Social structure of the Waffen-SS officer corps

[seaburn]

It is clear that the structure being political and very much against intellectuals makes it an organization that would attract numbers of unemployed to its senior ranks. .

The stats in the obergruppenfuhrur to Standartenfuhrer do not appear to support this assertion. Are you talking about the WSS as a whole ? Do you have another source for this ? If so I'd be interested to read it.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Dennis,

We have,

1) An assertion and/or assumption, apparently unsupported by any hard evidence, that the W-SS offered a fast track to authority for the underprivileged,

and

2) The above statistical evidence, which tends to contradict this.

We can either base our discussion on one or the other. I know which I prefer, despite all the limitations you offer.

This is very easily solved, because all the necessary expertise is here on AHF.

I have repeatedly asked authors of W-SS officer lists to do some analysis of their material, but they have consistently declined. If you type in the Advanced Search "Waffen-SS" "Analysis" and "Sid Guttridge" you will find about a dozen posts by me on the subject.

Perhaps you might have more weight with them, as I am a known W-SS sceptic.

Cheers,

Sid.

[dshaday]

Hi Sid

We have,

1) An assertion and/or assumption, apparently unsupported by any hard evidence, that the W-SS offered a fast track to authority for the underprivileged,

Regarding the assertion on “fast track to authority for the underprivileged” (your wording), what about my earlier comment that:

“In peacetime, the Waffen SS gave members officer training opportunities (if they showed leadership potential) and were not allowed to prejudice their application by rejecting them on educational or non-political grounds (which I suspect is something the Army would do). About 40% of the officer cadets accepted before 1938 had only elementary school education. As it turned out the cadets in 1940 had a failure rate of 30-40% (with lack of education being one of the main reasons). So this “egalitarian” ideal came back to bite them.

To me, the pre-war Waffen SS presented new career opportunities in addition to those of the expanding army. It had a separate budget o the Army and was raised in parallel. It did not take positions away from the army. Do you agree? Of more interest is whether the extra SS officer opportunities were “significant”.”

Here are some numbers and simple logic that I gave earlier in this thread . You have not responded to them.

and

2) The above statistical evidence, which tends to contradict this.

Despite all the faults of the statistical data you have copied here, they do not contradict the notion that the W-SS offered a fast track to authority for the underprivileged (using your words). Primarily, your data ignores all Waffen SS officers up to and including the rank of captain. An officer rank (especially captain) is in itself a position of authority. Of its nature officer totals for captain and below would outnumber colonels and above. Nowhere has your data shown that significant numbers of these officers were not from the underpriviledged.

If anything, your data shows that some very lucky army NCOs were able to consistently fill about 9% of the Colonel to Lt General positions. That is surely a sign of rapid advancement to this underpriviledged group! (That former army NCOs constitute about 9% of these high ranks in your statistics tells me that the data is very likely a sampling only, or a snapshot at the early stage of the Waffen SS. That could also be why there is no data for Officers of Oberstgruppenfeuhrer (General) as this rank was only created during the war - 1942).

We can either base our discussion on one or the other. I know which I prefer, despite all the limitations you offer.

You have not addressed even one of the issues I have raised with the statistical data you have presented. Do you consider the issues to be minor? Why do you only want to use incomplete/uncertain data?

I want to use reliable data, together with logic. You will prove little with Goldsworthy’s figures until we know how valid the data is and what are its limitations. When Goldsworthy copied these figures from Wegner, he should have given Wegner’s references. He did not. Can you provide Wegner’s footnotes on the data?

I do not have access to Wegner’s book so I have no idea how Wegner justified/qualified them. Wegner should have fully describes how the data was generated. Saying that the data is “based on CVs” is too vague.

All the best

Dennis

[Rob - wssob2]

Hi Dennis:

To me, the pre-war Waffen SS presented new career opportunities in addition to those of the expanding army.

