Why the Waffen-SS

[Rob - wssob2]

Thought I'd hop on my cycle and ride the barrel for a moment

Who said the Waffen SS could not conscript German men, if it wanted to?

Hitler - in his Aug 1940 "A Statement on The Future Armed State Police" memo. That is my understanding.

Who said the Waffen SS could only fill it's quota with men from the current annual conscription class?

Hitler and the OKW. The OKW followed up Hitler's memo with one of its own later in Aug 1940 stating that the Waffen-SS would constitute 3% of the Army’s size and this will be permitted 3% of the available recruits from the 1919-21 age groups.

If the quota was not yet full and the Waffen SS had a requirement for certain type of candidates how was it barred from requesting them from those being called-up for the Army ?

The Waffen-SS exploited a loophole in a Jan 1940 OKW recruiting memo to raise a greater precentage of troops from the 1920 class - gaining something like 60,000 volunteers in the first half of 1940 before the OKW noticed and basically stopped processing Waffen-SS inductions. This issue is what led to Hitler issuing his Aug 1940 memo.

In that memo, Hitler set the paramerters that of each conscription class: 66% went to the Army, 25% went to the Air Force, and 9% to the Navy. Note that a draftee could request a branch of service, but the decision was ultimately up the their local draft board. The Waffen-SS could recruit candidates from the Army's 66% allotment, but the portion wasn't to exceed 2% of the total class draft or roughly 12,000 men.

This wasn't enough enough men for the Waffen-SS to replace casualties, let alone expand, so it employed a variety of strategems to get more troops - raising the Order Police Division, transferring men through the Training and Replacement Unit back door, looking for volksdeutsche and germanic volunteers, Himmler's July 1941 memo listing 179 SS units as belonging to the Waffen-SS, etc.

Who said July 1944 changed anything, except for the future level of the quota ?

When Himmler took over the Replacement Army, he basically had free reign to draft whoever he wanted into the Waffen-SS, negating the previous quotas. Given the military situation, the overwhelming majority of new draftees were sent to the Army and SS. 1944 is the year you start to see entire groups of Air Force and Navy personnel transferred into the Waffen-SS, whereas before the SS was prohibited from poaching men from other branches of service

Indeed, when was the volunteer requirement for the Waffen SS officially (if ever) dropped for Reich Germans?

In March 1943 Himmler issued a memo stating that henceforth Waffen-SS recruits could be raised by conscription, but I am not clear on what manpower sources Himmler was specifically referring to. Conscription among southeastern European volksdeutsche had already started the previous year, but certainly in 1943 Germany the SS was pressuring RAD and Hitler Youth members to join, and its likely the SS had increasing power to demand a higher number of candidates. 1943 is also the year you see the SS taking Army senior officers to beef up its staff commands.

[j keenan]

Stein isn't correct though as luftwaffe personal were been transferred into the LSSAH the year before.
But this is a futile discussion as the Waffen-SS could not fill its quotas with volunteers entirely so some were conscripted as early as 1940.But for some reason Authors like to portray The Waffen-SS as a voluntary army fighting the evils of communism and saving the western way of life.Fighting till the end and sacrificing all on the eastern front in there mighty Tiger Tank

[dshaday]

Hi Sid

Conscription is a pro-active activity likely to leave an evidential trace in whatever jurisdiction it occurs. That is why the onus is on anyone proposing it for the Waffen-SS to come up with some evidence to that effect.

I still await your evidence that it only occurred after July 1944, as per your original claim.

We know the Waffen-SS used a wide variety of devices for raising manpower before July 1944, and we have mentioned some half a dozen of them here. However, direct conscription from the general civil population of Germany does not appear to be among them.

Not correct. I have shown that conscription from the general civil population of Germany was used prior to July 1944.

The onus is on me, if challenged, to provide some evidence that direct conscription to the Waffen-SS occurred after July 1944.

Not true.
The onus of proof is on you to prove that conscription from the general civil population of Germany only began after July 1944. So far you have not even tried to do so.

You have only shown that the Waffen SS manpower quota increased after July 1944 and why. Which proves .... nothing for your original claim you have been asked to prove.

