hey everyone...i know im new here and im not sure if new people usually post threads, but this is an emergency. i'm doing a paper on the nazi soldiers of WWII and i wanted the opinion of some other people. i would like to know if you think nazi soldiers should be held accountable for atrocities of WWII or if it's okay for them to say "i was just following orders!"...thank you all so much, i really appreciate this.
Welcome to the forums. I would say there was a difference between a regular German soldier and an SS soldier. You only said Nazi soldier which could be anybody. I would say a regular German soldier would not be held accountable for what he is told to do in most cases. Many were drafted into the army. The SS on the other hand joined and were pro Hitler and everything he stood for and should be accountable for their actions during the war. Many got away with what they did though. Read up more on the SS before you do your paper. They were good at what they do, killing.
Welcome, aboard, Alex! Hope you like it in here. What you've asked is indeed very complex and controversial. I suggest you to look at this old thread in which this subject was discussed: http://www.ww2forums.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=001267#000000 I, after many years of deep research on Nazi Germany —for an ambitious historical novel I'm writing—, have came to the conclussion that there are too much evidence to excuse almost anyone during the awful years of 1933 to 1945. Nazi Germany was a totalitarian State in which the State and the people worked shoulder with shoulder in the repression machinery, which couldn't have been able to work without both of them. And the war started by the Germans was a total war of annihilation, specially that in the eastern front, in which the ultimate goal was the physical extermination of European Jewry and the enslavement —and also, long-term physical annihilation as well— of the 'inferior races'. The rôle of the German foot soldier is a very debated one. It is very dangerous to make any generalisation but there is a lot of evidence of how involved the armed forces were in war crimes and crimes against Humanity. The SS, by example, was the single most criminal organisation in History, and the division between its armed and general branches was nill, not to mention that the majority of the SS élite combat units were involved in war crimes. The German Army with its Prussian chivlary traditions was heavily involved in attrocities as well, specially in the eastern front, where more than 20 million Soviet civilians were killed. As I feared, I didn't completely answered your doubt and opened a bloody can of bloody worms!
Hmmmm.... I will post when I have more time to formulate a response to the above! Welcome Alex. Im sure we can help or at least get into a huge arguement!
If they were not German then what were they ? I know toward the end of the war they took anybody that could still walk but before the end of the war you needed to be German through and through for the most part to join the SS.
By the end of the war I just recently read some figures on this: about 800,000 Waffen-SS ( served probably altogether ) Foreigneers out of this 200,000 This is one estimate on the numbers.
Correct me if i am wrong but didn't some of the elite SS soldiers get "drafted" at a very early(10-14)age and were taught to follow orders at all costs and the Germans have a right to all of Europe. War crimes against Jews and undesirables was tolerated if not ordered.
Right... I will first make some points about the initial question, then I will ramble on about foreign volunteers in Waffen SS service... I think you need to define what atrocities you are discussing and who these 'nazi' soldiers are (sorry lecturer mode in operation!). Dy definition that term could be taken to mean all those who served under arms in during the Nazi Regime or do you mean those in Waffen SS service. After this what atrocities are you refering to? Are you discussing the holocaust or those crimes committed on the 'battlefield'. This is important as the rationale between crimes needs to be understood before it can be analysised. The rationale behind the Holocaust may differ from the rationale for other war crimes. Now Waffen SS... Not quite true. As Kais figures point out roughly 1/4 of the Waffen SS were foreign. However included in these figures are those termed Volksdeutche. In certain 'campaigns' foreign volunteers did make up a large percentage of those involved, for instance in Berlin the figure is thought to be as high as 48% of the defending SS formations. However it would be wrong to assume that the Waffen SS was predominatly Non-German. Indeed large numbers of foreign volunteers also served in the Werhmacht. Foreign Volunteers were accepted into the Waffen-SS at an early date from 'recially acceptable' nations. Wiking was one of the first divisions built on foreign volunteers from the West after those countries have been occupied, but volunteers also came willingly from many nations especially those with a pre-war history of facist organisations. Virtually every nation in Europe contributed volunteers to the Waffen SS. The Waffen SS did remain a 'volunteer' force for sometime but did towards the end make up its numbers by other means. This can be seen as the reason for the decline in effectiveness of late war formations alongside the losses caused to the 'veteran' core by constant fighting. But getting back to the original point... Should all, for arguements sake, Waffen SS soldiers be held accountable for war crimes? In my opinion, no. Although most formations have a record of crimes, as do many Wehrmacht formations, it would be flawed to suggest that every member of the Waffen SS indulged in massacre and genocide. While some formations certainly had a reputation for dubious behaiviour, those in the Balkans for example, not every Waffen SS man would have happily shot unarmed civilians. Indeed even those who served in Einsatzgruppen, and these were on the whole ex-policemen, could opt out without punishment from execution duty. The fact that many did not is perhaps the most worrying aspect. I will stop rambling now as I am in danger of losing my train of thought... Good luck with your paper... RED
