SS fighters Insignia of SS divisions

The basis of the German army on the fronts of World War II was made up of two types of troops: the Wehrmacht and the SS. The real warriors and punitive forces are the special services. They differed both in composition and in the tasks assigned to them. And they often clashed.

In April 1925, immediately after his release from prison, Hitler gave the order to create a personal guard, which initially included 8 people. At Goering's suggestion, the new "defense team" was named SS, an abbreviation for the aviation term "Schutzstaffel" ("cover squadron"). Initially, Hitler believed that SS units should not exceed 10% of the peacetime composition of the German army.

Despite frequent references to Heinrich Himmler being the creator of the SS, this is not true. However, without his leadership this structure would not have become so influential and famous. For Himmler, this organization was his favorite child. The real creator of the SS, the political and military head of this association, was Hitler. The famous Otto Skorzeny, who held the position of Obersturmbannführer in the SS, wrote that it was to Hitler that the SS soldiers swore allegiance. Himmler was the first official after Hitler.

In addition, Himmler did not take this post right away: in 1927 he was deputy Reichsleiter of the NSDAP for propaganda. In the spring of the same year, he was offered the post of Deputy Reichsführer SS Heiden. And only a year and a half later, in January 1929, he himself became the Reichsführer of the SS. At that time, the number of personnel in the organization was about three hundred people, but a year later it increased to a thousand and continued to grow.

In 1935, a new armed force of Germany, the Wehrmacht, was created on the basis of the Reichswehr. This is a historical term derived from the words “wehr” - “weapon, defense, resistance” and “macht” - “strength, power, authority, army”.

"Personal troops" of the Fuhrer

Initially, SS formations were intended to protect premises belonging to the party, meetings, and create cordones at rallies. In addition, there were units designed to protect party leaders. Hitler's Leibstandarte belonged to such units. Officially, the SS was subordinate to the SA (assault troops), but in reality the independence of this structure was demonstrated in every possible way: since 1930, SS members had a special black uniform; no one from the SA command could give orders to SS members. In 1930, Hitler assigned police functions to the SS.

At the same time, under the leadership of Himmler, the organization turned into an internal army, subordinate to Hitler personally. On the buckles of the SS men there was a motto, which was a quote from Hitler’s speech: “SS man! Your honor lies in fidelity." “Loyalty” was understood to mean devotion to the party and the Fuhrer. The loyalty of the SS units was demonstrated by them during the “night of the long knives,” when Röhm’s stormtroopers were defeated and many of Hitler’s political opponents were killed. For this, the Fuhrer proclaimed the SS an independent organization within the NSDAP. The reorganized SA and SS became enemies.

After the organization of the SS troops (Waffen-SS), regular army formations were added to the number of internal enemies of the organization. Until 1942, the SS reserve troops were officially classified as police. However, in reality their task was to ensure Hitler's safety and to be ready to suppress attempts at rebellion if necessary. Moreover, the SS divisions were often better armed and trained than the Wehrmacht formations.

Until 1939, Himmler saw the SS only as an internal political instrument of power - its special forces were supposed to keep the Wehrmacht at bay and liquidate it in the event of a putsch. However, the war made adjustments and forced the SS troops to be sent to the front. But even formally subordinate to the military command at the front, the SS units were guided not by the combined arms regulations, but by their own. And the percentage of losses among them was higher.

Also, the SS was supposed to become the ideological elite of the Third Reich and support its authority both in Germany itself and in the occupied territories.

Elite Guard

Himmler played a major role in shaping the image of the SS. Immediately after taking office, he prohibited the admission of non-party members to the SS and established strict requirements for candidates. A well-designed uniform additionally attracted recruits. German aristocrats began to join the SS, for example, Prince von Waldeck, Prince of Lippe-Biesterfeld, Prince von Mecklenburg. The SS units had a special code of honor and declared the ideals of camaraderie and support.

The SS became an experimental ground for testing Himmler's ideas about maintaining racial purity. In 1931 he signed the SS Marriage Law. It stated that members of the SS were obliged to marry only after receiving a marriage certificate from the Reichsführer. "Apostates" were expelled from the ranks of the organization, but they were allowed to have their marriages annulled.