However, the onus is on you, if challenged, to provide evidence, that it occurred earlier.

Which I have already done.

As it turns out, Rob has also suggest a Himmler memo of March 1943 allowing conscription into the Waffen SS. That does not look good for your original claim.

Regards

Dennis

[dshaday]

Hi j keenan

... the Waffen-SS could not fill its quotas with volunteers entirely so some were conscripted as early as 1940.But for some reason Authors like to portray The Waffen-SS as a voluntary army fighting the evils of communism and saving the western way of life.

Very true. As summarised in the IMT verdict on the SS:

“Until 1940 the SS was an entirely voluntary organisation. After the formation of the Waffen SS in 1940 there was a gradually increasing number of conscripts into the Waffen SS. It appears that about a third of the total number of people joining the Waffen SS were conscripts, that the proportion of conscripts was higher at the end of the war than at the beginning, but that there continued to be a high proportion of volunteers until the end of the war.”

Regards

Dennis

[dshaday]

Hi Rob

Who said the Waffen SS could not conscript German men, if it wanted to?

Hitler - in his Aug 1940 "A Statement on The Future Armed State Police" memo. That is my understanding.

I am talking in the context of the existing recruiting quota during the war years. This would have been more obvious if the whole paragraph had been posted.

In that context, if the quota was not yet full, what would stop the Waffen SS from conscripting men if they wanted to? I know of no factor placed on them by Hitler or the OKW.

Who said the Waffen SS could only fill it's quota with men from the current annual conscription class?

Hitler and the OKW. The OKW followed up Hitler's memo with one of its own later in Aug 1940 stating that the Waffen-SS would constitute 3% of the Army’s size and this will be permitted 3% of the available recruits from the 1919-21 age groups.

The subtle point I was making was that the Waffen SS was not limited to recruiting from the current call-up age group. Otherwise men like Otto Skorzeny could not be recruited since he was older than the current call up group when he enlisted. His enlistment would have been counted as contributing to the maximum Waffen S allowable size (not the current call up year quota).

If the quota was not yet full and the Waffen SS had a requirement for certain type of candidates how was it barred from requesting them from those being called-up for the Army ?

The Waffen-SS exploited a loophole in a Jan 1940 OKW recruiting memo to raise a greater precentage of troops from the 1920 class - gaining something like 60,000 volunteers in the first half of 1940 before the OKW noticed and basically stopped processing Waffen-SS inductions. This issue is what led to Hitler issuing his Aug 1940 memo.

In that memo, Hitler set the paramerters that of each conscription class: 66% went to the Army, 25% went to the Air Force, and 9% to the Navy. Note that a draftee could request a branch of service, but the decision was ultimately up the their local draft board. The Waffen-SS could recruit candidates from the Army's 66% allotment, but the portion wasn't to exceed 2% of the total class draft or roughly 12,000 men.

This wasn't enough enough men for the Waffen-SS to replace casualties, let alone expand, so it employed a variety of strategems to get more troops - raising the Order Police Division, transferring men through the Training and Replacement Unit back door, looking for volksdeutsche and germanic volunteers, Himmler's July 1941 memo listing 179 SS units as belonging to the Waffen-SS, etc.

All good information.

It does not however, seem to address the quote/question that you are responding to.

Who said July 1944 changed anything, except for the future level of the quota ?

When Himmler took over the Replacement Army, he basically had free reign to draft whoever he wanted into the Waffen-SS, negating the previous quotas. Given the military situation, the overwhelming majority of new draftees were sent to the Army and SS. 1944 is the year you start to see entire groups of Air Force and Navy personnel transferred into the Waffen-SS, whereas before the SS was prohibited from poaching men from other branches of service

Large numbers of Luftwaffe and Navy men went to the Waffen SS before July 1944 anyway. Perhaps you mean that this process noticeably escalated after July 1944? By the way, are these transfers considered to count towards the Waffen SS quota, or are they a separate category/limit ?

The other comments you make seem to relate to the quota increase (as per my comment) and selection of the choice recruits that previously were claimed by the Luftwaffe and Navy.

Good points.

