In his article, the author of the newspaper Die Welt, Sven Kellerhoff, writes that "in fact, the SS men fought badly." After 1945, the myth of the SS troops was created, which in words won more victories than in deeds.
SS (German SS, abbr. From German Schutzstaffel - "guard detachments") was created in 1923-1925. as Hitler's personal bodyguard. In January 1929, Heinrich Himmler became the head of the SS (Reichsfuehrer). In 1934, a personal guard (guard) of the Fuhrer - "Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler" was created as part of the SS. After the "night of long knives" on June 30, 1934, when the leadership of the assault squads (SA) was defeated, the guard squads became the main striking force of the National Socialist Party. Reichsfuehrer Himmler saw the elite of the Third Reich in the SS. If the common people were enrolled in the assault detachments, then the intelligentsia and the aristocracy preferred the SS. The selection was very strict. The spirit of the knightly order, passion for paganism and mysticism were cultivated in the guard detachments. The SS were disciplined, well organized and trained.
The troops of the protection (reinforcement) units or the SS Troops (German die Waffen-SS - Waffen-SS) begin their history in 1933, when the most reliable units were used for security purposes. "Barracks hundreds" (then "political units") were used to protect the leaders of the SS and the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP). Then, together with the assault squads, they became part of the police service and were used as auxiliary police to patrol the city streets. In 1937, some of these units were reorganized as SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS-TV) units and were responsible for guarding concentration camps in Germany, Austria and Poland. During World War II, from the Totenkopf units, the 3rd SS Panzer Division "Dead Head" was created, which began its combat path on the Western Front in 1940 (the capture of Belgium, Holland and France), then fought on the Russian (Eastern) Front … In order not to disturb the army command, until 1942 the SS troops and the "Death's Head" division formally belonged to the police. In 1945, the SS troops numbered 38 divisions, about 1.4 million people.
As a result, despite the discontent of the army generals, a second army began to be created in the Third Reich, which was personally subordinate to the Fuhrer. In general, the idea of creating SS troops was obvious. First, Hitler and his entourage did not trust the army generals, who until the last moment feared a repetition of the scenario of the First World War - a war on two fronts. It was not for nothing that military conspiracies were ripening in the bowels of the army, aimed at eliminating Hitler. The military was afraid that the Fuhrer would lead the country to another catastrophe. Therefore, the formation of the second army was given the "green light". She was supposed to protect the top leadership of the Reich from possible military rebellions and conspiracies. Secondly, Hitler and Himmler, with the help of the SS, formed the future elite of the "Eternal Reich" - the world empire. "The race of masters." Its ideology was the religion of the "black sun" - a synthesis of neo-paganism and mysticism. Therefore, representatives of the Aryan and Nordic peoples of Europe were recruited into the SS troops - creating the basis for a single army of European civilization, the "Hitlerite European Union".
Servicemen of the Das Reich SS division. March - April 1942
German military historian Klaus-Jürgen Bremm, a former military officer, a Bundeswehr officer, studied the military actions of the SS troops in the book "Hitler's Overrated Praetorians". He believes that SS veterans and their supporters created the myth of the elite troops of the Third Reich after the end of World War II. The SS were allegedly not involved in the crimes of the Nazis and were ordinary soldiers of the empire, only very good ones. They were portrayed as heroes of the World War who tried to stop the "Bolshevik offensive in the West" and even postponed the "Russian occupation" of Eastern and Central Europe.
Bremm notes that the "heroes" of World War II are responsible for a host of war crimes. The SS Cavalry Brigade alone killed 11,000 civilians - men, women and children - in July and early August 1941. The SS troops helped the punitive SS units in the "cleanup" of living space in the East (In the Soviet Union).
The German historian also notes that by the spring of 1942, "the old SS troops were part of history." Indeed, the SS divisions were beaten more than once, completely drained of blood and changed their composition. In particular, the tank divisions "Adolf Hitler", "Reich", "Death's Head" and "Hitler Youth" were repeatedly defeated and then re-created.
