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Chapter 1. Nürnberg, Misconceptions and Inaccuracies

Nürnberg and the Waffen-SS

The Waffen-SS was condemned, under the charter of the International Military Tribunal, as being a criminal organisation. The charge was based on two major assumptions, being (i) that the Waffen-SS was merely just another part of a monolithic criminal organisation, and (ii) that it was in character ideologically motivated by Nazism, and that therefore it was completely different from the Wehrmacht. It was argued that the Waffen-SS, as well as being directly responsible of taking steps leading to aggressive warfare, one of the four points of the War Crimes Charter, was deemed to have been

"...in theory and practice as much an integral part of the SS organization as any other branch of the SS",^[1]

on the basis that

"...the SS was utilized for purposes which were criminal under the charter [of the International Military Tribunal], involving the persecution and extermination of the Jews, brutalities and killings in concentration camps, excesses in the administration of occupied territories, the administration of the slave-labour program and the mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war".^[2]

The Waffen-SS only really stood to face the latter charge, that regarding the "mistreatment and murder of prisoners of war", which in itself should not have been used against them, due to the fact that the Allied Armed Forces, particularly the Red Army, were also guilty of similar if not worse atrocities. It is also worth remembering that the Wehrmacht was not free from blame either.

There is another interesting twist which stems from this argument, concerning the dubious nature of Nürnberg itself; while one cannot seriously wish to defend the SD, concentration camp personnel or the Gestapo, there is definitely a case which can be argued in that they were being condemned by a Tribunal containing a member state with similar departments, namely, the Soviet Union, which had itself been responsible for mass exterminations (albeit not with the same malicious intent as the attempted genocide perpetrated by the Nazis), concentration camps (Gulags), and mass oppression through the use of a secret police organisation (OGPU/NKVD). As for the direct charge made against the Waffen-SS of being involved in "aggressive warfare", it can be noted that the Soviets were also guilty of this as well; one cannot look at the attack on Finland or the invasion of Poland and say that either attack was not "aggressive". Thus, it can be argued that the Soviet role at Nürnberg had nothing to do with justice but rather ideology; it was the Soviets who pressed for harsher charges to be made against the Germans.

The SS as a monolithic organisation: a now discredited argument

The Waffen-SS was but a part of Himmler's vast SS empire; the whole of the SS was seen after the war by many observers to be something of a monolith. This idea strengthened the argument of the proponents of the Nürnberg judgement that deemed the SS en masse to be a criminal organisation (with the exception of many of the "Honorary SS",^[3] SS equestrian schools, musical bands and the like). However, further study of it proved that it was nothing of the sort; in fact, the idea of the all-powerful SS empire with its all-powerful sovereign in the form of Heinrich Himmler was nothing but a myth; Scholars such as Heinz Höhne^[4] and Gerald Reitlinger^[5] found that, rather than being a monolithic organisation, the SS was a vast network of semi-autonomous departments, a "state within a state", plagued by inefficiency, internal squabbling, and power-struggles, successfully manipulated by the pedantic Reichsführer-SS. The truth is that on the whole the major departments were connected to each other only by name and the mere fact that their overall head was Heinrich Himmler. Even under this framework, however, it was not easy to put a case in defence of the Waffen-SS; in the mind of many scholars, as well as, as George H. Stein puts it, "the popular mind",^[6] the very fact that the Chief of Staff of the Waffen-SS was the very same man who created the concentration camp empire and ordered the enslavement of Eastern Europeans and the mass extermination of Jews was enough to condemn the Waffen-SS as well, regardless of what they may or may not have done. However, such open ignorance of the stark fact that the SS was not a monolith is clearly historical subjectivity. And many scholars, in their refusal to question the Nürnberg verdict for fear of making potential waves, are falling into the trap:

"...the doctrine of criminal conspiracy and collective guilt formulated during the Nuremberg era no longer satisfies serious investigators. Without minimizing the extent of the staggering crimes committed by Himmler's minions, recent research has shown that the SS was in fact more varied and complex than the monolithic criminal organisation indicted before the International Military Tribunal. There appears to have been little uniformity among the various components of the SS at any time; and with the coming of war some components- like the concentration camp system, the police system, and the Waffen SS- took on a life of their own and followed a course distinct from that of any of the others".^[7]

The Relationship of the Waffen-SS vis--vis the Higher SS Organisation and the Army

James Lucas and Matthew Cooper write:

"...by 1943 Himmler found himself forced to write: 'The Waffen SS is reaching such a stage of independence from its political background, that I fear it will lose its identity to the armed forces.' This 'Wehrmacht mentality' found expression through the increasing use of military ranks (strongly forbidden by the Reichsführer SS), the shunning of contacts with the 'politicals' and a noticeable improvement of relations with the Army".^[8]

Such moves away from the political were inspired by SS Commanders such as Bavarian ex-Sergeant-Major Josef "Sepp" Dietrich, the commander of the Leibstandarte "Adolf Hitler", Paul Hausser, the creator of the SS training schools, commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" and former Reichswehr field commander, and Felix Steiner, the commander of 5th SS Panzer Division "Wiking", another veteran of the First World War. The Waffen-SS found itself under the command of the OKH^[9] rather than higher SS administration, and

"The field formations of the Waffen SS spent the entire war under the tactical command of the Army and thus may be considered a de facto branch of the Wehrmacht".^[10]

The crowning glory for the Waffen-SS in its quest to be recognised as a fully military organisation was Dietrich's taking command of the Sixth Panzer Army on 26 October 1944.^[11]

This is not to say that the Waffen-SS were completely separate from other SS departments, such as the concentration camp network; not even the most fiercely devoted Waffen-SS apologists have disputed this. It would be foolish to attempt to prove that the link did not exist. However, it is also true that the issue of how the various groups were connected has been largely exaggerated. I will return to this particular issue in the chapter that specifically deals with it.

The Character of the Waffen-SS and the role of Nazi Ideology

Although it was initially formed as a single bodyguard detachment for the protection of Adolf Hitler, what became the Waffen-SS (the name "Waffen-SS" was officially adopted in 1940) was eventually by 1945 to constitute a force of more than 900,000 men. The Waffen-SS at the end of the war was a far cry from that of the ideas expressed by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler back in 1933 when the first guard detachment, the Leibstandarte "Adolf Hitler", was created; not only had it exceeded expectations in terms of its size and military role, but its character was far different to that of Himmler's idea of it being the "racial élite": by 1943, Himmler had started to give into necessity and as a result Nazi racial scruples with regard to Waffen-SS recruitment were gradually dispensed with. By the end of the war, a vast proportion, if not the majority, of troops who fought under the banner of the Waffen-SS were non-German, including Slavs, Balts, Cossacks, Turkomen, Bosnian and Albanian Moslems, and even anti-Empire Indians. It was also a far cry from the image projected by Airey M. Neave, the British officer who performed court duties at Nürnberg:

"By 1944 it [the Waffen-SS] had an establishment of 910,000 mainly volunteers, all recruited for their racial purity and support of extreme Nazism".^[12]

Only one part of Neave's quote here is true, that being the 910,000 figure. The theory that the whole 910,000 who constituted the membership of the Waffen-SS were selected for their "racial purity" is instantly demolished by studying its composition. The argument that they were also recruited for their "support of extreme Nazism", is also spurious: while it can certainly be argued that the core of the fledgling Waffen-SS was mainly composed of fanatical Nazis, this being in accordance with Himmler's vision of the Waffen-SS being the ideologically-motivated "political soldiers" of the National Socialist Party, this was clearly not the case at the end of the war. For example, one cannot see Anti-Communist White Russians or Anti-Serb Croats and Bosnian Muslims joining the Waffen-SS for any other reason but self-interest due to the fact that they saw the Waffen-SS as being a convenient representative of their aims. To say that they were "extreme Nazis" would be ludicrous. George H. Stein writes:

"Rubbing shoulders in the ranks of the Waffen SS were... thousands of foreigners who understood little or no German, let alone Nazi ideology".^[13]

Neave is closer to the truth however when he concedes that the Waffen-SS was composed of "mainly" volunteers, for in many cases recruits had be cajoled and even forced into joining. The peculiar story of the infamous Russian "Vlasov Army" is a case in point. This division, composed of Anti-Communist Russians, never once faced the Red Army, but when they were left cut off in Prague, they turned on their Waffen-SS colleagues. In the words of Gerald Reitlinger,

"...the Waffen SS were the only enemy it [the Vlasov Army] ever fought and the story is one of the queerest of the whole war".^[14]

As well as the argument based around the motivation of the foreign recruits, there is also another argument that concerns many of the German recruits themselves. The truth is that many of the youngsters who joined the Waffen-SS had seen it as exciting alternative to the Wehrmacht, based on its élite status, its high level of camaraderie (something which was lacking in the Prussian military tradition so beloved of the Wehrmacht), and in many cases even for the striking uniform. The situation with regard to Waffen-SS recruitment during the final years of the war can best be summed up by German historian Professor Michael Stürmer:

"I'm over 6 ft., ...If you were my height towards the end of the war, the odds were that you would be drafted into the Waffen-SS...".^[15]

