Drafted in the SS?

[DesertFox]

From talking to my sister, who seems to have gotten it from my Grandmother, my Grandfather was in the SS.

He was considered for War Crimes at one time from what I understand

 

Now, what I am not sue about is that according to what I have been told, he did not volunteer for the SS but was instead drafted or forced into the SS. What I am curious is did that happen or is it wishful thinking / revisions by my family?

[Jim Martin]

Forced conscription into the SS did indeed happen as manpower dried up.

 

They started violating their own "racial purity" requirements pretty early on.

 

This doesn't mean that he WAS in fact drafted, but yes it could have happened.

[lastdingo]

The Waffen-SS started with very high medical requirements as the party's volunteer army.

 

Later on it accepted Aryan-looking (blonde, at least medium size, not fat, no weird nose, healthy) foreign volunteers, drafted Germans with minor medical deficiencies and IIRC even forced some Aryan-looking foreigners into service.

 

I'm not sure when rafting begun. The reason was undoubtedly insufficient volunteers, my best guess is about '42/'43.

[WRW]

The Waffen-SS started with very high medical requirements as the party's volunteer army.

 

Later on it accepted Aryan-looking (blonde, at least medium size, not fat, no weird nose, healthy) foreign volunteers, drafted Germans with minor medical deficiencies and IIRC even forced some Aryan-looking foreigners into service.

 

I'm not sure when rafting begun. The reason was undoubtedly insufficient volunteers, my best guess is about '42/'43.

 

drafting or volunteering

 

Hans - do you want to be in infantry pleb on the eastern front or would you volunteer for the Waffen SS

[Sven Arvidsson]

From 1942 and onwards personell was drafted into W-SS from the pool of German conscripts. In addition to this, it was not uncommon for Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine personell to be transferred to W-SS. Nobel prize winner Gunter Grass being an example of the latter.

[DesertFox]

My Grandfather was definitely German and I have two brothers who are blond haired and blue eyed

[Ssnake]

While you could get drafted, it was easy to dodge it by "volunteering" for a regular Wehrmacht unit (at least that's what some people of that age said when the Grass case came up). I can see that some people didn't grasp the full picture and let themselves get drafted into the SS, blinded by Nazi propaganda and thinking that they were the elite, best of the best, bla bla. But I don't think that anyone ever was dragged in chains into the SS, kicking and screaming.

[Archie Pellagio]

Not to sound at all apologetic or sympathetic to the nazi cause of which I abhor, but were all SS units as evil as is commonly made out?

If someone was in for instance on of the combat arms units, or a standard garrison unit (ie excecuting partisans etc) would that lump them into the same category of the butchers of the extermination camps and einsatzkommando etc?

Would they be justified in viewing themselves as simply part of a more elite unit, not directly complicit in warcrimes? (despite tacit approval that is undeniably implied)

 

Awaiting responses from those more knowelegable than I...

[BansheeOne]

According to the late second husband of my granduncle's widow (who, in reciprocity to the "volunteering for the Wehrmacht to avoid the Waffen SS" route, volunteered for the latter since the former wouldn't take him as he was considered too important in his position as a Hitler Youth functionary), they surely didn't think of themselves of having anything in common with the KZ guards or in fact working for Himmler at all, and remained indignated that they were lumped in with the general SS as a "criminal organisation" at war's end. He qualified though, in a long talk while we were the only two in the house waiting for the rest of the family to return from my brother's confirmation service (he got his leg shot off with the Leibstandarte in Russia, which cured his youthful "the war is gonna run without me!" hysteria and restricted his mobility when he developed problem with his other leg in old age), that he was fortunate to never have been personally involved in "dirty affairs".

 

"Soldiers like others too" was a common phrase among Waffen SS veterans. Also the title of a book by SS vet and later right-wing political leader Franz Schönhuber IIRC. It was not that easy of course, unless you want to argue in general that the Wehrmacht committed its share of war crimes, too.