This is incorrect.

a) Apologies for being pedantic, but the Waffen-SS didn't exist until Jan 1940 (thus there is no "prewar Waffen-SS") - better to speak of the SSVT, SSTK, etc.

b) There is no way the Waffen-SS could have presented "new career opportunities" for a significant amount of German men in or prior to 1940 because it was too small. Germany in 1940 had a population of roughly 80 million. In the later half of the year, the German Army had 146 divisions (expanded by Hitler to 186 in December). In June 1940 the entire W-SS was 100,000 men. In early 1941, there were only 5,000 Waffen-SS officers total (source Koehl, The Black Corps

It had a separate budget to the Army and was raised in parallel.

The budgeting question is actually more complicated than that. The LAH budget came out of the Ministry of the Interior in 1933-34 (sources vary) but it seems that the LAH, SSVT and SSTK may have each had different sources of government and NSDAP funds for their budgets.

It did not take positions away from the army.

But this was exactly what the German Army was worried about, since there were no definitions around the size, structure and manpower allocation of the Waffen-SS. The Army and Gottlob Berger of the SS-HA negotiated for three months (till March 1940) to hammer out a deal. Himmler and Berger were definitely scheming to get as much manpower into the SS as possible - as the army feared.

In addition:

"...bravely as the Waffen-SS divisions always fought, and fine thought their achievements may have been, there is not in the least doubt that it was an inexcusable mistake to set them up as a separate military formation. Handpicked replacements who could have filled the posts of the NCOs in the Army were expended on a quite inadmissible scale in the Waffen-SS, which in general paid a toll of blood incommensurate with its actual gains."

- Field Marshall Erich von Manstein, quoted on p. 187 in Lost Victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler's Most Brilliant General

[Rob - wssob2]

You have not addressed even one of the issues I have raised with the statistical data you have presented. Do you consider the issues to be minor? Why do you only want to use incomplete/uncertain data?

Dennis - Bernd Wegner is a very well-respected historian

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernd_Wegner_(Historiker)

http://www.hsu-hh.de/hiswes/index_mElpUCCCtttt1111.html

His book The Waffen-SS: Organization, Ideology and Function is well-known among SS researchers as being one of the few systematic & academic sociological studies of the Waffen-SS.

I have read a copy from the Library of Congress and I can assure you it is well-researched and statistically rigorous. Goldsworthy certainly isn't the first WWII historian to cite Wegner's research.

Information on the book can be found at http://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/1951365

Which describes the book's content's as:

...Part I Ideology: background - revolutionizing the conservative Weltanschaung-- the concept of "Orden" in the SS-- historical models and self-image-- enemy stereotypes. Part 2 Organization: the beginnings (1933-1934)-- at dagger's edge with the Wehrmacht-- the expansion of the SS militarized formations (1935-1938)-- the decree of 17 August 1938 and its consequences-- the formation of the Waffen-SS. Part 3 Training and indoctrination: selection methods and career models-- the Junker Cadet Schools-- problems of military and mental standardization-- organization of ideological indoctrination. Part 4 Social Composition: level of development and internal structure of the Officer Corps by mid-1944-- social origins and professional careers-- political aspects of career attitudes. Part 5 Expansion-- elite of mass army - the structural crisis of the Waffen-SS. Future opportunities provided by expansion.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

I want to use reliable data, together with logic. You will prove little with Goldsworthy’s figures until we know how valid the data is and what are its limitations. When Goldsworthy copied these figures from Wegner, he should have given Wegner’s references. He did not. Can you provide Wegner’s footnotes on the data?

Go find a copy of Wegner's book and look it up. I don't think it's fair for you to cast aspersions on Wegner's scholarship because you are unfamiliar with it, nor is it Sid's job to provide you with such data.

[dshaday]

Hi Rob

Go find a copy of Wegner's book and look it up. I don't think it's fair for you to cast aspersions on Wegner's scholarship because you are unfamiliar with it, nor is it Sid's job to provide you with such data.

Since it was Sid who created the thread and started by quoting the stats, I feel it is indeed fair to ask Sid to provide context for the stats. Especially as he wants to use the data and draw his own conclusions from it.

My questions regarding the data are quite basic and logical. Why do you see them as criticisms of Wegner?

If Wegner has done a scholarly job, as you say, then the answer to my questions will be in his footnotes. Maybe you have a copy of Wegner’s book and can oblige? I do not have a copy, and do not know where to quickly find one.

I have more of an issue with Goldsworthy not repeating Wegner's background to this data (which he has reproduced in his book).


All the best

Dennis

[Rob - wssob2]

Since it was Sid who created the thread and started by quoting the stats, I feel it is indeed fair to ask Sid to provide context for the stats. Especially as he wants to use the data and draw his own conclusions from it.

Sid was referring to one of the book's appendices - probably Appendix 2: Features of Waffen-SS Officers on p.239 of Valhalla's Warriors

I think he did provide context, but perhaps could have done more to make it more clear, especially since the topic has bounced across a couple threads.

My questions regarding the data are quite basic and logical. Why do you see them as criticisms of Wegner?

Because I would expect you - as a person interested in Waffen-SS officer demographic data - to make an effort to look at Appendix 6 of Goldsworthy's book, or seek additional information about Wegner's book and statistical methodology. Your questions are basic because it looks like you haven't familiarized yourself with the work of this particular researcher.

Maybe you have a copy of Wegner’s book and can oblige? I do not have a copy, and do not know where to quickly find one.

It's a difficult book to find, but do a search on a university or large metropolitan library database.

I have more of an issue with Goldsworthy not repeating Wegner's background to this data (which he has reproduced in his book).

I dunno - Goldsworthy did cite Wegner 29 times in his book, and Chapter 2 is where he covers the sociological data on the Waffen-SS. Check there.

[dshaday]

Hi Rob

To me, the pre-war Waffen SS presented new career opportunities in addition to those of the expanding army.

This is incorrect.

a) Apologies for being pedantic, but the Waffen-SS didn't exist until Jan 1940 (thus there is no "prewar Waffen-SS") - better to speak of the SSVT, SSTK, etc.

b) There is no way the Waffen-SS could have presented "new career opportunities" for a significant amount of German men in or prior to 1940 because it was too small. Germany in 1940 had a population of roughly 80 million. In the later half of the year, the German Army had 146 divisions (expanded by Hitler to 186 in December). In June 1940 the entire W-SS was 100,000 men. In early 1941, there were only 5,000 Waffen-SS officers total (source Koehl, The Black Corps

Point taken. I will try to use the correct terminology.

Good to see the figures for context and scale.
By simply expanding, the LAH, SS-VT and SSTK still created new career opportunities, and these would have been in addition to those created by the army. Which is why my original point/quote is valid.

It had a separate budget to the Army and was raised in parallel.

The budgeting question is actually more complicated than that. The LAH budget came out of the Ministry of the Interior in 1933-34 (sources vary) but it seems that the LAH, SSVT and SSTK may have each had different sources of government and NSDAP funds for their budgets.

I was making the point that the Army budget did not directly finance the SS. The army would still have had its full allocated budget.

It did not take positions away from the army.

But this was exactly what the German Army was worried about, since there were no definitions around the size, structure and manpower allocation of the Waffen-SS. The Army and Gottlob Berger of the SS-HA negotiated for three months (till March 1940) to hammer out a deal. Himmler and Berger were definitely scheming to get as much manpower into the SS as possible - as the army feared.

The army manoeuvred to contain the LAH, SSVT and SSTK in terms of manpower, equipment and control. The army put pressure on Hitler who did not want to antagonise them. The army may have had all sorts of worries, but they proved to be unfounded until much later in the war. Certainly not in the pre-war period that I was talking about (and from which you have quoted me).
The first two years of service in the SS-VT constitutes compulsory military service, but not so for SSTK whose members could be called up by the army. Also, up to the outbreak of WW2 the SS were not permitted to recruit through the press. So it had to rely on verbal recruitment through the Nazi party and many members of the Allegemeine SS were encouraged to transfer into the LAH and SS-VT.

