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Chapter 5. Aftermath: The Waffen-SS and War Crimes

I have already argued that (i) the Waffen-SS was sufficiently (although not completely, as many apologists would argue) distinct from the concentration camps and the Einsatzgruppen, and that (ii) it was a military formation in its own right, winning its spurs on the field of battle. From this I make the argument that the Waffen-SS should be examined as an individual organisation, and not just lumped together with vastly different sections of Himmler's SS empire la Nürnberg. This then of course leads to the next argument against the Waffen-SS, which can be levelled even if it had been classified as an organisation in its own right- the issue of crimes committed by troops of the Waffen-SS in the field.

Waffen-SS War Crimes

It would be neither right nor objective to only talk about the high points and the many military achievements of the Waffen-SS, significant as they are; many Waffen-SS apologists often ignore the low points in their short history, notably the War Crimes that they did commit, many of which were carried out with an extreme level of brutality. Of the incidents that the Waffen-SS was involved in, nothing can be overlooked, let alone excused. They were completely repugnant and in clear contravention of the Geneva Convention and the codes of modern warfare. However, former spokesman Kurt Meyer, before 8000 former Waffen-SS men at a HIAG convention at Karlberg in Bavaria in 1957, was to say:

"SS troops... committed no crimes except the massacre at Oradour [where 642 men, women and children were massacred], and that was the action of a single man...^[1]

Meyer's general assertion, it has to be said, is completely in variance with the facts, although his view on Oradour, it can be argued, could have some substance. Robin Mackness^[2] was to discover that the massacre, which stands high as one of the most appalling of the whole war, ordered by Sturmbannführer Otto Dickmann of "Das Reich", may have had more sinister and personal overtones.^[3]

Nevertheless, despite Meyer's claim to the contrary, there were other incidents involving the Waffen-SS that concerned either the murder of civilians or prisoners of war. Place names that instantly come to mind include Le Paradis and Wormhout, where British soldiers were killed by men of the "Totenkopf" and Leibstandarte divisions respectively within two days in May 1940; the incident involving the shooting of a number of American troops near the Belgian town of Malmédy by Kampfgruppe Peiper during the Ardennes offensive of December 1944, the Tulle incident, where members of the French resistance were executed by members of "Das Reich", as well as the massacre at Oradour-sur-Glane. Numerous accusations were also made in the Soviet Union, including the claim that men belonging to the Waffen-SS had been responsible for the deaths of 20,000 civilians at Khar'kov.^[4] Despite all the claims that have been made, however, it is also has to be argued that these incidents have been continually overplayed, and, to a lesser extent, even mythologised. It can be argued, for example, that the shootings at Malmédy by Kampfgruppe Peiper - a crack unit led by one of the brightest stars of the Waffen-SS, Sturmbannführer Joachim "Jochen" Peiper - may have been committed in circumstances far different to those we have previously been led to believe; while the only American officer to survive the massacre, 1st Lieutenant Virgil T. Lary, made the claim at Nürnberg that there had been "approximately 150 to 160, maybe 175 men", and that the Waffen-SS troops had opened fire in a clinically cold-blooded fashion, the actual physical evidence casts serious doubt over the event: Bruce Quarrie, who is far from being a Waffen-SS apologist, argued that:

"There are discrepancies in the account [Lary's] because, when the advancing Americans following up the German retreat later discovered the bodies lying in the field, there were 71 of them. Twenty men had survived. This is far fewer than 175 or even 150, and lends credence to the testimony of the man responsible for the massacre, Oberschütze Georg Fleps, that he had opened fire when some of the Americans had run for the woods..."^[5]

Like many of the post-war trials, the case that was brought against Peiper was only tenuously related to the single stark fact, which was simply that a number of American POWs had been killed. Peiper had not even been at the scene, and no evidence has ever been found connecting him with any kind of order for the shootings. A number of theories have been offered, but the cold-blooded massacre theory is by far the most popular - obvious for the fact that it fits neatly into the orthodox schema of the Waffen-SS being wholly comprised of and led by natural-born killers. The fact remains that the real truth about what happened at Malmédy may never be known. One thing is absolutely certain: there was no evidence of any sort linking Jochen Peiper to the incident. The case for the defence of both Sturmbannführer Peiper and his Kampfgruppe is also strengthened when one also observes the fact that