[Tomas Hoting]

IIRC my maternal grandfather was a Luftwaffe radio operator in a night fighter unit, and when his unit was disbanded at the end of the war he was transferred to a SS tank unit, scheduled to take part in the "Endkampf" in Berlin. It seems the commanding officer of his unit disregarded this and ordered his unit to surrender to US troops instead. Apparently, since my grandfather wore a SS uniform at that point of time, US treatment wasn't too good, which led to a lifelong dislike of the Americans. He was definitely no SS volunteer, he was sympathizer of the Communist Party as a teenager.

 

That would correspond to what Sven Arvidsson wrote in his post.

[BillB]

According to the late second husband of my granduncle's widow (who, in reciprocity to the "volunteering for the Wehrmacht to avoid the Waffen SS" route, volunteered for the latter since the former wouldn't take him as he was considered too important in his position as a Hitler Youth functionary), they surely didn't think of themselves of having anything in common with the KZ guards or in fact working for Himmler at all, and remained indignated that they were lumped in with the general SS as a "criminal organisation" at war's end. He qualified though, in a long talk while we were the only two in the house waiting for the rest of the family to return from my brother's confirmation service (he got his leg shot off with the Leibstandarte in Russia, which cured his youthful "the war is gonna run without me!" hysteria and restricted his mobility when he developed problem with his other leg in old age), that he was fortunate to never have been personally involved in "dirty affairs".

 

"Soldiers like others too" was a common phrase among Waffen SS veterans. Also the title of a book by SS vet and later right-wing political leader Franz Schönhuber IIRC. It was not that easy of course, unless you want to argue in general that the Wehrmacht committed its share of war crimes, too.

That Waffen SS "we were only normal soldiers" bit is quite common, but I believe it has been pretty well disproven. For a start one of the original W-SS units (Eicke's Totenkopf) was made up exclusively of KZ guards, and I believe that cross postings back and forth between KZ and W-SS units were pretty routine; if you look at pics of KZ guards you can often see individuals wearing gallantry awards and combat badges.

 

This line also conveniently overlooks the long record of W-SS atrocities against combatants and civilians. The "superstar" units like the Liebstandarte, SS-VT/Das Reich and Totenkopf had form for this going back to at least May/June 1940 at places like Wormhoudt, Le Paradis, Tulle and Oradour-sur-Glane, and the record the later and/or lesser known W-SS units is even worse - have a look at the Prinz Eugen or Handschar in Yugoslavia for example, and IIRC Dirlewanger et al in the East also came under the W-SS umbrella. The only ones I can think of that don't have such shennanigans attached to their name are the Hohenstauffen and Frundsberg, altho given the amount of cross-postings within units I would not be at all surprised to find folk serving in them that had been involved in bad stuff with other units.

 

In short, W-SS was still SS and to pretend otherwise shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what the SS was all about and where it fitted in the Nazi state IMHO. KZ-guards or W-SS, they were front-line fighters for National Socilaism. As far as they were concerned Auschwitz and Normandy were all part of the same "front-line" struggle and all the stuff about W-SS being separate from the run-of-the-mill SS is just post war excuses. With ref to the original thread header, AIUI conscription into the W-SS didn't come until the latter half of 1944, as a result of the manpower situation and the reorganisation of German ground forces under Himmler. I think the last of the "volunteer" manpower pool was used up with the formation of the Hitler Jugend in late 1943, and IIRC the W-SS were having manpower problems then too as the Heer had effectively excluded them from access to regular recruiting channels.

 

BillB

[BansheeOne]

In short, W-SS was still SS and to pretend otherwise shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what the SS was all about and where it fitted in the Nazi state IMHO.

 

Oh, I'm not uncertain about that at all. I just wanted to give an anecdotal perspective from the inside, since Luke's question touched upon that.