In a decree of September 1934, Hitler outlined the main task of the new force for use within Germany should the opponents of the regime rebel. The force was to remain as part of the SS and therefore of the NSDAP. Only in the event of war would it be employed for military purposes, in which case only Hitler could decide how and when it would be used.
On 17 August 1938 Hitler decreed that the role of the SSVT was not purely that of a police force, nor of an army unit, but as a party political unit at his personal disposal. In the field, the army would control the unit, but it remained part of the NSDAP. The SSVT had been officially designated as having both an internal and external role by Hitler's decree. Accordingly, on 19 August 1939, the high command of the German forces sent the SSVT an order from Hitler - 'The Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (OKW), SSVT is placed under the commander-in-chief of the army. He will lay down their employment in accordance with my directives'

In addition:

"...bravely as the Waffen-SS divisions always fought, and fine thought their achievements may have been, there is not in the least doubt that it was an inexcusable mistake to set them up as a separate military formation. Handpicked replacements who could have filled the posts of the NCOs in the Army were expended on a quite inadmissible scale in the Waffen-SS, which in general paid a toll of blood incommensurate with its actual gains."

- Field Marshall Erich von Manstein, quoted on p. 187 in Lost Victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler's Most Brilliant General

I suppose the same can be said for every German elite organisation in history. Including the WW2 Grossdeutschland units, Panzer Lehr, Parratroopers etc.

All the best

Dennis

[dshaday]

Hi Rob

Sid was referring to one of the book's appendices - probably Appendix 2: Features of Waffen-SS Officers on p.239 of Valhalla's Warriors

I think he did provide context, but perhaps could have done more to make it more clear, especially since the topic has bounced across a couple threads.

Sid is indeed quoting from Appendix 2, and has repeated the same comment as mentioned in that appendix, that the data was generated from CVs. Also, that because more than one occupation was given the totals will exceed 100%.

This is scarcely enough to qualify the data with proper context so that readers can use it to draw conclusions. Since that is what the thread is asking readers to do.

My questions regarding the data are quite basic and logical. Why do you see them as criticisms of Wegner?

Because I would expect you - as a person interested in Waffen-SS officer demographic data - to make an effort to look at Appendix 6 of Goldsworthy's book, or seek additional information about Wegner's book and statistical methodology. Your questions are basic because it looks like you haven't familiarized yourself with the work of this particular researcher.

If summarised data is posted on a forum for discussion I do not accept that every reader is expected to find and read the source book and determine how the raw data was analysed, verify its completeness or determine what period it covers. The poster should do this in advance. Or else be prepared to answer these very questions if asked - which is what I have done. It is unreasonable to expect otherwise.

I fact I have asked Sid these questions three times, without a proper reply.

I do not own the book, and I have already made an effort to find it on-line. Only a pre-view is available. Repeating a table of data from a book is not the same as simply quoting a self explanatory passage or personal quote out of a book.

I have more of an issue with Goldsworthy not repeating Wegner's background to this data (which he has reproduced in his book).

I dunno - Goldsworthy did cite Wegner 29 times in his book, and Chapter 2 is where he covers the sociological data on the Waffen-SS. Check there.

Well that makes two of us who do not know. Perhaps Sid can give a quick summary. Especially as he has at one time reviewed the book for an article.

Dennis

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Dennis,

Sorry if I am not up to speed replying. I use a library terminal with limited time availability.

You write, “In peacetime, the Waffen SS gave members officer training opportunities (if they showed leadership potential) and were not allowed to prejudice their application by rejecting them on educational or non-political grounds (which I suspect is something the Army would do). About 40% of the officer cadets accepted before 1938 had only elementary school education. As it turned out the cadets in 1940 had a failure rate of 30-40% (with lack of education being one of the main reasons). So this “egalitarian” ideal came back to bite them."

1) Your statistics given here, with their "about" and "-", are far vaguer than Goldsworthy/Wegner and their source apparently even more opaque.

