The Military Successes of the Waffen-SS

[Rob - wssob2]

This touching belief in the superiority of the SS and the attempts to portray European volunteers flocking to defend the Fuhrer in Berlin is getting a bit tiresome

Well said Michael!

Seaburn, are you reading? I think the "anti-Waffen-SS" perspective on this forum is more of a conscious attempt to gain some equilibrium and balance in the historical perspective rather than some gratuitous, non-factual slander.

I know that I myself have read dozens of books claiming that the Waffen-SS was the precursor to NATO, was the greatest military force of WWII, and on this forum seen the perennial claims that the Waffen-SS had better training, better equipment, were all special forces, could leap tall buildings in a single bound (see the "Panther Spring" allegation on the "Why the Waffen-SS?".) It gets tiresome.

It should be kept in mind that sometimes, just sometimes there are people who read these posts that are not the slightest bit interested in the 'Pro V anti WSS' merry go round that perpetuates and sullies all these threads eventually. There are people who just want to learn about military engagements at a given time in a given location.

It is perhaps hard to know where to begin with your request since the history of Waffen-SS military performance is but a component of the larger German military performance. One can read Keegan's Six Armies at Normandy to get a good overall sense of the campaign, or read Caen: Anvil of Victory to get a view of the more detailed account of the British vs. German battles, and of course Hubert Meyer's divisional histories to get details of the 12th SS history.

However, if one just reads the last work and not the previous two, one will get the sense the Waffen-SS were the best military formation at Normandy. Reading Caen: Anvil of Victory, one gets a contrasting view of the bravery, heroism and military expertise of the British and Canadian side. And reading Keegan's book, one realizes that the Waffen-SS played only a small part in the overall sweep of the campaign.

[Rob - wssob2]

Hi sandeepmukherjee196, you wrote:

hi sid..apropos of your logic that in the last days the heer guy was most likely a elderly reservist in a horse drawn or foot slogging unit whereas the waffen ss lad was young, zealous and better equipped ..

This is incorrect. The Waffen-SS suffered severe shortcomings of both men and equipment from the latter half of 1944 onward. The 25th SS and 31st SS Divisions are two perfect examples of the lack of men and equipment that led to disaster. Sepp Dietrich supposedly quipped that his unit got its name "Because we only have six tanks left." Gunter Grass was one of those "zealous" Waffen-SS soldiers in 1945, conscripted into the unit at the tail end of the war.

i would like to draw yr attention to the likes of guy sajer (grosses deutschland veteran) ref: 'forgotten soldier'..le soldat oublie-1965...they had fought with all they had got across russia, rumania, east prussia and the baltics..but at the very end..towards the closing days in april' 45, in a german roadside ditch.. they packed up like rookies when confronted by a single british patrol car...Imagine !! the victors and survivors of countless encounters against impossible odds! .

If I remember correctly, the author also reflects on what a senseless waste it all was and how he had lost so many good friends.

as against this imagine the charlemagne volunteers..in the 3rd week of april'45, CHOOSING to opt for berlin as the final battleground.

On the eve of the battle, Krukenberg released circa 400 Frenchmen from their Waffen-SS service, and had an additional 400 assigned to a construction battalion. Only a small combat group of circa 350 men (sources vary) were willing to continue fighting. So less than a third of the available 33rd SS troops wanted to fight in Berlin.

A good book that explores one veteran's reasons for joining the French SS is Christian de La Mazière's The Captive Dreamer. De La Mazière actually fled Paris on the eve of liberation to join the Waffen-SS, and if I remember correctly, comments on what an insane bit of misplaced idealism that decision was.

.not budging an inch along their unter den linden sector ( finally in the zitadelle, central govt district), knowing fully well that if they got badly injured it would be curtains..

Did you know that Vasili I. Chuikov's account of the Battle of Berlin doesn't event mention the French SS? Philippe Carrard in his book The French Who Fought For Hitler does a good job explaining how the accounts of the size and the reputed military effectiveness of the French SS in Berlin vary with the ideological perspective of the authors.