"...in other instances Peiper's Kampfgruppe took and held prisoners of war and there is no evidence of deliberate killings of prisoners by other units engaged in the offensive".^[6]

Jochen Peiper had deservedly won a reputation as a tough; battle-hardened warrior, more than capable of giving as good as he got on the field of battle. He was in his element when the going got tough, a hard-nosed attitude that lasted right up until his shocking murder in July 1977 by French Communists after it was discovered he had been living in relative obscurity in the village of Traves. A fighter to the very last, Peiper had sent his wife and family back to safety in Germany, and prepared to face his enemy in the only way he knew how. After the event, all that the French police found were Peiper's charred remains. Like many of his comrades who had perished before him, Peiper had lived and died by the sword. His fearsome reputation was to bring with it the popular rumour that he was naturally a war criminal, and the Malmédy incident was to provide more than adequate ammunition for those who wanted to vent their anger. The facts have proved that despite his battle-hungry outlook Jochen Peiper, like Kurt Meyer - also a victim of popular misconceptions concerning the issue of war crimes - was a man of chivalry and daring - the very model of the modern field combat leader.

The actual motives behind the mass hangings that had taken place in the French town of Tulle in the summer of 1944 can also be re-examined. Prior to this somewhat grisly event, the mutilated and dismembered bodies of between forty^[7] and sixty-two^[8] German soldiers had been discovered by members of an advance reconnaissance patrol of the 2nd Waffen-SS Panzerdivision "Das Reich". Without any order being given by divisional headquarters, a number of men of the "Das Reich" decided to take matters into their own hands, as they proceeded to carry out the execution of ninety-nine members of the local Maquis. Quarrie writes:

"It is, perhaps, possible to justify this as a genuine act of war rather than the 'massacre of innocents' that it has been described as elsewhere..."^[9]

Thus it can be argued that the action carried out by "Das Reich" at Tulle was an execution rather than a wantonly cold-blooded massacre; there was even a priest present.^[10]

When one begins to examine the issue of battlefield 'criminality', one must also investigate all of the parties concerned, and their motives. This is perhaps even more crucial when dealing with anti-partisan warfare, where lines can be blurred at the best of times. For example, one of the most frequent accusations levelled at the Waffen-SS was that they had been guilty of the 'murder' of helpless 'civilians', many of which had been women and young people. While such killings may indeed have taken place, this is the only side of the story that is ever heard; little is made of the fact that many partisan groups, particularly in the Balkans and Italy, could count significant numbers of women and young people among their membership. The sort of guerrilla resistance that the Germans had to face in occupied Europe during the Second World War is little or no different to what the French found themselves up against in Indochina and Algeria or what the Americans faced in Korea and Vietnam. Today, we hear horrific stories of child soldiers, many of which are more brutal then their adult counterparts - what is the man facing these screaming banshees supposed to do? Switch on his safety catch and dig deep into his pockets for a stick of candy? Logic decrees not.

The recent events that have taken place in the Balkans are also quite revealing in that they provide what can be a direct explanation for the actions of the two Waffen-SS Divisions with what was allegedly the worst record for 'war crimes' - the 7th and 13th Divisions "Prinz Eugen" and "Handschar". These two divisions, which more the most part comprised of Ethnic Germans, Croatians and Bosnian Muslims led by a cadre of German officers, were pitted directly against Serb partisan groups; the festering racial tensions that had previously existed in the region was therefore given a new impetus, which the occupying powers were keen to exploit. "Prinz Eugen" in particular was to suffer serious punishment at the hands of Marshal Tito's Communist partisans - who counted among their number some of the most vicious individuals that had ever picked up a weapon in anger. Stories of German soldiers being mutilated were not uncommon. In this atmosphere it was not surprising that no quarter was given. There had been atrocities committed by both sides - but the only story one hears is of Tito's brave partisans on the one hand and the murderous Waffen-SS 'murderers' on the other.

