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Originally posted by Slugworth
Steven Spielberg, how did you miss this story?
Originally posted by Slugworth
Were the SS actually "crack troops" as the article describes them, or were they given those shiny uniforms simply based on loyalty? They are always depicted as these fearsome guys but that was before learning that they lost, with superior numbers, to a few soldiers augmented by french politicians and their wives. I wonder if they were only feared because they had authority within their own military, but were in fact only average or below-average soldiers when it came to actual fighting. They are often described as "elite" soldiers, but in a system obsessed with loyalty and racial purity, were they elite in their fighting skills or just their loyalty and racial background?edit on 5/13/2013 by Slugworth because: type
Originally posted by ecoparity
Originally posted by Slugworth
Were the SS actually "crack troops" as the article describes them, or were they given those shiny uniforms simply based on loyalty? They are always depicted as these fearsome guys but that was before learning that they lost, with superior numbers, to a few soldiers augmented by french politicians and their wives. I wonder if they were only feared because they had authority within their own military, but were in fact only average or below-average soldiers when it came to actual fighting. They are often described as "elite" soldiers, but in a system obsessed with loyalty and racial purity, were they elite in their fighting skills or just their loyalty and racial background?edit on 5/13/2013 by Slugworth because: type
The SS started off as special police units and an elite "palace guard" functionary for the Nazi leadership. As usual, there were different ideas on who / what they were and what they were supposed to be doing depending on which Nazi leader was involved.
Hitler saw them as his personal body guard and shock troops, more in sync w/ his ideals and even had them all swear loyalty oaths to him vs the State at one point.
Himmler saw the SS as his own personal para-military force and brought his own ideas about the occult and German historic knighthood in the uniforms, ceremonies and even awards for valor, loyalty, etc.
In reality, the SS was a force of thugs, selected for "racial purity" and used to do the dirty jobs the Nazi's were concerned normal, sane soldiers would refuse to do. The Waffen-SS, the military version started off as 3 divisions mostly converted from the original police units, ending up with 30 something divisions total. SS officers commanded the death camps and the divisions were often sent on Hitler's pet projects to serve as local muscle and keep the other, mostly non-Nazi military in line. (Luftwaffe pilots, as an example were not allowed to be members of the Nazi party by German law though this was not always enforced).
The SS were not "better" fighters, they just tended to be better equipped and more fanatical. SS troops would fight to the death more often than normal troops and were usually crueler, less likely to break and retreat, etc.edit on 14-5-2013 by ecoparity because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by brew8537
reply to post by Merinda
Watch Enemy at the gates
of course it depends on who wins the war as to whether you get to the gallows or get a medal.
Originally posted by dagann
reply to post by Dragoon01
Very good point. However, the late date of Hitler's suicide and the obvious loss of the war must have been deciding factor. It is quite known that the soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht detested the SS and saw them as for what they were,... blood thirsty sycophants eager to please their superiors at the head of their chain of command. The Wehrmacht's historical reputation as a efficient, professional and honorable army was stained by the blood of the SS. The tactics of the SS was criminal in nature and resulted in the horror inflicted upon innocent civilian populations in the regions of Germany's theater of operations.
Most of the Wehrmacht were aware many of the SS will hang for their crimes in post war deliberations and did not want their association with the SS to color their code of ethics. It is not a crime to fight for your country when called to service, but to aide in crimes will lead you down the path to the gallows at the end of hostilities.
The whole story makes sense when you consider the realities of war. Many i suppose only wanted the war to end and return to their families.
Originally posted by goldentorch
I watched a video concerning POW's from WWI onwards. The makers of the video claimed that Soviet and US fighters fought each other in the skies above Germany at the end of WWII. The only other reference I've so far been able to find is an amateur historian's claim that the leading air ace of WWII the Russian pilot Ivan Kozhedub had two P51's on his kills tally, however this is not borne out in his Wiki entry.
The amateur historian claimed that these dogfights were accidental but the video seemed to say, if I recall correctly, that it was part of the conflict over the dispersal of POW's.
I've not dug into too deeply to be truthful but this thread brought it to mind and I wondered if anybody had heard anything of this.