[sandeepmukherjee196]

hi michael and rob..i come to this forum coz i love you guys' postings and the intellectual sparring that goes on here i just have one request for you and others.. before arguing, quoting or contradicting it is very useful if one reads the thread and the background to get the context.. both of you have contradicted me on something that wasnt my view in the first place! i had quoted sid on his opinion that in the last days the heer troops were kinda battered ol' folks whereas the waffen ss personnel where younger and better equipped..i repeat this IS NOT my view.. if you please care to read the thread between me and sid you would observe that he had forwarded his opinion to reinforce his oft repeated views that the waffen ss was no big shakes per se...so are you contradicting him or me or both? if so what exactly are you getting at? i had in fact given my contrary views..i had quoted guy sajer to show that all heer units/formations/soldiers at the end were not the dead beats that sid implied.. there were heer personnel from elite formations, some had good equipment and many had enormous experience..my point was ( and is) that the waffen ss morale and zeal largely survived till the very end ( i never ever said that they were supermen) as compared to the heer's ( in general, there were variances though)...
as regards the role of the charlemagne in berlin...i will repeat what i said earlier..a small contingent CHOSE to go to berlin in the last days.. i was not referring to the unit as a whole..but all available accounts vouch for their ( fenet's men) sacrifice, morale, valour and guts on display in berlin! it doesnt matter what chuikov's commie propaganda says ! as regards the regrets shown by some of these ex french waffen ss men later.. please remember the epiphany that many many US soldiers had in vietnam! the erstwhile cocky american society ran for cover when the body bags started coming back from Nam..and this was by no means the kind of cataclysmic defeat that germany and the european right wing faced at the end of WW II..defeat does funny things to people and societies..makes them redefine the past too..in my native india..the british victories of the period 1757 onwards.. helped the missionaries convince most indians that they were a semi civilised tribe of ex-barbarians.. waiting to be purified and uplifted by enlightened british rule!
the waffen ss were not Gods or supermen.. as i hv earlier said here.. there were underperforming w ss formations like the handschar..there were traitors-when-the ship-is-sinking like fegelein, schellenburg, kaltenbrunner and their ilk..there were poltroons-passing-off-as-wiseguys like gunter grass..similarly the heer, at all stages of the war, had millions of brave dedicated men fighting for their beliefs.. in victory and defeat.. there were the likes of major willi johannmeyer-hitler's army adjutant, who undertook the near suicidal task of carrying his will and testament out of berlin at the end.. through hell and high water, literally, quietly buried the documents in his back yard after the surrender and kept his mouth shut.. till someone ratted his out and he was captured by the allies..
so what are we arguing about folks! we are saying the same thing .. no?

[Cult Icon]

In 1945, I believe that it was the newly raised, obscure formations like "Panzer division Clautzwitz" that absorbed much new equipment. These were very numerous and were cobbled together from various sources (destroyed formations, worn down formations, training units, etc.)and quickly thrown in action while units in the field did not get the reinforcement.

The newly expanded or raised Fuhrer Begleit, Fuhrer Grenadier, Kurmark, and Brandenburg were pretty well equipped in 1945 for what they were and certainly took away from the reinforcement of more senior formations.

[seaburn]

Seaburn, are you reading? I think the "anti-Waffen-SS" perspective on this forum is more of a conscious attempt to gain some equilibrium and balance in the historical perspective rather than some gratuitous, non-factual slander.

I know that I myself have read dozens of books claiming that the Waffen-SS was the precursor to NATO, was the greatest military force of WWII, and on this forum seen the perennial claims that the Waffen-SS had better training, better equipment, were all special forces, could leap tall buildings in a single bound (see the "Panther Spring" allegation on the "Why the Waffen-SS?".) It gets tiresome.

Well Rob, you have the advantage over me because I'm not as well read as yourself being only relatively new to this 'Wonderful World of the WSS' and and I have not garnered that impression at all. My concentration as you know has been mainly in the details of war crimes of the WSS.

I have understood for quite some time the motivations of most of the regular 'Anti WSS' posters, I know it varies from person to person as many have explained their POV in their posts. I also understand totally why you personally would want to to push back to gain the equilibrium in light of what you have read. But therein lies the problem, because your opinions by your own admittance, can never be considered unbiased or weighted in this subject.

I'm still searching for that poster/author who can say....'this unit did well here........but over here, they really messed up'......... That unemotional, unbiased, factual reporting. I think finding the 'Holy Grail' would be easier! .... I leave you all to trash it out ......

