"The Waffen SS Were Honorable Soldiers" Topic

Within hours, the Waffen-SS had murdered 642 residents of Oradour-sur-Glane. Satisfied, they left, but not before torching every structure in the village…

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The next time some Nazi loving idiot says "But you have to respect them for … [[insert some dubious martial virtue here]] " I will simply say "The Hell I do!"

Sigh…

Atrocities by the SS and Einsatzgruppen wasn't only limited to the Ostfront. One can only wonder how many such villages were razed throughout the war.

This is an interesting subject, while I don't disagree with you by any means I would ask what's the difference between this subject you're talking about and the firebombing of Dresden where 22,000 to 25,000 people were killed in one night, or the 100,000 Japanese killed in the Bombing of Tokyo. I guess my point would be War in its self is evil and both sides commit it so how is one act worse than another?

According to the German's own reports 600 villages From Byelorussia to Moscow oblast.

Oh jeez, does this really have to come up again?

+1 Irish Marine

I don't think this thread's implying that those of us who have Waffen SS wargaming armies find them to be 'honorable' at all. Wargaming is amoral tabletop battle 'simulation' and nothing more. If people can't accept that it's not our problem.

BTW I have Wehrmacht / Heer, Fallschirmjager AND Waffen SS armies in 28mm.

"This is an interesting subject, while I don't disagree with you by any means I would ask what's the difference between this subject you're talking about and the firebombing of Dresden where 22,000 to 25,000 people were killed in one night, or the 100,000 Japanese killed in the Bombing of Tokyo. I guess my point would be War in its self is evil and both sides commit it so how is one act worse than another?"

The difference is that our opponents attacked civilians with random bombing raids before the allies did so. In war if you do not respond in kind you leave the enemy to fight with an advantage. They sowed the wind, and they reaped the whirlwind.

Why is there no outrage about the Romans? I have no love of the SS, but why the focus? Mongols,Hun's, Romans, Arabs, Spaniards, Franks, Zulus.…….my thumbs grow tired.

How is this different than all the political threads everyone is always screaming "foul" about?

Should probably take this to Blue Fez land.

From the TMP FAQ:

Recent politics are not allowed. [POLITICS RULE] Discussion of political events more than ten years in the past is allowed.

Bombing a city from the air (where the defenders can shoot you down) is not the same as a single soldier shooting an unarmed civilian. Perhaps a better comparison would be to the Soviets rolling thru Germany.

The U.S. in Iraq? The Turks in Armenia? Bad things happen in war. We choose which bad things we focus on. It's usually the losers because the victors write the history right…?

Sorry if the "U.S. in Iraq" violated the 10 year rule.

Rancor about politics is rancor about politics

"The U.S. in Iraq?"

Intercourse that noise.

Read "The Fire" to get a grasp on how Germans have inverted the air war against them, so that they are totally the civilian victims whom the Allies just decided to kill.

Yes, the air war was terrible and may legally have been a war crime if one wants to posture (just like unrestricted submarine warfare), but as mentioned, the Germans (and Japanese) practiced it against undefended cities and did not even pretend that it was for any thing other than terror. Even the Allies tried to do, pretend or rationalize that they were striking economic targets (or aimming to impact such).

Yes, Allied troops commited small scale war crimes, but surprisingly a fair number of them were caught and punished. Not enough, but some attempt was made to 'behave'.

As to any recent conflict, how many VC were punished for the murder of 10s of thousands of civilians (remember Hue)? The US has still not accepted responisblity for Calley and his troops, let alone the other attrocities, but at least they are publically known and discussed. Iraq, notice that the US has prosecuted military personal for crimes. Maybe not enough, but has made an effort.

Comparing the SS or even the German army for their hundreds/thousands of actions of murding dozens, hundreds and thousands of civilians and prisoners offically as commanded by senior officers, for no other reason than terror, to the individual or small unit unauthorized criminal actions of Western powers in war only reveals ignorance.

Killing from the air is no cleaner than shooting victims face-to-face, but with the rare exception, one is hard to consider the various militaries as being "equal" in guilt.

Dan

Another who agrees with Irish Marine.

The difference is that our opponents attacked civilians with random bombing raids before the allies did so. In war if you do not respond in kind you leave the enemy to fight with an advantage. They sowed the wind, and they reaped the whirlwind.

This behavior hardly began with the Axis in WWII and the Allied nations did not have clean hands prior to the war.

Bombing a city from the air (where the defenders can shoot you down) is not the same as a single soldier shooting an unarmed civilian.

Bombing unarmed civilians that are dubiously protected is still killing unarmed civilians.
It is only slightly more palatable as it was done impersonally and theoretically served a strategic goal as opposed to mass murder over some political/religious motivation.

I am glad that the world has been trending towards less violence over time.

"The difference is that our opponents attacked civilians with random bombing raids before the allies did so. In war if you do not respond in kind you leave the enemy to fight with an advantage. They sowed the wind, and they reaped the whirlwind."

