Warcrimes of the "Wiking" Division

[Rob - wssob2]

So in 1960 Korfes was a Communist fellow-traveller, not exactly a trustworthy character.

What evidence do you have that Korfes lied in his testimony?

[Rob - wssob2]

Quoting from Stein's oudated (1966!) work

Which specifically states, on p.272, “...Thus we find that barely two weeks after the German invasion of the Soviet Union, the SS Division ‘Wiking’ murdered six hundred Galician Jew “as a reprisal for Soviet cruelties”

Which includes footnote #62, which sites

Reitlinger, The SS: Alibi of a Nation p.157

Which is probably referring to (sorry don’t have that book) the July 11, 1941 Einsatgruppen Operational Situation Report #19, (see http://www.holocaustresearchproject.org ... ort19.html)
Which states

“In Zborov, 600 Jews liquidated by the Waffen-SS as retaliation measures for Soviet atrocities.”

I’ll be providing further details on this specific incident in a bit.

and then including a very dubious source (a Volkspolizei-stooge from a dictorial state) just further proves that the "evidence" against Wiking is really, really slim.

I guess the testimony from survivors like Salo Altman don’t count then.

It looks like some people are desperatly looking for any crimes and, by lack of any serious evidence,

You do realize that the bulk of this thread is my citing a chapter “Verbrechen der Waffen-SS Division „Wiking“ (“Crimes of the Waffen-SS Wiking Division”) in Holocaust scholar Kai Struve's recent book Deutsche Herrschaft, ukrainischer Nationalismus, antijüdische Gewalt (German Rule, Ukrainian Nationalism, and Anti-Semitic Violence: The Summer of 1941 in Western Ukraine) published in 2015.

just present a strange mix of misinterpreted facts into the unscholary mix. Very unconvincing.

Explain to me exactly why a book published in 2015 by a Holocaust scholar isn’t serious or scholarly.

Thanks Mr. Mills for your in-depth knowledge against the romancers.

Romancers are the guys who minimize Nazi crimes and glorify organizations like the Waffen-SS. James Pontolillo discusses it at length in his book Murderous Elite: The Waffen-SS and Its Record of Atrocities

The Holocaust cannot be romanticized.

[michael mills]

What evidence do you have that Korfes lied in his testimony?

It cannot be definitely proved that Korfes lied, just as it cannot be definitely proved that he told the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

What I am saying is that, due to his actions, Korfes cannot be considered an absolutely trustworthy source.

He is a person who, after being taken prisoner at Stalingrad, chose not to share the fate of the majority of his men, 90% of whom died in Soviet captivity, but to save his life, and indeed live in relative comfort, by agreeing to collaborate with his Soviet captors, and after the war to be a loyal servant of the Communist regime in East Germany.

If Korfes gave testimony after the war, it was because the East German authorities permitted him to do so, and because they were satisfied with what he would say.

It may be that in this particular case Korfes spoke the truth because that truth suited the propagandistic agenda of the East German authorities. On the other hand, if there were any elements of the truth that did not suit that agenda, then Korfes would not have been allowed to give expression to them in his testimony.

Let us look at a reverse situation. Let us say that a senior Red Army officer were taken captive by the Germans and agreed to serve them by making propaganda against his former comrades (and in fact there were many such cases). Could that officer be regarded as an absolutely trustworthy witness when given testimony against the Red Army, particularly before a court hostile to the Soviet Union?

[Rob - wssob2]

Halfway between Zoločiv and Ternopil was the village of Zboriv, which in the summer of 1941 had an estimated population of 2,000 Jews.

The massacre at Zboriv is unique for a couple of reasons

- It’s documented by Einsatzgruppe OSR #19, i.e. a primary source Nazi document, which states the murders were carried out by Waffen-SS troops.

- Ukrainian paramilitaries played a limited role in the event.

Troops of the 9th Panzer Division has passed through the town on July 1 and continued their advance.

Wiking Division troops followed the armored division and had occupied the town on July 4th. A few Soviet prisoners were found in the local jail, fortunately alive. On that day, Wiking troops conducted a roundup of Jewish civilians, aided by a few local Ukrainian collaborators who pointed out the houses in which the Jews lived. The civilians were herded to a ditch or crater in an open area near a storehouse own by a Meir Adler. The SS troops executed the Jewish civilians, who seem to have been mostly men, in multiple batches with machine-gun fire during the course of the day, not ceasing until the early evening (6-8PM). Aferwards, the town’s Jewish women were forced to cover the bodies in the pit with earth.