Ps Thank you for the book recommendations. I may not know much but even I would be quite aware that Hubert Meyer's book would be a tad slanted !

[Marcus]

Two posts were moved to the Belgrade thread at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... 0&t=211026

/Marcus

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Marcus,

In my opinion, probably a correct decision. Belgrade doesn't really merit inclusion in this thread.

There are far more substantial claims of "Waffen-SS military success" to be addressed here.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Seaburn,

I know of very few "Anti-WSS" posters, and certainly wouldn't consider Rob (or, indeed, myself) as amongst them.

I think you may be confusing "Anti-WSS" posters with "Anti-Waffen-SS-BS" posters.

I don't think even the most ardent W-SS groupie would argue that the Waffen-SS was anywhere near as significant as the German Army. Yet if you look through the number of threads on the W-SS on AHF by sampling a few random backpages, you will see that those on the W-SS tend to outnumber those on the Army. And AHF is a relatively well ballanced site. If you look at Feldgrau.com, where they usefully separate Army from W-SS threads, there is something like a 5:1 ratio in favour of the W-SS!

There is clearly a perceptual problem that distorts the military-historical record to be addressed. The best way is to cut through the BS that surrounds much of W-SS lore and try to focus on the facts rather than the myth.

When one does that, there seems to be very little militarily exceptional that emerges about the Waffen-SS.

Cheers,

Sid.

[seaburn]

Hi Sid, I used the term loosely and intend no disrespect to you or Rob etc. I detect that there are different degree's of separation on the Pro V Anti WSS scale - Its something that I've come to accept now that there are very few 'in the middle' - those willing to be critical and complimentary, to cite the good and bad. Again, its just that if I read a book where the author has that style, I'd feel I was getting a true reflection of events. Actually Danny Parker is one author I've seen complimented by people at both end of the scale - that's some achievement and one I wouldn't mind emulating some day !!

Ps: Can you start a thread with the achievements/Military success of the Army - (not in relation to the WSS) I'd love to read that !

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Seaburn,

I didn't feel you were likely to be referring to Rob, or me, but I wanted to clarify the point. Besides, if you felt that way you would be perfectly entitled to say so, as far as I am concerned.

In my experience, the "W-SS-BS" lobby has been running away with it for decades. You only have to look at the relative thread numbers, or the number of book titles, the minutiae of subject matter, the number of re-enactment groups, etc.

The Waffen-SS undoubtedly had military successes. However, these were largely restricted to a limited number of selectively recruited, motorized/armoured formations that operated largely according to army norms. Given this, why, one wonders, are these successes viewed through a particular W-SS lens and not through a wider mechanization/armour lens that includes the Army?

I would suggest that the Waffen-SS is uniquely interesting in a number of ways (its politics, its heraldry, its brutality, its diverse origins, etc., etc.), but, when one strips away the puff, its military performance does not seem to be demonstrably exceptional for selectively recruited, mechanized/armoured formations.

If there really was any military value-added in being W-SS, it remains obscure what this quality of "Waffen-SSedness" was. I have been asking this here and elsewhere for some 15 years without a plausible answer that stands scrutiny.

Until it emerges, their appears to be no military justification for creating the Waffen-SS as an independent arm of the Wehrmacht. All its men and weaponry might as well have stayed in the German Army, whence they all came in the first place.

In posting critically, or even questioningly, about the W-SS fixation one sometimes has to be incredibly careful. Several forums have published authors on the Waffen-SS as members, administrators, etc. However, they are often remarkably reluctant to expose themselves to challenge on open thread. There is a considerable weight of vested interest in perpetuating the Waffen-SS publishing industry and it doesn't relish forensic scrutiny.

The German Army's successes are the story of all Germany's conquests in WWII. W-SS successes are a small subset of this and nowhere indispensible.

Must go.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Rob - wssob2]

hi sandeepmukherjee196,

hi michael and rob..i come to this forum coz i love you guys' postings and the intellectual sparring that goes on here

Thanks! The AHF does a great job cultivating an atmosphere of sparring, sharing and learning.

i just have one request for you and others.. before arguing, quoting or contradicting it is very useful if one reads the thread and the background to get the context.. both of you have contradicted me on something that wasnt my view in the first place!...

