The Waffen SS and the "live ammo" myth

[sid guttridge]

Hi Paddy,

I can well believe that most recruits were not Party members. Party membership was comparitively small compared to the population at large.

However, the officer corps is another matter. It doesn't much matter whether it had to be persuaded to join the Party or not. They still joined.

(By the way what is your verifiable source for the contention that "the officer corps of the Leibstandarte-SS Adolf Hitler had to be 'persuaded' to join the party in the late 1930s for PR purposes"?)

Yup. The Army very much was the German nation in arms. It had well over ten times as many men as the Waffen-SS even at its late war peak.

No. The Army was not a class-bound relic of Imperial times. It was 99% the creation of the Nazi era and as modern in its outlook as any. The Reichweher, itself highly selective on meritocratioc grounds, had only 100,000 men in 1933. The German Army had a hundred times as many a decade later. This opened up massively the possibilities of promotion for whole swathes of society.

The Waffen-SS was nothing like NATO. Whole nations joined NATO voluntarily. Only errant non-German individuals joined the Waffen-SS from what later became NATO countries.

If the Waffen-SS was "not blindly devoted to Hitler and National Socialism but to the preservation of western values in the face of aggressive Bolshevik expanionism", then one has to explain why a higher proportion of W-SS than Army casualties up to the end of 1944 were suffered on the Western Front, while the Army suffered a higher proportion of its casualties on the Eastern Front than the Waffen-SS did!

And if the Waffen-SS wasn't a criminal organisation, one has to explain why its units were far more likely to be accused of warcrimes than Army units operating under identical conditions? In France, three of the four massacres raised by the French at Nuremberg were laid at the feet of the Waffen-SS, yet the Waffen-SS provided at most 5% of the German forces that passed through France during the war.

Thank you for encapsulating so many Waffen-SS myths in one paragraph. It makes them so much easier to answer.

Cheers,

Sid.

[haen2]

HEAR HEAR ! The great Sid versus Paddy debate.
Almost as good as the presidential hopeful debates in the U.S.A.
Were it not so time consuming I would sort them, group them, and turn it into a book
Come to think of it, I can't even get my own 'book' to the market.
So, forget it.
Keep on going fellows: "your dog was meaner than my dog".
With an "onward christian soldiers", as well as a "meine Ehre heisst Treue", greeting,
HN

[sid guttridge]

Hi haen,

If only there was a debate! The facts mostly lean one way, which doesn't leave much room for evidentially based "debate". Paddy asserts, usually without much evidence, and I dispose, usually with rather more.

It is boring, but if Paddy wouldn't continue to repost the same unsupported historical fictions, nobody would have to contradict him.

Ho, Hum.

Cheers,

Sid.

[gerhard2]

Heh HaEn,
What I find strange about many of these debates is how people tell us what we done and what we seen. In fact one poster told me what I expected from Ivan in Russia and assured me I was mistaken. I just wonder if he was even born then. Why they told us how we were treated and our camps were really much better then what we saw. Somehow I get the feeling we should have been grateful for the treatment we received and time spent as guests of the chivalrous Allies. You remember the time when we were so generously paid for our labour.
When you talk about turning debates into a book do you mean Sid's ? I guess looking at almost 8000 post's you would have your hands full. But don't worry when you consider how many times he repeated the same thing over and over it would not be much of a book. Mind you it probably would go over big on the Doctor Phil show.
Take care old man,
Gerhard

[Paddy Keating]

I'm not debating anything with Guttridge. Debate with him is futile. I base some of my statements on numerous conversations with veterans of the Waffen-SS from various European nations. My aim here is simply to speak up for the men who stood up for European values and who laid their lives on the line for a system they believed to be operating in the best interests of the northern nations.

PK

[John P. Moore]

... My aim here is simply to speak up for the men who stood up for European values....
PK

Why do you feel the need to speak up for these men who have already demonstrated the ability to speak up for themselves? Like Gerhard said, it is comical for younger people to tell them how they must have felt or what they may have experienced.

John

[pzrmeyer2]

Hi haen,

If only there was a debate! The facts mostly lean one way, which doesn't leave much room for evidentially based "debate". Paddy asserts, usually without much evidence, and I dispose, usually with rather more.

It is boring, but if Paddy wouldn't continue to repost the same unsupported historical fictions, nobody would have to contradict him.

Ho, Hum.

Cheers,

Sid.