According to testimony from survivor Solomon Berger, a prominent local member of the Jewish community, Salmon Auerbach, was stripped naked and nailed to a board by SS troops. The board was then pulled by a carriage though the town and to the massacre site. Several Jews apparently were detained and interrogated by the Waffen-SS troops in an effort to learn who the local Soviet collaborators were.

On the next day, July 5, based on interrogation testimony, a body of a Ukrainian OUN (nationalist party) member was found in a secret grave near the courthouse, prompting another wave of executions in which 100-150 Jewish men were killed. The Jews were apparently forced to kiss the corpse of the Ukrainian nationalist before being killed themselves. Local Ukrainians may have played more of a role in this incident; but it is unclear.

The SS total of 600 killed is apparently an estimate. Jewish survivors belived the death toll to be closer to 850.

The author does mention that up to that point the Wiking Division has seen limited action – just a few skirmishes - and postulates that the SS troops were eager to “get some action,” angered at the atrocities they saw at L’viv and Zoločiv , and still wanted vengeance for the death of Battalion Commander Wackerle.

[Rob - wssob2]

Footnote 104 (pp.586-7) does mention that the Waffen-SS perpetrators were most likely not the II Battalion of the Westland Regiment, which was stationed at Zboriv on the morning of the 4th but had continued its march and was in the vicinity of Ternopil by 1700 hours. (5PM)

[michael mills]

Explain to me exactly why a book published in 2015 by a Holocaust scholar isn’t serious or scholarly.

Holocaust scholars are not impartial, they are operating within a particular political and ideological framework that determines how they interpret historical events.

That is not to say that the material they present is not factual, or that they falsify historical events. What they do do is to interpret those events according to a particular ideological formula, the main element of which is the concept that the Jews of Europe were purely victims, and that their massacre during the war was some sort of mystical emanation of evil without any rational explanation.

In fact, "Holocaust" scholars seem to regard any attempt to find a rational explanation for the massacre of the Jews as a form of "denial", of justification or approval, which in itself is also some sort of emanation of evil.

In that respect, the study of the massacre of the Jews of Europe by the German Government during the Second World War differs in essence from the study of other large-scale massacres in history. Those other massacres are not usually seen in the same apocalyptic terms, not as cosmic conflicts between absolute good and absolute evil, but rather as the outcome of conflicts between rival groups that have rational and explicable causes.

While those other massacres are usually deplored by the historians writing about them, and the victims attract their sympathy as being for the most part innocent, those historians can see the objective reasons why the victims attracted the ire of the victimisers, and while they condemn the murderous actions of the victimisers, they can understand the motivations for those actions and do not simply write them off as the result of some evil force.

In the case of the massacres of Jews perpetrated by Ukrainians (and some other East European peoples), "Holocaust" scholars tend to deny that those peoples had any rational motivation for their actions, no genuine and understandable grievance against their Jewish neighbours. They describe the those peoples as either acting out of some internal evil tendency, or else as being passive dupes of the evil Germans.

It is for the above reasons that the works of the "Holocaust" scholars are flawed, even though they give an accurate account of the course of the Judeocide. Where they fail is in their explanations of its causes, seeing it in apocalyptic terms, as an outburst of totally irrational evil.

[michael mills]

According to testimony from survivor Solomon Berger, a prominent local member of the Jewish community, Salmon Auerbach, was stripped naked and nailed to a board by SS troops. The board was then pulled by a carriage though the town and to the massacre site

That sounds like one of those "Belgian baby" stories recycled.

Several Jews apparently were detained and interrogated by the Waffen-SS troops in an effort to learn who the local Soviet collaborators were.

On the next day, July 5, based on interrogation testimony, a body of a Ukrainian OUN (nationalist party) member was found in a secret grave near the courthouse, prompting another wave of executions in which 100-150 Jewish men were killed.

The Jews obviously knew where the body was buried. Had they played a role in his death, such as identifying him to the NKVD?

The course of events suggests that the Jews of Zboriv were not entirely guiltless, although the mass execution perpetrated by the German troops represented a massive over-reaction.

