THE WAFFEN-SS: Divisional Service History, Brigade/Battalion Unit List + Unit Notes.

[Christos]

I would just like to emphasize the above points made.....historical accuracy demands that we examine the distasteful side of the many faceted thing that is modern war, and of necessity, it sometimes means that we delve into subject matter that people would not normally look at.....history, and posterity, deserves the sort of fate that we can leave as a leagacy for those that want to know 'how' and 'why' and 'who' without suffering the stories and myths that form around history of all types.....we try to explode as many of these myths as possible, to get the best out of historical research, so that any possible decision based on that said information is made with the correct info in mind....

Our future children and leaders of earth will need it....and they won't want the wool pulled over their eyes...

Truth will-out!

[Christos]

guys, Im trying to track down German magazine "Signal" and any photos or books that may be recently published dealing with this aspect of Goebbels Propaganda Korps....Thanks for your help!

[von Poop]

Are you looking for actual copies of the magazine Christos?
If so they crop up on eBay or via the usual militaria channels, but make sure you've got the language right before buying as editions were published for many different countries.

Probably the 'official' Signal website:
Signal Magazine 1940 - 1945

2 books I've got that include facsimile Signal stuff are:
Their War: German Combat Photographs from the Archives of Signal Magazine by Will Fowler
&
Best of Signal: Hitler's Wartime Picture Magazine by S.L.Mayer, the latter's more interesting as it consists of complete articles, though neither are exactly scholarly works .

Cheers,
Adam.

[Christos]

I think the book by S.L. Mayer that you refer to is probably the one that I'm after....it's the only collection of 'Signal' that I was aware of...as for actual copies of 'Signal' or 'Der Adler', I would consider myself lucky to have even ONE!

Any help would be appreciated at this point in time!

[4th wilts]

makes me want to soil myself reading about them ss lot.i seen a couple of those animals on t.v as well,we were in the waffen ss,we knew nothing of the death camps,they said.damned liars.yours,lee.

[Christos]

Many people lied about their knowledge of the death camps.....many people all over Germany that had nothing to do with the SS...Waffen or otherwise....

I have actually met and talked to Waffen SS vets while I was in the UNITED STATES.....they were no more monsterous than I was......

Germany in 1933 - 1945 was an unusual place to live....I'm not sure that if I lived back then that my opinion would be any different to the people of the day....

YOU....4th Wilts...are in NO position to criticize any of these people, particularly NOT German people...having, yourself, never lived under a totalitarian regime, you really have no idea what it was like....So, your qualifications to criticize are ZERO....

For a SENIOR member of our hierarchial structure here, you should know better......

IF you were living in Germany in 1944, and you heard about something monstrous like those camps....

WOULD YOU MAKE A PUBLIC SONG AND DANCE?...

I think not....

Someone like you would be to busy saving their own skin....and keeping their mouths shut......Show a little intelligence, will you?

By the way....just as an aside.....If you are familiar with Germany of the period, you will also know of a resistence group of students called "The White Rose".....these kids handed out leaflets...thats all, scattered them from building, handed them out anywhere they could get away with....do you see yourself as some kind of latter day "White Rose" afficiendo?...I doubt you would even have heard of these students......or know what their fate was...

They were hanged.....So, crusader for moralism that you are....what would you have done when the "Stapo" came for YOU?

[Tom Houlihan]

Initially, the camps were not meant for killing. That came later. People understood the camps to be places for holding legitimate criminals and society's malcontents. Most people didn't have an issue with that. Granted, the camps weren't nice places, but death wasn't an expected result.
It wasn't until later that the camps started turning out more corpses than reformed citizens. That manner of activity was kept hidden for the most part. I do believe that most people in Germany weren't fully aware of what was going on, including the majority of the men in the Heer and Waffen-SS. Specifically, Johann Voss, author of Black Edelweiss, with whom I have spent time, supports this. They knew about prison camps, but not death camps.
Here's another way of looking at it. Everyone knew about propaganda. How many people would have believed such reports? How many would have accepted it as propaganda? Even today, with all the evidence, how many people have trouble believing that a nation such as Germany could have committed such acts?
You can't let your understanding of the 1940s to be flavored by today's values. Things wer a lot different then.

[Christos]

Tom is talking sence.....I'm very sure there are German vets out there that are SICK AND BLOODY TIRED of this tired old historical line......
Most people that criticizew, do so based on their own value sustems, without attemptring to place themselves in the shoes of the people they are so critical of.....I tire of reading book after book that paints the German Armed forces in a manner that suits the thesis of the book....

Those that wish to learn what was in the minds of the 'Einsatzgruppe' of the Eastern Front, I would sincerely recommend a book called "Hitler's Willing Executioners', a ground breaking book that took a good look at the psychological motivation for what occurred, and the type of people recruited for this 'work'.....

As I stated above, it's up to us, three generations on to see that EVERYONE now gets to tell their story of World War Two....the good and the bad, and all the other stuff in between.....TRUTH is the important thing.....yes, I acknowledge that these atrocitiews were committed, but it is not my intention, as it is with others, to superimpose my own moralism on the whole issue...plenty have done this before me....I just want to know the FACTS.....

Other literature recommended....

MAUS I & II by Art Speigelman.....CAGED by David Landau.....Read this stuff to find out how the 'Death Camps' were organized, staffed and 'run'....it's revealing to learn that most camp guards were people not suitable for any other service....their training was minimal to non-existent, and they used the situation to impose their insane predjudices on the situation......A lot of these monsters were tracked down after the war, and a lot of them got awawy, too.....
But AS ALWAYS, informed debate is the key to understanding that which is intellectually incomprehensable.

[Gotthard Heinrici]

I wouldnt say that all the Germans knew about the Death Camps Lee. Certainly no-one knew of the Wannsee Conference where the decision was made to "efficiently" pursue the answer to (as they put it) the Jewish Question.

[4th wilts]

bloody scum,all of them.i hope they all burn in hell.they all knew,civillians and soldiers.they just turned the other cheek.murdering millions of jews,russians and half a hundred other races,can you imagine what children saw,all over europe, all by men with ss on their uniforms.scum.lee