Himmler emphasized that the SS Racial Service would process the requests. Also, “The Racial Service is in charge of the SS Clan Book, in which the families of SS members will be entered after the issuance of a marriage certificate.” Later, bridal schools were created for future wives of SS members, where girls were taught housekeeping and how to properly raise children in the spirit of the party and loyalty to Hitler.


In 1934, Himmler began a “purge” of the SS, ordering an investigation into everyone who joined the party after 1933. As a result, several tens of thousands of people were expelled from the SS. In the mid-30s, only those who could present a police certificate of exemplary behavior were accepted into the SS. The unemployed or those who did not work conscientiously enough were not accepted. Other criteria included good health, good teeth, excellent physical fitness and, of course, purity of blood up to and including the fifth generation. The directives declared: “Chronic alcoholics, talkers and people with other vices are absolutely unsuitable.”

Himmler's plans were to transform the SS into an ideal structure that would continue the legendary traditions of chivalry. Many SS attributes referred to Germany's "glorious past": the famous "double lightning bolts" - the identification mark of the SS - were runes, acorns and oak leaves on uniforms were emblems of the first German Empire.

Religious and mystical overtones accompanied many parts of the SS for a long time. Himmler did not approve of his subordinates going to church, believing that Christian humanism had a negative effect on the “true Aryans.” For example, during training, future officers wrote essays on the topic “The fault of Christianity in the death of the Eastern Goths and Vandals.” By 1938, almost 54% of the SS special forces soldiers had left the Church.

Concentration camp guards and foreign legions

However, with the growth in the number of the SS and the complication of the structure, only some formations managed to maintain “elitism” and “purity”. Himmler tried to retain certain parts of the SS for himself. These included units of the Death's Head division, which even at the front was subordinate not to the military command, but to him personally. But the number of regiments decreased with each month of the war.

Subsequently, Himmler had to split the SS troops into the “General SS” (Allgemeine-SS). The initially declared “elitism” was preserved only in the “General SS”. They included units dealing with racial issues, the Reich Security Service, the leadership of the Gestapo, the criminal police and the order police. There, demands for racial purity and partisanship continued to apply.

In the SS troops the situation was different. In war conditions they needed to be replenished. And Himmler agreed to ensure that Volksdeutsche - Germans who were citizens of other states - began to be accepted into the ranks of the organization. At the end of 1943, their number constituted a quarter of the SS troops, and by the end of the war it became even larger. With Himmler’s sanction, Gottlob Berger, who was the real creator of the SS troops, also began to agitate “almost Germans”: Belgians, Norwegians, and Dutch to join the SS. But this was not enough. The once elite and “purely German” troops began to include Croatian, Italian, Hungarian, and Russian divisions.

To combat political opponents of the regime, the Dachau camp was created back in 1934, which was controlled by SS units. Subsequently, the protection of this and other camps was carried out by units of the Death's Head division. The same division carried out punitive operations, implementing Himmler's directives to combat nations subject to destruction.

Despite the fact that Himmler failed to create a “perfect organization” consisting of true Aryans united by loyalty to the Fuhrer and the party, by the end of the war the SS included the largest services of the Third Reich. Himmler became the second most powerful man after Hitler.

Structure

The SS was a heterogeneous formation, constantly increasing its size and expanding its sphere of influence. The SS was simultaneously a public organization, a security service, the administration of concentration camps, an army, and a financial and industrial group. It also included various secret organizations, including occult ones. The troops themselves - the Waffen-SS - during the war included 38 divisions.

The structure of the Wehrmacht was extremely simple. The German armed forces consisted of the ground forces (Heer), navy (Kriegsmarine) and air force (Luftwaffe). The Wehrmacht was headed by the High Command.

Ideology


One of the founders of the Wehrmacht, German General Werner von Fritsch, was a believer and a convinced monarchist. He believed that, as far as possible, the army should be educated in the spirit of Christian values, and he tried to instill in his subordinates the traditions of Prussian officers.

The NSDAP, which stood at the origins of the SS, on the contrary, was perceived as a substitute for religion. “We are the church,” Hitler declared in 1933. The awareness of belonging to the “master race,” according to Himmler, was supposed to shape the ideology of SS members.