No worries. But please put some spaces in your posts so that they are easier to read.

.my point was ( and is) that the waffen ss morale and zeal largely survived till the very end ( i never ever said that they were supermen) as compared to the heer's ( in general, there were variances though)…

I would counter that a) there was no consistent "Waffen-SS zeal" in the last months of the war but that it varied depending on unit, combat encounter and circumstances and the same could be said for the Army. Some Army units fought doggedly in the waning days of WWII.

but all available accounts vouch for their ( fenet's men) sacrifice, morale, valour and guts on display in berlin! it doesnt matter what chuikov's commie propaganda says !

The most positive accounts of Charlemagne's performance in Berlin come from the ex-French Waffen-SS men themselves - particularly Fenet and Saint-Loop. My point is that if you read other accounts of the battle - e.g. Chuikov, Anthony Beavor, Willi Fey - there's scant mention of the French SS and their reputed defensive success.

As for Chuikov's account being "commie propaganda," I'd counter you are demonstrating a position that is both biased and willfully ignorant. Chuikov's account is actually quite professional and a little dry - very much "I moved X unit to Y position at Z time." In addition, considering both Saint-Loup and Fenet had post-war neo-fascist sympathies, shouldn't we approach their accounts with a similar level of healthy historical skepticism?

as regards the regrets shown by some of these ex french waffen ss men later.. please remember the epiphany that many many US soldiers had in vietnam! the erstwhile cocky american society ran for cover when the body bags started coming back from Nam..

Please…completely different conflict, different era and different society.

.in my native india..the british victories of the period 1757 onwards.. helped the missionaries convince most indians that they were a semi civilised tribe of ex-barbarians.. waiting to be purified and uplifted by enlightened british rule!

Again, completely different conflict, different era and different society.

the waffen ss were not Gods or supermen.. as i hv earlier said here.. there were underperforming w ss formations like the handschar..there were traitors-when-the ship-is-sinking like fegelein…

I'm intrigued with your comments of Fegelein - I mean hey, Leon Degrelle didn't exactly go down with the Nazi ship either!

there were poltroons-passing-off-as-wiseguys like gunter grass.

Why do I get the sense you don't know who Gunter Grass is?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Günter_Grass

so what are we arguing about folks! we are saying the same thing .. no?

I'd disagree with a romantic interpretation of the downfall of the Reich.

what references / material/ authority would you like to suggest to establish that the "small minority" of charlemagne men who landed up in berlin were actually not volunteers but were actually coerced? i continue to hold that the waffen ss men of the charlemagne formation were mostly brave and dedicated individuals.

I think Sid is raising a legitimate point in pointing out that given the context, not all French SS men were willing dedicated. At least one contingent of French SS men surrendered to the Red Army troops, claiming they were slave laborers, and expressed relief that the Red Army soldiers didn't strip search them, thus discovering their blood-type tattoos.

Those who went to berlin fought with valour and exemplary self sacrifice.. fenet and his men..some of these men and many others of charlemagne.. maintained their ideological defiance and moral courage even after all was lost…

This is exactly the kind of lost cause romanticism that is both ahistorical and tiresome.

and they were brought up in front of the Free French brass.. to drub in their humiliation .. on 6th may'45, near Bad Reichenhall…

We already have a detailed thread on the subject titled "Charlemagne soldiers executed at Bad Reichenhall" at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=32087

As I have pointed out, a) the incident is a cause celebre in the neo-fascist perspective and b) the execution of a dozen-odd French traitors at the end of WWII shouldn't garner more interest and be more historically important that the suffering and death of exponentially thousands more French civilians and KZ inmates that occurred at the same time.

You do realize that more Frenchmen served as slave laborers in the Reich than in the Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS? Or that more Frenchmen were killed in reprisal actions by German and Vichy French WWII security forces (an estimated 29,000+ - see Alexander Gillespie's A History of the Laws of War: Volume 2) than died fighting in the LVF or French SS?

its very easy to demoralise and brainwash a comprehensively defeated people into recanting..devaluing and trashing their own heritage..the germans as a nation .. and their camp followers of the WWII era have been made to undergo a complex process which in NLP ( Neuro Linguistic Programming) terminology is called " changing your personal history" ..no wonder many of the erstwhile dedicated campaigners have suddenly discovered that the past sucks and they were 'fools' ! but that doesnt change nothing! does it?