The description given suggests that only the Jewish men were killed. If so, this was not an exterminatory act, rather a massively disproportionate reprisal against a group considered by the Ukrainians and the Germans to be collaborators with the Soviet rulers.

[Michael Kenny]

The Jews obviously knew where the body was buried. Had they played a role in his death, such as identifying him to the NKVD?

The course of events suggests that the Jews of Zboriv were not entirely guiltless.

A breathtaking leap of logic even for you.

[4thskorpion]

Holocaust scholars are not impartial, they are operating within a particular political and ideological framework that determines how they interpret historical events.

With respect, your own views are not impartial either, you have been operating within your own particular political and ideological framework for some decades:

Holocaust Denial: The Politics of Perfidy, edited by Robert S. Wistrich

[Knouterer]

In the case of the massacres of Jews perpetrated by Ukrainians (and some other East European peoples), "Holocaust" scholars tend to deny that those peoples had any rational motivation for their actions, no genuine and understandable grievance against their Jewish neighbours.

Yes of course, if for example you feel that a Jewish trader has made you pay a few Zloty or Rubles too many for a horse you bought from him last year, then that's "a genuine and understandable grievance" which ENTIRELY explains why you would want to massacre him and his whole family, and burn his village down.

Frankly, I feel that the forum moderators are far too tolerant of this kind of stuff, meaning insidious suggestions that the Jews themselves were to blame for their terrible fate, and that rabid, murderous antisemitism is somehow "rational".

[michael mills]

Yes of course, if for example you feel that a Jewish trader has made you pay a few Zloty or Rubles too many for a horse you bought from him last year, then that's "a genuine and understandable grievance" which ENTIRELY explains why you would want to massacre him and his whole family, and burn his village down.

It was a bit more than that. There was a long history of conflict between Ukrainians and Jews, in which both sides were sometimes victims, sometimes perpetrators.

In the 16th and early 17th Centuries, Jews were in a better position than Ukrainians, as the enforcers of the Polish landlords. The 17th Century Jewish chronicler, Nathan Hannover, even wrote that the Ukrainians had become the slaves of the Jews; that was his explanation for why in 1648 the Ukrainian peasants joined the Cossacks in perpetrating vast massacres of the Jews during the Khmelnitsky uprising.

There was another massacre of Jews by Ukrainians in 1919-20, during the Russian Civil War. The cause of that was the perception by Ukrainians that the Jews were helping the Bolsheviks to conquer their country.

During the 1930s Ukrainians suffered terrible repression at the hands of the Soviet regime, in which a number of Jews indubitably played a prominent and disproportionate part. That was the immediate reason why in 1941 many Ukrainians were so willing to collaborate with the German invaders in perpetrating anti-Jewish violence.

Were all Jews and all Ukrainians guilty of the crimes that both sides committed against each other? No, of course not, the majority on both sides were innocent, but the very real conflict between the two peoples, the very real misdeeds of a minority on both sides resulted in episodes of violence in which the innocent majority suffered along with the guilty minority.

[Knouterer]

"conflict between the two peoples": repugnant hogwash. The Jews massacred were in the main poor villagers who had never harmed anyone, who struggled just to survive from day to day, who were not "Bolsheviks" and also not involved in any "Jewish world conspiracy".

The idea that it is "understandable" that all Jews, men, women and children, should be punished, even killed in the most brutal fashion, because of the alleged misdeeds of some of their co-religionists somewhere, shows thinking at the level of the Nazis, or 17th-century Cossacks. Or the early Crusaders who thought they would please God by exterminating the Jewish communities they came across on their way to the Holy Land.

[Rob - wssob2]

Citing pp.589-590 of the chapter text, the next village mentioned is Ozerna (Pol. Jezierna), 10km southeast of Zobriv heading towards Ternopil. Ozerna was a small locale, with a Jewish population of 700, although in the summer of 1941 it may have been swollen by war refugees.

German units – again probably men of the 9th Panzer Division - first entered the village on July 2, 1941. Element of the Wiking Division followed up. There is some obscurity as when and how long the violence happened in the town – basically it was between July 3, 4th and 5th, although there seems to be discrepancy if the bulk of the killing was July 3-4 or July 4-5. Again, local Jews heard rumors of impending violence and looting.

