Why the Waffen-SS

[pintere]

Good points, but you forgot to list the Tiger companies in the LSSAH, DR, T and GD divisions. They had a fair number of award holders as well, with the 13./SS-Pz.Rgt. 1 being among the most decorated German tank companies of the whole war.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Guys,

I would again urge caution in comparing Army and W-SS awards.

Recommendations for awards were made from within units and the number often depended on the internal culture within a unit and its commanding officer's inclinations and standards.

The Waffen-SS had both a very high opinion of itself and a political imperative to outshine the Army, and this must also be factored in.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Cult Icon]

Good points, but you forgot to list the Tiger companies in the LSSAH, DR, T and GD divisions. They had a fair number of award holders as well, with the 13./SS-Pz.Rgt. 1 being among the most decorated German tank companies of the whole war.

I would have to create my own list for that. I don't recall more than a couple off-hand. Wittmann's swords was the the only RK award given to the 501 SS.

Of the Tiger battalions, the 507th (with unit history published) stands out as being highly decorated relative to duration of action. Generally speaking it looks like with awards, the Army beat the SS in terms of late-war raised Tiger battalions. (not including units that fought extensively in 1943 like the 502nd and 503rd).

[Cult Icon]

To add, the highly decorated 507 Tiger (fielded in March 1944) was set up from I./Panzer-Regiment 4-

[Cult Icon]

"Tigers in Combat II":

Knight's Crosses:

13./SS-Pz.Rgt. 1 : 5

The other 3 elite companies seem to have zero RK's.

[DKig]

i have much strong feelings that SS has very strict standards to reward their soldiers during the war,
so many SS soldbuch has nothing awards, or just got Kvk2, or just wound badges, some owners of the soldbuch
serviced from 1941-1945, but only got Ostm., wound badges, and EK2, PAB, i am very surprised he is not qualified
for EK1, that is so common in Army. Looking for a SS soldbuch with EK2 is very difficult,
especially SS 9,10,12,17, you can hardly see a soldbuch with EK1, even only EK2, they participated Normandy, Arnhem...
i think it is easy to get EK2 after these battles....
why??
because SS has strict awarding standard? you can see 98% DKiG/KC are SS officers.
or because so many destroyed after the war?
or because so many are not revealed to the public?

[Cult Icon]

^
Interesting. In the preceding pages, only 2.SS, 5.SS, 11.SS, SS-PR1, have unusually high awards relative to their combat history. The heavily engaged 4.SS Police division is only ranked in the 45-50th of infantry divisions in terms of RK/GCG. Basically the idea that the WSS as a whole was "very loose" with high awards is a myth.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Cult Icon,

What does ".....relative to their combat history" mean?

If I remember rightly, 4th SS Division spent much of the war (1943-44) on anti-partisan operations in the Balkans and was regarded as poor by the standards of its three senior divisions and so never became a full panzer division. It need surprise nobody that it didn't merit many awards. The fact that it got as high as 45th-50th in the list of infantry divisions might even be regarded as flattering given the large number of Army infantry divisions that spent far longer on active battle fronts than it.

There is no denying that the W-SS had a very high opinion of itself and there was a political need driven by Hitler (see his "Table Talk") to prove it was a military elite through a blood sacrifice. The question is whether this distorted the decoration levels it awarded itself.

I would therefore suggest that the possibility that "the idea that the WSS as a whole was "very loose" with high awards" seems very much open. Remember, most of the W-SS only took the field at the front from 1943 and all its three senior divisions missed the Stalingrad campaign of 1942-43 entirely. By contrast, most of the Army's field divisions were engaged continuously at the front from 1941 onwards.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Cult Icon]

On Training- from an old book. It is not hyperbolic at all and it leads me to wonder where the myths on SS training came from:

"Das Reich" I by Weidinger has a 114 page segment (1934-1939) about SS-VT training. Very informative and detailed however I believe that it "whitewashes" the political aspect of the unit and does not include details on ideological training, which should have been 10-20% of overall training.

-leadership corps were made from transferred Reichswehr professional Officers and ncos, State police, and professionals from the Chief of Training (Training Army). All-volunteer force, largely from the General SS, State police, and volunteers.

