As a non-historian, I'd heard of course of the German SS troops in World War II and realized that they were somehow separate from the Germany Army itself. I'd also heard of the Waffen SS, who were combat troops, but never really looked into the "ordinary" SS. If the Waffen SS did all the fighting, what did the others do -- sit around all day and get high? And, watching the occasional documentary, I kept getting mixed up because sometimes divisions had numbers and sometimes names -- Liebstandarte, Totenkopf, Das Reich, Hitlerjugend. And why did some officers have a skull and crossbones on their caps while others didn't? This documentary explains all that and more, although I had no reason to memorize the information. They began in the 30s as Hitlers personal body guard, wearing black caps. Soon all their uniforms were black while the German Army's color was a field gray. They were led by Heinrich Himmler and thoroughly brainwashed. Their genealogical trees were examined leaf by leaf to make sure their blood wasn't tainted. And they were trained and buffed until they shone with vigor and ideological purity. The Army resented them because of their bonding and fanaticism.
I'll give one example of a division's evolution. At the beginning of the war, when Jews and other undesirables were being rounded up, one division was put in charge of Dachau. But they were withdrawn shortly and put into combat. Because of their association with Dachau they were called the Totenkopf (Death's Head) division and wore the skull and bones on their caps. The running of the camps was thereafter taken over by units of the regular Army, the SS being too valuable for such duty.
The last division to be formed was the Hitlerjugend. The "Hitler Youth" division was made up of younger men, including many teens, who were the first generation to be raised from infancy in the Third Reich. Everything they learned in school reflected NSDP ideology. Their brains weren't washed; they were dry cleaned.
All of them had undergone rigorous training and became careless with their own lives, even as they grew indifferent towards the lives of others. We know of the massacre of American soldiers at Melmedy during the Battle of the Bulge. But the SS were pulling stunts like that throughout the war. There was a mass execution of British captives after Dunkirk, for instance. They held other mass executions, of Canadian soldiers and innocent civilians alike. After burning one French village, they herded the inhabitants into the church and set that on fire too, killing 648 people who had done nothing. The name of the village is Oradour sur Glane. The ruins still stand and a plaque describes the incident.
Not to deny their eagerness to fight or their skill. On their own, the Waffen SS defeated the airborne drops in Holland as part of "Operation Market Garden." One SS officer, Wittmann, is most famous for his ambush of elements of the British 7th Armoured Division, during the Battle of Villers-Bocage on 13 June 1944. While in command of a single Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger he destroyed up to 14 tanks and 15 personnel carriers along with 2 anti-tank guns within the space of 15 minutes. He PERSONALLY brought the British breakout from Normandy to a halt at that point.
They were probably the most efficient combat troops of World War II and the most barbaric. They're almost all dead now.
I'll give one example of a division's evolution. At the beginning of the war, when Jews and other undesirables were being rounded up, one division was put in charge of Dachau. But they were withdrawn shortly and put into combat. Because of their association with Dachau they were called the Totenkopf (Death's Head) division and wore the skull and bones on their caps. The running of the camps was thereafter taken over by units of the regular Army, the SS being too valuable for such duty.
The last division to be formed was the Hitlerjugend. The "Hitler Youth" division was made up of younger men, including many teens, who were the first generation to be raised from infancy in the Third Reich. Everything they learned in school reflected NSDP ideology. Their brains weren't washed; they were dry cleaned.
All of them had undergone rigorous training and became careless with their own lives, even as they grew indifferent towards the lives of others. We know of the massacre of American soldiers at Melmedy during the Battle of the Bulge. But the SS were pulling stunts like that throughout the war. There was a mass execution of British captives after Dunkirk, for instance. They held other mass executions, of Canadian soldiers and innocent civilians alike. After burning one French village, they herded the inhabitants into the church and set that on fire too, killing 648 people who had done nothing. The name of the village is Oradour sur Glane. The ruins still stand and a plaque describes the incident.
Not to deny their eagerness to fight or their skill. On their own, the Waffen SS defeated the airborne drops in Holland as part of "Operation Market Garden." One SS officer, Wittmann, is most famous for his ambush of elements of the British 7th Armoured Division, during the Battle of Villers-Bocage on 13 June 1944. While in command of a single Panzerkampfwagen VI Tiger he destroyed up to 14 tanks and 15 personnel carriers along with 2 anti-tank guns within the space of 15 minutes. He PERSONALLY brought the British breakout from Normandy to a halt at that point.
They were probably the most efficient combat troops of World War II and the most barbaric. They're almost all dead now.
