What is it with people wanting to serve in the Schutzstaffel?

Sure. Though some think that slavery was the main issue it wasn't. The Confederacy was not responsible for the same types of crimes that the Nazi regime including the SS and Waffen SS were shown to have commited. Murder,Rape,Attempted Genocide, looting of whole countries, the deaths of INNOCENT millions,destruction on a grand scale. Two very different wars ,goverments,situations. And I for one have not condemned ALL members of the Waffen SS. Nor am I saying that the Confederacy was lily white. But do not I comdemn all members of the military that served under the Confederacy either. But when compared to the Nazis and the SS and Waffen SS under them the Johnny Rebs are a church group. IMO flying the Confederate Battle Flag is very different from wanting to serve in an orginization that was declared as criminal and thought as such by a large part of the world.


Confederate Battle Flag and Confederate National Flag

Do you feel that the NEW Georgia state flag should be banned too?


New Georgia flag


Georgia flag, 2001–2003

Or perhaps the Ste flag of Florida?



Or Alabama?

 

Rather less than most realize. Not sure that it has much correlation to your question though

Nothing prevents you from making inane comments as you just demonstrated.

 

What a load of garbage, it is all relevent, how many slaves were murdered, how many slaves were raped, slavery is genocide, how many slaves were thrown overboard en-transit, they were whipped, hung, your country imported slaves how many cultures were looted of their heritage, you debased humans down to the level of cattle, your country still has the Ku Klux Klan, the New Confederates and others, any nations that is supposed to have a consious would have outlawed and banned these organisations decades ago and imprisoned their leaders.

Oh and before you jump up and down my county was no better off, we did things and sttill continue to do things to our Aboriginals that on many occassions makes me ashamed of being an Australian.

v.R

 

The good Baron is correct, there is a book,
"The Shadow of His Wings: The True Story of Fr. Gereon Goldmann, OFM"

In this engaging personal account, Franciscan Father Gernon Goldmann narrates the true story of his experiences as a devoted Catholic in the German army during World War II. As a young man his studies for the priesthood were interrupted when he was drafted to join the army -- and found himself in the SS. In his thrilling retelling, Fr. Goldmann brilliantly captures the dichotomy of his zeal for Germany, which wanes as he becomes more familiar with the Nazis, and his burning passion for God. Secretly ordained after clandestine studies, he ministers to German Catholic soldiers and civilians amidst the horrors of war and at great personal risk. Readers will find in Fr. Goldmann’s account a dramatic story of courageous faith in a time a severe trial and a powerful testament to God’s loving providence.

 

No offense , but have you actually ever dealt with the Klan? they arent like The nefarious men of "Mississippi burning", they are now,,,,,pretty much a big group of pussies who hide behind an escort of police officers to march through a town that doesnt even give them 2 minutes of air time on the Tv stations. They are impotent, noone gives them any kind of recognition anymore. Even the skinheads make fun of them.

A nation with a conscience? Ok, what about the Southern Cross Hammer Skinheads,the White Australian Resistance WAR), located in Melbourne, or the National Action Skins?

Those are the ones I found in the first thing that popped up about nazis in Australia. I didnt feel like going thru all the links, but I think you get the point. You guys have just as many racists as we do. Hell, what about Mel Gibsons dad? Hes a proud white seperatist!!

Hold the phone there Quickdraw, we might have imported them but YOUR government exported them. You go on about how we imported slaves; do you know how they got here? Dutch ships, English ships, and French ships. They got here via the Dutch West India Company and the English Royal African Company, who actually monopolized the African coast line for the purpose of slave trading. Hell, the Africans sold each other into slavery in bids to gain land and wealth! In fact, to this very day, they still do!! How do you think they get blood diamonds? or Armies of children?

So dont blame us for the slave trade, there were plenty of co-conspirators to go around, and actually, the first three countries to BAN slave trading were Denmark in 1803, Great Britain in 1807, and the United States in 1807, so it seems that both of our governments -at the time- gave it up in tandem.

 

First off all let me say that there is a lot of questionable forwarding’s voiced in this thread. My family is quite rich in service to the Wehrmacht and SS and all of them come to the same conclusion or statements.

What I really do not like is this constant upbringing of SS and Waffen SS being a different story.

The initial members of both branches were painfully selected not only according to their blue eyes and height but specifically to their political view. – Nazi view.

There were a lot of Germans who wanted to serve in the SS but didn’t pass certain criteria’s and please don’t forget, how small the SS was in its initial stages before 1939. So many who were turned down by the SS, still became SS members but served in the Wehrmacht, Navy or Luftwaffe.
One of my uncles was such a person – who served in the Luftwaffe but still displayed his SS membership on his uniform sleeve whilst others didn’t.

Yes, one could actually be a SS member without serving in the SS.

Let me please forward one question; who would willingly join an SS formation/section after having listened to Hitler’s insane and screeching radio broadcasts or live performance without sharing his view?

So there were enough Nazi’s in the other armed formations who contributed their share when it came to atrocities, but they and other criminal or sadistic elements were never a majority in those formations.

Herr Baron: To try and place the Wehrmacht on the same level with the Waffen SS, is to me absurd.