Requirements

Until 1943, the SS was replenished by volunteers, while the Wehrmacht was content with those who remained. However, not all volunteers could serve in the elite SS troops. The selection was very tough.

They accepted exclusively Germans between the ages of 25 and 35, for whom at least two members of the NSDAP could vouch. The candidate had to be "sane, disciplined, strong and healthy." Particular attention was paid to the reliability of the applicant.

The SS troops predominantly included people from rural areas, as they were stronger and better able to withstand the hardships of field life.

"Asphalt Soldiers"

The Wehrmacht leadership was not particularly enthusiastic about the appearance of SS reinforcement units, as it saw them as a direct competitor. The highest ranks of the Wehrmacht treated the SS command with a certain disdain, which consisted of former junior officers with relatively little military experience. Due to their constant participation in official events, the “SS men” acquired the offensive nickname “asphalt soldiers.”

Army generals convinced Hitler to ban the formation of separate SS divisions, as well as the possibility of them having their own artillery and recruiting soldiers through newspapers. However, in the event of war, Hitler reserved the right to lift these prohibitions.

Passions ran high during the Balkan Campaign of 1941, when, in the heat of the struggle for the right to deliver a decisive blow, the SS men almost opened fire on Wehrmacht soldiers. It was only after the invasion of the Soviet Union that SS units earned the respect of the army. However, among Wehrmacht officers there was a belief that the participation of SS units in punitive actions against the civilian population inevitably leads to moral decay, loss of discipline and loss of combat effectiveness of the army.

Conflicts

There were enough situations that provoked conflicts and caused a split between the Wehrmacht and SS soldiers. For example, the commander of the German group in the Demyansk cauldron, General Walter von Brockdorff-Ahlefeld, openly sacrificed soldiers of the SS division and stubbornly protected army units.

At the same time, Wehrmacht soldiers complained about poor supplies, in contrast to SS units. One of the officers wrote with resentment: “Himmler even made sure that the SS men received special food for Christmas, while we still ate horse meat soup.”

The conflict between Lieutenant General Edgar Feuchtinger and the commander of the 25th SS Regiment, Standartenführer Kurt Mayer, which occurred at the beginning of the Normandy campaign, became widely known. Mayer was determined to attack the allied landing, while the general hesitated to make a decision. Based on the results of the investigation, the main reason for the incident was considered to be both Feuchtinger’s personal hostility towards Mayer and a generally envious attitude towards the SS troops, caused by their repeated successes.

Implementation


On June 29, 1944, a special event took place for the German army: SS Obergruppenführer Paul Hausser was appointed commander of the 7th Wehrmacht Army in Normandy. It should be noted that Hausser became the first “SS man” to receive such a position. Moreover, for Hitler, according to historians, the appointment of a representative of the SS was of fundamental importance.

The next introduction of a high SS rank into the structure of the Wehrmacht occurred immediately after the assassination attempt on Hitler. On the afternoon of July 20, 1944, Heinrich Himmler was appointed commander-in-chief of the reserve army instead of General Friedrich Fromm, who was indirectly involved in the conspiracy.

Strength and losses

The total number of Wehrmacht troops at the beginning of World War II was 4.6 million people, and by June 22, 1941 it reached 7.2 million. According to Soviet data, as of June 26, 1944, Wehrmacht losses amounted to about 7.8 million people killed and prisoners. It is known that there were at least 700,000 captured by the Soviets, which means that the number of killed German soldiers was 7.1 million.

This number of deaths, approximately equal to the number of German troops at the beginning of the invasion of the USSR, should not be misleading, since during the war, especially after significant losses in manpower, the ranks of the German army were replenished with recruits. During the entire war, according to Soviet data, at least 10 million Wehrmacht soldiers and officers fell.

It is difficult to determine what percentage of all dead German military personnel were SS troops. It is known that in December 1939 the number of SS personnel was 243.6 thousand people, and by March 1945 the number of “SS men” reached 830 thousand. The paradox is explained by the same replenishment of SS units at the expense of newly called up.