Although there were of course a good number of highly indoctrinated and fiercely fanatical Nazis, something which cannot be refuted due to the fact that the Waffen-SS was born out of the National Socialist ideal, the majority of the ordinary soldiers were for the most part ignorant of the mythological mumbo-jumbo which constituted part of the SS mystique. Even the famed commander of the Leibstandarte, Josef "Sepp" Dietrich, was himself somewhat doubtful about "Himmler's warped mentality" and the role of Nazi ideology in the Waffen-SS.^[16] Although it is clear that the war in Russia saw a tremendous building up of hatred of the Soviets, resulting in many atrocities, it can be strongly argued that this was more due to the dehumanising nature of the Ostfront war itself, rather than pre-conceived notions of the "Bolshevik subhuman Slav"; what was mistakenly thought to be Nazi fanaticism was most probably what could be described as a peculiar kind of nihilism, the product of both naive and boyish idealism coupled with a savage soldier of fortune spirit^[17] and the most extreme reaction to being faced with not only a fearsome enemy but equally fearsome terrain and weather conditions. Indeed, the nature of the fighting and the stoic resistance of the Red Army was also arguably more likely to lead individual soldiers to dismiss Himmler's racist fantasising; in the words of James Lucas and Matthew Cooper:

"...it does seem probable that many of the atrocities committed were perpetrated no so much through any strongly developed National Socialist ardour or zeal, but rather through the ruthlessness and disregard for human life which, when in action, characterized the Waffen SS... not only did National Socialist ideology come to be disregarded by many in the Waffen SS, but some of its soldiers even began to react strongly against it. In particular a few who fought the Russians questioned the clearly ridiculous philosophy that they were 'sub-human'",^[18]

In addition, the argument that the Waffen-SS was a purely ideological tool is destroyed even further when one realises that they fought their enemies on all sides with an equal ferocity and fanaticism, including the Western Allies, who for the most part were, according to Nazi theory, their "racial equals".^[19] So much for Neave's theory of the Waffen-SS being totally comprised of extreme Nazi fanatics! I have made it a point here to completely demolish Neave's argument, for it was ideas such as this that were behind the Nürnberg indictment against the Waffen-SS.

A perhaps even more foolish argument regarding the character of the Waffen-SS, which can even be construed to be more offensive than the view of even the most extreme Waffen-SS apologist, was advanced by Ann and John Tusa:

"...prosecution evidence suggested that the defence argument could be turned back on its head; far from the Waffen-SS being innocent because unconnected with other SS crimes, the SS as a whole was contaminated by the outrages of this section for which it was ultimately responsible".^[20]

Although the Tusas are completely over-the-top in their assessment of the Waffen-SS, it is true that the Greater SS organisation was responsible for it; after all, despite the fact that by 1945 the Waffen-SS may have achieved relative independence from Himmler's bureaucrats, as I have already argued, it still remained a product of the SS empire, as well as being a product of National Socialism and the ideas of Adolf Hitler. This was the distinction drawn between the regular Waffen-SS and the regular German Army, which was judged to have been an organisation that predated the Nazi régime. But Omer Bartov has argued that the Wehrmacht was not free from Nazi ideology itself; he has concluded that they became "Hitler's Army",^[21] and hinted at the idea that they were the ideological twin of the SS in the East.

Notes

1. Stein, p.250
2. ibid.
3. The term "Honourary SS" was used to describe those (particularly businessmen and aristocrats) who held nominal SS ranks but who had no direct function or role in the SS itself. This was all part of a plan by Himmler to tap potential financial sources. Holders of "Honourary SS" rank included old-style aristocrats such as the Grand Duke of Meckenburg and the Princes of Waldeck and Hesse, Crown Prince Rupprecht (the son of ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II), foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop (whose son Rudolf, incidentally, fought with great distinction in the Waffen-SS, winning the coveted Knight's Cross), and the father of the Princess Michael of Kent.
   The British media explosion and the furore over the latter issue was an illustration of popular misconception. While the layman is made to believe that Princess Michael's father was a some kind of War Criminal, the stark reality is that he probably did nothing more than entertain fellow "Honourary" members with dinner in the castle and game-hunting in the Oberpfalz!
4. Höhne, Heinz: The Order of the Death's Head: The Story of Hitler's SS
5. Reitlinger, Gerald: The SS: Alibi of a Nation 1922-1945
6. Stein, vii
7. ibid.
8. Lucas & Cooper, p.40
9. OKH - Oberkommando des Heeres - Army High Command
10. Stein, xxxii
11. Lucas & Cooper, p.181
12. Neave, p.286
13. Stein, p.290
14. Reitlinger, p.391
15. Brian Moynahan, "The Uneasy Ally", The Times, 5 May 1985 p.17
16. Messenger, p.209
17. Stein, p.290
18. Lucas & Cooper, pp.40-41
19. Weingartner, p.130
20. Tusa & Tusa, p.434
21. Bartov, Omer: Hitler's Army: Soldiers, Nazis, and War in the Third Reich

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