One can agree with Bremm that the SS troops are guilty of war crimes. There is no doubt about that. Army units also took part in them. Berlin quite deliberately pursued a policy of genocide, the complete destruction of the "inferior population" - Russians, Slavs, Gypsies, Jews, etc. The lands cleared of "subhumans" were to be occupied by "racially high-grade" peoples, primarily the Germans.
However, there is no doubt about the combat effectiveness of the SS troops, especially the motorized and tank divisions, the SS corps. It is clear that Hitler's propaganda cultivated the myth of their invincibility and chosenness. SS troops were thrown into the most dangerous sectors of the front, used in the most difficult situations and decisive battles. The SS fighters themselves, considering themselves the elite of the German armed forces, rushed forward, often incurring unreasonably high losses, trying at any cost to carry out the order and prove their "chosenness". The powerful blows of the mechanized SS divisions more than once decided the outcome of battles and entire operations, and saved German troops from disasters. SS divisions and corps showed themselves well in the battle for Kharkov (February - March 1943), the Battle of Kursk, battles on the Mius River, during the Korsun-Shevchenko operation, the release of the German tank army in April 1944, in fierce battles in the Lake Balaton area in Hungary, where the Germans launched powerful tank counterstrikes in March 1945. These operations are described in detail in BV Sokolov's book "The Red Army against the Waffen SS".
At various times, there were 28 SS divisions on the Russian front, but 12 of them took part in battles only at the end of the war. The most famous and efficient SS divisions on the Eastern Front are the tank divisions "Adolf Hitler", "Reich (Reich)", "Death's Head", "Viking", "Hitler Youth" and motorized divisions - Police, "Nordland", "Reichsfuehrer SS", "Horst Wessel", etc. The Red Army knew about the misanthropic nature of the SS troops, but they also respected them for their fighting spirit and striking power. Therefore, the appearance of SS troops in any sector of the front meant that the German command was preparing an offensive or counterattack during the Soviet offensive operation, strengthening the defenses in order to hold this territory especially toughly. In terms of intensity and duration of training, these SS divisions were superior to other parts of the Wehrmacht, except for the elite division "Great Germany". Also, SS divisions usually had more people and weapons, that is, they were militarily stronger than ordinary Wehrmacht divisions. As a result, the divisions of the SS troops had serious authority in the Red Army.
It is also worth noting that SS divisions manned by Germans and representatives of Germanic peoples (Swedes, Danes, Dutch, etc.) were distinguished by their high combat effectiveness. Since 1943, due to a lack of human resources, the German leadership began to actively create SS units from the so-called "non-German peoples", which, after the defeat in the Battle of Stalingrad, almost all were recognized as Aryan. These divisions, as Germany moved to a military-political collapse, quickly lost their combat effectiveness. In terms of their fighting qualities, only the Baltic SS divisions approached the German SS divisions (two Latvian - the 15th and 19th and one Estonian - the 20th), as well as the Wallonia motorized brigade, which was then deployed into the 28th Volunteer Grenadier division of the SS troops. These troops were highly motivated and fiercely resisted. Latvians and Estonians believed in the restoration of their states and hated the "Bolsheviks". Moreover, they fought well only on their own territory or on the adjoining territory of the USSR. The Walloons had in their ranks many representatives of Nazi and pro-fascist organizations. Other non-German volunteer formations of SS troops, which were created mainly in 1944-1945, when the defeat of the Third Reich was already obvious, did not differ in high morale and, accordingly, combat effectiveness and were significantly inferior in this respect not only to the German divisions of the SS troops, but also to the Wehrmacht divisions … In addition, due to lack of time and material problems, they did not have time to train and arm them well. These SS troops took only a limited part in the fighting, and many units had just begun or were planning to form.
Machine-gun crew of SS soldiers resting in the field near a heavy tank Pz. Kpfw. VI Ausf. E "Tiger" during the Battle of Kursk. The tank belonged to the 2nd Panzer Division "Das Reich", was part of the 102nd Heavy Tank Battalion. 1943 year. Photo source:
