Its delusional to pretend that the Waffen SS had no hand in the mass murders. In fact Das Reich was more than happy to mass murder the entire town of Orador in France. And the excuse? That’s how they did things on the eastern front.
American GIs at Malmedy also would be interested to hear that the Waffen SS wasn’t a bunch of low life’s that systematically murdered outside the norms of the military profession.
And the Das Reich 2nd SS division, which was formed in Ukraine, and did some of its nastiest work there, had an emblem for their unit. It was an emblem called the Wolfsangel. Coincidently, it was also adopted by the Svoboda party (Socialist National party) and can be seen on he armbands of the Right Sector thugs that just took over Kiev and all the security and defense posts in the new government.
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.
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.