A question for Der Alte...

MontyB

MontyB

All-Blacks Supporter
This is an attempt not to hijack a thread...
In another thread you wrote:

Der Alte said:
I was virtually born into the military since I grew up in the National Socialist Germany. As a 10 year old I went into the Deutsche Jungvolk which was a sub-organization of the National Socialist Hitler Youth, and had the same ideas about an Aryan ruler race and so-called Volksgemeinschaft, ie. peoples community in Germany. The organization was based on a militaristic vision and supported activities that would build up the young people's physical strength and vitality. Hitler Youth and Deutsche Jungvolk placed particular importance to teach children loyalty to Adolf Hitler, Nazi Germany and the new social system. And the age of 14 I went into the Hitlerjugend.

After education and training in the Hitler Youth it was a requirement that you continued into Waffen SS or Wehrmacht. You were from childhood trained to be a soldier and to know what a great honor it is to die on the battlefield. Membership in the Hitler Youth was mandatory of December 1936. From there my future was founded. The soldier was the new hero in Germany.

I wished to be an officer in the Waffen SS, but I did not have the qualities that were required at the time (Which I think is my luck today. Wondering what kind of monster I could have been). But I had shown leadership skills and was recommended for Army officers academy. After the war, I stood there without a profession. Everything I had learned was useless. I had a good job on my grandfather's farm, but I would not end my days as a farmer so when the new German Army was created and veterans were sought after, my fortune was made.

I have been a soldier all my life, it was my destiny and virtually the only option I had.
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Why do you believe becoming an officer in the Waffen SS would have created a monster?

I admit I have only met one man who served in the Waffen SS and he was a decent enough guy who would have done anything for you certainly not a monster.
 
MontyB said:
This is an attempt not to hijack a thread...
In another thread you wrote:



Why do you believe becoming an officer in the Waffen SS would have created a monster?

I admit I have only met one man who served in the Waffen SS and he was a decent enough guy who would have done anything for you certainly not a monster.
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I met an ex SS Trooper when I was in Germany. He had served in Russia and had been wounded by a Russian grenade, he too was a decent enough chap.

There is a story of a British Corporal who was captured by the SS, he was given a bit of a beating, then dragged in front of their CO. The CO began to rant and rave, the Corporal then realised the CO was shouting at the SS troopers and not him. The CO in perfect English apologised for the behaviour of his men, gave him cigarette's and ordered that he is properly cared for and fed.
 
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I think that Der Alte was thinking along the lines that you obeyed your orders fully and if you were told to wipe out a village and every one in it you would do just that. I also met many German POW in England and found them to be nice people, but on the battlefield things can change
 
All true however that applies to both sides, it would seem that in WW2 neither side had a shortage of "monsters" but neither side were all "monsters".

The Waffen SS seems to carry the brunt of German atrocities but I find it hard to believe that an organisation 1 million strong were all guilty just as I find it hard to believe all allies were choir boys in many ways history fails us when it comes to emotive issues.
 
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Hello Monty.

I reflected on my own situation at the time. A 17 year old boy who was also an enthusiastic and convinced National Socialist. I would have done everything the regime asked me to do.

Waffen SS officers academies were not just military schools, they were in a high degree, political and ideological institutions. I have met some former members of the Waffen SS and some had made up their past and in some their schooling was so strong that to this day they still are National Socialists.
 
Der Alte said:
Hello Monty.

I reflected on my own situation at the time. A 17 year old boy who was also an enthusiastic and convinced National Socialist. I would have done everything the regime asked me to do.

Waffen SS officers academies were not just military schools, they were in a high degree, political and ideological institutions. I have met some former members of the Waffen SS and some had made up their past and in some their schooling was so strong that to this day they still are National Socialists.
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I've heard Waffen SS units weren't equipped with advanced weapons and didn't have suitable facilities while they were very brave and they were able to do many things. Is it true?
 
Der Alte said:
Hello Monty.

