The face of Hitler's British SS: Chilling pictures of the traitors who joined the Fuhrer's most evil

What about Irish SS-Men...

James Brady and Frank Stringer served in SS-Jagdverband Mitte 1944-1945 and were court-martialled and imprisoned after the war.

Patrick O'Neill, an Irish doctor, served in SS-Sturmbataillon 500.

 

Generally most of the people have forgot that the nazis were not only well trained troopers but a political movement also.
Born and grew up in crisis (financial, political, national) times. These English were followers or at least they liked this kind of ideology. The Irish did it just because they hated the British so much so every enemy of the British was automatically friend of them. Some of them tried to catch any opportunity they got to fight the British. Maybe they got unofficially some promises from the Germans for taking care and cure of the Irish problems after the war too.
The British who joined the ss were only a few and i cannot recall if they actualy take part in a battle. They mostly spent their times in offices and radio stations. They made Propaganda programmes trying to break the English willness to fight.
Maybe Abver or other secret service of Germans tried to take advantages of the knowledge for the details in life in U.K. and the habits or special way of speaking and used some of them as consultants in training of agents they planned to drop to U.K.

 

i dont know how i wouldve reacted when i got captured by SS soldiers. I mean id rather fisght for them instead of dying and get tortured before.

 

Chill out I was only making a comparison!
i'm not even refering to the middle east... I'm talking about American (Non-Middleastern) people involved with terrorist activities.



Now, going back to the subject...

I actually forgot about this thread until I was surfing the net and found an interesting documentary regarding the BFC

I'll post the video here for anyone interested - it includes rare interviews and documents


very interesting topic...


[video=youtube;uVRPO4T6A2g]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVRPO4T6A2g&feature=related[/video]
[video=youtube;CBsVXha0HqU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBsVXha0HqU&feature=related[/video]
[video=youtube;DfOZfP4sfY8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfOZfP4sfY8&feature=related[/video]
[video=youtube;nb3VKOfYm14]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb3VKOfYm14&feature=related[/video]
[video=youtube;yJo68pcnljA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJo68pcnljA&feature=related[/video]
[video=youtube;OLIIcd0ef2w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLIIcd0ef2w&feature=related[/video]

 

Study of those who joined this unit shows that most of them were deadbeats who only joined for better conditions and the chance to meet women.

The number of Irish who joined the SS could have been counted on one hand, the number of citizens from the Irish Free state who joined the British armed forces was over 50,000.

The nearest to combat this unit got was as a pioneer unit behind the German lines on the eastern front, but they were withdrawn before they saw action

Oddly enough, there doesn't seem to have been any attempt to do this.

 

Another interesting thing.
Before some years an auction trading house gave for sale an original distinctive mark of the BFC unit. The funny thing is that this mark is very similar with the sign in the shirt of the National English Football (soccer) team which is three black lions in white wall. The BFC's mark is three white lions in black wall and has the shape of a small shield. This was on the left collar of the BFC uniform; you can see a photo of the uniform in Wikipedia's article (link in above posts). Some experts believe that around 30 of these shield shaped small signs can be found. Some newspapers noticed the similarity and there was a discussion about the matter.

 

Its a nothing story, the three lions have been on the heraldic coat of arms for England since the middle ages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Arms_of_England

ps; It should be noted that the 3 lions were first used in a badge by the England football team in 1872.
http://www.englandfootballonline.com/teamunif/Emblem.html

 

Articles like that demonstrate a complete lack of understanding of humanity, or at least, understanding of anyone beyond the target audience. Language like 'trecherous' and 'evil' in this context is either propaganda, patriotism or sensationalism, entirely lacking the objective perspective that all news should have. It is a sentiment held by many people educated about WWII in the sixties, seventies and eighties, who never truly ventured beyond their textbooks. Anyone who looks at Nazi's as humans may as well be showing sympathy to the devil.

As has been mentioned, those men had very little prospect, probably lacking in decent education, from a lower socioeconomic context, etc, etc. All you need to do is look at the Nazi rallies to see how they might have made an impression on them. There were reasons National Socialism happened in Germany. The fact that their symbolism alone has such a profound resonance cannot be lost (I saw the Nazi eagle on the side of truck the other day, for a steel company. Not even kidding, all it was missing was the swastika, and this is in Australia. A lot of people here wont recognize it as Nazi symbolism, but they likely can connect is subconsciously. It leaves an impression.) I am not comparing America to Nazi Germany, but look at what the American flag and the bald Eagle can inspire in Americans? Superiority and imperial power were to the Germany what Democracy is to America; something they truly believed in, would fight for, and die for, and the Nazi banner was something to rally beneath. It was supposed to be glamorous and attractive, and that it spoke to some of those outside of Germany is not a big surprise, nor is it something to demonize those men for.

It is also very easy to travel with the majority, which is probably why more British men didn't join the SS. The language barrier alone would have been a deterrent. Much easier to stay with men who spoke your own language, who ate the same food, who listened to the same music and made the same jokes, than to side with foreigners. It's all really very simple, and has very, very little (nothing) to do with being 'traitorous' or evil.

Facing facts, so many modern people would not see a 'Hitler' if he slapped them in the face. Judging these men for something they have not experienced is a big fat 'screw you' to compassion.Until they've walked a mile in their shoes, they've no right to judge at all. There has to be a million more reasons those men did what they did, little of which we can know. I was happy to read that most people here seem to understand that.

Hmm now I want to make a list.

 

WITH BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT I can't get too upset about these British S.S. men as they contributed little to the Nazi war effort unless you count winmnning the S.S. middleweight boxing title in Prague as one of the Scots in this mob did in 1944-he subsequently explained his decision to join the S.S. British section from a German POW camp as being purely opportunistic to gain better food etc.
Another gyy from this mob was unearthed driving a bus in Edinburgh Scotland in the 1980's and he gave the same reasons-an opportunistic desire to free himself from the hunger and boredon of a German Stalag.
Much more lethal was English Sergeant Harold Cole who acted as a Gestapo agent who helped wreck Aliied/resistance escape line n Ocuupied France while still pretending to be an on-the run British POW himself-Cole had absconded with Sergant mess funds around the time of Dunkirk and was one of Britain's worst and most damaging traitors in W.W.2.

 

I like how in this article, they have to say that John Amery is a "sexual pervert" (as if its a well-established fact), and that he had a "prostitue wife" and was "bankrupt", and other derrogatory slander. They are ostracizing one of Britain's own citizens, and have no shame making up anything horrific about his personal life and character, just like the Tabloids. Why can't John Amery being a British Nazi sympathizer be enough? I feel like this article was written by one of those people who have to say "Hitler had only one testicle", as if being responsible for a world war wasn't enough, they have to personally insult the man. I find it to be inaccurate, and sort of offensive because they are taking the focus off the real issue, and trying to say that this slander is more condeming than their actions during the war. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? It's pathetic what these so-called journalists are doing.

 

I agree completely. After all, it's not like he was running for political office. Then it would be completely understandable. This, however, is way out of bounds even for journalists.

 

I always think that it's very British that we let them off so lightly, I'm not sure that the SS would have treated Germans who fought for us similarly. I also refuse to be chilled by a platoon sized unit that never fired a shot in anger and even the SS commander it was eventually assigned to sent it home.