Waffen SS

>>33055314
They allowed the Nazis to recruit foreigners without upsetting the Wehrmacht officers.

Waffen SS were intended to be elites. The Green Beret of the Wehrmacht in a sense when it comes to actual role. They grew to become the Marine Corps of the German Army as the war dragged on.

>>33055436
wtf are you talking about

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>>33055314
>why was the Waffen SS needed?
Serve as a counter to the German Army.

>>33055520
>Start of war intended to be special forces like unit
>Grew larger and became shock troops

That's what I have always thought it was like. Just used Beret and USMC as comparison to roles

>war crimes
>mass killings of civilians

You seem to have them confused with the IJA and Soviet Union.

>>33055314
The stürmgesuchtz fulfilled two roles, being both essentially the German foreign legion, and the better trained and equiped elite that could be used to shore up defenses in particularly difficult areas, or spearhead offensive actions.

>>33055939
How do wehraboos combine conviction of inherent racial superiority with whataboutism and dindu nuffin damage control?

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>>33055314
They weren't.

They were there simply as a way for the Nazis to swing their dick around.

They had a small use in that they allowed foreign volunteers to serve for Germany, but mostly they existed for political propoganda and war crimes. They got the best gear, preferential treatment, and preference in recruits. They'd also try to get decorated soldiers to join as well, although some like Kurt Knispel and Otto Carius refused.
>>33056144
Sturmgesuchtz is a StuG, not sure what the hell you meant to type there, but StuG's were not part of the SS strictly speaking, Werhmact used a ton of them too.

>>33055436
Closer to airborne as originally intended than elites. They were merely conceived as an all volunteer force.

>>33055542

Not even close.

The Waffen SS was foremost a political force, intended to counter the influence of the Heer.

The closest comparison to the Waffen SS in role would be the KGB MVD. They started out handing internal security, and then their role in combat expanded to frontline divisions, a process that accelerated after Hitler lost faith in his generals and created more Waffen SS units under his command.

>>33056704
Winner. They were created purely as a political force to serve the Nazi Party and protect hitler. They became a military force later. They were fanatics since they were volunteers and fought hard but they also careless in many cases. Towards the end of the war they fought mostly delaying actions for the larger heer to retreat.

>>33055314
Hitler planned to use the SS after the war as an inter-Reich police force.
Their use in the war was primarily anti- partisan until shit got hairy and they were throwing whoever they could into the front lines. This is were most of the accusation of war crimes come from. An officer would be assassinated or a bridge blown up, and the SS would demand the villagers give up the culprit. If they didnt they shot a couple dozen people or sent them to the work camps.
Also as mentioned before, they were a counter to the wehrmacht. Many of the old aristocratic Prussian junker generals didnt like being told what to do by a bavarian corporal. Hitler and by extension the nazi party need their own armed force. Nazi ideology superceded the boundries of german at the time and needed a force to recognize and enforce that vision.

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>>33055314

The Waffen-SS was a volunteer force composed of people who want to fight with the best and highly motivated.

Wehrmacht was a conscript force were all the dregs of society and beatniks were pooled, and that's why they were so shit.

>>33056750

To be honest, Heer commanders had a tendency to throw Waffen-SS units under the rapidly approaching Allied bus in order to make sure their own people got out first.

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>>33056806

The Waffen-SS were used mostly to counter Soviet break-throughs. They were the ones all of Germany had to rely upon when the cowards and unwilling conscripts of the Wehrmacht were running away in a hasty route.

>>33056806
Thats kind of what I was implying. I'm sure it was probably more like Hitler thought a brigade could cover an entire division retreating while the heer figured fuck'em they don't mind dying let's use them.

>>33056778
>he doesn't realize that the undisciplined, unprofessional, and inexperienced SS units caused problems for the regular army during the invasion of Poland
>he doesn't realize that, apart from the first few SS units like Liebstandarte and Das Reich, most of the SS divisions were not elite formations by any stretch of the imagination

>>33055314
From a military perspective it seems weird having two forces doing roughly the same thing yes.

But the SS was a as >>33055537 said a counter to the Germany army. While the German army was made of the average German population and politically included everyone from the left side to the right side and could therefore possibly try and strike a coup (like they actually did at some point) etc. Waffen SS was to consist of people loyal to Hitler and national socialism.

>>33056843
in the early years of the war you would be correct.
in 44 and 45 they did some of the most heroic shit and impressive delays ive ever read about

>>33056843

The Waffen-SS was learning to wage war in Poland.

By 1940 in France, they were the tip of the spear.

>>33056843
I don't think there were many German forces with experience during the invasion of Poland to begin with.

When people talk about elite SS divisions they generally always talk about the first Germanic ones. I don't see why you would expect more from Hungarian and Romanian divisions just because you slap on the name SS on some uniforms.