The SS troops entered the town and similar to Zolochiv and Zboriv, went house to house arresting Jewish civilians and looting their valuables. Again, local Ukrainians may have lead the SS troops to the homes of Jews. The bulk of the arrests seem to have occurred on July 4th, and again concentrated on adult males. The SS troops forced the 200 Jews into a field 200 meters north of the village and forced the men to dig a large pit.

On July 5th, the SS troops forced the Jewish men to stand above the pit and killed them with machine gun fire.

The SS troops may have also arrested a local Communist Party official, a Dr. Litvin (or Litvak) and tortured him to death.

The SS troops burned down the town’s two synagogues.

Waffen- SS troops left the village on July 5th, and the German Army set up a local district commander (Ortskommandantur) to establish order. The German Army commander apparently promised the surviving terrified villagers that the worst was over, that they could go back to work, and permitted the wives, mothers and daughters of the massacred Jewish to hold funeral services for their murdered family members.

Testimony of the events comes from witnesses/survivors like Dora Coat Lempart.

Note that many of these testimonies were gathered by the Soviet Extraordinary Commission (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordi ... t_invaders)

Having absolutely no doubt that Mr. Mills will do his best to frame the Extraordinary State Commission as a lying Judeo-Bolshevist plot, I do want to point out that additional information on the town can be found at the Jewish Gen website at
http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/Ozerna/Ozerna.html

Dennis of course may be outraged that links to such historical sites are “padding your post with unnecessary links” and that I have a “big chip on your shoulders about the Holocaust and Jewish communities” but I do want to point out that the specific reference in the Kai Struve chapter about SS-Wiking warcrimes mentions Ozerna’s synagogues being burned down (… An einem dieser Tage brannten die Deutschen auch zwei Synagogen bzw. Gebets- häuser in Ozerna nieder. ) which corresponds to the same mention in the “The Chapter of Jierzna’s Destruction” at http://www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/Ozerna/oze213.html

Thus we can start to see correspondences appear in the various historical documents.

[Rob - wssob2]

Just wanted to post some additional reinforcing material.

1. Documentary footage of the pogrom at Zoločiv/Zloczow is mentioned at the USHMM's video archive at
http://www.ushmm.org/online/film/displa ... e_num=5479

2. The EHRI Course win Holocaust Studies has a "The Pogroms of 1941" in its section on the Holocaust in the Ukraine - see
http://training.ehri-project.eu/pogroms-1941

This online resource includes excerpts from a Dutch Waffen-SS soldier from the Westland Regiment - the source transcription is here:
http://training.ehri-project.eu/sites/d ... _PDF_0.pdf

The English translation of the transcription is here:
http://training.ehri-project.eu/sites/d ... e%20A5.pdf

(the material is also posted at http://training.ehri-project.eu/a05-dut ... -july-1941)

The Dutch SS soldier includes the phrase in his diary "It will be clear to everyone that we as SS men act mercilessly against the Jews." for his July 4th entry, by which point his unit was in Ternopil. I'll be posting more from Kai Struve's chapter on the incident at Ternopil in a little bit.

[michael mills]

Having absolutely no doubt that Mr. Mills will do his best to frame the Extraordinary State Commission as a lying Judeo-Bolshevist plot, I do want to point out that additional information on the town can be found at the Jewish Gen website at

I do not doubt that men of the Wiking Division executed 200 Jewish men of Ozerna, burned down the town's two synagogues and killed the Jewish Communist official Litvin (although whether or not he was tortured to death may be open to question).

The real issue is why they did those things. The killing of Litvin would have been in accordance with Heydrich's order to summarily execute Jews in State and party positions, which although given only to the SS and Police leaders may have filtered down to Waffen-SS units.

Again what is significant in that the men of the Wiking Division did not kill the Jewish women and children, indicating that they were not engaged in an exterminatory action. It appears that at this stage, the killings were limited to Jewish men of military age, and were driven by the idea that Jewish men, supposedly being strong supporters of Bolshevism, would be the most likely element in the population to initiate armed resistance in the rear of the advancing German forces.

Although the posts by Rob are very informative as to the actions of Waffen-SS units, what is missing in them is any attempt at a reasoned analysis of the motivation for those actions. I get the impression that he regards the members of the Waffen-SS as simply evil by nature, as men who were impelled to commit atrocities by their personal qualities.