[swerve]

... With ref to the original thread header, AIUI conscription into the W-SS didn't come until the latter half of 1944, as a result of the manpower situation and the reorganisation of German ground forces under Himmler. I think the last of the "volunteer" manpower pool was used up with the formation of the Hitler Jugend in late 1943, and IIRC the W-SS were having manpower problems then too as the Heer had effectively excluded them from access to regular recruiting channels.

 

BillB

 

Bill, I think you have to distinguish between conscription into the SS within the Reich, & conscription of Volksdeutsche in occupied territory, & I think you're rather late with your estimate of when the former began, & years behind the latter.

 

Prinz Eugen had a sizable proportion of conscripts from its formation in 1941, when not enough ethnic Germans in the German-occupied zone of Banat, where it was recruited, volunteered. What started then continued for the rest of the war, for Prinz Eugen & other units recruited outside Germany.

 

BTW, it's interesting that you cite Hohenstaufen & Frundsberg as being relatively free of the taint, since it seems that they had a majority of German conscripts from the start, being the first Waffen-SS units recruited within Germany to be largely conscripted - in 1943. It is, however, reported that due to objections to conscription for the SS, the recruits were offered the option of transfer to the Wehrmacht after initial training, but very few took up the offer.

[BillB]

Oh, I'm not uncertain about that at all. I just wanted to give an anecdotal perspective from the inside, since Luke's question touched upon that.

Sorry Banshee, that wasn't aimed at you, I was just making a general comment. As for the anecdote, fair one and I suspect there were a lot of those "exceptions that prove the rule" at that time.

 

BillB

[BillB]

Bill, I think you have to distinguish between conscription into the SS within the Reich, & conscription of Volksdeutsche in occupied territory, & I think you're rather late with your estimate of when the former began, & years behind the latter.

 

Dunno about you mate but I'd already made that distinction, and assumed we were talking about your bog standard Germans being drafted, not Volksdeutsche which are a whole different bag of tricks. AIUI the majority of the bog standard drafting came toward the end of the war when they started re-assigning surplus Luftwaffe ground crew, Gunther Grass and all that kind of malarkey en mass. I reckon you could also argue that the Volksdeutsche were more pressed men than conscripts/draftees. One of my mother's childhood friends in Nottingham was married to a former W-SS man from one of the Baltic States (can't remember which one). His story was that a group of SS recruited him from home at gunpoint due to his Aryan features. Of course, he could have been fibbing...

 

I also wouldn't call a few months difference "rather late" either. See below.

 

Prinz Eugen had a sizable proportion of conscripts from its formation in 1941, when not enough ethnic Germans in the German-occupied zone of Banat, where it was recruited, volunteered. What started then continued for the rest of the war, for Prinz Eugen & other units recruited outside Germany.

So all these 1941 conscripts were Volksdeutsche then, yes?

 

BTW, it's interesting that you cite Hohenstaufen & Frundsberg as being relatively free of the taint, since it seems that they had a majority of German conscripts from the start, being the first Waffen-SS units recruited within Germany to be largely conscripted - in 1943. It is, however, reported that due to objections to conscription for the SS, the recruits were offered the option of transfer to the Wehrmacht after initial training, but very few took up the offer.

 

I cited the Hohenstauffen and Frundsberg because I am unaware of them being involved in any atrocities, although they appear to have had one inflicted on them at the south end of the Nijmegen bridge. Ref the latter having a majority of German conscripts, only just according to my bookshelf. Only 14,000 of the first 27,000 men assigned to those divisions were conscripts, and the majority of them were Volksdeutsche. A lot were also 17-18 years of age too, which AIUI stemmed from the SS recruiters having to get around the Heer's grip on the manpower pool. Same with the formation of the Hitler Jugend. By the end of December 1943 they'd found another 5,000 or so but I dunno where they came from.

