Why the Waffen-SS

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Dennis,

I am sure you are right that the Waffen-SS receives much more attention than the Army because of its more manageable size. I think its sheer variety also adds to this, because it is possible to "own" a particular division of a particular nationality, which widens the pool of those able to identify with portions of it. Few W-SS divisions have escaped a divisional history, however obscure and short lived.

I doubt that more detailed W-SS than Army sources are available in archives, but the avid pursuit of W-SS veterans by W-SS groupies has probably ensured a disproportional number of their first hand accounts have been preserved.

Cheers,

Sid.

[seaburn]

Hi Sid, I thought of you when I read this in the new book ''Killing Patton'- Bill O'Reilly, Martin Dugard. It has a few 'eye brow raisers' from my perspective in relation to Peiper but here is what they say about the WSS V Army in a chapter that concerns the Bulge. NB: It comes with a warning that it will set your teeth on edge !

"The regular army soldiers in the Wehrmacht would never dream of comparing their battlefield skills or prestige with those of the first Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler"

This is from google books so I have no page number sadly, surprisingly it looks like this claim is actually cited which is more than can be said for some other assertions. What the citing is, I can't tell as that page is not included, but other 'cites' leave a lot to be desired........maybe someone has a copy to enlighten us all !

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi seaburn,

But why would they allegedly not do so?

And what was meant by "regular" army?

Cheers,

Sid.

[seaburn]

Your guess is as good as mine on both counts ! -.....But it seems to back up your bugbear that the WSS get the kudos in popular novels as opposed to the Army. In this case the authors asserting the Army somehow felt inferior in Battlefield skills and prestige - We need that citation to fully understand the context of their implication !

(That said, I'm not expecting an in depth analysis in the cite - it will probably be an off the cuff remark based on a perception - but we'll see !)

C.B.

[Ironmachine]

"The regular army soldiers in the Wehrmacht would never dream of comparing their battlefield skills or prestige with those of the first Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler"

This is from google books so I have no page number sadly, surprisingly it looks like this claim is actually cited which is more than can be said for some other assertions.

Well, a quick look at google books shows that this is simply an statement made by the author with no support at all. It is not a quotation (as the lack of quotation marks makes clear), and though cites are not given numbers but just a asterisk mark, it is easy to identify this one judging from the previous one, which is directly evident.
The cite for the statement in question is simply this:

03.JPG (72.59 KiB) Viewed 604 times

So as can be seen there is nothing to support the statement.
Regards.

P.S.: the previous, evident cite is
Text:

01.JPG (9.77 KiB) Viewed 604 times

Reference:

02.JPG (3.95 KiB) Viewed 604 times

[thomroy]

This may be a silly question, but was the existence of the SS acknowledged publicly?

[seaburn]

Thanks for that 'Ironmachine' - I had to be honest when I said that it 'looked' like it was cited as one of those asterisk's was at the end of the sentence and I couldn't find the relevant note......so its great that you posted it and clarified the matter.

I think you have shown clearly the quality of the notes that I have seen for other assertions, you think you are going to find a primary document or a relevant sound bite but you end up with the same fluffy nonsense shown here or indeed no back up at all for more serious allegations. That asterisk was only there to explain what the meaning of the names of Wehrmacht and the LSAH were!

So its clear then, this is a throw away claim by the authors who are not backing up their assertion with any substance and leave the reader with the impression that the Army themselves felt inferior in battlefield experience with the LSAH - this could reasonably get re-quoted in the future by anyone in an argument leaving no one any the wiser that the authors did not actually cite that claim in the first place ...... IMO the notes are the most important part of any historical book and an author's reputation is only as good as the quality of those notes.

[seaburn]

This may be a silly question, but was the existence of the SS acknowledged publicly?

This thread is about the Waffen SS who were the armed branch of the SS and who fought at the fronts and yes they would have been very much acknowledged publicly, especially for propaganda purposes - the other 'branches' of the SS were not. At the end of the war the whole SS machine was deemed a criminal organisation, this included the WSS, Concentration camp guards and Einsatzgruppen etc. You will find lots of information on the forum about all aspects of the SS and the different functions of each section and if there were crossovers between the branches. Its a very interesting area of research.

[thomroy]

This may be a silly question, but was the existence of the SS acknowledged publicly?

This thread is about the Waffen SS who were the armed branch of the SS and who fought at the fronts and yes they would have been very much acknowledged publicly, especially for propaganda purposes - the other 'branches' of the SS were not. At the end of the war the whole SS machine was deemed a criminal organisation, this included the WSS, Concentration camp guards and Einsatzgruppen etc. You will find lots of information on the forum about all aspects of the SS and the different functions of each section and if there were crossovers between the branches. Its a very interesting area of research.

Thanks for the response, seaburn. I couldn't imagine that the SS-TV were ever acknowledge, so my question was more in regards to the Waffen-SS.

I probably should have phrased it in a better way, rather than being acknowledged but whether that "mysticism" they had/have now, or were in comparison, to the modern elite counter-terrorism units nations have today.