According to German information, during the Second World War, the SS troops received approximately 10 times more recruits than the Wehrmacht army. According to the same data, the SS troops lost approximately 70% of their personnel throughout the war.

Series of messages "

The prototype of the SS was such a unit as the headquarters guard. It consisted of only 30 people, called upon to protect the party leadership, specifically the future Nazi dictator. It is worth noting that the SS, or security detachments, as the German word “Schutzstaffeln” is translated, was not at all a unique paramilitary structure at the time of its birth.

The prototype of the SS troops was the headquarters guard

Actually, security detachments were formed somewhat later, in April 1925. But even then they did not have independent status. (Remember that until 1934 the SS were part of the assault troops). Security detachments began to play a more or less independent role in January 1929, when the young, 28-year-old agronomist Heinrich Himmler became the chief or Reichsführer of the SS, who dreamed of turning the structure subordinate to him, as he said, “into the aristocracy of the party,” and since the arrival of the Nazis to power - “to the aristocracy of the state.” By and large, even in the SS charter it was written that the security detachments constituted an “order of Nordic men.” (Note that this was somewhat different from the tasks that the Nazi Party set for itself, which dreamed of creating a “people's community”, “Volksgemeinschaft”).

An SS soldier performs a practical shooting exercise at a shooting range

In 1933 (formally in 1934), the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler was formed, a regiment of the Führer's personal guard, nicknamed the "Asphalt Soldiers" because they performed mainly ceremonial functions. In parallel with it, the SS division “Totenkopf” was formed. Thus, by the end of the 30s, these two formations, plus the so-called SS reinforcement units, became part of the Waffen-SS.

For Heinrich Himmler, the SS troops were his favorite child.

As for the physical and psychological training of the SS fighters, it was at the highest level. For example, recruits were trained not only to disassemble, clean and assemble rifles, but these actions were brought to automaticity.

However, such fanaticism - the desire to solve the assigned combat mission at any cost - led to the fact that at the initial stage of the Second World War the SS troops suffered heavy losses. But here we must not forget that between the command of units, formations and in general the leadership of the SS troops and the command of the Wehrmacht there was a certain, to put it mildly, hostility. Therefore, often army commanders (and the SS troops were operationally subordinate to the Wehrmacht command) first of all threw the SS units on the offensive, which naturally led to high losses.

The Jews are driven by SS soldiers to the loading area. Warsaw, April - May 1943

Just a few words about the SS catechism. Documents of this kind were drawn up taking into account a certain ideological and psychological influence. It is no secret that Himmler sought to create some semblance of an order, so he needed a set of rules.

“In battle, be cruel, but noble,” says one of the Reichsfuehrer’s postulates. What really happened? In the Polish campaign, for example, as many as three regiments created from among the Death’s Head fighters took part in anti-Jewish actions. Subsequently, with the outbreak of the war against the Soviet Union, the 1st and 2nd SS Infantry Brigades were specially formed for these same functions.

The physical and psychological training of the SS soldiers was at the highest level

If we talk about mysticism, then most people know that Heinrich Himmler had a great interest in the traditional German religion, the cult of Wotan. On the other hand, he also focused on some Christian order patterns (for example, the Teutonic Order).

At the time of the attack on the Soviet Union, four SS divisions were deployed on our borders: Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, Totenkopf, Reich and Viking. In total, by the end of the war, over forty divisions were formed (in fact, there were fewer of them), but some of them were never fully equipped: the last combat units were generally recruited from the remnants (remember, for example, the Nibelungen division). The 29th SS Grenadier Division "RONA" existed for only three months, then its number was transferred to the Italians.

Call to join the SS division "Galicia". Poland, May 1943

A few words should be said about the relationship between officers and soldiers in SS divisions. Unlike the Wehrmacht, outside of combat operations and outside exercises, an SS officer called a soldier “kamerad,” and he, in turn, addressed him as “you.” For the Wehrmacht, with its aristocratic Prussian traditions, this was completely unacceptable. Although both there and there, officers and soldiers “fed” the same way. That is, an SS officer ate the same thing from a pot as a private from his platoon, company or battalion. There were no officers' canteens. And this, by the way, also had a certain psychological impact.