LOL! I cant remember you ever posting anything with evidence. typically you ignore it and continue your agenda-based as opposed to fact-based verbal diahrrea.

[gerhard2]

Hi John:
I did not mean Paddy when I mentioned the poster who so kindly enlightened me about Ivan's intentions while on vacation in Russia. I am talking about another "Historian" who is so smitten with the "vibrant, ambitious and on the whole forward looking people".
Had you read this HaEn ?
Gerhard

[Hans]

Sid did post once that he liked the idea that the unknown soldier is "known to God alone". No evidence was provided, if I recall correctly.

- Hans

[michael kenny]

I did not mean Paddy when I mentioned the poster who so kindly enlightened me about Ivan's intentions while on vacation in Russia.

I thought Ivan's intentions were pretty clear. To remove the invader and destroy his Army.
This they managed to do in a pretty comprehensive fashion.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Paddy,

Of course you are not debating. You are only interested in declaiming. If you debated you would be under some obligation to answer questions and offer justifications - neither of which are your strong points because a good number of facts get in the way of your world view.



Hi pzrmeyer,

Sorry, but I am not responsible for your poor memory.



Hi Hans,

Actually I don't believe in God. However, I do like the idea that any Unknown Soldier or other symbolic burial should be anonymous. Then it can be an equal focus for all.


Cheers,

Sid

[gerhard2]

M K
You get no argument there I found this out when I got a bullet during my trek back but you still got it wrong. When I mentioned Ivan's intentions I meant what he was going to do with me had I been dumb enough to put my gun down.
Gerhard

[Paddy Keating]

... My aim here is simply to speak up for the men who stood up for European values....
PK

Why do you feel the need to speak up for these men who have already demonstrated the ability to speak up for themselves? Like Gerhard said, it is comical for younger people to tell them how they must have felt or what they may have experienced.

John

I am simply repeating the sort of statements that were made to me by men who were there, John. You see, much as you would like to be thought of as the only person on these various websites who has ever spent time with veterans of the Waffen-SS, you are far from being alone in this. Yes, okay, you did a great book.

What is comical here is the spectacle you make of yourself every time you try to score a point against me. You only do it because I pricked the great John P. Moore's ego by expressing myself very bluntly when, driven by your massive ego, you destroyed the Alte Kameraden forum to the detriment of everyone involved, including the veterans who. for the first, had a place in which to interact with these "younger people" you disdain without being heckled by the usual suspects. Oh, and you've got it in for me because I identified your motives for wishing to see your allegations against Timo Worst buried. Somehow you had managed to get screenshots of Worst's PC, which you posted on another forum when you were crucifying him for alleged copyright infringement and theft of copyrighted material.

You and your fellow travellers can write whatever you like about me, and you do, but at least I am truthful and consistent. And when I behave in an unpleasant manner, it is by choice whereas in your case, it is congenital. You cannot help yourself. You just don't know when to let things go. So you did a great book once upon a time. Fine...but what are you going to do next? Are you going to do something positive, John, or do you intend to carry on haunting the margins as a baleful presence? If you dislike me, don't engage with me.

PK

[Paddy Keating]

Hi Paddy,

Of course you are not debating. You are only interested in declaiming. If you debated you would be under some obligation to answer questions and offer justifications - neither of which are your strong points because a good number of facts get in the way of your world view.

Sid

I prefer not to interact with liars.

PK

[Paddy Keating]

Now, back on topic. Many armies have trained with live ammunition, supply situations permitting. The British Army does it in quite a controlled way but there have been accidents on live-fire training areas. It is educational in terms of introducing soldiers to the experience of rounds passing close to them. Advancing up a range one time, I saw pop-up targets going down before I could get a round off. A couple of Colour Sergeants were firing GPMGs from the roof of the fire control building and they were passing very close indeed. Probably not done strictly according to regs and I don't recall any of us feeling scared at the time. But a slight misadjustment at 200m could easily have resulted in a casualty. Did it make us better soldiers? I am not sure. I think you have to be absolutely certain that the people laying down fire in your direction mean you harm before your subconscious begins interacting with your training! Imminent death is an extraordinary motivator. Anything less is what it is: artificial and the brain and body are aware of this. Another example can be seen in Escape & Evasion exercises involving a resistance-to-interrogation phase at the end. No matter how rough it gets, you know they're not going to rip your fingernails out, attach a handcranked radio battery charger to your testicles or kill you so it is really only an exercise aimed at exposing those who may be more prone to fold under even quite mild pressure.

PK