>>33056778

You're such a fucking faggot.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panzer-Grenadier-Division_Gro%C3%9Fdeutschland

>>33056852

> in 44 and 45 they did some of the most heroic shit and impressive delays ive ever read about

Well lets see

LSSAH
> Redeployed to Western Front April 25th 1944
> Held off the Brits in Operation Goodwood
> Failed counter-attack against Americans
> encircled in the Falaise Pocket, loses every tank, artillery piece, and 5000 men
> reconstituted for Ardennes offensive
> overruns a supply battalion, kills the prisoners
> stopped cold by one regiment from the 1st Infantry Division
> gets encircled (again), loses all the new tanks that it got
> transferred back to Eastern Front
> deployed to battle of Lake Batalon
> fails to do anything
> war ends

12th SS Hitlerjugend
> deployed to Western from April 1944
> kills some French civilians for kicks
> Fails to stop Canadian attack after D-Day, kills some Canadain POWs
> encircled in the Falaise pocket, loses every tank, every artillery piece, and 70-80% of the men.
> reconstituted for Ardennes offensive
> Doesn't break through at all
> can't break the LSSAH out from their encirclement
> loses all it's new tanks in the retreat
> transferred back to Eastern Front
> deployed to battle of Lake Batalon
> fails to do anything
> war ends

>>33056778
>Wehrmacht was a conscript force were all the dregs and beatniks of society were pooled, and that's why they were so shit

Good one anon, I got a much needed laugh from that joke

>>33055314
Sort of like a Praetorian guard.

Why do we have Rangers when the Army basically does the same thing?

>>33055314
the SS were to be a paramilitary force who the Nazi Party could count on being loyal to the very end. The risk of mass desertions or a coup were intended to be an impossibility for the SS. Additionally they were a chance for the party's combat wing to "start afresh" after the SA were deemed to be becoming disloyal or too thuggish for a respectable government to be using. Once the SS were up to strength the SA was purged (night of the long knives) and replaced by them.

>>33055314
Purpose of the Waffen SS was to protect the Nazi Party from a Wehrmacht coup. It reported to the Nazi Party directly rather than the German Armed Forces.

>>33055314
The Waffen SS is the equivalent of the Iraqi Republican Guard. It has closer ties to the ruling party than the standard military. If the military would stage a coup, you'd still have the SS on your side.

The SS Schutzstaffel was the paramilitary wing of the NSDAP, it existed before the Nazis had the Wehrmacht. Their job was to beat up socialists and communists and could be called the party's internal police force with the SD as it's additional secret police.

The Waffen-SS was the military wing of the party, it was meant to be a small Wehrmacht that wasn't bound to the state, but to the party.

Together both institutions were in charge of the ghettos and camps, so this task wouldn't keeps the Wehrmacht busy from fighting the war

I don't see anyone else mentioning that the Waffen SS, which grew out of an initial political unit more than a companu strong, differed from the Heer in one particular aspect - their training. While the conscript Heer spent 3-6 months training each soldier, the SS gave their soldiers - provided they weren't given further specialist training - as little as three weeks in high intensive military and political training before sending them to the front. Very much like the early ww2 US Marines. Shock troops, definitely, and a system that meant the cost of each soldier was reduced to a fraction of the Heer ones. This is why all those foreign troops were put into SS - giving them proper, long time training would have taken a lot of time and money. Both of which the Nazis were running out of.

Addition: one other wing of the SS was the Allgemeine SS. These had practically no military training at all and were recruited directly from civilian and military prisons; in particular, people who personally excelled in brutality. The brutality was key to controlling camps where there could be one guard per hundred prisoners.

>>33058049
They also differentiated in terms of esprit de corps, the Waffen-SS was way more egalitarian and officers had less privileges and were closer to the enlisted men.

>>33058068
The Allgemeine SS was certainly not recruited from prisons dude

>>33058094

Damnit. You are right and I messed up. The Allgemeine were the overall SS structure. What I meant to refer to was the SS-Totenkopfverbände.

>>33058120
They weren't recruited from prisons either. Maybe you're thinking of the Dirlewanger division, which recruited amongst others from criminals and concentration camp inmates.

>>33058120
>SS-Totenkopfverbände
>prisoners
Are you completely brain dead?

>>33058120
>The Allgemeine were the overall SS structure
The Allgemeine were volunteers working in the SS offices as office clerks until they were used in the Volkssturm

I need to run off for a few hours. The following is good reading though:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-Totenkopfverb%C3%A4nde

>>33055314

Loyalty to the party is an important tenement of fascism. As the party becomes the state, and the state the party, an army of the party, one who's staff who's loyalty becomes a necessity.

Hence the SS, or at least their existence after Nazis came to power.