2) Why do you suspect that the Army would be more prejudiced towards "their application by rejecting them on educational or non-political grounds"? The Army was expanding massively (about 20-fold) with the Reichswehr as its base and the entire nation as its resource. Is there any substantive reason to believe that the Army was still beholden to a Junker-based, socially elitist officer corps, especially lower down? By contrast, the Waffen-SS had a narrow, politicized NSDAP pool that it drew most of its officer from.

You write, "To me, the pre-war Waffen SS presented new career opportunities in addition to those of the expanding army. It had a separate budget o the Army and was raised in parallel. It did not take positions away from the army. Do you agree? Of more interest is whether the extra SS officer opportunities were “significant”.”

1) The Waffen-SS did not exist as such in the 1930s, but its precursors did, so I will continue to use W-SS out of convenience.

2) Every Reichsmark, man and bullet that ever went to the Waffen-SS was one less for the German Army - arguably the best in the world. The military rationale for this diversion of resources to the W-SS was non-existent. Indeed, until 1938 or 1939 every W-SS man's wartime military obligations were to the Army. The rationale for an independent W-SS was entirely political, which makes any apparent failure to live up to its claims of offering superior advancement to the socially disadvantaged even more interesting, but from a political rather than military standpoint.

You write, "Despite all the faults of the statistical data you have copied here....." You have not pointed out a single statistical fault in the Goldsworthy/Wegner data. All you have done, quite reasonably, is to ask questions about the sources.

You write, ".... they do not contradict the notion that the W-SS offered a fast track to authority for the underprivileged (using your words). Primarily, your data ignores all Waffen SS officers up to and including the rank of captain." Yes, true. It also ignores the Army entirely. There is no question that the massive expansion of both the W-SS and Army resulted in a widespread "democratization" of the officer corps of both. (From memory, the Army's General Fromm had seven promotions in a decade. Avoiding accelerated promotion would have been something of a feat for any officer who had served in the Reichswehr.)

However, it is only for the W-SS that this is claimed as a goal, yet the statistics you object to, and for which you offer no alternative, show that former soldiers and their civilian class equivalents continued to dominate the W-SS command structure above (as you point out) captain.

Must go.

Time runs out. I will do the rest later.

Sid

P.S. On a point of information - I did not create this thread. It was an administrative decision by AHF staff.

[dshaday]

Hi Sid

You write, “In peacetime, the Waffen SS gave members officer training opportunities (if they showed leadership potential) and were not allowed to prejudice their application by rejecting them on educational or non-political grounds (which I suspect is something the Army would do). About 40% of the officer cadets accepted before 1938 had only elementary school education. As it turned out the cadets in 1940 had a failure rate of 30-40% (with lack of education being one of the main reasons). So this “egalitarian” ideal came back to bite them."

1) Your statistics given here, with their "about" and "-", are far vaguer than Goldsworthy/Wegner and their source apparently even more opaque.

The number are more than sufficient/accurate for discussion .They are clear, and in their full context.

What is unclear with “ About 40% of the officer cadets accepted before 1938 had only elementary school education ? Would replacing “about 40%”, with a figure of 38.82% have made the statement suddenly useable?
Or that officer “cadets in 1940 had a failure rate of 30-40%” (with lack of education being one of the main reasons). This is for all classes in all SS academies. Which means that in 1940 the worse class had a failure rate of 40% while the best had a rate of 30%.

2) Why do you suspect that the Army would be more prejudiced towards "their application by rejecting them on educational or non-political grounds"? The Army was expanding massively (about 20-fold) with the Reichswehr as its base and the entire nation as its resource. Is there any substantive reason to believe that the Army was still beholden to a Junker-based, socially elitist officer corps, especially lower down? By contrast, the Waffen-SS had a narrow, politicized NSDAP pool that it drew most of its officer from.

My argument was mainly about educational standard of officer recruits. Not about junker-based social elitism.

I suspect that the army would reject a significant number of the SS officer candidates who were accepted. Hence they had a career opportunity that the army was unlikely to offer. Sure, the candidates could have joined the army as soldiers and worked their way up through the ranks to NCO and maybe officer candidate (if they really did have ability), but this is not a fast track.

