Maximus Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 Some of you may already know this, but judging from what some of the discussions lately have touched on this to some degree, some people may not know this. DID YOU KNOW that there were TWO branches of the SS? The Allgemeine SS and the Waffen SS. In fact, I just found out about this imformation after watching the History Channel this morning on a "Weapons of War" episode entitled "The Elite German Forces of WWII" I have taken the below information from the site The SS Archive. The Allgemeine SS (or General SS) was the administrative and controlling branch of the SS as a whole. All SS branches and organizations can trace there origins to the Allgemeine SS. From the concentration camp staffs to the to the Gestapo, the Allgemeine SS controlled all SS activities. The Waffen SS was a military branch of the Nazi party during World War II. No military organization in history has fought so well against such overwhelming odds as the Waffen SS. The Waffen SS is probably one of the most infamous military organizations of all times. The Waffen SS is often mistakenly identified with the concentration camp system. Although some Waffen SS units were closely associated with the camp system ( for example the Totenkopf units), the majority of the Waffen SS units were separate military formations. While the Waffen SS committed war crimes it was also one of the most effective military units in history. While watching the show, they interviewed several Waffen SS vets and they feel disturbed that they have been coincidually compared to the Allgemiene SS. They feel that High Command should have made more of a distinction between the two branches of the SS. To them, they were just another branch of German Army fighting for their country, even as the country was run by the corrupt political Nazi party. The Gerbirgsjager, the Fallschrimjager, the Panzer Lehr, the Afrika Korps, the Brandenberg Commandos, and several others were elite German forces as well and yet they don't get the bad rap that the Waffen SS get. Besides I sure the Russain Guard units were supposedly as elite as some of these German formations. NOTE: I am in no way associated with SS and Nazi propaganda, I just saw this information on the History Channel this morning and thought I'd share it in one of our "Dispel the Myth" threads. Besides we all know that the Waffen SS are overpriced hamsters anyway! LOL! ------------------ "Upon my signal, unleash Hell."--General Maximus, Gladiator "Aim small, miss small."--Mel Gibson, The Patriot "I do what I likes, and I likes what I do."--Darrell Hammond (portraying Bill Clinton), SNL [This message has been edited by Maximus (edited 03-05-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pascal DI FOLCO Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 Maximus, there's been a recent thread on this here, that said exactly the same...with additional historical background, we're here waaaay better than a HC film They weren't the "most effective" units just because of the SS label, they were just more fanatical than WM units and for them surrender was NOT an option, so they fought to the end... As for "overpriced hamster", I saw my crack SS units behaving like crack units, I feel regular SS will behave like regulars and so on... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forever Babra Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 The residents of Oradour-sur-Glane will be greatly relieved by this revelation. Hi Mom!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted March 5, 2001 Author Share Posted March 5, 2001 Originally posted by Forever Babra: The residents of Oradour-sur-Glane will be greatly relieved by this revelation. Hi Mom!!! Oh don't start that "Hi Mom" crap on this one. As for the residents of some concentration camp, I assume, apparently you didn't read the above explained differences. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stoffel Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 You are wrong about your ideas,the waffen(armed ) SS had direct control and ties with the concentrationcampsystem!!! For instance read Soldiers of Destruction. written by prof. C .W. Sydnor. He had many documents that proved the Waffen SS had all to do with these camps. For instance there was a rotation system in which wounded man were returned to the camps guard detachments. And the camps provided the Waffen ss with cloth supplies and other items. In the case of the 2nd SS division Totenkopf this was very accurate documented. Its leader was Eicke(the man who personally invented the campsystem and "improved "it) Many man were sent to the camps to rest while specialists of the guard units( a sort of reserve unit) were sent back to the front units. And there were the so called Einsatzgruppen they were responsible for the killing of many people and many man from the Waffen SS have participated in these actions. I can citate the whole book to you but that will be a problem,I say just buy it and read it! Than you will change your mind soon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ari Maenpaa Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 Originally posted by Forever Babra: The residents of Oradour-sur-Glane will be greatly relieved by this revelation. About Oradour sur Glane there's views from both sides in http://www.ualberta.ca/~dreinbol/oradourindex.html Pretty interesting read although the whole incident was ghastly. Ari Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forever Babra Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 Originally posted by Maximus: As for the residents of some concentration camp, I assume, apparently you didn't read the above explained differences. Oradour-sur-Glane, June 10th, 1944. Read about it. http://www.oradour.btinternet.co.uk/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TankDawg Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 Good Post Babra, Waffen SS committed more atrocities than any other force. And yes, ALL nations and combatants committed atrocities. But the Waffen SS were NOT just another branch of the Army. Give me a break. ------------------ Jeff Newell TankDawg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tss Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 Maximus: As for the residents of some concentration camp, I assume, apparently you didn't read the above explained differences. I'm not going to stay in this thread for long (fully knowing what will happen to it), but let me point out few things: 1) The different branches of SS were not completely separate. Concentration camp guards were transferred into Waffen-SS troops and wounded Waffen-SS men were sent to concentration camp guard forces during their convalesence period. 