Waffen-SS Soldiers Guarded the Nuremberg Trials

[1srelluc]

Mark Feldon never disappoints.

 

[Donald H]

Not to say that I buy into 'all' of that, but just to say that this could become contagious!

I know some WW2 secrets too but I'm not sure if the members here are ready yet?

 

[1srelluc]

Not to say that I buy into 'all' of that, but just to say that this could become contagious!

I know some WW2 secrets too but I'm not sure if the members here are ready yet?

If you mean going down the Mark Feldon YT rabbit hole you are correct....The next thing you know a hour has gone by.

 

[Donald H]

If you mean going down the Mark Feldon YT rabbit hole you are correct....The next thing you know a hour has gone by.

One time a Polish 'science engineer' who lived next door to A-B in Poland during the war said to me, 200,000 tops.
I have no idea where he got his information from?

 

[Mushroom]

Mark Feldon never disappoints.

One thing people should realize when reading the title of this thread or watching the video is that they were from the foreign legions of the Waffen SS.

The Waffen SS was not the "SS". They actually had a rather good reputation of treatment of others, and not taking part in the war crimes of the SS. And most of those that came from the territory of the USSR were either conscripts, or joined not for racial reasons but because they were anti-communists. And not being Germans, there was less question as for their trustworthiness. Plus, they simply had nowhere else to go as returning home they would have been executed by the Soviets.

And yes, I have long enjoyed watching Mark Felton videos.

 

[whitehall]

Ukrainian soldiers guarded Nazi concentration camps.

 

[The Duke]

Ukrainian soldiers guarded Nazi concentration camps.

I find that hard to believe. Ukraine had it bad in WW2. They didn't fight like the Poles.

My Ukrainian relative came here in 1933.

 

[Mushroom]

Ukrainian soldiers guarded Nazi concentration camps.

I find that hard to believe.

In this I have to agree, and that is not how it worked.

Oh yes, there were indeed Ukrainians in the SS, but that was the Waffen SS and not the SS itself. The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division being the most famous, but they were not camp guards. They were a combat unit, used in the defense against the advancing Soviet troops or keeping down rebellion in Slovakia and Slovenia.

The camp guards were almost exclusively members of the SS itself, members of the "SS-Totenkopfverbunde". They were not members of the Waffen SS at all, but a combat trained unit that fell directly under SS control. All members of it were SS members first, and did other duties as directed. In fact, later in the war many would be transferred from camp duty and served with the 3rd SS Panzer Division "Totenkopf", a Waffen SS unit created primarily for those who had been camp guards. This is because it was recognized that not all members were cut out to be camp guards, or leaving them in that duty too long often resulted in them developing personality traits that were not even welcome among the SS. And it is not a coincidence that while war crimes were actually rare among Waffen SS units, they were common in the 3rd Panzer Division. And often while recovering from wounds members of that Division would be rotated to camps until they recovered and could return to combat.

I have to admit, I have never heard of foreigners working as camp guards. In fact, I have never heard of any camp guards that were not ethnically German from Germany-Austria-Hungary-Czechoslovakia.

 

[westwall]

One thing people should realize when reading the title of this thread or watching the video is that they were from the foreign legions of the Waffen SS.

The Waffen SS was not the "SS". They actually had a rather good reputation of treatment of others, and not taking part in the war crimes of the SS. And most of those that came from the territory of the USSR were either conscripts, or joined not for racial reasons but because they were anti-communists. And not being Germans, there was less question as for their trustworthiness. Plus, they simply had nowhere else to go as returning home they would have been executed by the Soviets.

And yes, I have long enjoyed watching Mark Felton videos.

Actually the Waffen SS WAS part of the SS. There were three branches of the SS, the Algemeine (Major Hochstetter from Hogan's Heroes), they were the bureaucrats, the Polizei SS, these were the camp guards, and of course the Waffen , or armed SS. These were the soldiers. And they were pretty brutal if they felt they had cause. 2nd SS destroyed a French town and everyone they could find was murdered during D-Day.