 

BillB

[swerve]

Dunno about you mate but I'd already made that distinction, and assumed we were talking about your bog standard Germans being drafted, not Volksdeutsche which are a whole different bag of tricks. AIUI the majority of the bog standard drafting came toward the end of the war when they started re-assigning surplus Luftwaffe ground crew, Gunther Grass and all that kind of malarkey en mass. I reckon you could also argue that the Volksdeutsche were more pressed men than conscripts/draftees. One of my mother's childhood friends in Nottingham was married to a former W-SS man from one of the Baltic States (can't remember which one). His story was that a group of SS recruited him from home at gunpoint due to his Aryan features. Of course, he could have been fibbing...

 

I also wouldn't call a few months difference "rather late" either. See below.

 

So all these 1941 conscripts were Volksdeutsche then, yes?

I cited the Hohenstauffen and Frundsberg because I am unaware of them being involved in any atrocities, although they appear to have had one inflicted on them at the south end of the Nijmegen bridge. Ref the latter having a majority of German conscripts, only just according to my bookshelf. Only 14,000 of the first 27,000 men assigned to those divisions were conscripts, and the majority of them were Volksdeutsche. A lot were also 17-18 years of age too, which AIUI stemmed from the SS recruiters having to get around the Heer's grip on the manpower pool. Same with the formation of the Hitler Jugend. By the end of December 1943 they'd found another 5,000 or so but I dunno where they came from.

 

BillB

 

So what we have (with disagreements rapidly disappearing) is -

Volksdeutsche (yes, Prinz Eugen) conscripted from 1941. From what I've read, there were "pressed men", but also regular conscription by allied states of Volksdeutsche some of whom where then compulsorily (& some voluntarily) transferred to the SS, & from early 1944, straight conscription into both the Wehrmacht & SS (with little choice, usually) of Volksdeutsche, with the agreement of Hungary & Romania.

 

Modest conscription of Germans in Germany, mostly youngsters, from 1943, including transfers from the Luftwaffe, navy, etc.

 

Full-scale conscription, & compulsory transfer of other troops, into the SS from mid-late 1944.

 

BTW, I think Grass was pressed into Frundsberg.

Edited May 28, 2008 by swerve

[Sardaukar]

I remember reading that in time of Kursk, Sepp Dietrich was waiting for a trainload of replacements for his units to greet them. To his surprise, replacements consisted of men that originally thought they were going to join to Luftwaffe and realized their destination only when issued Waffen SS uniforms and subsequently sent to SS. So, morale of the new replacements was not very high...

 

I think in 1943 one had very good chance to end up in Waffen SS, considering they were given priority in replacements after recruiting restrictions were lifted.

[BillB]

So what we have (with disagreements rapidly disappearing) is -

Volksdeutsche (yes, Prinz Eugen) conscripted from 1941. From what I've read, there were "pressed men", but also regular conscription by allied states of Volksdeutsche some of whom where then compulsorily (& some voluntarily) transferred to the SS, & from early 1944, straight conscription into both the Wehrmacht & SS (with little choice, usually) of Volksdeutsche, with the agreement of Hungary & Romania.

 

Modest conscription of Germans in Germany, mostly youngsters, from 1943, including transfers from the Luftwaffe, navy, etc.

 

Full-scale conscription, & compulsory transfer of other troops, into the SS from mid-late 1944.

 

BTW, I think Grass was pressed into Frundsberg.

Yup, I'd go with that.

 

Of course, we have missed the fraught subject of all those foreign W-SS volunteers...

 

BillB

[BillB]

I remember reading that in time of Kursk, Sepp Dietrich was waiting for a trainload of replacements for his units to greet them. To his surprise, replacements consisted of men that originally thought they were going to join to Luftwaffe and realized their destination only when issued Waffen SS uniforms and subsequently sent to SS. So, morale of the new replacements was not very high...

 

I think in 1943 one had very good chance to end up in Waffen SS, considering they were given priority in replacements after recruiting restrictions were lifted.