The SS troops were the most effective part of the Nazi war machine

As for the formation of national units, the total percentage of foreigners in the SS troops was about 40%. This is towards the end of the war. Again, this figure is due to the fact that the Wehrmacht did not want to share personnel with the SS troops, so Himmler had no choice but to recruit volunteers from other states for his army.

Indeed, if at first representatives of Nordic peoples were recruited into the SS troops: Danes, Dutch, then by the end of the war the selection requirements became less stringent. For example, the SS included an entire formation of Soviet Muslims, plus three divisions - "Khanjar", "Skanderbeg" and "Kama" - of Balkan Muslims. True, we note that the Muslims did not live up to the hopes that Himmler had placed on them, so these divisions did not last long.

As for other nations, here we can recall the 15th Cossack Cavalry Corps, included in the SS, the aforementioned 29th Grenadier Division "RONA" (aka 1st Russian), 30th SS Grenadier Division (2nd Russian ), the 14th division "Galicia", defeated near Brody, and a number of others.

What did the SS troops do in Hitler's army and how did they differ from the Wehrmacht?

1. The SS troops and the SS organization itself are not the same thing. The SS organization, so to speak, is the combat unit of the Nazi party, a public organization and members of this organization are engaged in SS activities in parallel with their main work (shopkeeper, worker, civil servant, etc.). They have the right to wear a black uniform and have SS ranks. The SS troops are recruited from members of the SS, but they are already the armed forces of this organization and those who are part of the SS troops are military personnel.
   The ranks of SS members differ only by their buttonholes. There is only one shoulder strap on the black uniform on the right shoulder and by it you can only distinguish the category of SS member (private and non-commissioned officers, junior officers, senior officers, generals). SS troops who are members of the SS organization can wear the same black uniform and have the same rank insignia. However, SS troops also wear field uniforms similar to those of the Wehrmacht. Here on this uniform there are shoulder straps on both shoulders, outwardly similar to those of the Wehrmacht and the rank insignia is the same. That is, the ranks of SS military personnel differ in both buttonholes and shoulder straps at the same time.
   In addition to the SS divisions, the SS troops had so-called “divisions under the SS” (Division der SS). Usually these were formations of people of other nationalities (Russians, Ukrainians, Magyars, Croats, Lithuanians, Estonians, Latvians, French, etc.). The military personnel of these formations wore SS uniforms and SS insignia with some differences. However, they did not have the rights of members of the SS organization and were not allowed to wear black uniforms.
   Services of the SS troops corresponding to the army
   1 - cavalry.
   2 - technical services.
   3 - radio communication units and subdivisions.
   4 - supply services.
   5 - veterinary service.
   6 - medical service.
   7 - pharmaceutical service.
   8 - orchestras.
   9 - judicial investigative bodies.
   10-administrative service.
   11-artillery service.
   12-security service.
   They were extremely rare, and in front-line SS units they were not encountered at all:
   13 - assigned to the Hitler Youth organization.
   14 - seconded to the police.
   15 - seconded to the SA organization.
   16 - seconded to the NSDAP party organizations.

   SS divisions took a wide part in all military operations of the Second World War. However, and Hitler also admitted this, the SS troops did not produce a single noticeably outstanding military leader. None of the SS generals became famous as commanders, including Himmler.

   Where Wehrmacht generals achieved victories through tactical and operational thinking, through the training of their soldiers and officers, SS generals achieved success through the blood of their soldiers, through their ideological obsession. And the SS troops were not created for victories on the battlefields, but for completely different terrible purposes. There they really had no equal.

2. WLAD has a pretty cool answer, it’ll just be easier for you like this: If you take the SS troops (Wafen SS), then they fought in exactly the same way as the Wehrmacht, although they were distinguished by their tenacity and fanaticism (this was also recognized by our sources), and all other SS military units had security and punitive functions, it is on their conscience that concentration camps, cleansing operations, punitive operations against partisans, etc.
3. During the war, these were selected units, famous for their particular cruelty. Their uniform was black, and their emblems featured a skull and crossbones. In short, professional thugs.
4. Wehrmacht - army. SS - counterintelligence.
5. The fewer moral standards, the better the intelligence officer (This is why the SS troops were distinguished by special animal characteristics). If you don’t believe me, ask your scout friends. It’s true that scouts don’t give away secrets. So you'll have to take my word for it.
6. SS (German: Schutzstaffel, security detachments) armed formations of the National Socialist German Workers' Party in 1923-1945. The first military unit of the SS was the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, under the command of Joseph Sepp Dietrich, originally intended to guard Hitler.
   On March 16, 1935, Hitler announced the introduction of universal conscription. On the same day, he announced that the "political platoons" would unite under a new formation called "SS - Verfugungstruppe" ("Special Purpose Troops").

