Fd-Ski,
There is no 'track record' of the Waffen-SS killing Allied prisoners on the Western front. There were a few (less than 5 for the entire war, if memory serves) incidents on the Western front. The people guilty for those incidents were identified by surviving British military personnel after the war and tried for their crimes.
The Russians did not shoot every prisoner 'with an SS tatoo'. There are numerous veterans of the Waffen-SS who returned from Russian captivity, which proves this statement to be incorrect. Some were no doubt shot, many died in gulags after WW2. But most of the 'shoot on the spot' treatment on the Eastern front was reserved for partisans and such. For the most part, barring the Japanese, front line soldiers tended to take the surrender of other front line soldiers - East front or West. Most of the Russian POWs who perished died from starvation and disease once they were sent to POW camps back in Germany and the occupied territories.
At least according to persons I have talked to and interviewed.
Also, I've interviewed a couple of Russian AFV crewmen from WW2. They appeared to have no specific problem with the Waffen-SS, outside of knowing there was going to be some tough fighting if they were in the area.
Again - there is a memorial site dedicated to 200 Waffen-SS soldiers located in the Ukraine. If the Russians can differentiate between members of a group responsible for attrocites (special extermination squads) and combat troops with the same lapel insignia but part of an entirely different division of the same organization...
Once again - I can understand why some would be offended by the handle. But being offended by the handle does not make the statements 'All members of the Waffen-SS were war criminals' and 'There is no distinction between the (General)SS and the Waffen-SS' any less false.
Everyone - here's part of a transcript from the Nuremburg trials in 1946...pretty interesting stuff:
"I leave out the next few sentences.
With flagging hope Dr. Morgen made his report for the third time, with which, as before, he wanted to help find the guilty, protect the innocent, and to show the German people and the world the final guilt of the criminal leadership for the most horrible murders in world history. In this he succeeded.
I leave out the next paragraph in which I describe the beginning of the concentration camp system and the participation of the SS.
But soon the establishment and guarding of concentration camps were legalized. From 1933, 1934, on, they were financed from the budget of the individual German States leader. As head of the Political Police of all Lander, except Prussia, Himmler, in 1934, uniformly regulated the guard and administrative conditions. By taking over a part of the previous guard personnel, SA and SS men, he created the Death's Head formations and supplemented them with volunteers from all sections of the population without consideration of membership in the Party and the SS. They were then intended exclusively for guarding concentration camps and comprised, in the year 1936, 400 men from the Kommandantur and 3,600 men for guard duties. They guarded about 10,000 to 12,000 prisoners in five concentration camps all over Germany. I ask you to compare the then unusually large membership of the General SS with these figures.
In 1936 the concentration camps and their guard personnel were taken over into the Reich budget and separated according to Kommandantur and guard personnel. At the beginning of the war the Kommandantur personnel consisted of 600 men; the guard personnel amounted to about 7,400 men. There were only six concentration camps in all Germany, containing 21,300 prisoners, and as yet no work or subsidiary camps existed. At that time there were about 240,000 members of the General SS. The Waffen SS did not yet exist at that time.
In my explanation of the question of the organizations which I submit as an appendix, I have proven that the "Totenkopf Units" (Death's Head Units) created in 1934 as special troops of the State, were not paid by the Party but by the Reich, and that they had in common with the General SS only a part of their name, "SS," and the chief, Himmler. (This follows in particular from Hitler's Secret Edict of 17th August, 1938, and from Document SS 84.)
Of importance seems to me the following change after the beginning of the war, when the wave of destruction begins to mount slowly in the concentration camps.
Six thousand five hundred men of guard personnel were sent to the front with a newly formed division. Thus they were eliminated entirely from the concentration camp system. During the course of the entire war there were employed about 30,000 men in the concentration camp system, as can be seen from the testimony of Brill and from Affidavit No. 68 (Kaindl). These included new arrivals and departures. They comprised about 1,500 men of the original cadre of the Totenkopf Units and 4,500 men originally from the General SS.
These 4,500 men were a part of 36,000 members of the General SS who had been called up until 1940 upon the emergency service decree, and who had become members of the Waffen SS. The remaining 24,000 men of the concentration camp personnel - that is, eighty per cent - originally had no nominal connection with the SS. These were 7,000 persons of German descent or extraction who had been called up, 10,000 German nationals who had volunteered to go to the front in the Waffen SS and 7,000 soldiers subordinate either to the Army or the Air Force. Many of the volunteers came from the SA, the Reichskriegerbund, the Party and other organizations. All, with the exception of the original personnel of 1,500 men, had been assigned the task of guarding the concentration camps against their will upon the order of Himmler, and without their having any connection with the Kommando Amt of the Waffen SS. Only in the course of the war were these guarding and administrative units of Himmler's nominally taken over into the Waffen-SS, Himmler thus transgressing his powers. This
[Page 122]
was done in order to prevent the personnel of the concentration camps continually having to be freed from military service, that is to say, for reasons which were practically to eliminate the regulations of military supervision. After the unequivocal evidence given by the witnesses Reinecke, Juettner, Ruoff, Brill and many others, there can be no more doubt that the State police tasks of the concentration camp system did not change for all that, and that in particular the concentration camp system did not become a concern of the Waffen SS. Indeed, the entire concentration camp system, even after the formal transfer of the guard personnel into the Waffen SS, was not directed and administered by the leading agencies of these organizations, but by a special office, the well-known Amtsgruppe D in the chief office of the Economic Administration, WVHA (witness Stein, Affidavits Fanslau SS 41, 100, Frank No. 99)."
These 4,500 men were a part of 36,000 members of the General SS who had been called up until 1940 upon the emergency service decree, and who had become members of the Waffen SS. The remaining 24,000 men of the concentration camp personnel - that is, eighty per cent - originally had no nominal connection with the SS. These were 7,000 persons of German descent or extraction who had been called up, 10,000 German nationals who had volunteered to go to the front in the Waffen SS and 7,000 soldiers subordinate either to the Army or the Air Force. Many of the volunteers came from the SA, the Reichskriegerbund, the Party and other organizations. All, with the exception of the original personnel of 1,500 men, had been assigned the task of guarding the concentration camps against their will upon the order of Himmler, and without their having any connection with the Kommando Amt of the Waffen SS.
Now this highlight is not meant to say 'see, they didn't want to guard concentration camps'. No excuse in my book - I'd like to think that I would have chosen imprisonment over being a guard. But along the lines of what I said above - there were many involved directly with the final solution that had no connection with the SS at all, let alone the Waffen-SS. And when you use a simplistic explanation like 'the final solution was the responsibility of the SS' you are letting guilty persons 'off the hook'. The difference between guilt and innocence is not determined by the insignia on a uniform or the presence of a uniform at all. It is determined by what an individual did.
It was even spelled out by the Allies after the Nuremburg trials:
"The classification of the SS as a criminal organization does not imply that ever member of the organization individually was a criminal."
This was stated because the Allies, being present in postwar Germany, pretty quickly understood that alot of Germans who were 'on the books' as part of the SS organization got there without ever joining the SS. If you were a railway policeman near an 'SS industrial complex' after 1941 or so you were all of a sudden an 'SS rail security officer'. Here's your uniform.
The entire history of what went on is far more complex than many are aware of. My point is this - nearly every facet of German society had a hand in what went on. To pin the entire blame on one uniformed group and one uniformed group alone is to not treat the acts commited with the seriousness they deserve.
Mike/wulfie
