Thursday, March 4, 2010

Waffen-SS

Men and Horses of the SS Cavalry Brigade September 1941. Men and Horses of the SS Cavalry Brigade September 1941


The Waffen-SS (German for "Armed SS") was the combat arm of the Schutzstaffel ("Protective Squadron") or SS, an organ of the Nazi Party. The Waffen-SS saw action throughout World War II and grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions, and served alongside the Wehrmacht Heer regular army, but was never formally part of it. It was Adolf Hitler's will that the Waffen-SS never be integrated into the army, it was to remain the armed wing of the Party and to become an elite police force once the war was over. Operational control of units on the front line was given to the Army's High Command, but in all other respects it remained under the control of Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler's SS organization, through the SS Führungshauptamt (SS operational command office).

At first membership was open to "Aryans" only in accordance with the racial policies of the Nazi state, but in 1940 Hitler authorized the formation of units composed largely or solely of foreign volunteers and conscripts, and by the end of the war ethnic non-Germans made up approximately 60% of the Waffen-SS.

After the war at the Nuremberg Trials, the Waffen-SS was condemned as a criminal organization due to its essential connection to the Nazi Party and its involvement in war crimes. Waffen-SS veterans were denied many of the rights afforded to veterans who had served in the Heer (army), Luftwaffe (air force) or Kriegsmarine (navy). The exception made was for Waffen-SS conscripts sworn in after 1943, who were exempted due to their involuntary servitude. In the 1950s and 1960s, Waffen-SS veteran groups successfully fought numerous legal battles in West Germany to overturn the Nuremberg ruling and win pension rights for their members.

Source: Wikipedia (All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License)

1 comment:

  1. we are not a jew but until now we assume death for all the raise of the german ss nazi cut their head of to the public.because they are seeds of destruction.loser germans coward killing civilians!their so chicken cant defeat the real army!

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