There is some evidence that the “Special Units” trailed the Wehrmacht into Poland and the Baltic countries suffered a crisis in morale after a period. Seems like there’s a limit to the atrocities that men who view themselves as soldiers will put up with. Even if the subjects of those atrocities are considered ‘enemies’ and ‘sub-human’.
“..some evidence that the “Special Units” trailed the Wehrmacht into Poland...”
The SS Einsatzgruppen were killers, pure and simple. Extermination squads sent to denude the area of the Slavic Untermenschen (subhumans).
Whatever crisis of morale they may or may not have had, it didn’t stop them from blowing peoples’ heads open, bayoneting children, gassing and burning people alive so they could create Lebensraum (living space) for future Teutonic settlement.
The Wermacht, were they true patriots for their nation and true soldiers, should have slaughtered the Einsatzgruppen, SS units, and Gestapo at very opportunity and taken their country back. They outnumbered them by a large majority. But they did nothing except the bidding of their National Socialist masters as well.
Nuremberg set a precedent - “just following orders” doesn’t spare you from the hangman’s noose, nor the firing squad. Wermacht officers and Landsers went to the gallows as well as the SS.
I do understand your point, but I think once the other side sets this insanity off, there’ll be no stopping it until one side or the other is left standing.
The same ideology that drove those Einsatzgruppen is alive and well in the modern left today. They can call it whatever euphemism they want, but it’s the same thing.
They mean to be masters, one way or the other.