I always am amazed at the deranged hate some people have to groups of people they've never met and only read about through second or third hand information. All those dead women and children just dismissed away as "Well you did it first" type of mentality. No wonder we're headed toward WWIII.

The German people supported an immoral regime that would have destroyed every human life on earth left to its own devices. The Nazis were evil incarnate and those that supported them had to be destroyed to stop them.

The difference between the two actions is on a larger scale. There were those bombing to stop the spread of totalitarianism and those fighting to increase it. Sometimes one has to do strange things to accomplish good goals. Allying oneself with another less threatening totalitarian state, like the Soviets, was one of those strange things.

If you can't see the difference between Americans and Brits bombing German cities and German soldiers wiping out villages then you are perhaps missing the forest for the trees.

Germany is lucky that there was another totalitarian state in operation at the time of its defeat or it might not exist today at all.

In a total war, witch WWII was everyone on the other side is a target. Everything they do helps the other side fight the war even if all they are is a street cleaner a school teacher or a stay a home mom or dad. The more people you kill on the other side the more likely you will win and it just does not matter how you kill them. 9MM to the head at 6" or a fire bomb from 30,0000 feet, Dead is dead. That is how war is won by killing the other side.

So 600 hundred civilians killed by Germans is bad but close to 28,000 civilians with thousands of babies, toddlers, and children thrown in is ok because the Nazis were bad, so how about the Japanese, or Japs as I call them which is supposedly a no no except when fire bombing their cities to the tune of 100,000 dead.

I agree with what "ThePeninsularWarin15mm" said.

So 600 hundred civilians killed by Germans is bad but close to 28,000 civilians with thousands of babies, toddlers, and children thrown in is ok because the Nazis were bad, so how about the Japanese, or Japs as I call them which is supposedly a no no except when fire bombing their cities to the tune of 100,000 dead.

The civilian deaths in Germany and Japan were tragic and regrettable. But no war crime in my book, because:

1. The airmen who dropped those bombs were opposed every step of the way – by flak and night fighters, and their own casualties were horrendous. So completely different from Nazi bully boys herding together screaming civilians and shooting them in cold blood…

2. The air raids shortened the war, and therefore the horror of war. Oradour sur Glane, and all the countless other French, Polish and Russian villages similarly butchered did not, and did not constitute necessary or coherent militarily necessary operations.

3. The air raids were accountable – no-one tried to hide them, no one tried to deny responsibility, the allied civilian population openly supported their Air Forces in this operation. So they were military acts by democratic powers, defending their democratic way of life against undemocratic powers who started the war in the first place. Again, a clear contrast to 'unofficial' actions tacitly supported by a totalitarian regime with a subsequent attempt to cover up and deny. (Of course its true that the Axis faced trials and investigations whereas the Allies did not to the same extent, but no allied civilian could have subsequently claimed 'they knew nothing' of the allied air operations – certainly none living in the UK!

horse. within the 1,000,000 men who served in the waffen ss, there were men with sterling records and criminals. if some of you would look into all armies, these things happen. and lets not forget that the war in russia was more than just a war between 2 powers. it was a racial war, between 2 very different ways of thinking.
were there terror units in the waffen ss? yes. but i can tell you this little snip it: when i was younger, i had one of the "world tour" shirts i got from a historicon. i used to take walks with guy from the 29th infantry div. he saw the shirt one day and said "17th ss panzer grenidier division, i remember those guys".
i said, "what do you think of the ss men, sam?". he said "they were tough, tough fighters. they did what they had to do".

Someone killed by aerial bombing is just as dead as someone executed by by a soldier. I consider both to be war crimes. Being on the winning side makes your own crimes tend to be overlooked.

But I don't consider them to be equivalent crimes. Summary execution of civilians is a step beyond reckless bombardment of civilians. While we're on this topic, the SS didn't have a monopoly on atrocities. It is becoming clear that Wermacht units also committed outrages. The tape recordings made of high-ranking German officers who were prisoners in England is proof of this.

YouTube link

When war starts there won't be much difference in method to the degree the sides are evenly matched, how could there be? War is survival you do what you have to do, anything you think will end it in victory.

The distinction is in what you are going to do with victory, not in what you do to get it.

In before the lock.

Wow, I didn't know about that town. Thanks for pointing it out.

This has legs… 'Ma! Fetch us some popping corn!'

Carpet bombing was all that was available 75 years ago. We can't look at it through today's lenses. The technology that allows us the accuracy of hitting precise targets didn't exist. And we still miss on occasion. Just like technology allows us options we didn't have then. I seriously doubt we would execute a repeat of a D Day operation when there are now better alternatives.

And panzerwaffen please. Invasion of Iraq has to be one of the cleanist operations of its scale and undertaking in history.

Sparker for the win. Personally I'm still reeling from the discovery that Ireland has a Marine Corps….

"So 600 hundred civilians killed by Germans is bad"

Fighting to support a murderous regime whose intention is to slaughter everyone ultimately is what is wrong. They were not defending the "fatherland" they weren't fighting to save their country. They were fighting to murder people worldwide.