   Wehrmacht (German: Wehrmacht, literally defense force) is the name of the armed forces of Nazi Germany in 1935-1946. The Law on the Creation of the Armed Forces (German: Gesetz #252;ber den Aufbau der Wehrmacht) was passed two years after Hitler came to power, on March 16, 1935, the armed forces consist of the army, navy and Luftwaffe (Air Force), The corresponding control bodies of the high commands are created: OKH for the army, OKM for the fleet and OKL for the Luftwaffe.

7. During the war, these were selected units, famous for their particular cruelty. Their uniform was black, and their emblems featured a skull and crossbones. In short, they are professionals.
8. On Wikipedia and Chrono. ru everything is well and detailed :)
   http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS
   http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht
   http://www.hrono.ru/organ/waffen_ss.html
9. It was they who had the fucking elite.
10. The purpose is dual - the fight against opponents in the second echelons, the punitive function, the fight against riots, partly guard duty at important facilities, the fight against saboteurs. In essence, this is a punitive unit, guard troops and units for fighting saboteurs. Subsequently, attempts were made to create elite troops on a political basis, but they were not successful. In addition, they were used in dirty deeds: death camps, etc. Intelligence and counterintelligence of the Reich - Abwehr, Gestapo, but not the SS and SD. The Wehrmacht for the most part consisted of Sochnik soldiers and career officers; there were professional special forces soldiers, although there were many more of them in the Abwehr and the same SD.
    In practice, the Wehrmacht is at war, the SD finishes off the survivors, the Wehrmacht deploys a garrison, policemen maintain order, and SS units fight the dissatisfied, they also guard the camps

Gdansk and the German-Soviet Pact - "If we lose this war." - Mobilization in the Luftwaffe and transfer to the SS troops - Errors and misunderstandings - Origin of the SS and SS troops - Death's Head units - General Paul Gausser - Morale and ideology - Fighters for Europe who did not receive orders from Himmler - Questionnaire from the historical department of the General Israeli Army Headquarters: an attempt to create a rating of soldiers of two world wars - Duke Valerio Borgio.

On September 27, 1938, speaking on the BBC to the English people, Sir Neville Chamberlain said: “How terrible, how fantastic, how incredible that we should prepare trenches and try on gas masks because of a dispute that has occurred in a distant land between people , about which we know nothing! It seems even more incredible that this, in principle, settled dispute could lead to war!” Frankly speaking, I did not believe that a war would start in a year. It seemed to us that the Munich Treaty was an omen of general agreement between the European powers; he revised the decisions of various treatises of 1919-1920, which, as the famous French statesman Anatole de Monzy wrote, “formed half a dozen Alsace and Lorraine in the heart of Europe.” It seemed to me impossible that Europeans, having a magnificent common culture and civilization, could not come to an agreement that was in the interests of all. The Czech question was resolved, Poland received the Cieszyn region - this detail is always forgotten, and 3,500,000 Sudeten Germans again became citizens of the German Empire. Their return to their homeland excited my father, whose family came from Eger, Czech Republic. We were convinced that the Germans from Gdansk also had the right to become our compatriots. We knew that the city of Hevelia, Fahrenheit, the capital of East Prussia in 1918, a year later separated from the German Empire, was inhabited by Germans - the 448 articles of the Treaty of Versailles could not change this fact.

It seemed to us that our scattered and torn people, who suffered terribly in 1918-1925, could not forever be responsible for the mistakes made by our leaders in 1914-1918.