In spite of the counter-claims that have been made here, it is not the intention of this author to dispute the verdicts of specific War Crimes; this would as unobjective as defending the claim that the Waffen-SS had been a criminal organisation. The crucial point that has to be made however is that a lot of hot air has been allowed to circulate around the stories of these crimes, and this hot air has only helped to solidify the skewed approach that has been taken by a majority of orthodox commentators. While more recent works have tended to be more objective, they have for the most part tended to find themselves on the shelves of those who would have needed little or no convincing in any case. It remains that the only sort of encounter the layperson has with the Waffen-SS is the vicious black-hearted killer of Hollywood fame, the man who is so bad that it can only take a combination of a Allied renegades, partisans and a friendly old Wehrmacht officer to scupper his fiendish plans. Perhaps not surprisingly, it is an almost unknown fact that criminal acts were committed by the minority; post-war denazification trials had in fact revealed that a massive ninety-nine percent of ex-Waffen-SS personnel were free of any kind of personal guilt.^[11]

Totenkopf: The alibi of the Waffen-SS?

While it is clear that the fighting formations of the Waffen-SS itself had nothing to do with the pre-war SS-Totenkopfverbände, it is a fact that the Panzer Division "Totenkopf" (SS-TK) was considered to be part of the Waffen-SS. As part of a response to this, some defenders of the Waffen-SS have attempted to blame the SS-TK or its "graduates" for many of the atrocities committed in the field.

"To a degree, apologists for the Waffen-SS have done to this unit what the rest of the world did to the SS as a whole: branded it responsible for all the worst atrocities".^[12]

There is an element of truth to this argument. Not only it is clear that the massacre of British troops at Le Paradis in 1940 had been the work of the actual SS-TK Division itself, it is also a fact that two SS-TK "graduates", Hermann Preiss and Heinz Lammerding, were involved in atrocities when they were in command of other Waffen-SS divisions. Lammerding had been in command of "Das Reich" during the time of the massacres at Tulle and Oradour, and Preiss had been the commander of the Leibstandarte during the time of the Malmédy incident. Charles W. Sydnor writes:

"It is impossible to avoid the revealing observation that five of the most widely publicized and well substantiated atrocities attributed to the Waffen-SS - the massacres of Le Paradis, Tulle, Oradour-sur-Glane, Malmédy, and the reprisal killings or the Arno initiated by Max Simon- were either the work of Totenkopfdivision units or were associated with men whose personal gospel of savagery was at least a partial outgrowth of the experience in the Totenkopfdivision".^[13]

However, this is a slightly facetious argument, in that the military achievements of the "Totenkopf" Division provided more than adequate justification for the argument that its commanders had been just as worthy of praise as any of their compatriots in the other premier Waffen-SS divisions; another point often ignored is that while many of the "Totenkopf" commanders had indeed been of the Theodor Eicke school of thought, many others, such as Otto Baum, Karl Ullrich, and Herbert Otto Gille - himself a man of the old school - who fought hard, and with no little bravery and chivalry.

Foreign Recruits and War Crimes

The argument that many of the foreign recruits were guilty of War Crimes attributed to the Waffen-SS, an argument presented by Paul Hausser at Nürnberg, holds infinitely more weight, however. The conduct of many of the Volksdeutsche divisions, particularly in the Balkans, instantly comes to mind. The atrocities committed by the soldiers of the 7th Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen", which had been composed of Ethnic Germans from Yugoslavia were considered to be the worst ever committed by any units of the Waffen-SS. Another Yugoslav Waffen-SS Division that gained a similarly notorious reputation for brutality was the 13th SS Mountain division, "Handschar", which was mainly composed of Muslims from Bosnia-Herzegovina, with a sprinkling of Croats. While this picturesque division (their members wore field-grey fezzes complete with the Waffen-SS eagle and Death's Head insignia) did not earn itself a reputation through its fighting ability, it "distinguished itself largely by the number of atrocities it committed".^[14]

Hausser never denied the crimes, nor their enormity, but presented the indisputable fact that warfare in the Balkans was traditionally brutal, and argued that these atrocities that were committed had nothing to do with the fact that the perpetrators were members of Waffen-SS Divisions, but that they were merely fighting their own battles under the banner of the Waffen-SS, a fact that has already been alluded to earlier in this chapter. This argument is supported most strongly by the type and scale of atrocities we are witnessing today in the former Yugoslavia, but also by the fact that these divisions seemed to lose enthusiasm for the fight when they themselves felt they had nothing to gain by it. For example, concerning the "Handschar" Division:

"The Moslems were growing increasingly unreliable, and soon they became reluctant to take any action beyond the protection of their native region".^[15]

The Lowest of the Low: Kaminski and Dirlewanger

As the war dragged on to its inevitable conclusion, and the struggle became far more desperate, Gottlob Berger, Himmler's recruitment Svengali, began to authorise the creation of various rag-tag elements, including poachers, criminals, slave labourers, and prisoners of war. The infamous "Kaminski" and "Dirlewanger" brigades were to become the most notorious examples of such elements.

The SS-Sonderkommando^[16] "Kaminski" consisted of anti-Communist Russians, including a vast amount of Ukrainians who held a vicious hatred for the Poles. In late 1943, this unit was assigned to full-time duty with the anti-partisan forces under the command of SS-Obergruppenführer Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski. Kaminski himself was appointed to the rank of SS-Oberführer. These forces were responsible for the taking part in the crushing of the Warsaw rebellion in 1944, and were guilty of some atrocious crimes:

"So shocking were the crimes were the crimes committed that Colonel-General [Heinz] Guderian, Chief of Army General Staff, and SS-Gruppenführer [Hermann] Fegelein, the SS Liaison Officer at Hitler's headquarters, prevailed upon the Führer to order the withdrawal of both units..."^[17]

The infamous "Dirlewanger" Brigade was another creation of Gottlob Berger. Headed by convicted pederast Oskar Dirlewanger, Berger's old friend, it had consisted of criminals, concentration camp inmates (including ex-Communists!), court-martialed servicemen and poachers - who were chosen for their shooting ability. Himmler himself had a profound distaste for Dirlewanger, who had been sent to a concentration camp in 1934 following being arrested for molesting a minor. Although the "Dirlewanger" Brigade was on paper responsible to the SS-Führungshaupamt (and hence part of the Waffen-SS), in reality the SS-Führungshauptamt had no say in the matter, and the strings controlling the "Dirlewanger" Brigade were pulled by Berger himself:

"attempts by the Hauptamt SS-Gericht (Main SS Legal Office) to indict Dirlewanger and to bring his men under its jurisdiction were foiled by Berger's intercession".^[18]

Both the "Kaminski" and "Dirlewanger" brigades were listed as being part of the active Waffen-SS at Nürnberg. However, many within the Waffen-SS itself did not consider such formations to be such. The negative reaction to these groups on the part of many within the mainstream Waffen-SS provides ample justification for this. In effect, the Waffen-SS were tarred simply by the stroke of a pen by the bureaucrats such as Himmler and Berger:

"...the alte Kämpfer or Police generals turned into field commanders by a stroke of Himmler's pen- butchers like Theodor Eicke, Friedrich Jeckeln, Friedrich Krüger, Heinz Reinefarth, Erich von dem Bach-Zelewski, and Oskar Dirlewanger- did not represent the essence of the Waffen SS. Of far greater significance was the influence of the former regular Army officers who had commanded the SS Verfügungstruppe- men like Paul Hausser, Felix Steiner, Herbert Gille, Wilhelm Bittrich, and Georg Keppler".^[19]

The issue of Waffen-SS criminality will no doubt continue to rage, and historical objectivity will almost always be combated by emotional discourse. In recent years, a number of investigations have gone on to prove conclusively that the blanket "criminal organisation" verdict handed down at Nürnberg had been unjustified, and that it was not only the Waffen-SS that had been guilty of war crimes.

Notes

1. Stein, p.255
2. Mackness, Robin: Massacre and Aftermath.
3. Namely, gold.
4. Quarrie (1987), p.41
5. ibid., p.42
6. Weingartner, p.128
7. Mackness, p.25
8. Quarrie 91987), p.73
9. ibid.
10. Mackness, p.126
11. Stein, p.251
12. Quarrie (1987), p.77
13. Sydnor, p.321
14. Stein, p.183
15. ibid.
16. Sonderkommando - Special Kommando
17. Stein, p.265
18. ibid., p.168
19. ibid., p.291

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