They were fighting to murder the people in Poland. They were fighting to murder people in Russia. They were fighting to murder people in France and Norway and Denmark and ultimately England.

The German soldier was fighting to murder the entire world.

That is what makes them wrong. Civilians die in war.

Both America and Britain made mistakes during the war but what they did is a far cry from deliberately murdering millions of people and starting a war for the sole purpose of murdering, ultimately, ALL of them.

T Meier is exactly correct.

There were good guys and bad guys in WWII. The Germans were some of the bad guys. All of the ones who fought their hardest to help the Nazi government win were bad people.

Saying that the german soldier fought to kill everyone in Europe is clearly wrong. It oversimplifies a very complicated issue. And while the Nazi regime does not get any sympathy from me,I do not agree that every german citizen was "bad", and deserved to die because of the leader they had, regardless of age, gender or occupation.

The SS soldiers enlisted for the express purpose of carrying out the haneous acts for which they are accused.

Much of the war industry in Japan was carried out in the homes of the workers themselves, so terrible as it was the bombing campaign over Japan can claim some military justification.

WHAT DOES ANY OF THIS HAVE TO DO WITH MINIATURE WAR GAMING?

Shooting an unarmed civilian vs dropping a bomb on an unarmed civilian: no difference in terms of criminality

Being ABLE to face an unarmed civilian and shoot them for no good reason vs dropping a bomb on a city where you cant see anyone: world of difference in terms of the required mentality

More hot air on this than a balloon rally

So, Group Captain Leonard Cheshire, and the commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Division, exactly the same from the moral perspective?

That will never feel right,instinctively, whatever arguments one deploys.

Setting Allied-caused civilian deaths against Nazi atrocities has been used for a long time as a distraction technique. In 1945, Germans who were shown photos of concentration camp dead would claim they were pictures of bombing victims. The bombing of Monte Cassino would be thrown onto the scales.The Germans genuinely seem to have felt themselves in 1945 to be hapless innocent victims and could not understand why they were being bombed or mistreated.

It is ironic, and a telling point on escalation generally, that in 1939 the RAF had orders to avoid causing damage to private property.

Well we've not done this one for a bit.

Give it another hundred years and the SS really will be the jut jawed aryan defenders of western civilisation against the Slavic bolshevik untermensch bankrolled by the Jewish capitalists. Hitler would have been proud.

"Saying that the german soldier fought to kill everyone in Europe is clearly wrong. "

I didn't limit it to Europe. And that is exactly what they were doing.

By now the methodology is clear to all.

1. Someone posts an obviously invidious statement whereupon everyone snaps at the hook.

2. It goes on for a few hundred posts where everyone blasts a shotgun at the target and makes sure to hit others with a pellet or two who then open up. Arguments become wilder and more vehement, statements more sweeping and broad, until all focus is lost and everyone is demonized.

3. Eventually tempers are pushed to the limit bad feelings are engendered, misunderstandings abound, people are stifled, and enemies are made., and the original poster is nowhere to be found (except to justify his having tossed out the stink bomb.

By now we all should be well used to this dodge. It's really a case of "Let's you and him fight!"

or

I have my own pettly little hatreds for something done in the past, not to me but to someone else, and I want the people who did it (even though most are long dead and the ones today largely innocent of that, so I'll go on TMP and stir things up so I can enjoy a nice, fat juicy Orwellian 15 minutes of hate.

or

People got nothing to do but make trouble.

So now you've all been lured in, and are justifying the murder of this side or that side's civilians for an act that took place half a century ago, and more, and focusing on the individual act rather than the prima-facia brutality and moral degradation of war, the waste, the destruction of art, environment, people, ideas, and the aspirations of man.

This by the way is exactly the methodology evil rulers use to cause war, and if you don't believe me, watch a little news these days.

Exactly Otto, well said. Learned a long time ago not to throw gas on a fire, while the arson is long gone and laughing.

I'll agree with Otto, but like a number of ugly beliefs, there are those who sneak around to spread the lies and myths to buff the historical realities.

If no one fights back with the truth, then the lies and myths become the new reality and are believed.

In the fight to gain equal moral standing ("both sides were bad, so we were not evil" argument), all it takes is for people to let these sort of false statements stand.

Dan

Suggest one read "The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders" by Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen, Volker Riess, Hugh Trevor-Roper.

Then tell me that Allied air crews trying to destroy the German war industries are the same as the German military.

Dan

Also recommend "Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying" by Sonke Neitzel (Author), Harald Welzer (Author), Jefferson Chase (Translator)

Taped conversations of German POWs in British and American camps.

Dan

Ok so before I go I think I have a handle on this so to sum up it's bad to kill civilians face to face but it's Ok to kill THOUSANDS of men, women and children from the air because they happened to be on the enemy side, even though the original civilians that started this were the enemy of the soldiers doing the killing. So good guys are still good guys no matter who they kill and the bad guys are the bad guys no matter who they kill, Ok got it.