page 382. It has been alleged that further photographic evidence was detroyed by General George S. Patton.

The evidence of this U.S. war crime is the photographs reprinted in Col. Howard A. Buechner’s book, “Dachau - The Hour of the Avenger”. Dr. Buechner was the chief medical officer of his division and was present during the liberation of Dachau.

#94

Your missing the whole point.

Again and again, bang bang bang goes the head against the wall, bugger it, I give up on it…

The Nazis were all really nice men with no political racist agenda to cleanse the earth of the untermensch and the SS were not the implementors of policy nor the guardians of the party.

In Normandy everything stopped at 3 and they all played Football till 5 as allied airpower, which was so ineffective, put on air displays for the troops and the Ice Cream Van came around and the Nazi soldiers bought all the Jewish kids a 99…

Ah the halycone days of ww2…

#95

well, im getting tired of comparing atrocities. but to raise a point, I’ll give you another one.

POW atrocities were committed in the west at similiar scales by both sides.

Osprey Men-at-arms series

The Waffen-SS ISBN 184178591

pg. 23

“17th SS was the only Waffen-SS division to spend its entire combat career on the WEstern front than in Russia and its reputation was unsullied by allegations of atrocity. Ironically, there is evidence that troops from this division were themselves victims of war crimes: the remains of 200 of its men, were found to be shot by Allied troops and buried in a mass grave, which was discovered in the mid-1970s”

#96

Sorry Firefly but it’s just not that simple. Of course the SS were responsible for an awful lot and in the early days they were the political army of the regime. But here’s the thing. When we get to May 1945 and the allies have decided to criminalize the entire organisation which was huge and encompassed many different branches it was a far cry from the SS of say 1939 or 1940. Where does that leave the majority who served in the W-SS and didn’t commit any crimes? what about the many hundreds of thousands who were draughted into or transferred to the W-SS during the last year of the war? What crime did a LW ground mechanic or KM sailor who found himself suddenly packed off to a W-SS division actually commit?

It’s as wrong to tar everyone who wore the silver runes with the same brush as it is to assume that every German was a nazi, that every Russian was a commie, that every Italian was a fascist. By doing that you only give more ammunition to those who would seek to bring the horrors of nazism back.

Condemn the individuals who commited crimes not entire organisations or countries.

#97

Hosenfield

I asked you about this Japanese SS btl you were on about? What sources are you going from?

#98

POW atrocities are an unfortunate and dispicable face of war, I don’t think anyone’s going to dispute that. The point here is that the SS were the tools of the systematic destruction of MILLIONS of innocent civilians. That is what the Nazi ideology dictated, and they were the instruments of that ideology.

What happened at Dachau is illegal and unfortunate, but set against the fact that the SS was running a concentration camp next door… I’m sorry but I’m struggling to find moral equivalency. There were Waffen-SS barracks next door to concentration camps. From the sounds of things, concentration camps were where Waffen-SS went to convalesce. It also makes something of a mockery of the notion that the “just soldiers like the rest” Waffen-SS did not know what the great Nazi crusade actually stood for.

Still not finding that feeling of sympathy kicking in yet. Disappointment and even disapproval of the illegal actions of the American liberators of the camp, but not sympathy for those who were kicking back and enjoying a break from the war next door to Dachau concentration camp.

#99

There was no such majority. Almost without exception those German soldiers (both Heer and SS) who fought on the Eastern front committed war crimes on a massive scale, from the beginning to the end of the war. This included deliberately starving to death something along the lines of 3 million Russian PoWs (plenty of descriptions in this thread and elsewhere - go read them, but for the fact they’re so well documented they would be totally incredible… The soap factory run by the Danzig Anatomical Medical Institute using a nearby PoW camp of Russian PoWs to provide the feedstock is one such example.).
The story about the SS being so much worse than the Heer is in many ways a myth - they really weren’t very much worse, yet their crimes have in no way been exaggerated. It’s merely that they provided a convenient scapegoat to absolve the Heer of responsibility for their crimes. It’s much easier to sell a story when half of it is the truth.

#100

If they were based at Dachau, it’s just a pity the Spams didn’t slot a few more of them.