I don't remember which division it was that destroyed the Croation town after Heydrich was assassinated, and the vast majority of Waffen SS units have some sort of atrocity associated with them.

The exceptions were the 5th, 9th, and 10th SS divisions.

 

[westwall]

In this I have to agree, and that is not how it worked.

Oh yes, there were indeed Ukrainians in the SS, but that was the Waffen SS and not the SS itself. The 14th Waffen Grenadier Division being the most famous, but they were not camp guards. They were a combat unit, used in the defense against the advancing Soviet troops or keeping down rebellion in Slovakia and Slovenia.

The camp guards were almost exclusively members of the SS itself, members of the "SS-Totenkopfverbunde". They were not members of the Waffen SS at all, but a combat trained unit that fell directly under SS control. All members of it were SS members first, and did other duties as directed. In fact, later in the war many would be transferred from camp duty and served with the 3rd SS Panzer Division "Totenkopf", a Waffen SS unit created primarily for those who had been camp guards. This is because it was recognized that not all members were cut out to be camp guards, or leaving them in that duty too long often resulted in them developing personality traits that were not even welcome among the SS. And it is not a coincidence that while war crimes were actually rare among Waffen SS units, they were common in the 3rd Panzer Division. And often while recovering from wounds members of that Division would be rotated to camps until they recovered and could return to combat.

I have to admit, I have never heard of foreigners working as camp guards. In fact, I have never heard of any camp guards that were not ethnically German from Germany-Austria-Hungary-Czechoslovakia.

The SS-TV was derived from the SS-VT or Verfegungstruppen, and the TV were used to form the 3rd SS Totenkopf Division.

 

[westwall]

The SS-TV was derived from the SS-VT or Verfegungstruppen, and the TV were used to form the 3rd SS Totenkopf Division.

And just so you understand the relationships, if a Waffen SS soldier was wounded severely enough that he could no longer serve in a combat unit, he was transferred to the Polizei SS and became a camp guard.

They were ALL interconnected.

 

[Sunni Man]

I find that hard to believe. Ukraine had it bad in WW2. They didn't fight like the Poles.

Yes, many Ukrainians joined the German army to fight against the Soviet Russians.
I watched an interview with a Ukrainian man, and when asked why he had fought with the Germans?
He said, although the Ukrainian people didn't like being invaded and occupied by either the Germans or the Russians.
At least the German soldiers were ordered to allow the rural farm people to keep their cows and chickens so their families had food to eat.
Whereas, the Russian soldiers were under orders to confiscate all the farm animals and chickens, and could care less if all the people starved to death.

 

[francoHFW]

Estonians and Latvians they're talking about...

 

[Sunni Man]

Ukrainian soldiers guarded Nazi concentration camps.

Ukrainian soldiers that joined the German army had no problem being guards at concentration camps full of Russian soldiers and bolshevik Jews, that they hated.
Because in 1932 and 1933, millions of Ukrainians were killed in the Holodomor, a man-made famine engineered by the Soviet government of Joseph Stalin.

 

[Mushroom]

Actually the Waffen SS WAS part of the SS. There were three branches of the SS, the Algemeine (Major Hochstetter from Hogan's Heroes), they were the bureaucrats, the Polizei SS, these were the camp guards, and of course the Waffen , or armed SS. These were the soldiers. And they were pretty brutal if they felt they had cause. 2nd SS destroyed a French town and everyone they could find was murdered during D-Day.

Not really. The Waffen SS did not take orders from the SS, but from the OKW, or Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. In other words, the Army High Command. The SS selected the members, but operationally they were part of and commanded by the Army.

And the massacre of Lidice and Lezaky were brutally crushed in response to the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Many were killed in the massacres that followed, and others sent to death camps. However, that was not the Waffen SS but by the Gestapo and SS itself. This is because there was no need for the Waffen SS, they viewed it as a police matter against largely unarmed criminals.

