Salute to WWII German Veterans

I may be wrong aurelije, but I was always under the impression the Croat Nazi's carried out such atrocities in Yugoslavia.

Actually, there were technically two Waffen SS groups, yes Waffen SS, that guarded the camps or carried out the atrocities....the Einsatzgruppen and the Totenkopfwach-bataillone. But they were a small number of about 40,000 I believe, but could be wrong. However, your point, is that the large majority of the Waffen SS were elite soldiers, much like our special forces of today, rather than the all emcompassing evil as they are still portrayed. And, a large number of the Waffen SS were foreign volunteers as soldiers against bolshevism. But it should be made clear the distinction between the Waffen SS "soldiers" and those other Waffen SS groups at the camps.

In any case, I read the book recently on this film and it was amazing! I couldn't put it down. Does anyone know where you can get the DVD in Amerca?

LC

I'd say the biggest problem of us humans is, we don't give a *beep* to others as well as our own interests are concerned. You may have been taught about the value of a human life for 40 years, you may be a loving father and son, but look at you when you're 52 and someone rapes and kills your 12 year old daughter. Too many will suddenly find they are not humans, they are cold-blooded killers, myself probably not excluded. In other words, "if someone kills my near and dear, my good friends, I will kill". To the point, it is a great limiting factor for people not to start killing each other. It's a very natural feeling and the law enforcement system is not always quick and good enough to keep us from doing terrible things. This instinct is so strong and so easy to manipulate.

This way, it only takes a good excuse (reason) to make us animals, and then we're a lot better killers than most of animals.

If a propaganda machine makes a nation believe that another nation is inferior or that it did something that we now have a good reason to kill them, even if the actual reasoning for it is dead stupid, then that nation may turn into killing animals without much ceremony.

Every now and then people would think, "we're too civilized for that now, we are beyond this stupidity, it's all history now", and every now and then this happens again.

That sucks.

Gulag system and holodomor & purges of 1930's were certainly an attrocity on the grand scale, yet both pale in comaprason with what germans did in period of 1943-45. Even with horrible working conditions involved, gulags were never EXTERMINATION camps: places where your only perspective was to be gassed with zyklon B (see aktion Reinhardt for more details) only because you happened to have jewish ancestry (since Jew was defined as a race, not a religious practice) or to be worked till you are physically capable of doing so and then terminated as in camps which were involved in war producion as well (Auswitz Birkenau etc.) or belonged to peoples which were defined as untermensch (poles, eastern slavs etc.) and roma.

I myself belong to a nation which was destined for either germanization or extermination and here one german soldier's life was valued as worth 100 civilian hostages being shot. Same thing happened in occupied territories in the east, so how can you blame soviets for exacting revenge which that generation of germans brought to themselves? Between 20-30 million of their citizens died in that war, most of them civilians systematically being killed by German invaders.

It is indeed horrifying to see the extent of the suffering of german POW's, but first of all, it is not as if they were captured defending their country in say Saxony or Bavaria; rather in Stalingrad, Caucassus, Crimea and Belarus - fighting in territories they occupied and ruled in with terror. SO when their great adventure in the east ended in disaster they simply got a taste of what their glorious thousand year reich unleashed on entire continent.

What exactly in Saving Private Ryan showed the Germans to be "bad guys?"

It was from the perspective of an unit of American soldiers, granted, but it wasn't as if the Germans were shown going around destroying anything in their path.

There's a distinct difference between the Wehrmacht and the SS: the Wehrmacht was a conscript army. There was not much choice but to follow the call as not showing up was considered desertion with all the consequences. Most of our granddads were conscripted; mine lost a leg on the second day on the Russian front and returned home. Only a few centimeters further up and I would not exist today. I think Americans and Brits should think about that before summarily calling us Nazis the next time.

The SS on the other hand was an elite organization of 'Herrenmenschen' that guarded the death camps and committed most of the atrocities we talk about until today. It was founded in 1923 as Hitler's personal guard. In 1925 they took over protection duties at NSDAP rallies. After basically destroying its 'mother organization', the SA, during the 'night of the long knifes' in 1933 it became a paramilitary faction of the NSDAP. During WWII they were also used in the field, usually one company of Waffen-SS within a battalion. Even during that time they never ceased their 'internal' duties within the party.

The SS was a party organization until the very end and as thus, it was stuffed with the most fanatic Nazis there were (look up Operation Lebensborn for their very own breeding program). The Wehrmacht, not so much.

Of course that's NOT trying to defend Wehrmacht atrocities. But IMHO those weren't much more brutal or bloody than any other military's. The SS - also within Wehrmacht ranks - were the real bad guys.