Apologies if I've derailed the thread, there's just so much information to sift through.

Thanks.

[seaburn]

I suspect you may have stood on a land mine 'thomroy' for some of the regulars here by using the comparison of the WSS to elite formations - this has been the stock of many of the posts so far - my advice to you is to put on your slippers, grab a cup of cocoa and trawl through the thread - you'll find a lot of lively debate has covered this area ad nauseam !

Good luck

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi thomroy,

I am not sure I understand your meaning in writing, ".....whether that "mysticism" they had/have now, or were in comparison, to the modern elite counter-terrorism units nations have today."

There is no direct analogy to be drawn between the W-SS and modern anti-terrorist units. Modern anti-terrorism units are regular army, relatively small, apolitical forces, who have developed their own unique specialist skills. None of this applies to the Waffen-SS.

If you are looking for similar skills in the Wehrmacht, the nearest you will find are in the Army intelligence service (Abwehr) Brandenburgers, not the SS. Like most special forces, these, too, have tended to have their successes over hyped but their failures largely overlooked.

In 1944 the head of the Abwehr was implicated in opposition activities and the Brandenburgers' role was taken over by Otto Skorzeny''s SS unit. However, even then Skorzeny had to rely heavily on former Brandenurger specialists. For example, almost all the famously fluent English-speaking Germans dressed as US military police that Skorzeny used during the Ardennes offensive were ex-Brandenburgers.

Cheers,

Sid.

[BillHermann]

This may be a silly question, but was the existence of the SS acknowledged publicly?

This thread is about the Waffen SS who were the armed branch of the SS and who fought at the fronts and yes they would have been very much acknowledged publicly, especially for propaganda purposes - the other 'branches' of the SS were not. At the end of the war the whole SS machine was deemed a criminal organisation, this included the WSS, Concentration camp guards and Einsatzgruppen etc. You will find lots of information on the forum about all aspects of the SS and the different functions of each section and if there were crossovers between the branches. Its a very interesting area of research.

Thanks for the response, seaburn. I couldn't imagine that the SS-TV were ever acknowledge, so my question was more in regards to the Waffen-SS.

I probably should have phrased it in a better way, rather than being acknowledged but whether that "mysticism" they had/have now, or were in comparison, to the modern elite counter-terrorism units nations have today.

Apologies if I've derailed the thread, there's just so much information to sift through.

Thanks.

The only Waffen-SS units that come close to what you describe are the anti partisan units formed mid to late war such as the Dirlewanger Brigade which was later became a division of various SS and non SS units. These anti partisan units were not elite counter-terrorism units but often rag tag groups of conscripted second rate men armed with captured weapons. The Dirlewanger Brigade were largely staffed with criminals.

The elite counter-terrorism opinion has been formulated as additional rhetoric to keep the Waffen-SS mystique going. One can hardly state that a full armoured division with tanks, infantry and artillery could be anything but a front line combat division. Nothing more nothing less. The only difference being its connection to the SS and party.

[Dwight Pruitt]

Its not about how far behind its artillery was. The german troops were way better at war fighting than the Americans, British. Hence , this is why modern american military and soldiers resemble the german military and german troops from WWII.

Really?

The modern American military goes to great lengths NOT to imitate anything WWII German. I had a phone conversation last week with a friend of mine- a Lieutenant Colonel assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a planner. We were discussing the U.S. Army's personnel system, doctrine and officer promotion system. I brought up the German General Staff system and he chuckled and said that would never happen because the overriding opinion was that the Germans were "losers" and that the U.S. military practices the direct opposite of auftragstaktik. This from a guy who has commanded a armor battalion, a graduate of the Command and General Staff School, the School of Advanced Military Studies and will attend the Army War College. He will wear stars some day.

And please, please don't bring up the Kevlar helmet, because it bears almost no resemblance to the stahlhelm. Well, there is maybe one practice the Americans do that mirror the Germans in WWII. We hang all sorts of gaudy do-dads all over a ever-increasing cheaply made, shoddy uniform.

[Dwight Pruitt]

Your point?
Yes, Clausewitz is taught, as is Sun Tzu, Napoleon, and various other military thinkers. In your great haste to defend German honor and point out American shortcomings, you completely missed the point of my post- that yes, there are many things the U.S. military could learn from the German military system- the General Staff system, and replacement and personnel systems but don't, because well, you know the Germans haven't won anything since 1870.

In fact, my friend, who probably has more combat experience, not to mention more military schooling than a mere "Hauptmann" ended our conversation by saying he would be satisfied being the Army's Schlieffen or Moltke rather than George Patton.

I was replying to a ill-informed poster who stated that the U.S. military was so infatuated by the Germans we "look like them." That is not the case.

I hope that you didn't hurt yourself leaping to the conclusions you made in your post.

[Harro]

"Hauptmannnenkel", is it your intention to get banned from this forum? Because your behaviour, especially the tone you use to address other forum members, suggest you are desparate to be shown the door.