And yes, like any other organization many others did participate in war crimes. And the SS Panzer units are very different from the infantry units. I never said that others did not take part in war crimes, just that it was rare. It must be remembered, that the SS Panzer units were recruited primarily from actual SS members. Where as the Infantry units were just soldiers, and not members of the SS itself. And a hell of a lot of them were not even ethnically German in the infantry units.

Think of it as akin to the National Guard and the Army. Yes, the Army trains the Guard, and when mobilized is in command of them. But the individual states select the members. But that is really it, Other than deciding who can join the guard and the highest leadership, the state really has little to do with it otherwise. And if under the command of the Army, then they have almost nothing to do with it at all until that unit is returned.

Oh, and you need to watch Hogan's Heroes again. Major Hochstetter was not in the SS, he was in the Gestapo. In fact, I can once again honestly say that I can never remember seeing somebody in the SS on the show.

And yes, I am aware that at times his uniform had SS runes on it. But that was simply sloppy costuming, as he was always clearly stated as being a member of the Gestapo.

 

[Mushroom]

Ukrainian soldiers that joined the German army had no problem being guards at concentration camps full of Russian soldiers and bolshevik Jews, that they hated.

Well, a POW camp is not a "concentration camp", they are very different things.

And to get into the political camps, one really needs to dive deep into the history of the German camp system. Yes, the concentration camps were indeed originally set up for political prisoners. In Marxist states they would call them "Retraining Camps". Those were all actual prisoners, who had been tried and convicted in a court of law and were serving out their sentences. And most were only serving sentences of 10 years or less, and many actually were freed early in the war.

Most historians try to differentiate what came afterwards by using the term "Death Camps", as when the rounding up and extermination of Jews, Romani, and others started there was never any trial, and no attempt at all in anything other than exploiting them as long as they could, then killing them. No attempt at "reform" at all, only exploitation and murder. And yes, there were many concentration camps in Germany, but the Death Camps were primarily in Poland.

So yes, as a guard in a POW camp that was fine. In fact, that was actually demanded as members of each branch of service generally guarded the POWs of the opposing nations.

POWs in the ground forces were placed into a Stalag. POWs who were in the air forces went into a Luft Stalag. Higher ranking officers generally went into an Oflag. Hence, in the TV show Hogan's Heroes, Colonel Klink was an officer in the Luftwaffe because it was actually "Luft Stalag XIII". And in such camps Internationally, the detainees are guarded by members of the military. And if possible, broken down and guarded by the same branch. And yes, in the US when the Navy and Marines captured POWs, they were initially guarded by Marines most time. Until they were finally sent to larger camps, which were generally guarded by the Army. But that was mostly a manpower thing, as there were nowhere near as many Marines as Soldiers. And unlike many other nations, at that time there was no "Air Force", it was still part of the Army.

So Ukrainians acting as guards in a POW camp? That is not only accepted, it is expected. Military guards military, almost never do civilians guard military POWs in the last century. And once again, I have not heard of military serving as guard at the camps for civilians other than a few thousand towards the end (late 1944 into 1945) as manpower shortages were crippling manpower in the country, and not in the main camps but in subcamps. Like a subcamp of Birkenau, where prisoners were used to strip and scrap German and Allied aircraft for any salvage they could recover. That was not a "Death Camp", but an actual work camp. Others like in the movie "Schindler's List" towards the end would use military personnel, once again a labor camp and not one set aside for liquidation. That was a subcamp of the Krakow-Plaszow Camp, a work camp and not a death camp.

 

[westwall]

Not really. The Waffen SS did not take orders from the SS, but from the OKW, or Oberkommando der Wehrmacht. In other words, the Army High Command. The SS selected the members, but operationally they were part of and commanded by the Army.

And the massacre of Lidice and Lezaky were brutally crushed in response to the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich. Many were killed in the massacres that followed, and others sent to death camps. However, that was not the Waffen SS but by the Gestapo and SS itself. This is because there was no need for the Waffen SS, they viewed it as a police matter against largely unarmed criminals.

