I think you have touched on what many either fail to see or choose not to see about members of the Waffen-SS: They were not monsters spawned from hell, but men. They had the same strengths and weaknesses as any man. For example, a Waffen-SS veteran I know and have spoken with on many occasions, told me about why he chose the Waffen-SS and not the Heer, Luftwaffe, or Kriegsmarine. Lets see if I can remember this right: He remembers a military unit marching through his home city (he is from Leipzig). Turns out it was a Waffen-SS (at the time they were still the SS-VT) unit. These men were portrayed as the elite fighters of Germany; the cream of the crop. He said the sight of these soldiers marching down the street made him decide then and there that when he was able to join the military, he was going for the Waffen-SS. He didn't join because he hated Jews, or even because he was a direhard Nazi (was never even a member of the party).

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I am a liberal, a classical liberal. Classical liberalism is liberalism, but the current collectivists have captured that designation in the United States. In Europe they are glad enough to call themselves socialists. But no one in America wants to be called socialist and admit what they are.

Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self-Reliance, Perseverance

You mean he joined because he liked the jackboots and the black uniforms?

He wanted to serve with the best. And the military bearing of those men, along with what he had heard of them before that day, made him decide that the Waffen-SS was the best.

Funny, I had much the same thought process when I joined the US Marines.

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I am a liberal, a classical liberal. Classical liberalism is liberalism, but the current collectivists have captured that designation in the United States. In Europe they are glad enough to call themselves socialists. But no one in America wants to be called socialist and admit what they are.

Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self-Reliance, Perseverance

Atrocities commited against captured anamy troops as well as reprisals against civilians that got in ntheir way by Waffen-SS troops, to include well-trained elite units such as the Leibstandarte division are well-documented. Burning women and children alive in their churches and machine-gunning townspeople. War crimes, plain and simple.

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"He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it." - H.L. Mencken on Warren Harding

But do you hold the individuals responsible, or the whole organization?

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I am a liberal, a classical liberal. Classical liberalism is liberalism, but the current collectivists have captured that designation in the United States. In Europe they are glad enough to call themselves socialists. But no one in America wants to be called socialist and admit what they are.

Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self-Reliance, Perseverance

Personally I think it is only fair to hold individuals responsible. In a war as vast and savage as WW2, particularly on the Eastern front, a great many atrocities were commited that went unpunished. Those responsible will or have answered for their acts to a higher power upon their passing to the afterlife. As I get older I find fewer clean hands among the leadership in that war. Take the firebombing of Tokyo and Dresden for example. The deliberate attack on civilians, leaving tens of thousands dead, to influence the political leadership to act in a certain way (surrender). Sounds like terrorism to me, and even Curtis LeMay said if we lost they'd be tried as war criminals.

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"He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it." - H.L. Mencken on Warren Harding

I hold as an example of Waffen-SS atrocities the massacre of 642 Friench inhabitants of the village of Oradour-sur-Glane on 10 June 1944 by elements of the 2d SS Panzer Div Das Reich. Women and children locked in a church and then the church set on fire, anyone trying to escape was machine-gunned. 247 women and 205 children died; one person escaped alive. This kind of behavior is the reason why the Waffen SS is generally regarded as not just crack troops but war criminals, and with some justification.

Oradour-sur-Glane - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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"He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it." - H.L. Mencken on Warren Harding

Somewhat related to the topic:

My old man's boss at his previous job was a communications grunt in the Wermacht, captured by the Russians in '44 I believe. The guy was hiding in a tree, the Russians shot the lower branches out, told the guy "the war for you is over". They then saw his communications insignia, a single lighting bolt - almost got the guy dispatched on the spot. Looked similar to the SS insignia.

Somehow he managed to convince the Russians he was not SS, off to the POW camp he went. Spent 2 winters as a guest, ate nothing but soybeans, and saw a majority of his fellow prisoners die of disease/starvation/neglect. He was very lucky to get out alive.

yes and the Malmedy massacre was carried out by Joachim Peiper, whose unit was made up of younger ss levies .....so yes I see your point, but then again, my lai wasn't carried out by crack indoctrinated troops either....BUT he was certainly brutal ion a personal level....it depends on the commander as well...

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"The captain has turned off the `No Dubbing' sign. You are free to speak any language you choose."

In the case of My Lai, the division commander was relieved of duty and court-martialed (rightfully so) as he had attempted to cover up this massacre of approx 500 unarmed Vietnamese civilians. The infantry division that this particulary company was part of, the Americal Division, was deactivated not long afterward. Peiper by all accounts was a very able combat commander and his men were very loyal to him, I think that years of fighting on the far more savage Eastern Front, where atrocities were commited by both sides regularly, got his entire command accustomed to operating that way.

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"He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it." - H.L. Mencken on Warren Harding

I wouldn't say he was brutal on a personal level. What makes you think he was?

__________________
I am a liberal, a classical liberal. Classical liberalism is liberalism, but the current collectivists have captured that designation in the United States. In Europe they are glad enough to call themselves socialists. But no one in America wants to be called socialist and admit what they are.

Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self-Reliance, Perseverance

Yeah, I agree. The Eastern front was a whole different war in many respects. Peiper himself said

"I recognize that after the battles of Normandy my unit was composed mainly of young, fanatical soldiers. A good deal of them had lost their parents, their sisters and brothers during the bombing. They had seen for themselves in Köln thousands of mangled corpses after a terror raid had passed. Their hatred for the enemy was such; I swear it and I could not always keep it under control."

also

"It's so long ago now. Even I don't know the truth. If I had ever known it, I have long forgotten it. All I know is that I took the blame as a good CO should have been and was punished accordingly."

Like a good CO, he never tried to shirk his duty. He offered to take all the blame for the crimes soldiers under his commend committed, even if he wasn't there to witness the crimes personally.

__________________
I am a liberal, a classical liberal. Classical liberalism is liberalism, but the current collectivists have captured that designation in the United States. In Europe they are glad enough to call themselves socialists. But no one in America wants to be called socialist and admit what they are.

Courage, Truth, Honor, Fidelity, Discipline, Hospitality, Industriousness, Self-Reliance, Perseverance