You've lost me here...

[sandeepmukherjee196]

hi Rob..

your ( sid's ) point about my reader unfriendly writing style has been well taken with thanks..you have very kindly gone through my various posts and made a significant number of points.. I 'd try to respond in bits and pieces since am travelling please ..

My calling Fegelein a traitor intrigues you? Since Leon Degrelle too didnt hang around berlin to commit suicide? well Rob is this wilful ignorance or pure ahistorical denial? Leon degrelle didnt commit suicide, didnt change sides, didnt approach the allies with i-will-sell-out-my-boss-pl-save-my-skin proposals ( a la schellenburg, kaltenbrunner et al).. he escaped to friendly spain via a hazardous flight and safely evaded the allied dragnet..

Fegelein..after having had his career nurtured through his cloying proximity to the nazi top brass and his career-marriage to gretl braun (eva's sister), started bad mouthing and name calling hitler the moment the deck caught fire ! then he goes AWOL from his post at the bunker at a crucial time during the battle for berlin. Next what do you know?!...he is found packing a bag with ladies' garments, jewellery, cash (different currencies) and fake passports ..and in whose exalted company is the first-brother-in-law of the reich found packing? the wife of a czech diplomat, with a british (irish) passport, who is goebbels' ex sex buddy to boot!

Fegelein initially refuses to return to the bunker (disobeying a fuherer befehl), this is when he is first found dead drunk in the buff at his love nest. When the security people arrive next time and insist on his return, his paramour scrams, dodging the cops...when the ritterkreuz adorned gruppenfuherer is put up before the designated military tribunal to explain his conduct, he abuses them, pees on the floor and blabbers nonsense !

As for your "getting a sense" that I dont know who Gunter Grass is..when i saw that you had quoted a link to enlighten me about his great holiness at first i thought it was a link to the Bible..then when i saw it was poor ol' wiki i had to pass with regrets .. i have already been fed to the teeth with his sanctimonius posturing for decades.. thank you ! particularly sick is the following combo of gems coming from him :
1) He goes to town screaming when President Reagan wants to visit the bitburg war cemetery because it contains waffen SS graves ( '85), but later when justifying his frundsberg stint, he says that at that time the waffen ss was just like any other german formation and serving in it was nothing special (on the evil side)..
2) he is mortally ashamed of having been a member of the frundsberg at a time when the widows and orphans of his fatherland were being raped, looted and slaughtered en masse, by the enemy in the east. and when the western allies were waiting to impose the notorious morgenthau plan on his soon to be defeated country !
3) in 'The Tin drum', grass waxes cute on the nazi depredations at his dear old danzig but has nothing to say about the monstrosity of the 'polish corridor' or the plain land-loot of making danzig a 'free city' .. not to speak of the wholesale country-stealing of silesia, pomerania and east prussia at the end of WW II
4) Grass publicly opposed the german reunification (breaking down of the berlin wall et al) coz of the fear that a united germany would become a strong and powerful nation again !!
5) his ultimate denoument was when he finally accepted that he has been a moral poltroon all these days by consciously keeping quiet about israel's depredations and dangerous /illegal expansion for fear of being called 'anti semitic' !!

You say that apart from the self serving accounts of fenet and saint loop, historians like anthony beavor (sic) have nothing much to say about the exploits of the charlemagne at berlin ..Please do check with Antony Beevor's 'Berlin: The downfall 1945', pages 291,292,302,303,352,379,382..

Gotta go now Rob.. will be back with more.. I promise

[Rob - wssob2]

hi sandeepmukherjee196,

My calling Fegelein a traitor intrigues you? Since Leon Degrelle too didnt hang around berlin to commit suicide? well Rob is this wilful ignorance or pure ahistorical denial? Leon degrelle didnt commit suicide, didnt change sides, didnt approach the allies with i-will-sell-out-my-boss-pl-save-my-skin proposals ( a la schellenburg, kaltenbrunner et al)..

I can think of another senior SS officer who attempted to change sides and killed himself - Himmler!

As for your "getting a sense" that I dont know who Gunter Grass is..when i saw that you had quoted a link to enlighten me about his great holiness at first i thought it was a link to the Bible….

