Posted on 03/16/2014 5:34:18 AM PDT by Cronos
Read it.
I’ll pass that on to my uncles from Daugavpils who were each shot in the head with a single bullet. You go on and enjoy your moral high ground.
You beat me to it. Perhaps the average Waffen SS infantryman was than more "cultured" the average General SS camp guard. But both organizations were at the same level of criminality.
Anyone who disagrees need only look the German war crimes committed in the field. The huge majority of them were either committed by the Waffen SS, or by units commanded by Waffen SS officers.
You think your family are the only ones who have a ‘story’ to tell from that era?
Think again...
Ok, fair enough if you argue they had to choose whether to be shot or to join the SS. For the sake of argument, ill just grant you that. They had no choice at all.
So then why are they proudly marching today as an SS veteran? Nobody pointing a gun at them now. Just sayin’.
You are dismissive of someone else’s story because you have one of your own?
Maybe they preferrred the German style since "they" choose to extirminate the Jews. The lesson? You, too, may be human and therefore cruel. Take your necessary preventive measures.
Poles fought for their country in the Armia Krajowa, not the Waffen SS.
But "they" immediately--as soon as the Nazi's arrived--embraced actions to exterminate Jews.
I’m not trying to defend the Waffen SS, but compare their activities and crimes to the scale of the General SS.
For the most part, the Waffen SS were forward deployed, and as they moved forward with the Wehrmacht, they were followed by General SS einsatzgruppe, who committed extraordinary war crimes on a very large scale.
After retreat from the eastern front, from 1-3 battalions of Waffen SS escaped and evaded US forces, who would hang any SS they caught on the spot, and made it to the French sector. The French, for their part, actively recruited them to be in the French Foreign Legion, and so entire companies and at least one battalion of Waffen SS ended up in FFL uniforms, fighting in French Indochina.
By the way, while the Malmedy massacre definitely happened, there is strong documentary evidence that the US brought in additional bodies to make it appear worse than it was. One such individual, wearing a US Army uniform, was the son of a local innkeeper, who had died of pneumonia several months before the massacre, and had been exhumed for that purpose.
The inn is still there, btw, just across the street from the memorial, the family name printed on it in large letters.
Yep, they all killed Jews with impunity, but the Waffen-SS did is as crimes of opportunity. They left the systematic stuff to the Einsatzgruppen and regular-SS.
That said, no one in the Baltic states has any reason to talk. They helped the SS kill Jews with supreme efficiency there.
I just finished reading "The Last 100 Days", about the ending of the war. Hitler was a wussy compared to Uncle Joe when it came to atrocities.
The history we learned in school was written to gloss over most of it; to show it all would reflect upon Roosevelt, the icon of the left, who, naturally, wrote the books.
The Soviets murdered and enslaved them until 1990 (thanks FDR!) and we’re getting hot about some mythical Nazis. Public edumacation is great in America , isn’t it.
Put yourself in the times....knowing only what was known then by the common man. What would you do and why?
We can’t answer that because we weren’t there, aren’t them, and the answer is as numerous and complex as the men/women who made their choices or had choices forced upon them.
The great liberating alliance for democracy between the US, UK and USSR? Really? The outcome of the war left 1/2 of Europe under the heel of butchering savages for another 50 years. The nightmare for Poland and the Baltics that started in 1939 never ended until 1989. One could say that the hell of the eastern Germans that started in 1932 was equally long in its expiry.
On a grander scale, consider the fate,choices and behavior of the Finns between 1914 and 1989. We romanticize their struggle against Soviet aggression in the Winter War, but are meekly silent in judging them about their Nazi alliance in the Russian campaign through 1944.
Or perhaps the militantly anti-Red Churchill who said of his embracing Stalin after the June 1941 Nazi invasion that if Hitler had invaded Hell, he would at least speak favorably of the Devil on the floor of Parliament.
I was told when young by a Polish emigre that when traveling to Europe, to not concern myself with planning to visit either Germany or Russia. He said that no matter where I was in Europe eventually both would visit me.
Wrong again DB.
Just summarizing your point: it’s wrong, I guess.
The Soviet point of view has its supporters here, doesn’t it. Anyone who fought the murderous Communists is a ‘Nazi’. Little wonder such ignorance elected a Communist to the White Hut in this country.
“there is strong documentary evidence that the US brought in additional bodies to make it appear worse than it was”
Bullshit. The US Army did not need to bring bodies to Malmedy and dress them as US soldiers. You should be ashamed of yourself.
SS is SS. But there’s a freaky subculture that seems enamored with them think of them as some anti-communists. That’s so far off as to be laughable. The only differences in a Nazi and a communist are a few minor economic differences.
Not really. It is indeed fair to call SS volunteers from other countries “Nazi”. And conversely, anyone fighting a communist does not deserve even the slightest automatic respect and sympathy.
Radical Moslems come to mind. Nazis come to mind. They are every bit as evil and anti christian.
NAZI = member of German political party NSDAP. That party ceased existing in 1945. Not every German was a member of this party, and no Baltics. The political party did not conduct war and did not commit war crimes.
“Nazi” today simply means ‘bad’. Public education dominated by neo-marxists.
Anyone fighting the murderous Communists for freedom of one’s country deserves respect and sympathy.
Communist holocaust continues to this day and is being denied by the scaremongers vomiting nonsense about some mythical ‘nazis’.
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