Waffen SS Senior Command Opportunities if War was prolonged or tide turned against the Allies?

How about another 'what if' to consider - what if an expanded SS also included a 'Luft-SS' as a counter-balance to fat Hermann.

also by extension what about an SS navy organisation?

 

Baby steps ... Fallshirmjaeger Battalion 500 (later renamed 600 due to combat exploits ... orig was composed of penial soldiers given a second chance) ...We were hiding behind the shadows of the big man already ;-) plotting our next moves

 

your use of 'We' is a little disturbing - you will probably be encouraged to be slightly less partisan ?

 

A bit OT and possibly deserves it's own thread but ...
This seems quite suspect to me. While it may have held true in WWII it seems less likely to be true today.

 

It is a fair question to ask if senior Waffen SS comanders had any potential to move to higher levels of command, but considering how they got as close to those posts and what it cost Germany should not be forgotten.

The Waffen SS was concieved, among other less savory aspects, as a personel bodyguard for Hitler and the Nazi Party as well as an elite combat arm of the Whermacht. Once you expand beyond a certain size however, you can no longer call yourself an elite organization with a strait face. By the last year of the war there were over 25 named/numbered divisions and a horde of smaller detachments credited as Waffen SS. Fully a third of these formations were of dubious value, and preformed combat duties that could have been done by conventional Heer units.

25 plus Divisions would represent a large Armee Group of 3 to 4 armies and perhaps 500,000 men at full strength! Kind of blows the idea of an 'Elite Combat Force' out of the water doesn't it.

The effect upon the Whermacht, and especialy the Heer, was profound. Waffen SS unit usually went to the front of the line for equipment replacement as well as manpower reinforcement. Heer units had to hold the line day in and day out, and usually felt the first brunt of any enemy offensive. They did this without the best equipment or sufficant stocks of what they did have and were severly undermaned from 1942 on. The average German private in the Waffen SS probably would have been NCO material within the Heer, and SS NCO's would make good Heer junior officers.

It wasn't only the Red Army that was bleeding the Heer white, the Waffen SS did a fair job of it themselves. The Waffen SS should never have expanded beyond a Corps (3 Divs.) or at most an Army ( 2 Corps-6 Divs.). That they expand beyond this point was due to Himmler's and Hitler's ego and meglomania.

Don't get me started on Fat Herman and his private armies!

 

Nigel

Laughing ... caught the "we" must have been a "Dr. Strangelove" moment ... trust me my connection to the Schwarzkorps is only research/historical. No not a Freudian slip in anyway shape or form.

Thanks for keeping me in check - mein soldatbuch heisst Amerikaner. I am going to have to bale on tonight’s exchanges .... My back has moved to the front burner and I am experiencing a renaissance of the 60's with the pharmaceutical treatment plan.

I would like time to counter Belasar later with an in depth comment but will leave the following sniped … the Waffen SS, like all armies, considered only certain elements within its ranks as true elite … hence the “Waffen” and not SS in the official title of the latter divisions (most were politically motivated and others in pure egotism of Himmler as Belasar has eluded too). Even some entitled to “SS” in official title were far from elite in the eyes of the “Panzerkorps” truppen (i.e. Nord, Polizei, Prinz Eugen, Florian Geyer). Interesting to watch the trials and see Hauser answer under oath if Prinz Eugen was part of Waffen SS? … it was with obvious distain he admits their membership.

Second is the point that it was not necessary for them to command only SS formations; these men could command other formations not necessary pure or titled SS formations or be part of Heeresgruppes and be at the right place and time to take over if a commander was relieved, killed or wounded and unable to continue their command responsibilities. Good example is the 7th Army and Hauser. Do not forget the 6th Army commanded by Dietrich was an Army formation. It was only later formally renamed 6th SS Army after the Battle of the Bulge.


Sorry would love to discuss in more detail but using Dragon Speak to type then cut and paste and still killing me.

v/r

Armgruf u. GenFld der Waffen SS

 

hope ur back improves - get some quality massage

 

Armee,

The Hauser comment is telling, in the end he had to conceed that these units, reguardless of their pedigree, were in fact Waffen SS. Which brings us to the point intended, that such a proliferation of combat units presented an unusually large number of corps level command spots for SS officers. Such a slot would be needed before they could aspire to higher command.

SS Fallshirmjager Battalion 500/600 is a excellent case in point. In 1944 how does a SS para battalion help Germany win the war? Fat Herman has 9 to 10 Divisions of Fallshirmjagers already deployed with more forming. Which is odd as Hitler will no longer allow mass drops anymore after Crete. Then again Germany does not have the aircraft to make a mass drop, and if they tried Allied or Soviet fighters would have torn them a new one.

The 12th SS Hitler Jugend Division was formed as a 'Birthday' gift for Hitler from the head of the Nazi Hitler Youth. He couldn't have sent a card? These men, boys really, could have been better used to fill out existing SS divisions or better yet desperately understrength regular army units.

Compare this to the USMC which by war's end consisted of 6 divisions, 2 brigades and one para battalion. Chesty Puller would never have to squirm before acknoledging that any of these were real Marines. These troops possesed a singular combat mission, assault infantry.

Their were Waffen SS Panzer, Panzer Grenadier, Cavalry, Mountain, Infantry, and Police Divisions. Each required its own school and replacement units which as an excessive and unneccesary waste of limited resources as there was already Heer formations to do this.

Much of this ws duplicated by Herman Goring so that he could have a Para army group of 11+ divisions, some 20 Luftwaffe Field divisions and even a Panzer Corps.