Indeed, when was the volunteer requirement for the Waffen SS officially (if ever) dropped for Reich Germans?

In March 1943 Himmler issued a memo stating that henceforth Waffen-SS recruits could be raised by conscription, but I am not clear on what manpower sources Himmler was specifically referring to. Conscription among southeastern European volksdeutsche had already started the previous year, but certainly in 1943 Germany the SS was pressuring RAD and Hitler Youth members to join, and its likely the SS had increasing power to demand a higher number of candidates. 1943 is also the year you see the SS taking Army senior officers to beef up its staff commands.

Interesting. Do you have a link to this memo?

Regards

Dennis

[Cult Icon]

From the K-archive (7,800 photos) which mostly covers 1.SS, 3.SS, 5.SS, 7.SS plus two or three foreign units:

Even the SSLAH/Wiking/Totenkopf/Prinz Eugen..compared to modern soldiers today, they are noticeably thin, small framed, and shorter, and with small muscles/not athletic. low body weight.

Quite a few portraits (not depicted here) looked like human wrecks that had experienced great stress and prolonged starvation. I believe those men were from foreign nations, and may have been impressed into service or volunteered due to starvation and other maladies.

Lots of overaged 4-F types in the W-SS although most were of more appropriate age:

[ChristopherPerrien]

"Extemporaneous" examples of the last dregs of an empire fighting for survival, should not be used as a subject for what we are discussing here, otherwise we could demote the Roman Legions of Marius for the Italians of Mussolini.

A fair trade?

And besides , the people you have in your photo-set , doesn't mean a thing. Anyone can be caught in a bad picture, and also some of the best people don't picture well.

You are coming close to some of the original Nazi science(eugenics) "classifications" about inferior humans and superior humans based on what they look like.

[Cult Icon]

Just pointing out that the SS were not filled with young, healthy men. (look at the rank tabs)

Those guys could easily fit into the Nazi eugenics tables as 'subhuman'.

[BillHermann]

Of course not all SS were gaunt and skinny but the point of Cult Irons's post is they were not all super soldiers. The assumption that come from the SS fan club.

[dshaday]

Hi Cult Icon

Even the SSLAH/Wiking/Totenkopf/Prinz Eugen..compared to modern soldiers today, they are noticeably thin, small framed, and shorter, and with small muscles/not athletic. low body weight.

Quite a few portraits (not depicted here) looked like human wrecks that had experienced great stress and prolonged starvation. I believe those men were from foreign nations, and may have been impressed into service or volunteered due to starvation and other maladies.

Lots of overaged 4-F types in the W-SS although most were of more appropriate age:

Those guys could easily fit into the Nazi eugenics tables as 'subhuman'.

Amazing how out of 7,800 photos (which appear to be uncaptioned for date or background) showing mostly combat shots and you pick 12 portraits, and come up with these "comments".
What does it prove if I use the same files to post 12 photos of tall, strong stereotypes for the SS ?
What does it prove if I find 12 photos of ungainly rear echelon service personnel of the Allied Armies in WW2?
(The answer is - it proves nothing, because there is no analysis to go with it. I am not so naïve as to make silly comparisons to today's soldiers who are not in a similar war situation).

Like your helmet post, you are blowing smoke.

http://www.kriegsberichter-archive.com/ ... ategory/33

Regards

Dennis

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Dennis,

This is apparently an October 1943 US appreciation of W-SS recruitment policy:

http://www.lonesentry.com/articles/ttt07/waffen-ss.html

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Rob,

Voluntary recruitment of Volksdeutsche into the Waffen-SS was a significant failure. At the end of 1941 - with Germany at its high water mark and therefore presumably at its most attractive, only 6,000 had been recruited. However, following the introduction of conscription, 120,000 were serving two years later!

Conscription to the Waffen-SS seems to have begun earliest in German occupied areas of Serbia, especially Banat, which was declared a German territory.

I have the first official raising of 20,000 Hungarian Volsdeutsche for the Waffen-SS as being permitted in early 1942, though the mechanism is not explained. The Germans had leverage there, because hundreds of thousands of Saxon Germans had been moved from Romanian rule to Hungarian rule by the 2nd Vienna Award/Dictat overseen by Germany and Italy. Wider agreement was apparently reached with Hungary in early 1943.