I take it that you're not a fan of The Tin Drum then...

….when the widows and orphans of his fatherland were being raped, looted and slaughtered en masse, by the enemy in the east. and when the western allies were waiting to impose the notorious morgenthau plan on his soon to be defeated country ….nothing to say about the monstrosity of the 'polish corridor' or the plain land-loot of making danzig a 'free city'... country-stealing of silesia, pomerania and east prussia at the end of WW II….consciously keeping quiet about israel's depredations and dangerous /illegal expansion for fear of being called 'anti semitic…

In the reality-based community, Grass is considered one of the best German novelists of the 20th Century.

Others in alternate dimensions would perhaps prefer to pull the shades down and watch their DVD copy of Triumph of the Will Again.

You say that apart from the self serving accounts of fenet and saint loop, historians like anthony beavor (sic) have nothing much to say about the exploits of the charlemagne at berlin ..Please do check with Antony Beevor's 'Berlin: The downfall 1945', pages 291,292,302,303,352,379,382..

I've read it. You've illustrated my point - 7 page citations in a 400 page book isn't much.

There is clearly a sustained effort to paint the Battle of Berlin as the Waffen-SS Model United Nations Commie Wipeout Match. It seems that each year more and more nationalities and ethnic groups get added. (see the posted about "native Americans" in the "Foreign Volunteers in the Battle of Berlin" thread - they must have come from Himmler's 1st Freiwilligen Grenadier "Cherokee" Sturmbrigade der Amerika.)

At this point the few groups remaining to complete the historical picture are the Hottentots, the Vulkans and the Elvis Impersonators - no doubt led by Otto Skorzeny himself.

[Rob - wssob2]

Hi seaburn,

Leaving other posters to drift for a bit in space (I'm getting a vision of George Cloony in Gravity, albeit singing the Horst Wessel Leid), I wanted to get back to you,

My concentration as you know has been mainly in the details of war crimes of the WSS.

Which, as you know, is its own complicated and controversial sub-branch in itself!

But therein lies the problem, because your opinions by your own admittance, can never be considered unbiased or weighted in this subject.

In the dozen-odd years I've been studying the Waffen-SS, my opinion has shifted into a position that they are perhaps the most overrated military formation of WWII.

Just the other day I was reading Yerger's biography of Otto Kumm and his citations for his performance during the defensive battles of Nish in the fall of 1944 and thought to myself how extraordinary that Kumm - who lost something like 50% of his troops in the evacuation and had the Partisan capture his own division artillery and use it against his troops - could be cited for such a brilliant "defensive victory." For any other army, in any other era, this would be considered an absolute military debacle, but it seems that in the case of the Waffen-SS, its romanticized into something heroic, first by the SS-FHA awards department, and then by legions of postwar fanbois. I think its good and proper for us to take a look at Waffen-SS battles and reappraise them with a more vigorous historical scrutiny.

I'm still searching for that poster/author who can say....'this unit did well here........but over here, they really messed up'......... That unemotional, unbiased, factual reporting. I think finding the 'Holy Grail' would be easier! .... I leave you all to trash it out ……

There are books out there - Solders of Destruction, Seven Days in January, A Bridge too Far, A European Anabasis, among others.

Ps Thank you for the book recommendations. I may not know much but even I would be quite aware that Hubert Meyer's book would be a tad slanted !

His footnote on the massacre at Ascq is pathetic, lacking in the "unemotional, unbiased, factual reporting" that you seek. I'm still looking for the Waffen-SS veteran historian to have the moral courage and bearing consistent with their military profession to admit "Yes we did terrible things that were operationally questionable and morally wrong." There's a book waiting to be written about the failure of Waffen-SS counterinsurgency. If the 7th SS Prinz Eugen division was so brilliant at fighting the Partisans, then why did they have their artillery stolen and used against them at Nish?

[seaburn]

Hi seaburn,

Leaving other posters to drift for a bit in space (I'm getting a vision of George Cloony in Gravity, albeit singing the Horst Wessel Leid), I wanted to get back to you,

That would make me Sandra Bullock I'm guessing ! - Actually in relation to this subject matter, I beginning to feel more like Bill Murray waking up each morning to Sonny and Cher in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania.!!