2) Many (but definitely not all) Waffen-SS men committed atrocities. While examples of war crimes can be found in just about any armies, Waffen-SS's track record is one of the blackest. For example, Sakari Lappi-Seppälä who fought for a year in the Westland Regiment of the SS-Wiking division witnessed the following atrocities: (all in 1941) - 36 civilian Jews were first humiliated and then killed after a sniper shot the regimental commander. (Early July) - ~100 POWs were taken from their Heer guards and then shot "for trying to escape" after their SS-guards had been given an impossible time limit to transport them to rear area (12 km in 1/2 hours). - 2 POWs that had fully cooperated with Germans were shot after interrogations. - At Dnepropetrovsk (IIRC) Jews were harrassed and some were killed. - One platoon leader killed a Russian family because their baby cried. - One squad leader raped a Russian woman multiple times. - The same platoon leader as mentioned above forcibly recruited a 14-year old Russian boy as his bearer and killed him when he didn't have the strength to continue. (After this last event Lappi-Seppälä, another Finn, one Dutchman, and one Dane decided to kill their platoon leader in the next combat (by Lappi-Seppälä's account). However, Lappi-Seppälä was wounded in that battle and he didn't know how the officer actually died. He only mentions that his bayonetted body was found on the battlefield after the battle). 3) Most of the Waffen-SS formations most definitely weren't elite. A handful were, those that are mentioned most often. One particularly good example on poor early-war performance of Waffen-SS units is the second attack of one of SS-Div Nord's batallions to Salla. The first attack was repulsed when a camouflaged Soviet bunker-line opened fire from relatively long range. The next time the SS-men attacked, the defenders held their fire. When the Germans didn't receive fire they supposed that Soviets had retreated and walked straight to the bunkers, in a dense mass. The result: 200 casualties. - Tommi Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted March 5, 2001 Author Share Posted March 5, 2001 Oh so the History Channels's program and personal interviews with Waffen SS vets were wrong? Try looking at the argument un-biased. The quote I stated above in the first post was just that. A direct quote from the site. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CeeJee Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 The SS is another part of the Nazi policy, practiced on its own military. If you had a 'degenerate' somewhere in your ancestry, no fancy new equipment, or sometimes even food or ammmo for you. We should thank the Nazis for such a hopelessly inefficient system of building one SS-corps after another from raw recruits and top equipment. But their victims found out what happens when you convince men they are better and everyone else is less. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted March 5, 2001 Author Share Posted March 5, 2001 Originally posted by tss: - One platoon leader killed a Russian family because their baby cried. - One squad leader raped a Russian woman multiple times. - The same platoon leader as mentioned above forcibly recruited a 14-year old Russian boy as his bearer and killed him when he didn't have the strength to continue. And the Russians didn't commit any atrocities either? Gimme a break. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
M Hofbauer Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 aaactually, the camp guards were a subbranch of the Waffen-SS, not the Allgemeine SS, just like armor etc. were subbranches of the Waffen SS. The service branch color-of-arms for the Waffen-SS Camp Guards was light brown, just as it was white for W.-SS Infantry or red for W.-S Artillery. There's no way one could relativize the exceptionally horrible record the W.SS has in the warcrimes and crimes against humanity category. It's no coincidence that the SS incl. the W-SS is considered a criminal organization per se in germany while the Wehrmacht is not. It is important to note that while Allg. SS and W.-SS were different branches of the SS, both _were_ SS, and (organizationally) had nothing to do with the germany's regular armed forces, the Wehrmacht with it's branches Luftwafe, Heer and Marine. sincerely, M.Hofbauer [This message has been edited by M Hofbauer (edited 03-05-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TankDawg Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 Originally posted by Maximus: Oh so the History Channels's program and personal interviews with Waffen SS vets were wrong? Try looking at the argument un-biased. The quote I stated above in the first post was just that. A direct quote from the site. Yes - the History Channel is often incorrect. Fact of life. And not ONE Waffen SS vet claims to have EVER witnessed or participated in a crime. Their company line is always "It was the OTHER SS groups, not us. We were all just soldiers." Max, don't belive that crap. ------------------ Jeff Newell TankDawg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 While there was a close tie between Totenkopf Division and the camps, I don't see any connection between HJ, say, or Handschar, or any of the other divs, except in a conincidental way. Let's be fair. Maximus raises an interesting question. I agree that many SS formations were substandard, and that even in the "good" ones, their ingrained aggressiveness and lack of regard for casualties made them less than supreme - but since they got first crack at new weapons (by 1944), this partially compensated. ------------------ CANUCK: Clothing, Equipping and Employing the Canadian Soldier in Combat Mission Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted March 5, 2001 Author Share Posted March 5, 2001 Originally posted by TankDawg: Yes - the History Channel is often incorrect. Fact of life. And not ONE Waffen SS vet claims to have EVER witnessed or participated in a crime. Their company line is always "It was the OTHER SS groups, not us. We were all just soldiers." Max, don't belive that crap. Oh so in SPR when the Americans had reach the top of the rocks on Omaha and those two guys shot the surrendering german troops, there was nothing wrong with that? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Dorosh Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 Oh, and I have yet to see a TV documentary even come close to being as good as a book on the subject; TV shows are NOT reliable sources of information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kingfish Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready to buy stock in the company that sells BBS padlocks. I see myself retiring in a few years ------------------ Terminate...with extreme prejudice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Forever Babra Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 Names of the residents of Charly-Oradour who died June 10, 1944, with their ages. There are listed 44 here. There were 672 in total. I doubt you'll find it in the 2nd SS Panzer Division's log book. Mathieu Leon 48 Mathieu Marguerite 46 Dalstein Mathieu Octavie (nee Bertrand) 67 Bertrand Francoise 11 Lorrain Emile 58 Lorrain Maria (nee Andre) 61 Lorrain Paulette 28 Perette Louis 48 Perette Lucie 54 Henry Gilberte (nee Perette) 23 Henry Michelle 2 Godfrin Arthur 37 Godfrin Georgette (nee Maillard) 35 Godfrin Jeanne 13 Godfrin Pierrette 11 Godfrin Claude 4 Godfrin Cosette 3 Gougeon Fernand 33 Gougeon Marie (nee Lorrain) 31 Gougeon Gerard 7 Gougeon Claude 6 Pister Auguste 71 Pister Victorine (nee Sar) 36 Pister Melanie (nee Hennequin) * 65 Pister Maria (nee Claude) 32 Pister Lucette 2 Hass Jules 32 Hass Marie-Louise (nee Pister) 28 Hass Huguette 6 Hass Rene 4 Hass Jean-Paul 2 months Girard Constant 71 Girard Marie (nee Leid) 48 Girard Charles 42 Girard Clotilde (nee Koppe) 37 Girard Yvette 9 Girard Jennine 7 Gaillot Cecile (nee Saint-Paul) 39 Gaillot Hubert 5 Gaillot Daniel 3 Renaudin Jules 42 Renaudin Bernadette 7 Lorich Jaques 45 Lorich Angelique 31 [This message has been edited by Forever Babra (edited 03-05-2001).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest barrold713 Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 I saw some of the same show. It was on the "Weapons at War" series hosted by that guy from "Major Dad"...Gerald something. It was pretty good and I would say that it took a bit of editorial courage to even present the argument about the distinction between the various SS units. I thought the show did a decent job at the attempt to present some objectivity to a subject that is bound to generate a very passionate response. It is completely understandable that the veterans of these units would like to distance themselves from the atrocities committed. It would be a difficult task and most people are not going to accept these efforts. In game terms some people don't like to play scenarios using these units and others don't mind since they are able to compartmentalize and view them as just another part of the history of the conflict CM simulates. Each opinion is valid and there should be no sanction against those who choose to adopt either view. CM can be played in a sort of vacuum that neither glorifies or glosses over historical fact while not censoring itself to be politically correct. Personally I am pleased with this result. BDH Anything nonsensical in this post should be considered a result of the vicadin I have to take for my back. ------------------ "Democracy is two wolves and a lamb discussing what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote" - Ben Franklin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CavScout Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 Originally posted by Maximus: Oh so the History Channels's program and personal interviews with Waffen SS vets were wrong? Try looking at the argument un-biased. The quote I stated above in the first post was just that. A direct quote from the site. Exactly how many people would admit to being in a bad outfit? Would the W-SS vets be biased in a strong way? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TankDawg Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 Originally posted by Maximus: Oh so in SPR when the Americans had reach the top of the rocks on Omaha and those two guys shot the surrendering german troops, there was nothing wrong with that? Max, you are kidding here, right?! You are comparing a scene in a fictional movie to real - life war crimes? I don't know what to say. I can not even reply to that. ------------------ Jeff Newell TankDawg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maximus Posted March 5, 2001 Author Share Posted March 5, 2001 Originally posted by Michael Dorosh: While there was a close tie between Totenkopf Division and the camps, I don't see any connection between HJ, say, or Handschar, or any of the other divs, except in a conincidental way. Let's be fair. Maximus raises an interesting question. I agree that many SS formations were substandard, and that even in the "good" ones, their ingrained aggressiveness and lack of regard for casualties made them less than supreme - but since they got first crack at new weapons (by 1944), this partially compensated. Thanks, at least one person has an open mind. Yes it is correct that the SS troops got first crack at the newest weapons, such as tanks and small arms such as the MP-44s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CavScout Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 Originally posted by Maximus: And the Russians didn't commit any atrocities either? Gimme a break. Because they did, should these guys be looked at less harshly? Sounds like a Clinton backer... "Well this Republican President did this....." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TankDawg Posted March 5, 2001 Share Posted March 5, 2001 Originally posted by Kingfish: I don't know about you guys, but I'm ready to buy stock in the company that sells BBS padlocks. I see myself retiring in a few years Why?? Good discussion so far. NO one calling names. These types of things need to be discussed. ------------------ Jeff Newell TankDawg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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