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Doctor, hello!
No need to apologize, at all. I understand you very very well. Both my father´s and mother´s families have or have had persons who fought in the war and i understand certain issues stir deep emotions. It is horrible to know one of your relatives perished at the hands of thugs during the war. Believe me.
You are simply confirming my ideas, the Waffen SS are unavoidably associated with evil regimes and lust for crime. That´s precisely where the tragedy of those soldiers lies.
They have no right to respect, they have no right to pride; in the end the fate of those soldiers was so much much better than they could have hoped for, since they were not all shot or hanged when the war ended. They should thank God for such favors.
I will not add more to this, since there are several persons here whose knowledge and records i admire and respect and will not want to make comments that might offend them. With this i mean you are one of those persons whose knowledge i do respect and can also learn from it.
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Udet - I made the mistake of 'absolutes' in my prior post because of the personal impact .. but there is another side as always. For the Waffen SS in particular, whose formation included bot volunteers and draftees from other counries.
I became friends with Dr. Jack Palgren 25 years ago on a Remote Sensing project and over the course of time heard his side of the story on the Russian Front. He was Waffen SS Anti-Tank platoon Commander from Belgium. There was probably no arena on the face of the earth in which no quarter was given or received.
He met my father and when the discussion touched the SS (once) he only commented that while he personally never committed an atrocity, he was awash in it during the war, and simply commented "I will one day stand in judgement" - to which my father siad, "as so will we all".
Regards,
Bill
Think you might have misunderstood my post. I didn't say the American soldier was better than his SS counterpart because he was on the winning side. I'm saying that any warrior becomes more formidable when he believes in the cause he is fighting for. The example of American soldiers vs the SS in WW II is a stark comparison. In the American revolution the Continental Army and the civilian militia defeated a better trained and equipped British army and also defeated the Hessians who were mercenaries, fighting mostly for money.
Look what a handful of outnumbered Marines did at Wake Island. They were on the losing side but they kicked the Jap's ass in that fight.
TO
Also please remember that crimes were made by every country militarily involved in WW2 - I'd dare to say that the biggest was dropping an A-bomb on a major city.
BIGGEST WAR CRIME OF THE WAR? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR F***ING MIND?
The Waffen SS wasn't made up of murderers thugs if thats what you think. The execution of civilians was carried out by the SS Totenkopfverbände Gestapo, these were the ugly fellars of the SS, not the Verfügungstruppe which were the combat troops and by far made up the bulk of the Waffen SS.
Also please remember that crimes were made by every country militarily involved in WW2 - I'd dare to say that the biggest was dropping an A-bomb on a major city.
I was going to try to to rationally answer your reply until I read your above quote.
BIGGEST WAR CRIME OF THE WAR? ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR F***ING MIND? Everybody was bombing civilian population centers in the war, the Atom bomb attacks saved more Japanese lives than American lives. That's right!
But to defend the fighting prowess of the SS and at the same time accuse the USA of war crimes by dropping the Atomic bomb goes over the line for me.
By the way, it was American and other Allied soldiers who kicked the German Army's ass from one end of Europe to the other.
The worst part is, buddy, that Soren always been that way... I remember a long while ago having (me as well as Plan_D and may be some other members) a strong arguement with him over a subject that I don't clearly remember... All I remember is that he was proved wrong.
I would class the Samurai as the most honourable and disciplined soldier of all time, but not the ultimate.
More Japanese died from the firestorming of Tokoyo than the 200,000 from the bombs....
Soviet troops committed even worse crimes, annihilating entire civilian villages towns.
So you're saying the soldiers of the Waffen SS didn't believe in the cause they were fighting for ?? If so then thats just plain wrong. The Waffen SS wasn't made up of murderers thugs if thats what you think. The execution of civilians was carried out by the SS Totenkopfverbände Gestapo, these were the ugly fellars of the SS, not the Verfügungstruppe which were the combat troops and by far made up the bulk of the Waffen SS. Also please remember that crimes were made by every country militarily involved in WW2 - I'd dare to say that the biggest was dropping an A-bomb on a major city.
A bigger crime would have been at Truman's feet if he had not ordered the use and 700,000+ GI and a couple of million (or more) Japanese die in the November invasion.
Strictly talking battlefield effectiveness I would definitely prefer the Waffen SS over most Allied units, their battlefield experience and equipment would certainly prove more than a match for most Allied units.
In 1940-1943 perhaps - they had huge advantage in Battle of Bulge and were defeated
That having been said the best military units of WW2 were those belonging to the Wehrmacht and not the SS, the average Wehrmacht soldier recieving more than three times the training of British US soldiers.
Not in 1943-1945
The soldier of the Waffen SS didn't recieve the same training as the Wehrmacht soldier, their basic training program mainly revolving around patrionism, dedication self-sacrefice for the führer motherland.
Source for this claim
As for your example about the marines kicking the Japanese army's ass, well the Waffen SS Wehrmacht did that to the Soviet army from day one of Op. Barbarossa till the end of the war, and seriously so.
And so they advanced rapidly to the West while kicking the Soviet's ass and rapidly to the East while kicking Brit and US and French and Canadian butts - finally after all the ass kicking most surrendered in droves - unlike the Japanese
The Japanese army was of no greater quality than the Soviet army, it was infact much poorer equipped than the Soviet army.