In August 1939, I was on vacation near the Austrian Lake Wörthersee in the company of the family of Professor Porsche, the designer of Volkswagen. The news of the signing of the German-Soviet Pact plunged us into numbness. History knows few examples of such a sensational change in alliances. If a year ago someone had told me that they would negotiate with Stalin, I, without a doubt, would not have believed it. True, both governments made it clear that they were not going to sell their ideologies, but we soon realized what this pact meant. In vain, on August 31, Mussolini insisted on convening an international conference on September 5 to “examine the formulations of the Treaty of Versailles,” which, as he said, were the cause of the current misunderstandings. Nobody listened to him. On September 1 at 4.45 the Wehrmacht entered Polish territory. At noon on September 3, Great Britain declared war on the Reich, and at 17.00, “in order to support the independence of Poland,” France followed suit.

There was no euphoria in Germany either. I think that on the night of August 31, Marshal Goering expressed the thought of each of us when he said to Ribbentrop: “If we lose this war, may God have mercy on us!”

Until now, I have not yet served in the army. When I passed my final exams for my pilot's license, I was mobilized into the Luftwaffe. However, it turned out that I was too old to be a military pilot - I was 31 years old. I did not intend to spend the war hiding in some office - and asked to be transferred to the SS troops. After a series of very difficult probationary tests and a medical examination, I was accepted along with nine other candidates out of a hundred applicants.

Here I would like to clarify one significant point: the fact is that many historians identify the SS with the police. If this were true, I would not have ended up in the ranks of the SS - how would I have fought in the police? A countless number of books have been written on the topic of the SS (no doubt there will be even more), but many of them are far from a real assessment of the activities of this organization. Over the past few years, historians have emerged who believe that it was a conglomerate consisting of many structures serving different functions. Despite this, the SS troops are often identified with the security service, SD (Sicherheitsdienst, SD). In essence, mistakes were excluded, because the SD employee could be recognized at first glance by his uniform: on his left sleeve the inscription Sicherheitsdienst could be seen, and there were no SS emblems on the collar. In 1958, I offered one hundred thousand marks to anyone who found at least one non-fake photograph of me in the SD uniform. This amount still remains at the disposal of possible seekers.

Other clarifications are also needed. They constantly write that it was Heinrich Himmler who created the SS and became its leader, which is a double mistake, since he was only the first official. The political and military head of the Security Relays (SS) was Adolf, and we, the soldiers of the SS troops, swore allegiance to him.

Relations within the units of the SS troops were direct and human. We did not know the caricature of the official, strict, arrogant Prussian officer who looked at his subordinate through a monocle.

Perhaps some will be surprised by the fact that freedom of conscience reigned among the SS troops. In our ranks there were agnostics, Protestants, and Catholics. The chaplain of the French voluntary grenadier brigade of the SS Charlemagne was Bishop Mayol de Lupe, a friend of Pope Pius XII.

At a time when the majority of SA members belonged to the National Socialist Party, in the SS troops joining the party was optional and not even recommended. This is what many people don't want to understand. Without a doubt, we were political soldiers, but we defended an ideology that stood above politics and parties. For example, we could afford to criticize some party concepts and decisions of some Gauleiters. The existence of the pathetic Streicher and his Sturmovik seemed to us both regrettable and inappropriate. This newspaper performed certain functions. But what did the writings of “Stormtrooper” have in common with Goebbels’s editorials in “Reich”?

Our motto, written on our belt buckle, was: “Loyalty is my honor.” And it remains so to this day.

We did not consider ourselves better soldiers than others - we simply put our whole soul into serving our homeland. Other divisions belonging to the Wehrmacht also fought admirably during the long war, for example, the Grossdeutschland division, whose soldiers, just like us, realized their value. You can't blame us for this. A peculiar military spirit reigned in the units of the SS troops, but this phenomenon was not something new, since it exists in all armies of the world. I think that it was present even in the guards units of the Red Army and some of the Siberian divisions that made up the elite of the Soviet Army.