The fact that especially from 1943 onwards, the majority of the WaffenSS members were drafted or hadn’t even been German citizens before (like another “Wolga-German” SS uncle of mine) was taken as a welcomed excuse by the initial members to cover themselves from being prosecuted as Nazi’s and war criminals after the war. – generalizing the Waffen SS as being different from the SS.

Yes perfect whitewasher’s like Hausser didn’t approve with the Wehrmacht concept and saw their chance by joining the Waffen SS. Hausser however could never forward that as an SS member he wouldn’t know who he had given his oath to and about the actual task of the Waffen SS in regards to elimination of unworthy live. The Waffen SS was not strictly involved with the concentration camps, but they knew about their elimination task in regards to the Jews, Slavic race and the Bolsheviks on the battle ground. They were given regular political lessons besides combat training.

There were rare exceptions even in the WaffenSS, were members became disillusioned upon realizing their primary task – but too late. Others didn’t want to get hanged and even showed willingness to collaborate against Hitler (Most prominent Sepp Dietrich).

Unfortunately the upcoming cold war and remilitarization of Germany assisted all these Nazi’s to avoid prosecution and to spread the continuous bullsh.. about not having been a Nazi or follower of the Nazi doctrines, we were all forced, etc.blah, blah.

Regards
Kruska

 

This thread died over a month ago until someone had to bring it up again. Let it die. Or even better close it.

 

i know how you feel, with that darnest thread of mine i wish it would die

 

i would serve in the ss for many reasons
1.to travel to diffrent parts of the world
2.better weapons
3.fighting on different fronts

 

I had read someplace (don't ask me where, I couldn't find it to save my life) that draftees and volunteers in Germany that were at least 6 feet tall or over were sent to the SS. This was later in the war, late 44 and early 45, so if that's so, some had no choice in the matter. I'm sure they got stigmatized for being in the SS for years after the war, guilty by association.

 

This thread died over a 7 months ago until someone had to bring it up again. Let it die. Or even better close it. LOL

 

Sorry about bringing this thread up again. It began as interesting subject matter, and I responded to a post by Za from the first page without reading the entire thread first. After posting, I saw how it went downhill fast. Again, sorry for digging this mess up. If I had read all the way through first, I would have not touched it.

You are right JC, the thread should be closed so this doesn't happen again. There are better things for us to talk about.

 

Thats ok my friend .

 

No, the height minimum for the Waffen-SS was something like 168 cm or 170 cm by 1943, and it dropped to 163 cm by late 1944. A lot of Waffen-SS were displaced and forcibly transferred luftwaffe personnel, some waffen-SS were literally press ganged, and many were just drafted- just as normal.

Some draftees volunteered for the waffen-SS because they thought that they would get better preferential treatment, etc.

 

Thanks A-58

 

I hate to open up a tine of worms here, but I just have to ask. Why, in the name of Odin is everyone taking the whole question of "What is it with people wanting to serve in the SS?" out of context.

Throughout this whole thread there have been forumites whining about how people who, in other threads especially regarding "If you could. Where would you serve?", are writing down that they would serve in the SS if they could. Is it just me or is everyone taking a simple question and complicating it, by delving too deeply into the context of the question.

Yes, the SS and many of the other different arms of the German Wehrmacht did some heinous things throughout the war with the whole killing of civilians, the holocaust and the attempted extermination and servitude of the Slavic race and any other race that didn't sit in with the Nazi ideology or the future 1000 year Reich.

However, when people on the forum have responded to this question and put down that they would serve in the SS, in a "What if" situation, please think about it with a more mature head.

Here is a great example. I had put down the SS as well, mainly for the fact that from an historical and purely analytical standpoint the SS were involved in some of the heaviest fighting of the war, be it on the western front from the earliest days of the war fighting against the French and the BEF all the way to the Allied advance to Germany. Also, they had the best equipment in the way of massed numbers of Tigers, Koenigs Tigers, Jagd Panthers, Panthers and the newest small arms including the STG44. Also look at the fact that Michael Wittman was part of the SS as well. One of the greatest tank commanders in history. All people are looking at is the ability and dream or wish, just to be a fly on the wall when all this was going on.

Just look at it from an unemotional, non-personal and less serious approach and we will all find that this thread got way out of hand from the get go through utter misinterpretation.

That is unless all of the people who are saying they want to be SS are all Neo-Nazi white supremacist racists who all need to be hung out to dry. if that is so, then ignore everything I just ranted on about.

Cheers fellas.

 

I fear some of the attraction of the SS is their, parly undeserved, reputation of being "the toughest kids on the block", many people seem to be blind to the fact that most of those are also unrepentant bullies at best.
The separation between the waffen-ss (the combat units) and the police / concentration camp thugs is blurry, some combat units like Totenkopf and Polizei were built with personnel comming from the camps. And W-SS units were usually the weapon of choice for anti partisan ops that often included razing entire villages. The combat record of the W-SS is mixed, some late war divisions were very tough, due in part to priorities in getting new equipment, but the early war ones were inferior to their army counterparts due to the lack of experienced officers and NCOs and some like Polizei and Nord performed below average throughout the war.
BTW why someone people choose the gestapo baffles me, they were not even very effective as proven by the failure to uncover ULTRA and a number of high placed Soviet agents.

 

Im on bored with everyone else here as well. Never understood the fascination of being a part of a group associated with absolute pure evil???

 

Well you notice that those who do tend to use the terms "Cool","Awesome",Ect.