#12

Post by Hortlund » 16 Jan 2003, 23:09

Haegg wrote: I am under the impression that all German units where more, not democratic, but egilitarian in some senses than the opposing Western allies. Which can be seen as a paradox since the Western countries where democratic while Germany was not.



First of all the Germans had the auftragstaktik while the WA had commando tactics (not sure if this is the right English word for it). There you have independent thinking vs. obeying orders. The Germans where encouraged to take own initiative in another anner than the WA were. The German officers were encouraged to share the soldiers hardships and lives in a different manner than in the WA forces. For instanse German officers were obliged to salute even privates. They were to take part in their soldiers birthday parties. These are just a few examples of an atmosphere that encouraged a "we" feeling and strong bond between the officers and enlisted. In the WA forces there were more of a gulf between the two groups and bonding were not encouraged in the same way.



There ia a pretty good british thesis on the topic, the title slipped my mind but I can find ut. I also think that these differencies shine through in alot of the litterature about the war.

But this is nothing SS specific. ALL German units had this philosophy.Then there are other aspects that makes the Waffen SS special and unique. Primarely SSDR because of Steiner and his philosophy. No other WSS unit was quite the same as SS Reg Deutschland and SS Reg Der Fuhrer. Both LSSAH and SSTK were extremely good units, but on other merits than SSDR. It is interesting to see how the WSS divisions saw themselves.LSSAH considered themselves to be the best of the best. The German variant of the Praetorian guards if you will, a level above the rest. These guys would not take one step back, because the guards never do.Then you had SSDR, and to understand the greatness of this division you have to look at the pre war training of the regiments that would make up SSDR. Reg Deutschland was Steiners baby. It was his regiment. Steiner was a WWI vet, and he took part in the last German offensive. This is where he learned the Stosstruppen tactics, this is where he saw how effective that is was. Consequently he wanted his regiment to be experts in that particular aspect of warfare. THAT is why Deutschland focused on camouflage uniforms, a higher proportion of automatic weapons, more use of smoke and explosives, more focus on small unit tactics and individual initiative. All this goes right back to the WWI stosstruppen tactics.Steiners influence spilled over to Der Fuhrer and Germania via the SSVT organization, but no where was the old stosstruppen philosophy more obvious than in Deutschland. So in short, SSDR saw themselves as the ww2 extension of these stosstruppen.Finally we have SSTK. The black sheep of the Waffen SS. No matter how you twist and turn, you cannot escape the fact that this was the frontline version of the SSTV. Much of the bad reputation of the Waffen SS comes from the frequent transfers from SSTK and SSTV, in fact, there is no point in trying to deny that. This also reflects on how the SSTK soldiers saw themselves. Led by "papa" Eicke, they knew they had a bad reputation. They knew that primarely LSSAH saw themselves as much better than SSTK. This was something the SSTK troops accepted. They saw themselves as the military extension of the old SA, the streetfighters. The philosophy might be summed up along these lines: "It is a dirty job, but someone has got to do it." They saw themselves as the guys doing the dirty job that no one else wanted to do, but the job that had to be done. This created a very strong bond between the soldiers of SSTK.Over time, SSDR influenced SS Wiking and SS Nordland (because you can trace regiments, commanders, officers and NCOs from the one division to the other.LSSAH influenced SSHJ, primarely because SSHJ took almost all its officers and NCOs from LSSAH. What made SSHJ unique was the combination of experienced veteran NCOs and officers leading young and raw fanatical soldiers. Someone said that the best soldier is a 18yr old kid going into combat for the first time, simply because he does not understand how dangerous it is. Unfortunately the 18yr old kid is the one with the shortest life expectancy on the battlefield too. But by grouping 18yr old raw kids with 25 yr old veteran NCOs, you got veteran troops who could give any order and the soldiers would follow those orders without hesitating.