Official leave to conscript Volksdeutche directly to the Waffen-SS seems to have been finalized at the round of April 1943 meetings between Hitler and his allied heads of state at Castle Klessheim near Salzburg. (Antonescu 12-13/4/43, Horthy 16-17/4/43, Tiso 22-23/4/43, Pavelic 27/4/43). This would coincide conveniently with your, "In March 1943 Himmler issued a memo stating that henceforth Waffen-SS recruits could be raised by conscription".

In Romania, official permission to conscript Volksdeutsche to the Waffen-SS was given in March-April 1943.

Slovakia also reached a formal agreement in early 1943. Prior to it, only 600 had originally volunteered, but some 10,000 eventually served.

Croatia seems already to have undergone depredations on its Volksdeutsche in 1942, though whether these were official is unclear to me.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Dennis,

I have found the following figures for Waffen-SS volunteers from the annual conscript classes to September 1944:

Year Class 1922 - 15,000
Year Class 1923 - 21,000
Year Class 1924 - 28,000
Year Class 1925 - 61,000
Year Class 1926 - 60,000
Year Class 1927 - 47,000

Do you have any equivalent for conscripts to the Waffen-SS from these classes?

I also have the following: "in the final German call-up of the Class of 1928 in February 1945 (the Waffen-SS) were awarded the 95,000 best-conditioned of a total of 550,000 new recruits." The phraseology implies that these recruits were probably, for the most part, selected because they were "best conditioned" rather than volunteers.

All the above probably originate in Germany and the Second World War, (Volume V/II).

Cheers,

Sid.

[dshaday]

Hi Sid

Official leave to conscript Volksdeutche directly to the Waffen-SS seems to have been finalized at the round of April 1943 meetings between Hitler and his allied heads of state at Castle Klessheim near Salzburg. (Antonescu 12-13/4/43, Horthy 16-17/4/43, Tiso 22-23/4/43, Pavelic 27/4/43). This would coincide conveniently with your, "In March 1943 Himmler issued a memo stating that henceforth Waffen-SS recruits could be raised by conscription".

Firstly, the date of March 1943 also coincides nicely with the recruiting drama around the 9th and 10th SS Divisions and the difficulty they had finding recruits. Himmler also knew that the SS divisions recently sent to the east would need re-building in the near future. We cannot rule out Himmler's understanding that lots more recruits were needed (as replacements and for forming new divisions) and that this would be very difficult with voluntary recruiting.

Secondly, Himmler was forcing compulsory service of Volksdeutsch well before March 1943. See "Scraping the Barrel:The Military Use of Sub-Standard Manpower: The Military " page 211 onwards.
As an example, in March 1942 Himmler ordered the Germans of Serbian Banat to enlist with the Waffen SS. Instructing men aged 17 to 45 to report. Telling local officials that it was a compulsory obligation. Also, in 1942 Himmler forced the Croats to specifically conscript ethnic Germans in Croatia into their military and have them transferred to the Waffen SS. This was "outsourced" Waffen SS conscription.

Regards

Dennis

[dshaday]

Hi Sid

I have found the following figures for Waffen-SS volunteers from the annual conscript classes to September 1944:

Year Class 1922 - 15,000
Year Class 1923 - 21,000
Year Class 1924 - 28,000
Year Class 1925 - 61,000
Year Class 1926 - 60,000
Year Class 1927 - 47,000

Do you have any equivalent for conscripts to the Waffen-SS from these classes?

I have no figures to hand for Reichsdeutch conscripts per annual conscription class.
I have no figures to hand for Volksdeutsch conscripts or Volksdeutsch volunteers by birth year.

I am not sure if year class is the best way to look at things.

P.S: I just remembered that the text by Stein in "The Waffen SS: Hitler's Elite Guard at War, 1939-1945" claims that 70% -80% of the personnel necessary for 9th and 10thSS divisions were drafted from the work camps of the RAD. This is mostly the Reichsdeutsch class of 1925.

Regards

Dennis