Hi Alex, welcome aboard! Let's see, now. First aI'll say something about the make up of the Waffen SS, then will go to who did the atrocities. About the Waffen SS, these were the armed branch of the SS, in itself an "exhalation" of the NSDAP. It's somewhat difficult to say who belong to whom due to the feudal nature of the III Reich, in which organizations would evolve in unexpected directions depending on wills and whims. If you're looking for a system, forget it because the III Reich model organisation was every man for himself! As I was saying, the Waffen SS were the armed brach of the SS, created to give the SS legitimacy earned in blood by having fought in the war too. At least this was Himmler's original idea. As such, the Waffen SS were supposed to be composed of pure Aryans, but the WSS being limited in its recruiting by the regular Armed Forces (the Wehrmacht) sought additional sources of recruiting, poaching so to say in the "Germanic" conquered countries, Holland, Norway, Danemark, etc., outside the sphere of the Wehrmacht. Later with the length of the war, the "Aryan" concept became somewhat diluted, taking in all manner of European and non-European troops, like Ukranians, Balts, Hungarians, Croats, Serbs, Muslims, even Indian POWs. Oh, and the initial volunteer take-in was soon dropped, as the WSS was drafting just like the Whermacht, which was a constant cause of attrition. Also there may be raised the question on whether the WSS was involved or not in the concentration camps, and the answer is yes. First of all bear in mind the Totenkopf division (3rd. SS-Panzer) was raised from Conc.Camp guards, and during the war there was rotation of personnel from the front to the camps and back. See for instance "The Waffen SS 1939-45", George H.Stein, Cornell U.P., which is mostly about these manpower issues. Now, for who did what to whom, initially the atrocities in the east front let me say this "tradition" started in the Polish campaign, or even inside the Reich, where socially visible elements like prostitutes, homosexuals, Gypsies, etc - not to mention Jews! - were victims of persecution. This intensified with the invasion of Poland where specialized units of the SS, the Einsatzgruppen, went after the nobility, clergy, teachers, doctors, the intelligentsia, clearing up entire districts to make space for German ethnic colonization - the Warthegau. In any case, there are already then reports of atrocities carried out by elements of the Wehrmacht itself, which were acknowledged but considered as breaches of discipline, and the proceeedings which indeed were initiated against these troops were amnestied by Hitler himself. As you see, the seeds for the Russian campaign atrocities were sown early. On the East Front, the frontline itself was in the hands of the Wehrmacht, but the rear was the hunting ground for the Einsatzgruppen. Where there was contact it depended on who was in charge. There are reports of complaints by the Einsatzgruppen on lack of collaboration, and also that all was fine, no trouble at all with the WM. And there are also the orders from above, as Wilhelm Keitel's in 12 Sep 41 "The struggle against Bolshevism demands ruthless and energic, rigorous action above all against the Jews, the main carriers of Bolshevism". Or von Reichenau, CinC 6th Army "The soldier in the eastern sphere is not only a fighter according to the rules of the art of warfare, but also the bearer of a pitiless racial ideology ... must have full understanding for the necessity of the severe but just atonement from the Jewish subhumans". And there are more, which shows that the WM was implicated too. These are quotes from a book Friedrich likes a lot, Ian Kershaw's "Hitler: the Nemesis". If you want more write to me in privately and I'll send you some scans for documentation for your work. Of course with orders like this you don't expect the troops to behave like Snow White! If the brass was saying it was ok, why bother? Honour be to those who had orders like these and who refused to comply with them, for they existed. In any case, I do not believe in the blanket German war or atrocities guilt, otherwise there would be no need for repressive police forces such as the Gestapo and the SD. There were bad apples, there were rotten to the core apples, but thankfully there were decent people as well, some of whom submitted, others didn't.
hey everyone..thanks so much for all your feedback! and i know i few of you were a little confused as to what exactly i was asking. i wanted to leave it open-ended, see how you interpret things. but im sort of planning to direct my paper more toward atrocities of the holocaust and concentration camps and soldiers that participated in that. if that changes your answers, please keep posting! thank you once again for your posts! greatly appreciated!