I reflected on my own situation at the time. A 17 year old boy who was also an enthusiastic and convinced National Socialist. I would have done everything the regime asked me to do.

Waffen SS officers academies were not just military schools, they were in a high degree, political and ideological institutions. I have met some former members of the Waffen SS and some had made up their past and in some their schooling was so strong that to this day they still are National Socialists.
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Yet those schools produced tens of thousands of officers over the 12 years they existed the vast majority of which served honorably without becoming monsters.

Basically what I am getting at is that it appears you are saying that SS academies only produced monsters when I don't believe the statistics would show that at all.
 
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hamidreza said:
I've heard Waffen SS units weren't equipped with advanced weapons and didn't have suitable facilities while they were very brave and they were able to do many things. Is it true?
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The vast majority of the SS units were equipped in the same way as the Army. There were formations which were formidable fighting units and there were units, especially late in the war, which consisted of everything that could be scraped together. These were less effective.

MontyB said:
Yet those schools produced tens of thousands of officers over the 12 years they existed the vast majority of which served honorably without becoming monsters.
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Agreed, and I'm not trying to belittle SS veterans. I'm just saying that if you put an ideologically motivated young man through a school that not only taught military skills but also racial hygiene, Jew-hatred and Nazi ideology then there was a good chance that some of them would develop into something unpleasant.

The vast majority of German veterans are now dead and many have taken their secrets and lies with them in the grave and how much do we really know about the people we meet in life. I had an acquaintance who I knew had been in the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front. Only after his death it emerged that he had been in Yugoslavia and fought partisans apparently so effective that after the war he was wanted by the Yugoslav state for war crimes. Not even his family knew this.

I do not think that your generation can understand how much this ideology would change your humanity. Yes, the vast majority have served with honor - but make no mistake, they were all politically schooled.
 
My uncle Charlie went onto Italy after North Africa, he told me once, "We always knew when we were up against an SS unit, the way they fought, they were hard fighters."
 
Der Alte said:
The vast majority of the SS units were equipped in the same way as the Army. There were formations which were formidable fighting units and there were units, especially late in the war, which consisted of everything that could be scraped together. These were less effective.
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It is logical but sometimes I read things which don't say this. For example this site:
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/waffenss.html

Waffen-SS men were equipped with camouflage smocks and helmet covers, a new innovation which made them easily identifiable and provided them with an edge in combat. While they received the latest in uniforms, the majority of the Waffen-SS men received second rate weapons and equipment, many formations receiving Czech and Austrian weapons and equipment. This policy continued throughout the war. Contrary to popular belief, the Waffen-SS did not receive the best equipment, and in fact many units were equipped with outdated or captured weapons, vehicles and tanks, with the majority of the best equipment going to the Heer's elite divisions (Panzergrenadier-Division Großdeutschland and Panzer-Lehr-Division) and the Luftwaffe's Hermann Göring Division.
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I have read the same things in some other sites . But it is not logical for me best units of one army be equipped to second rate weapons or equipment.
 
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I think one of the major problems on many of these threads is that if you were not there you just don't understand what was going on and what people went through. I can talk to many people and when asked tell them what life was like then and you can tell by the look on their faces they think you are telling a bit of a story.
 
LeEnfield said:
I think one of the major problems on many of these threads is that if you were not there you just don't understand what was going on and what people went through. I can talk to many people and when asked tell them what life was like then and you can tell by the look on their faces they think you are telling a bit of a story.
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However if you do not ask you will not learn and worst of all myth and urban legend tend to fill the void of knowledge.

It isn't hard to understand what he is saying I have read it an it seems to me that the "creation of a monster" was a reference to his own potential when put into that environment however I am not sure I believe that the outcome was inevitable as he was put into a similar environment with a different result but it is very hard to argue with a mans assessment of himself and I probably shouldn't.