You write, "To me, the pre-war Waffen SS presented new career opportunities in addition to those of the expanding army. It had a separate budget o the Army and was raised in parallel. It did not take positions away from the army. Do you agree? Of more interest is whether the extra SS officer opportunities were “significant”.”

1) The Waffen-SS did not exist as such in the 1930s, but its precursors did, so I will continue to use W-SS out of convenience.

In Appendix 2 Goldsworthy may have made the same call, as he labels the data you quote as being for Waffen SS officers. Unless of course he is being correct in the terminology and the data is post 1940 (when the term Waffen SS came into use).

2) Every Reichsmark, man and bullet that ever went to the Waffen-SS was one less for the German Army - arguably the best in the world. The military rationale for this diversion of resources to the W-SS was non-existent. Indeed, until 1938 or 1939 every W-SS man's wartime military obligations were to the Army. The rationale for an independent W-SS was entirely political, which makes any apparent failure to live up to its claims of offering superior advancement to the socially disadvantaged even more interesting, but from a political rather than military standpoint.

The first sentence is somewhat flawed, as it assumes that the budget used for the SS would have been used for the army and not some other NSDAP project (of which Himmler had a few). It assumes that the arms/munitions industry was operating at full capacity without any slack. It also assumes that there was a shortage of recruits for the army. From the whole of 1934-45.

In time of war the resources of the military SS units were at the service of the army. So there is technically no problem from a national point of view. The problem is that the army was reluctant to train the SS for war, and helped make their initial military contributions less efficient. That is the true waste of these resources.

You have not proven that the military SS failed “…to live up to its claims of offering superior advancement to the socially disadvantaged “.

You write, "Despite all the faults of the statistical data you have copied here....." You have not pointed out a single statistical fault in the Goldsworthy/Wegner data. All you have done, quite reasonably, is to ask questions about the sources.

I did not say there were statistical faults with the data. Maybe this is where posters are getting confused, and overly sensitive.

What I said was that the statistical data has faults with it, in that it does not record the data for the lower officer ranks (which are significant in my view) and leaves out the rank of SS General. So they do not represent the “Waffen SS” officer corps as a whole. That limits the discussion to a segment of the officer corps only. With hindsight I should have said “limitations of the statistical data” instead of “faults of the statistical data” (although reading my full post should have made that obvious).

The other questions I had about the context of the data would allow readers to make more useful conclusions. Are you intending to reply to them?

You write, ".... they do not contradict the notion that the W-SS offered a fast track to authority for the underprivileged (using your words). Primarily, your data ignores all Waffen SS officers up to and including the rank of captain."

Yes, true.

After agreeing with me, you immediately go on to say:

“It also ignores the Army entirely. There is no question that the massive expansion of both the W-SS and Army resulted in a widespread "democratization" of the officer corps of both. (From memory, the Army's General Fromm had seven promotions in a decade. Avoiding accelerated promotion would have been something of a feat for any officer who had served in the Reichswehr.)”

We are talking about the SS specifically, so that is why. I did not dwell on the new army career opportunities (particularly officer) because I have no data for it. Certainly not in the form provided by Goldsworthy (Wegner) for the SS for comparison.

However, it is only for the W-SS that this is claimed as a goal, yet the statistics you object to, and for which you offer no alternative, show that former soldiers and their civilian class equivalents continued to dominate the W-SS command structure above (as you point out) captain.

Was it an official goal of the SS to offer superior advancement to the socially disadvantaged? Or do people say this is the effect SS expansion had?

Goldsworthy’s data points to all sorts of things. It does point to a dominance of former soldiers and policemen, but we should not generalise until we know if:
It is a snapshot for one year , average over several years ? Which years? Peacetime/wartime?
It is just a sampling of officer CVs (how big), or a summary of all officer CVs ?
(that is, the same old questions).