Germany would have been far better off if most of these men and all the equipment used to create brand new units of dubious value had gone to Heer units aready fighting at the front. Nazi Germany's excessive fetish with creating new 'Elite' units had no small part in its eventual downfall.

Do hope you feel better soon.

Belasar

 

Just wanted to go back to the retake of Kharkov. Why was Häusser so interested to take Kharkov when he could have continued on to chase the Soviet troops? A present for Hitler?

"Manstein issued an order to continue outflanking the city, although leaving room for a potential attack on Kharkov if there was little Soviet resistance, but Hausser decided to disregard the order and continue with his own plan of attack. According to von Manstein, the Army Group headquarters was forced to intervene on a number of occasions to bring the SS Panzer Corps to swing eastwards to encircle the city, instead of launching a frontal attack on Kharkov."

 

i generally agree with you chris,sorry i cannot contribute more,for i am now ridden to my bed mostly.good to read your posts man,and i hope your back gets better soon.all the best,lee.

 

Have we, on this forum, ever had a genuine veteran of the Waffen SS posting here?

I found a LSAH renactment group in Australia. I telepohoned the number given and was informed that they had actual veterans on their rolls. When I requested an interview, they ran like rabbits!

 

I suspect memories of what happened to Peiper may have played a part if it was at all true that they had real veterans.

It's unfortunate from a historical aspect that their story will never be likely to be told as much as that from the 'other' side.

 

Not entirely, they do have some memoirs.

 

Belasar

Forgive my absence but I have returned from a lengthy hospital stay where I had another operation on my spine .... occupational hazards of serving in the military. I will have to take it easy but plan on revisiting the site twice a week if my health allows.

I enjoy your responses but believe a narrowing of the topic may have been over due or lost in translation of thought. I did not advocate that the Waffen SS had to expand to a size (and in process lose its "elite status" ... 38 divisions already bleed any eliteness left minus the old guard divisions) required for a Feldmarshall command .... rather could a Senior Waffen SS officer, based upon military leadership talent, have been given a command of a mixed HeeresGruppe (LW, Heer, Waffen SS)?

v/r

Armgruf u. GenFld der Waffen SS

 

The more important question here is: What difference would this have made to the German war effort? Would having higher ranked SS commanders running army groups or entire fronts make a difference? I don't see where it would. In fact, I see the obverse as being true. The more power Himmler and Göring got for the SS and Luftwaffe, respectively, in the ground war the more fragmented the overall command, supply and, tactical effort became. The SS and Luftwaffe established their own supply chains exclusive from the Heer. They also had seperate procurement staffs that often chose equipment specifically for those services that were different from that which the Heer was using. Some examples are the 8cm Rakaten SpG. rocket. This is an SS only weapon. The FG 42 rifle is an exclusive Luftwaffe small arm.
Where a command had components from these various services there frequently was no totally unified command. That is, an SS unit might be ordered by higher SS command to do something contrary to the overall tactical plan of the local commander. The same goes for Luftwaffe units.
Adding another layer higher to the SS will just increase this problem to a greater extent than it already existed. In fact, there was no reason outside Nazi politics for the SS to even exist as a military force, let alone the Luftwaffe as a ground army.

 

On a quick read-through, no one seems to have mentioned that Hausser did command Army Group G for a couple of months in 1945. As far as I know he did as well as anyone could at that point. Also Sepp Dietrich briefly commanded 5th Panzer Army in Normandy, have to double check the dates but I think for a time both armies - 5th Pz and 7th - were under SS generals.

Although the Waffen-SS nominally had as many as 38 divisions, only about half that number were front-line fighting formations comparable to regular units. So out of a "real" fighting force less than one-tenth the size of the Heer, they produced an army group and a couple of army commanders, including Steiner, about in proportion.

 

Carronade

My oversight. I actually went back through the threads and I cannot believe I did not mention Army Group G and Hausser. This is an important point as a Heersgruppe was nominally commanded by a Feldmarshall; albeit less ranks b/c of wartime necessities, etc did command them. Although Sepp commanded an Army I believe he had reached his zenith of command abilities and had to rely on his subordinates (staff) to assist in commanding such a force. History is full of examples of General Officers who were excellent Divisional Commanders but were poor Corps and higher commanders. I will not get into the fragmentation argument proposed by Gardner above b/c it is a microcosm of the Third Reich/Nazi Party in a sound byte (devide and conquer; giving enough power to his [AH] cronies to get loyalty but not enough to effectively challenge his ultimate authority). It is amazing that the Wehrmacht as a whole lasted as long with all the private armies mentioned above. Alot of credit had to go to Albert Spper to feed these different entities, etc. (my hats off the logisitics officers), but this is getting away from the main theme of this thread ...and that is simply .... did any of the senior commanders possess the necessary experience of leadership required to have commanded an Army Group? I say yes and cite "Papa" Hausser as the best example. "Smiling Albert" from the LW demonstrated he was capable and I propose you go with the "horse" that will win you the race regardless of what stable he may come from.

v/r

Armgruf u. GenFld der Waffen SS

 

AG.

I'd agree about Dietrich, as I expect most knowledgeable people will, though he seems to have done all right at the level he reached, and of course he was very popular with his men.

Also agree about "regardless of what stable"; if anything higher level commanders need to be less "wedded" to their own branch of service. The WWII Germans were a bit unusual in that their army group or theater commands were still mainly concerned with ground forces; whereas the corresponding Allied commanders had to employ large air forces, including strategic air and air transport, not to mention naval/amphibious elements. Modern commands are even more "joint", perhaps too much so, just as likely to have an air force, navy, or Marine commander running what would once have been an army theater.