Hello Kasper,
Werent those WSS troopers regular infantry and werent the real campguards left the camp some days earlier? So what did those WSS troopers had to do with Dachau atrocities against so called "subhumans"?
11) We also don’t have a clear understanding as to what units the SS troops at Dachau on 29th April were from. We do know that Wicker wasn’t a "frontline Waffen-SS" man but was a member of the WVHA and the KZ staff. We do know Lindberger was from the Dachau Troop Training Ground walking wounded replacement company. We do have evidence that at least one of the SS men killed on April 29th was a member of the KZ staff and not a Waffen-SS" trooper (see the KZ collartab and photo that I posted on the last 6-page Dachau thread) We do know that Gun claimed "Skodzensky" was from the LSSAH division, and that other accounts claim the SS troops killed that day were
a) western European,
b) Hungarian volksdeutsche
c)5th SS division
d) 11th SS division,
e) 17th SS division
but in over a year of searching I’ve never been able to find any conclusive proof that the SS troops at Dachau guarding the KZ were from a front line W-SS unit. We have claims that certain cuff titles, edelweiss patches, and cammo uniforms "prove" that they troops were W-SS, but as to attributing them to a specific unit, we have nothing to date.
No, the point is to settle the Dachau massacre commited by US forces. It is same to me if those massacred soldiers would have been finnish jaegers or french foreign legion or whatever. They happened to be Waffen SS, but does that mean that you dont have to treat them under the laws of war?
The US 7th Army Inspector General immediately (like within 24 hours of the shooting - soon enough for you?) opened an investigation into the illegal killings. The IG spent several weeks documenting evidence, taking testimony, and then wrote a report which recommended that several GI's be court martialed. Patton decided to drop the charges. So there was a case, but the case was closed.
I have heard that some units got orders to take no Waffen SS or paratroopers as prisoners? Perhaps you could enlight me more about this subject
Most "take no SS prisoners" anecdotes come from the Battle of the Bulge and were a reaction to the news of the Malmedy Masssacre (4 months prior and an entirely different region and set of units) In the case of the Dachau liberation, many of the GI who participated in the liberation described how they felt at the time after seeing all the camps horrors - how they didn't want to accept the surrender of any SS men. But they did, for circa 130 SS troops were captured that day and placed in the blockhouse cells in the protective custody compound.
Yep the war on eastern front was little bit different, but I can tell you that in general Soviets would not take prisoners either. But thats off topic.
No KalaVelka - you clearly don't understand this yet, and you need to in order to understand why the Third Reich was such criminal regime. Hitler gave the German Wehrmacht 2 specific orders at the beginning of Barbarossa - the Commissar Order, which specifically targeted suspected Red Army political commanders for immediate execution and the Barbarossa Order, which specifically permitted German forces to use "extreme measures" against civilians without having to follow the Geneva Conventions or other laws of war. Hitler
made the Eastern Front into a barbaric clash of ideologies.
And that allows you to shoot surrendered prisoners? When talking about Waffen SS warcrimes, example like the shooting of Canadian prisoners by 12th SS in Normandy 1944, you can ask yourself that what did those young SS troopers feel, when they had saw how their comrades exploded in to pieces in Canadian arttilery fire and in the next five minutes they got some Canadian POWs.
Read up on these incidents again. The 12th SS division, in their effort to "throw those little fishes into the sea," had a deliberate policy of executing Canadian PWs. The policy was discontinued by June 17th, 1944 because the SS realized a)the Canadians could play that game too and b)the Allies were in France to stay.
Why don't you ask yourself how a young, surrendered North Nova Scotia Highlander felt as he was led into the Abbey Ardenne garden to kneel down and get a bullet in the neck per 25th SS PGR CO Kurt Meyer's order? Or in your world are only the brave blond SS comrades worthy of compassion?
But the fact remains, that US soldiers did commit warcrime April 29,1945 and they havent been jugded for that.
They were investigated, and the proceedings were stopped. Know why? Because Patton thought it was stupid, given all the Dachau horrors, such as the
2,300+ dead concentration camp prisoners piled up in a train a quarter mile from the SS infirmary. Or the 200 bodies piled up by the crematory. Or the 2,400+ inmates who died from Nazi abuse and neglect from April 29th to June 16th 1945 despite the best efforts of the US 116th Evacuation Hospital. Is that bad enough, or do we need to catalog the whole index of Dachau horrors 1933-45?
Why is it perfectly OK for the Nazi system to kill at least 4,900+ civilian men, women and children at Dachau but an outrageous travesty of justice for Americans to kill 100 SS men as they freed 32,000+ slaves?
Kasper, since you're a student, I'm giving you an assignment. Read
Marcus Smith's
The Harrowing of Hell -
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/de ... ct-details
So you can read about what one US doctor thought of the concentration camp and all the things the US Army did to rehabilitate the 32,000+ inmates. Good things, in other words.