All the best

Dennis

[j keenan]

1938 the Waffen-SS officer corp (used for simplicity) contained some 90% of officers who came from a peasant background to only 2% of the army.This lack of military background is further illustrated when it is considered that only 5% of Wafffen-SS officers had a military background of this type as against some 49% for army officers.Wegner argues that at least for the Generals of the SS they had the same percentage military backgrounds some 25% as their army counterparts.
Source Goldsworthy
Also its stated that Wegner studied 582 officers of the Waffen-SS, I would presume over the period 33-45 as no dates given.
Manstein also had Waffen-SS divisions under his command one of which was Totenkopf.In an order of the day 12.7.41 He had this to say, The SS-Totenkopf Division attacked with great courage the division's regiments have suffered high casualties in this fighting .I express my gratitude to all the officers and men of this corps for their dedication;my recognition for your high achievement.
Source Ullrich

[seaburn]

Manstein also had Waffen-SS divisions under his command one of which was Totenkopf.In an order of the day 12.7.41 He had this to say, The SS-Totenkopf Division attacked with great courage the division's regiments have suffered high casualties in this fighting .I express my gratitude to all the officers and men of this corps for their dedication;my recognition for your high achievement.
Source Ullrich

You make an interesting point 'JKeenan' and one that as a newbie to this world I would like to know more about. I have read many posts which are highly critical of the W-SS in relation to their negative points (too many to list) on the forum, I am now converse in these, so on the other side of the coin my 'cat among the pigeons' question is 'What were their positive military achievements - if any'.? This can be a small fighting unit up to a Division strength military success.

This should obviously be split off to another thread as it is not relevant to this one, save for this last post.

My wish would be that any examples should not be from a WSS source i.e. a Vet or a known promoter - and that they are non biased and non-opinionated (meaning, that it doesn't get bogged down in emotional twaddle) obviously in this case, references are a must! I know there are many very well-read members on the forum who have an interest in this subject, hopefully you all will post something of relevance.

If this can't be split,I'll start a new thread.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Dennis,

You write, "The number are more than sufficient/accurate for discussion .They are clear, and in their full context." No. You offer no numbers, just generalized, rounded percentages and ranges without sources. This contrasts unfavourably on all points when compared with Goldsworthy/Wegner.

And yes, "38.82%" is a rather more plausible figure than "40%" because 40% would (1) be innaccurate if the real statistic was "38.82%" and (2) is a suspiciously round figure that implies manipulation or unnecessarily fuzzy thinking if precision is available.

To clarify, are you saying that the actual statistic your "40%" is based on is "38.82%", or are you just engaged in a "for instance" exercise?

You write, "I suspect that the army would reject a significant number of the SS officer candidates who were accepted. Hence they had a career opportunity that the army was unlikely to offer. Sure, the candidates could have joined the army as soldiers and worked their way up through the ranks to NCO and maybe officer candidate (if they really did have ability), but this is not a fast track."

Our personal suspicions are no substitute for hard evidence.

You may be right, but what does it matter if the promotions weren't fast track if "the candidates could have joined the army as soldiers and worked their way up through the ranks to NCO and maybe officer candidate (if they really did have ability)"? I can the see the selfish advantage to the individual in personal careerist terms, but not necessarily for Germany's military effectiveness.

We do know that entry into the W-SS officer corps was highly restrictive on non-military grounds because almost all officers were members of the Nazi Party. As only about 5% of the population were NSDAP members, this means the W-SS had a very limited pool compared with the Army, which took anybody, including Nazi Party members (i.e. the National Socialist Guidance officers appointed in it towards the end of the war). If anything, it was the Army which was the "equal opportunities employer", not the W-SS.

You write, "The first sentence is somewhat flawed, as it assumes that the budget used for the SS would have been used for the army and not some other NSDAP project (of which Himmler had a few). It assumes that the arms/munitions industry was operating at full capacity without any slack. It also assumes that there was a shortage of recruits for the army. From the whole of 1934-45." Not so. Until 1938 or 1939 every W-SS man had his military obligations to the Army. Every German W-SS volunteer during the war otherwise had military service obligations to the Army. Above small arms, the wider SS had no requirement for the weaponry and equipment absorbed by the W-SS's parallel military structure. This could only be used by the Army. The independent W-SS was created at the expense of the existing Army. It offered no demonstrable "value added". No extra men, no extra bullets and no extra budget beyond what was already available.