As for the myth and urban legend part of my statement, in years to come people will Google "SS+Atrocities+Monster" for various school projects or human interest find that comment and happily write down "as one former Wehrmacht officer wrote SS Academies produced monsters" which will then be repeated by others until it becomes fact history is full of myth and inaccuracies and I think we should do what we can to prevent that happening.
 
Der Alte said:
The vast majority of the SS units were equipped in the same way as the Army. There were formations which were formidable fighting units and there were units, especially late in the war, which consisted of everything that could be scraped together. These were less effective.

Agreed, and I'm not trying to belittle SS veterans. I'm just saying that if you put an ideologically motivated young man through a school that not only taught military skills but also racial hygiene, Jew-hatred and Nazi ideology then there was a good chance that some of them would develop into something unpleasant.

The vast majority of German veterans are now dead and many have taken their secrets and lies with them in the grave and how much do we really know about the people we meet in life. I had an acquaintance who I knew had been in the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front. Only after his death it emerged that he had been in Yugoslavia and fought partisans apparently so effective that after the war he was wanted by the Yugoslav state for war crimes. Not even his family knew this.

I do not think that your generation can understand how much this ideology would change your humanity. Yes, the vast majority have served with honor - but make no mistake, they were all politically schooled.
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We do see it, Opa. During the vietnam war, the americans were fighting an enemy that is ideologicallyand politically motivated, Its not easy fighting something like that, as you've mentioned, and you cannot defeat them with mere weapons. You have to fight them on a different plane. The British did that successfully during the Malayan Emergency, something the Americans should have learnt from when they were in Vietnam.

To a certain extent so did the Israelis in their wars with the Arabs.

My take is that it may have turned out the way you suspected, had you joined the SS, but again it may not be the case. Any human in a situation such as those period would have done something out of the norm...
 
MontyB said:
However if you do not ask you will not learn and worst of all myth and urban legend tend to fill the void of knowledge.

It isn't hard to understand what he is saying I have read it an it seems to me that the "creation of a monster" was a reference to his own potential when put into that environment however I am not sure I believe that the outcome was inevitable as he was put into a similar environment with a different result but it is very hard to argue with a mans assessment of himself and I probably shouldn't.

As for the myth and urban legend part of my statement, in years to come people will Google "SS+Atrocities+Monster" for various school projects or human interest find that comment and happily write down "as one former Wehrmacht officer wrote SS Academies produced monsters" which will then be repeated by others until it becomes fact history is full of myth and inaccuracies and I think we should do what we can to prevent that happening.
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No offence, if they want to get an F, they will use the internet, If Der Alte wrote something else and with the combination from historians, it does work.
 
I3BrigPvSk said:
No offence, if they want to get an F, they will use the internet, If Der Alte wrote something else and with the combination from historians, it does work.
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I am not sure I agree with you about the internet, a lot of the material out there is very good I have seen a number of papers written solely from internet sources that are really well done but they were written by people who could sort fact from fiction the problem is that it only takes two or three internet sources to turn fiction into internet fact and for the most part those sources are generally the same source repeated in different locations.

I am not really trying to argue with Der Alte as I know what he is saying and he is the only one in a position here to determine whether what he is saying is likely or not, to argue with him n that matter would be foolish at best.
 
MontyB said:
I am not sure I agree with you about the internet, a lot of the material out there is very good I have seen a number of papers written solely from internet sources that are really well done but they were written by people who could sort fact from fiction the problem is that it only takes two or three internet sources to turn fiction into internet fact and for the most part those sources are generally the same source repeated in different locations.

I am not really trying to argue with Der Alte as I know what he is saying and he is the only one in a position here to determine whether what he is saying is likely or not, to argue with him n that matter would be foolish at best.
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No disrespect of Der Alte's knowledge and experience. I have seen a lot of papers on the advanced level which getting an F, because of the sources they used, not what the papers contributed with. An online forum will not contribute with a high grade, if they are doing it in history, even worse.
 
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