Ref the first bit, I should have thought SS basic training would have turned them into good automatons before they got anywhere near Russia...

 

Ref the second bit, dunno, I'd think mid 1944 onward for that. Do you have a date for the lifting of recruiting restrictions? I thought I had it but can't seem to find it.

 

BillB

[Jonathan Chin]

Has anyone here read Omar Bartov's THE EASTERN FRONT? He had a very provocative thesis in that he believes complicity in war crimes were widespread in the entire German military establishment irrespective of SS or Heer. I have read it but would like to know what you guys think.

[bd1]

Dunno about you mate but I'd already made that distinction, and assumed we were talking about your bog standard Germans being drafted, not Volksdeutsche which are a whole different bag of tricks. AIUI the majority of the bog standard drafting came toward the end of the war when they started re-assigning surplus Luftwaffe ground crew, Gunther Grass and all that kind of malarkey en mass. I reckon you could also argue that the Volksdeutsche were more pressed men than conscripts/draftees. One of my mother's childhood friends in Nottingham was married to a former W-SS man from one of the Baltic States (can't remember which one). His story was that a group of SS recruited him from home at gunpoint due to his Aryan features. Of course, he could have been fibbing...

 

I

 

BillB

My uncle was conscripted to Waffen-SS in 1944 January in Estonia . Went missing in war after couple of months. As well many other units were turned to SS-units, most of them were not happy with it Other conscripts ended in Luftwaffe auxiliaries.

[BillB]

Has anyone here read Omar Bartov's THE EASTERN FRONT? He had a very provocative thesis in that he believes complicity in war crimes were widespread in the entire German military establishment irrespective of SS or Heer. I have read it but would like to know what you guys think.

I read it a few years back, and its Omer, not Omar. I was told that the personal correspondence he draws upon to illustrate his thesis was selected from a collection specially assembled by Goebbel's Propaganda Minsistry to illustrate National Socialist fervour among the troops, which undermines things a bit I think. Personally I'd put it in the same box as Daniel Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Executioners, insofar as it goes a tad too far trying to push a personal agenda. That said, Bartov's underlying thesis of complicity has been pretty well proven, if not quite as all pervading as he suggests. See here for example (there's some criticism of Bartov's work in there too): http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~cm322900/reviewessay.html

 

BillB

[Brian Kennedy]

Has anyone here read Omar Bartov's THE EASTERN FRONT? He had a very provocative thesis in that he believes complicity in war crimes were widespread in the entire German military establishment irrespective of SS or Heer. I have read it but would like to know what you guys think.

 

Talking out my butt right now, but I think it would probably depend on what you call "war crimes." Pretty much every army in WWII carried out their fair share of nasty sh*t -- for example in North Africa US soldiers often took potshots at Arab civilians for fun, engaged in widespread looting in Italy, and we had several prisoner-massacre incidents. Nothing vaguely approaching what the Nazis did, esp. on the Eastern Front and to civilians in occupied countries, but if you want to find atrocities in WWII it's pretty easy.

[BillB]

My uncle was conscripted to Waffen-SS in 1944 January in Estonia . Went missing in war after couple of months. As well many other units were turned to SS-units, most of them were not happy with it Other conscripts ended in Luftwaffe auxiliaries.

So the guy in Nottingham may not have been fibbing after all then.

 

BillB

[Jonathan Chin]

Talking out my butt right now, but I think it would probably depend on what you call "war crimes." Pretty much every army in WWII carried out their fair share of nasty sh*t -- for example in North Africa US soldiers often took potshots at Arab civilians for fun, engaged in widespread looting in Italy, and we had several prisoner-massacre incidents. Nothing vaguely approaching what the Nazis did, esp. on the Eastern Front and to civilians in occupied countries, but if you want to find atrocities in WWII it's pretty easy.

 

Speaking about more systematic forms of atrocity as matter of policy really.

 

Bill:

 

Thanks!