You wrote both, "Despite all the faults of the statistical data you have copied here..." and "I did not say there were statistical faults with the data." In the circumstances, I would suggest the confusion of others is forgiveable. I agree that the statistical data of Goldsworthy/Wegner has limitations, like any other data, but it is more detailed and authoritative than enything else currently on offer on AHF - a site with several specialist W-SS authors as contributors or on its staff who I have previously asked several times to provide statistical analyses of their officer lists and biographies.

The issue of W-SS fast tack promotion is specifically relative to the Army. It doesn't matter if it was fast relative to dentists or any other professional group. We don't know if W-SS promotions were "fast" unless we now what the Army norm was. We do know that the Army itself had accelerated promotion due to its 20-fold expansion, so the phenomenon was not exclusive to the W-SS.

In my experience it is the claim of W-SS proponents that the W-SS offered superior advancement to the socially disadvantaged by virtue of class or education. It is as suspect as their perception that the W-SS was the ideological spearhead against Communism. Up until the end of 1944, when the statistics become obscurer, the Army had suffered a slightly higher proportion of its losses on the Eastern Front than had the W-SS. By contrast, the W-SS had suffered a slightly higher proportion of its losses in the West than had the Army. Similarly, when it comes to combat arms, there is no evidence that the W-SS had to bear higher percentage losses than its Army equivalents. There appears to be a measure of ideological wish fulfillment in some quarters.

In writing "Goldsworthy’s data points to all sorts of things. It does point to a dominance of former soldiers and policemen, but we should not generalise until we know if: It is a snapshot for one year , average over several years? Which years? Peacetime/wartime? It is just a sampling of officer CVs (how big), or a summary of all officer CVs?" you have a valid point. However, until someone comes up with something more substantive, the Goldsworthy/Wegner statistics hold the field by default. If nothing else, they put into question the proposition that the W-SS middle and higher officer corps represented the significant break with the social composition of the Army's equivalents. The middle classes clearly dominated both.

Cheers,

Sid.

[j keenan]

The Nazi Party Membership
1933 69% of future officers of the Waffen-SS were members with a further 20% joining later.
25% SS-Generals were party members before the Nazis take power and 50% in the lower ranks.These would be the officers who would go on to be Rgts. Btl. and Kp. commanders.
source Wegner
What is interesting is 60,000 Allgemeine SS were called up in the early months of the war as police reinforcements but were transferred to the Waffen-SS,with no military training except for the WW1 veterans .Who then went onto form the Infantry Regiments with 2000 WW1 vets. filling the officers roles with no proper training which then went onto lead to the high casualty rates.With the rest of the Allgemeine SS been of conscription age going to the Wehrmacht.
Source Schulze-Kossens
It would be interesting to know the survival rates of the Wehrmacht to the Waffen-SS ones,or is this Schulze-Kossens trying to make an excuse for the high casualties in the Waffen-SS ?
Himmlers's plans for his young officers given in a speech 2.5.36
He will go for around 10 months to the SS-VT as a platoon leader, then for 10 months to the Race and Education Office,in order to pass his first big period of ideological education.Afterwards he will go for 10 months to the security services,to get to know the enemy and spend 10 months in the Allgemeine-SS.
In each year there are 2 months left over.These months will be dedicated purely to education.Thus he will be trained to ride a horse,go to driving school,cross country driving school and to the police,because every SS officer should be at the same time a reserve officer of the police.He will further go to an interpreter school,since every SS officer must study a foreign language right from the first year.When he is 26 years old,we shall then know,how are decision is going to fall,whether he should be employed in the security service or elsewhere.We should be able to see in which position we want to place him,in which area we shall require him to specialise and how he should plan his further education.
He tried to put these plans into practice but the start of WW2 frustrated these plans as all newly trained officers was needed in the Waffen-SS.
Source Schulze-Kossens
So going from that it would appear that the officers would after be highly motivated and educated ?