>>33056343
>projecting
Not that guy, but I'm a huge Wehraboo but do not believe in the racial superiority of Germans (getting BTFO throughout their entire history kinda contradicts that).

I think ALL depictions of war crimes and mass killings during a war need to be taken with a grain of salt considering it is always the former enemies of said group who accuse them of it. Often with little or no concrete evidence (ie Holocaust, Ukrainian genocide, Armenian genocide).

As with anything, there is a kernel of truth, and I'm sure atrocities did happen on all sides. But honestly you're pretty fuckin gullible if you believe in muh 6 million, muh lampshades made from human skin, muh Heer lynched babies, muh commies made Ukrainians kill each other over loaves of bread to be more efficient

>>33056880
>I don't think there were many German forces with experience during the invasion of Poland to begin with.

The Waffen SS was a special case though, since it had only been around for a couple of years at this point and had almost no former Wehrmacht personnel in their ranks, which meant that there weren't any all that experienced NCO's which could have trained new ones, and the senior officers outright were buddys of Hitler, some of which had no prior experience in a command position.
I also recall a statement of a man who I think was a member of "Das Reich" in 1940 and who said about the "Totenkopf" divison: "They were nothing more than 17 year olds who weren't good at anything besides executing PoWs".
So while there was rivalry between different units, even the SS didn't regard itself that highly in certain cases.
It wasn't until Operation Barbarossa that the Waffen SS really gained a positive reputation with the Wehrmacht soldiers, before that they were mostly regarded as a bunch of youngsters which were so fanatic that it was borderline suicidal.
That in turn became sort of an advantage, as SS troops would often put up a remarkably tenacious defense. It also helped that they were the first ones the get brand new equipment.

As the war went on their quality dropped again as foreigners were held to lower standards than Germans. As the war went on normal conscripts were also put into the SS whithout volunteering for it; which basically meant that all sorts of requirements were thrown out of the window.

It was a way for the predominantly Austro-Bavarian Nazi Party to field a unilateral military force to counter a predominantly Prussian Wehrmact.


They even had seperate procurement channels.

>>33058245
Yeah this is it. The stupidest fuckin thing I've heard all day.

>>33058252
The July 44 coup was an exclusively prussian endeavor. Look it up.

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>>33055314
The waffen SS was a political military force
Near the end it was very much 50% or more compromised of foreign, even non-european, volunteers who wished to fight communism.
It served both as a mean to create an elite fanatical force and also as a tool to create political allies when these foreign men return to their homes and become the political power thus creating allies for Hitler all over the world, not a bad idea desu.

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>>33055314

>>33055314
The Waffen SS was Hitler's private military group, they took direct orders from him, while the Wehrmacht took orders from the state.
The SS was also used domestically, for all kinds of things which the Wehrmacht couldn't legally be used (more relevant before the war and early on in the war).

So this is one of many reasons why it's funny when people say that "Trump is exactly like Hitler" when he doesn't even have a private paramilitary group taking orders only from him and operating and doing evil shit domestically.

>>33058348
I'm almost sad SS wiking never put on the viking ship patch.

>>33055314
Friendly reminder tht Einsatzgruppen dealt with bandits (partisans) and communists not civilians.

>>33055314
To cuck the regular army.

>>33057079

>One unit comes close to Waffen-SS in performance

>HURFF DURFF

Look at this hippie, fucking faggot.

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>>33057192

>Good one anon, I got a much needed laugh from that joke

You think that isn't true?

Why do you think WH units were so weak, and were the first ones to take flight as soon as they were pressed? Because they were filled with the worst kinds of people from German society: leftists, unwilling, low-IQ people, homosexuals, gamers, furries etc.

>>33057193
Rangers are legitimately an elite unit though, and serve a tip of the spear role that previously was carried out by Marines up until Helicopter transport made rapid aerial deployment possible.

>>33058362
The Einsatzgruppen did almost exclusively counter insurgency work, it just so happened to be that so many of the insurgents were Jewish Communists.

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>>33058967

>>33059421
Those younglins would have grown up to be Jedi you dingus, they would have subverted the Empire with their ways. Sheev did nothing wrong. Honestly I still think the figures of dead Jedi are over blown the official "history" documents the The New Republic archives push. It's pure atrocity propaganda to try and pin some sort of guilt on the only people who, at the time, were able to bring peace and prosperity to a violent and turbulent world run amok Jedi scum.

>>33059460
>they would have subverted the Empire with their ways
What's your point

>>33059683
Well, I mean clearly not ALL Jedi were a threat but all were a potential threat. Ideologically they were counter to the Empire's goals, and of course the Empire was counter to their interests. I mean they took a fairly monolothic power of the Empire, and just a couple of Jedi uprooted the whole thing making it a WEAK and incompetent power headed off by a council of thousands of planets in the New Republic just like the Old Republic.