Gladiators of World War II : Waffen SS

[Maestro]

Greetings ladies and gentlemen.

I just fount that on YouTube. They say they were only soldiers following orders... I can understand that comming from a Wermacht, Luftwaffe or Kriegsmarine officer, but comming from a Waffen SS soldier ?!? No way ! That is bullsh*t. They are only trying to save their asses.

Part 1 : YouTube - Waffen SS 1/5
Part 2 : YouTube - Waffen SS 2/5
Part 3 : YouTube - Waffen SS 3/5
Part 4 : YouTube - Waffen SS 4/5
Part 5 : YouTube - Waffen SS 5/5

Enjoy !

[david johnson]

the ss were, and are, despicable.

dj

[CharlesBronson]

I dont understand the adjetive "gladiators" applied to the SS, nice vids aniways.

[Stukazoo]

This is an aircraft site but read some history before tarnishing the whole Waffen SS with the ubiquitous 'SS' brush. These soldiers were indeed Gladiators... just ask their opponents!

[Maximowitz]

Originally Posted by Stukazoo

This is an aircraft site but read some history before tarnishing the whole Waffen SS with the ubiquitous 'SS' brush. These soldiers were indeed Gladiators... just ask their opponents!

I couldn't agree more, you need to do a lot more research to find out the truth...

... and Gladiators? Well, not a term I'd use, far too much hyperbole, but if there ever was a man fitting that description it would be:

Joachim Peiper

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

I think a lot of people confuse the Waffen SS with the Algemeine SS.

Now having said that, most atrocities and war crimes committed by the Germans were committed by both forms of the SS.

[Maximowitz]

Originally Posted by DerAdlerIstGelandet

I think a lot of people confuse the Waffen SS with the Algemeine SS.

Now having said that, most atrocities and war crimes committed by the Germans were committed by both forms of the SS.

Very true. An excellent book on a particular unit is "Das Reich" by Max Hastings, examining the circumstances of the Oradour-sur-Glane incident in detail.

[Thorlifter]

Adler, wasn't the Allgemeine SS a more "generic" form of the Waffen SS, where the true "bad guys" were from the Waffen SS?

I put those words in quotes because I mean them in very general terms.

[Maximowitz]

Originally Posted by Thorlifter

Adler, wasn't the Allgemeine SS a more "generic" form of the Waffen SS, where the true "bad guys" were from the Waffen SS?

I put those words in quotes because I mean them in very general terms.

Broadly speaking the other way around. The Waffen SS were the fighting units and the Allgemeine SS were anything from university professors, geopolitical and racial theorists to concentration camp administrators and guards. Sometimes the distinctions were blurred, for example the Totenkopfverbande which both supplied concentration camp personel to begin with but later became a military fighting unit as the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf.

It's a very difficult subject to be objective about, for every honourable SS man like Paul Hausser you have on the other hand despicable psychopaths like Oskar Dirlewanger. So, as ever, the truth lies somewhere in the middle.

[Hesekiel]

There are a lot of differences between the "Allgemeine SS" and the Waffen SS".. And even differences in the Waffen SS too...
No excuse for warcrimes from EVERY unit or formation.. but "damning" the whole Waffen SS is wrong.. The real "Bastards" were the "Totenkopf-Verbände" This special unit was in duty in the KZ´s and other horrible Places.
In Fact the Waffen SS was a "Elite-Coprs".. I would like to compare it with the Marines or other units...
At the end of the war very much guys had no choice.. They were simply "drawn" into the SS units.. Even a lot aof Aircrews of the Kampfgeschwader. When the KG´s changed to KG(J) the The "supernumerary" crewmembers (Radio Op´s, Gunners, Observers) was transferred either to a Luftwaffen Felddivision or even the Waffen-SS....

[Maximowitz]

....and you also have the fact that the Waffen SS became a kind of "French Foreign Legion" in that it recruited Dutch, French, Norwegian and Danish members amongst other nationalities. There was also a small British contingent recruited from POW's called the British Freikorp. A lot of these people were mostly politically motivated against Communism, not some ridiculous theory of racial purity or anti semitism.

[evangilder]

I partly agree, Maximowitz. There were some of the Ukrainian SS units that were extremely brutal, as well as some of the other foreign units.

[Maximowitz]

Quite so. You have the Kaminski Brigade in mind? The whole thing has more grey areas than my hair. I'm off back to my love of hopeless Luftwaffe twins, my next thread will be "Bf 110 vs Space Shuttle" or "Me 410 vs F22 Raptor."

[Amsel]

The Waffen SS were soldiers. They fought at the front and were no more involved in war crimes then any other units at the front. There was proven to be warcrimes committed by both sides during WWII as would happen in any total war. The Allgemine SS were the despicable ones and were involved in some very sinister things. Some of the Waffen SS units who were involved and formed for anti-partisan missions, such as the 7./SS "Prinz Eugen" have a very bad record indeed as only fighting armed civilians would cause.

[evangilder]

There were 38 divisions of SS, some units were barbarians, while other served like normal soldiers. But the barbarity of the worse units tarnish any image of the SS. Here is an example, from Wikipedia, but it is documented elsewhere:

At the other end of Europe, the Waffen-SS was dealing with the Warsaw Uprising. Between August and October 1944, the Dirlewanger Brigade and the Waffen-Sturm-Brigade RONA as well as a number of smaller units were sent to Warsaw to put down the uprising. During the battle, the Dirlewanger behaved atrociously, raping, looting and killing citizens of Warsaw regardless of whether they belonged to the Polish resistance or not; Oskar Dirlewanger himself encouraged their excesses. The unit's behaviour was reportedly so bestial and indiscriminate that Himmler was forced to detail an attached battalion of SS military police for the sole purpose of ensuring the Dirlewanger convicts did not turn their aggressions against their own leaders or nearby German units. At the same time they were encouraged by Himmler to terrorize freely, take no prisoners, and generally indulge their perverse tendencies. Favoured tactics of the Dirlewanger men during the siege reportedly included the ubiquitous gang rape of female Poles, both women and children, playing "bayonet catch" with live babies, and torturing captives to death by hacking off their arms, dousing them with gasoline, and setting them alight to run armless and flaming down the street.[90][91] The Dirlewanger brigade committed almost non-stop atrocities during this period, in particular the four-day Wola massacre.