-the SS-VT was largely trained to achieve the standards of the 100,000 man Reichswehr Army and units/personnel were schooled by army training resources and manuals. Army officers routinely inspected the SS-VT units for their quality and units/personnel were detached to state police and army infantry divisions for training. These standards were achieved. The Units of the SS -VT were actually only horse-drawn until 1938. The SS Artillery regiment- probably a weaker point- was also very late coming- it was established in 1939 with only two months of formation from some 2,000 SS infantry gun/MG gunners.

-Felix Steiner was considered the best training officer of the SS-VT and focused on stormtrooper tactics which spread throughout the SS-VT. This seems to be the signature trait of the SS-VT- their drill in the assault.

-The SS-VT seems to have been pretty conventional as a unit and is comparable to the German army's first wave horse-drawn infantry divisions (not like the panzer divisions). It's main outstanding element was the physical conditioning of the soldiers, which was of a high level which won them many top awards in military sports. The other was routine detachment of units to perform ceremonial duties as an honor guard for the state- this interfered with training but was something of psychological value even if it was considered tedious. The lengthy description of these SS glamour activities show something of a more pedestrian type compared the 1st Company LAH.

-Weidinger's opinion (he eventually was commander of elite infantry regiment "Der Fuhrer" of the 2.SS "Das Reich" in 44/45) was that the SS units achieved peak training in 1939 and never reached that the level of the Polish campaign for the duration of WW2.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Cult Icon,

According to Goldsworthy, ideological training of W-SS officers took up more time than any other aspect except tactical training. Both were allocated the same number of hours. This was presumably a diversion the Army didn't have to spend time on.

You emphasise an important point - the SS-VT/W-SS expertise came from the Army. It was not self generated. There was virtually no original military contribution made by the W-SS to the art of war. If Steiner focused on sotrmtrooper tactis, he was following the Army, which had developed them in 1917-18.

I am not surprised the Army inspected the SS-VT regularly. Until 1938 all its manpower was expected to be mobilized for the Army in time of war.

The SS-VT may well have been horsedrawn until 1938. However, by the outbreak of war all its senior field units were motorised. This meant they could be allocated to exploit the Army's panzer breakthoughs and not plodding along with the bulk of the infantry. The one thing the minority of good W-SS divisions have in common was that they were motorised throughout the war. This was their main advantage over the bulk of the German Army, not any unique quality of intangible "Waffen-SSedness".

The SS-VT seems to have fought without organic artillery support in Poland, which may explain its relatively heavy casualties. It therefore did not shine in the Polish Campaign. As an apparently unproductive experiment, the logical result should probably have been to return SS-VT manpower to the Army. Instead, for political reasons, the SS-VT was expanded into the W-SS and its three senior formations were all issued the full range of Army heavy weaponry by the French Campaign and were more effective thereafter.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Cult Icon]

Came across:

"Waffen-SS: Hitler's Army at War by adam gilbert" (2019).A good introductory book/summary of the WSS and fair. In-cooperates a lot of the recent literature and which gives it a certain advantage over the older introductions. It focuses on combat operations.

https://books.google.com/books?id=ERJzD ... &q&f=false

[Sid Guttridge]

Can it really be, ".....the first comprehensive military history in over fifty years of Hitler's famous and infamous personal army: the Waffen-SS"?

Has the considerable W-SS publishing industry missed a trick by concentrating on the trees at the expense of the wood?

And, if so, what was this last comprehensive military history of it published fifty years ago"?

Sid.

[Nautilus]

-the SS-VT was largely trained to achieve the standards of the 100,000 man Reichswehr Army and units/personnel were schooled by army training resources and manuals. Army officers routinely inspected the SS-VT units for their quality and units/personnel were detached to state police and army infantry divisions for training. These standards were achieved. The Units of the SS -VT were actually only horse-drawn until 1938. The SS Artillery regiment- probably a weaker point- was also very late coming- it was established in 1939 with only two months of formation from some 2,000 SS infantry gun/MG gunners.

-Felix Steiner was considered the best training officer of the SS-VT and focused on stormtrooper tactics which spread throughout the SS-VT. This seems to be the signature trait of the SS-VT- their drill in the assault.