And yes, like any other organization many others did participate in war crimes. And the SS Panzer units are very different from the infantry units. I never said that others did not take part in war crimes, just that it was rare. It must be remembered, that the SS Panzer units were recruited primarily from actual SS members. Where as the Infantry units were just soldiers, and not members of the SS itself. And a hell of a lot of them were not even ethnically German in the infantry units.

Think of it as akin to the National Guard and the Army. Yes, the Army trains the Guard, and when mobilized is in command of them. But the individual states select the members. But that is really it, Other than deciding who can join the guard and the highest leadership, the state really has little to do with it otherwise. And if under the command of the Army, then they have almost nothing to do with it at all until that unit is returned.

Oh, and you need to watch Hogan's Heroes again. Major Hochstetter was not in the SS, he was in the Gestapo. In fact, I can once again honestly say that I can never remember seeing somebody in the SS on the show.

And yes, I am aware that at times his uniform had SS runes on it. But that was simply sloppy costuming, as he was always clearly stated as being a member of the Gestapo.

You are factually incorrect. The SS took their orders from Himmler. ALL SS took their orders from Himmler. When SS units were attached to the various armies, then, and only then did they follow the orders of whichever command they happened to fall under at that time, and ONLY for combat operations. The Waffen SS was an arm of the Nazi party. As such they were trained, supplied, and maintained by the Algemeine SS. Their leadership was entirely different. Their rank structures were different, and they were far more egalitarian, they did away with Waffenfarbe as an element of their uniform very early on.

Furthermore, if you were a member of the Wehrmacht, you were prohibited from being a member of the Nazi Party. Obviously, that rule was ignored for General officers, and those men who had a long standing affiliation with the Party, though, for the VAST majority of those men, when the Waffen SS was formed, they universally transferred over. And, because of that, many SS members were also party members as there was no prohibition against it.

You are correct that no Waffen SS UNITS took part in the reprisals after Heydrichs assassination, but most of the Ordnungspolizei that took part were former Waffen SS.

Oradour-Sur-Glen is the French town that was destroyed by the 2nd SS Panzer Division, well, the 1st Battalion of the 4th Panzergrenadier Regiment, are the ones who did the deed. All Waffen SS all the time.


I merely used Hochstetter as an example because the Algemeine used all black uniforms. And his uniform is actually correct, for the most part, for a mid level bureaucrat. The GESTAPO wore no uniforms at all for the most part. If they wanted him to be completely accurate he should have had an SD patch on his lower left breast pocket, that would have designated him as Sicherheistdienst, and then the uniform, and what he was doing would have been absolutely correct, but, the majority of Americans had no idea who the SD were so they used the GESTAPO instead.

 

[Mushroom]

Furthermore, if you were a member of the Wehrmacht, you were prohibited from being a member of the Nazi Party.

Sorry, I would like some verification of that, because I have never heard of that. Because by obvious logic, that also means that no member of the party could serve or be drafted. And it is not unknown that most of the senior officers were all party members.

That makes about as much logical sense as saying members of the Communist Party could not serve in the Red Army.

 

[westwall]

Sorry, I would like some verification of that, because I have never heard of that. Because by obvious logic, that also means that no member of the party could serve or be drafted. And it is not unknown that most of the senior officers were all party members.

That makes about as much logical sense as saying members of the Communist Party could not serve in the Red Army.

That was a Weimar era law passed at the behest of the German military. They didn't want to be drawn into the various political squabbles. There were plenty of Freiwillege korps to handle that.

Another way of verifying it is look at pictures of German uniforms. NEVER will you see a Party badge on them except for General grade officers.

OTOH, they are frequently seen on SS uniforms.

 

[Sunni Man]

Another way of verifying it is look at pictures of German uniforms. NEVER will you see a Party badge on them except for General grade officers.

Same for the German Navy.
The majority of enlisted sailors and most officers were not members of the Nazi party.