#4

Post by Klar zum Gefecht ! » 30 Oct 2005, 20:27

The comparison between NATO & Waffen SS is an interesting subject, because this has been one of the major arguments of the Waffen SS's apologists since the 1950's.

It is important I think, to put things into their historical context and therefore to make the "history" of this comparison (I should rather say myth, legend or lie).



A) The politicians in front of the HIAG

It was made in the mid 50's when HIAG, headed by Paul Hausser, Herbert Otto Gille, Kurt Meyer, & Felix Steiner, was an important organization in West Germany.

By that time nearly all parties in germany (from the socialists to the Christian democrats) had contacts and friendly relationships with the HIAG. They couldn't afford to loose the part of the electorate that was made of veterans of Wehrmacht & W-SS and their families, because nearly all germans had had relatives within the III. Reich's military. Furthermore, there was another reason why politicians wanted to "seduce" the ex-WSS. The rearmament of germany was being discussed and they needed to rely on experimented officers and personnel to lead and "frame" the army.



B) the HIAG's political and social objectives

The HIAG had 2 objectives: to secure the payment of state retirement pensions for its members and to allow the younger of them to candidate for the new german army. To achieve this, they had to (retrospectively)cut all ties between the Waffen SS and the SS organization as a whole. That's was Felix Steiner does in his book "Die Armee der Geächteten" (the army of the despised) where he presents the Waffen-SS as a mere military organisation, "betrayed" by Himmler...



C) community of interest Politicians/HIAG

This means that both the politicians and the HIAG had the same interest in "normalizing" the image of the Waffen-SS and make it appear as "the 4th part of Wehrmacht" instead of "the armed wing of the SS" (because the Wehrmacht had not been sentenced as a criminal organization, whereas the SS had been).



D) The cold war context

All of this was taking place at the climax of the cold war, when everybody thought that an open conflict between the western world and the soviet union was unavoidable. It was clear that the main reason why a new german army was being authorized was because they would be facing the red army in first line.

A first attempt to integrate a new german army into the occidental defence system had failed in the early 50's, when the project of the "European Community of Defense" (ECD) had been rejected by the French who didn't wanted germany to be rearmed.



E) the attempted whitewash

But the Soviet threat was growing more and more dangerous...therefore, it was an imperative to rearm germany and integrate it into NATO. That's why there was a "whitewash" on german war crimes (perpetrated by Wehrmacht as well as Waffen SS). Anti-communism was used as retrospective justification for the nazi-soviet war. Eisenhower stated that the german soldiers had fought with honor and patriotism and had been loyal ennemies, Adenauer, the german chancellor, said that Waffen-SS had been "normal soldiers" (Soldaten, wie andere auch...was the title of a self-justification book by Paul Hausser, Steiner also wrote 2 books)

In this context, the HIAG leadership thought that it was a golden opportunity to normalize the W-SS's image, and that former W-SS members could even form the nucleous of the new german army. That's why they insisted on the W-SS as a multinational army, unifying europeans against communism, and therefore the forerunner of NATO. This argumentation is developped by Felix Steiner in his book "Die Freiwilligen, Idee und Opfergang" (the volunteers, idea and sacrifice).



F) Conclusion

Fortunately, this attempt failed to gain decisive results: the german government organized commissions to screen ex-waffen SS soldiers who wanted to join the Bundeswehr and in the end less than 2% got in. The HIAG lost influence (in fact, it had never represented that much people but in the 1950's its leaders claimed they were speaking for 400.000 veterans and the politicians took them too seriously). In the early 1980's the political parties cut all ties with the HIAG it was from now on considered as a small right wing group, without any significance.