-The SS-VT seems to have been pretty conventional as a unit and is comparable to the German army's first wave horse-drawn infantry divisions (not like the panzer divisions). It's main outstanding element was the physical conditioning of the soldiers, which was of a high level which won them many top awards in military sports. The other was routine detachment of units to perform ceremonial duties as an honor guard for the state- this interfered with training but was something of psychological value even if it was considered tedious.

The SS-VT seems to have been pretty conventional as a unit and comparable to the German army's first wave horse-drawn infantry divisions just because it was a German army division. As of the Polish Campaign, the SS-Verfügungs-Division was in no way different from other field units.

As the war progressed past the summer of 1940, the Waffen-SS inflated in numbers, achieved good (not the best, as in 1944) equipment, and due to the propaganda centered on them as the "elite" past 1941, generals were under pressure to show their best - so they pushed their officers and troops to do their best.

This was not a very wise move, from a strategic point of view: as they needed to show themselves, like in a competition, an extreme sport, they needed victories. Not strategic objectives. A strategic objective as the summer campaign of 1942 did not depend on the quality of a tank, or the physical training of a few thousand men. The public did not knew, but Soviets did

Some people say when plenty of German and foreign W-SS divisions were raised in a haste as of 1944, a lot of them did nothing to further the German war effort, even through their consumption of munitions which could have been better used by conventional formations, probably hindered it. It takes time and resources to build something as the "classic divisions". Soviets lacked the time and material in late 1940 to June 1941, lack became even more visible as 1941 went on, and a few million men and huge resources got wasted as a result.

[modelbouw nederland]

Well, I'm totally agreeing with you. Why is the Waffen SS such a hot topic? Well, I think because they are so famous.
But I don't actually know how they became so famous. How I know them, is from documentarys and history books I got.
Why are they twisting history so much? Because I think that they don't want to hear the actual trueth.
Sure, the SS and especially Waffen SS did terrible war crimes. But as I red I believe, they had the best equipment.
And they were the elite off the elite, I believe that is an fact.
Or that Kampfgruppe Peiper did slaughter American prisoners off war, that is wrong. But they did it, don't get around the facts.
I'm finding that interesting to, but I never actually know where they are or what is the historical background behind them.
Or I can't imagine it.
Interesting topic, and hope I will be able to join in here as well.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi modelbouw nederland,

You post, "Why is the Waffen SS such a hot topic? Well, I think because they are so famous." Spot on. Their fame is a self generating phenomenon that is not based too closely on the facts.

You post, "I don't actually know how they became so famous." They became famous because they were a favoured propaganda tool of Goebbels during the war, they had very self-promoting veterans organizations after the war, their notoriety made them an exploitable and profitable publishing phenomenon from the 1960s, and they have a fan base that is not sufficiently questioning or critical of the received information about them, most of which comes from a publishing industry and general media that has a financial vested interest in promoting "Brand Waffen-SS".

You post, "But as I red I believe, they had the best equipment." This is something of a myth, except in the late war disproportional issue of some specialist equipment such as Tiger tanks. For the most part the W-SS received standard German Army equipment and on occasion during its early expansion parts had to rely on captured, (mostly good quality Czech) equipment. What made it look good was that its senior formations were always motorized. This meant they could assist in the exploitation of Army breakthroughs and not have to plod along on foot with most of the Army's infantry.

You post, "And they were the elite off the elite, I believe that is an fact." Only in so far as some of their senior divisions were always motorized and latterly part of the Wehrmacht's technical elite, the panzerwaffe. The fact that the only W-SS divisions that are ever claimed as "elite" were always motorized or armoured implies heavily that there was no magic W-SS fairy dust that could make poor troops good. If they were selectively recruited and received wheels and tracks, then the W-SS performed like similar Army formations.

All Germany's conquests were made by the German Army without indispensable W-SS help. The W-SS's main distinction (apart from a higher propensity to be accused of war crimes) was that it had the political sponsorship of the ruling Nazi Party.

The W-SS added not a single man or tank to the German armed forces, because they all had to come from what would otherwise be Army sources. Nor did the W-SS make any significant military contribution to the military arts as it was militarily basically a clone of the German Army.

As a political phenomenon, the W-SS deserve some study in its own right. However, as a military organization it is not sufficiently distinctive from the German Army to merit separate study.

Cheers,

Sid.