A feature of the SS troops can be considered that, starting from 1942, they became a volunteer army of soldiers from various European countries, among whom served (in alphabetical order): Albanians, Bosnians, British, Bulgarians, Walloons, Hungarians, Croats, Danes, Estonians, Finns, Flemings, French, Georgians, Greeks, Dutch, Italians,

And it is not surprising that our formations, possessing a special moral fighting spirit, considered themselves a special part of the ground forces. I, like other SS veterans, usually use the term “Heer” to distinguish Wehrmacht units from SS troops.

As soldiers, we differed from the General SS, which had the character of a civilian organization. Unfortunately, Himmler's mania for awarding honorary titles to SS members - diplomats, professors, industrialists (for example, Professor Porsche) - led to a confusion of concepts.

In 1946 I found myself in Nuremberg prison with two “SS generals”: ​​the old-school diplomat Baron Constantin von Neurath, ambassador to Rome and later Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, and his successor at Wilhelmstrasse, Joachim von Ribbentrop, also an “SS general”.

The real creator of the SS troops was General Paul Gausser, whom we lovingly called “Dad.” One cannot underestimate the contribution of the already mentioned Sepp Dietrich, as well as the veteran of the battles in the Baltics, Felix Steiner, who gave these formations a specific style and combat posture, comparable only to Napoleon’s guard.

Was it possible not to notice that the army, numbering almost a million young Europeans in its ranks, every soldier of which went to death in cold blood, was a denial of the vague “Nordic” doctrines of the Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler - doctrines that even Heinrich Himmler did not share?

I must confess that the views of Reichsleiter Alfred Rosenberg have also always seemed unclear to me. This man, whom I later met personally, acted with good intentions, but he was accused of the sins of others. I could not read the book he wrote, The Myth of the 20th Century, which was said to be “the bible of the superiority of the Nordic race,” and I saw very few who mastered this seven hundred page work.

To sum up these arguments, I can also say that if Himmler intended to use SS troops in the future as an instrument of his own policy, we will never know.

How can you evaluate the actions of the SS troops during the Second World War?

In 1957, the History Section of the Israeli Army General Staff sent out a questionnaire to 1,000 respondents, including commanders, military experts, historians and war correspondents from around the world. It was proposed to answer the following questions: Which armies do you consider the best during the two world wars? Whose soldiers were the bravest? Whose soldiers were better trained, more skilled and more disciplined? Whose soldiers took more initiative? And so on.

Among those who answered the questionnaire were Generals G. Marshall (USA), A. Gausinger (NATO), G. F. Fuller (Great Britain), M. P. Koenig (France), the famous military theorist Sir Basil Lidzel Hart, and writers Leon Uris , Herman Wouk and others. The armies that fought in the First World War were distributed as follows:

1. German army.
2. French army.
3. English army.
4. Turkish army.
5. American Army.
6. Russian army.
7. Austro-Hungarian army.
8. Italian army.

For the Second World War, the classification was organized with scoring. The maximum you could get was 100, and the minimum was 10 points. Results:

1. Wehrmacht - 93 points.
2. Japanese army - 86 points.
3. Soviet army - 83 points.
4. Finnish army - 79 points.
5. Polish army - 71 points.
6. British Army - 62 points.
7. American Army - 55 points.
8. French army - 39 points.
9. Italian army - 24 points.

As for aviation, after the Reich Air Force (Luftwaffe) in the ranking were the British Air Force (R.A.F.), then the US Air Force, the Japanese Air Force, and the USSR military aviation. The British Navy topped the list, followed by the Japanese and US Navy.

Among the elite units, the SS troops are recognized as the best, followed by the American Marines, followed by the British paratroopers and the French Foreign Legion.

Any classification is controversial, for example, the fifth place of the Polish army has been commented on in different ways. It seems to me that the Italian soldiers of the Second World War, often poorly armed, very poorly supplied and often with incompetent commanders, lived up to the trust during the fighting in North Africa. The Black Shirts divisions were good, and the Italian submariners and pilots showed real prowess. Italian units fought bravely on the Eastern Front, and the Savoy cavalry regiment performed heroically at Stalingrad in November 1942. Likewise, torpedoes controlled by men from the X. Flottiglia MAS" by Duke Valerio Borgio and

Teseo Thesei, achieved significant successes in the Mediterranean. This probably needs to be taken into account.

I am reminded of Duke Valerio Borgio - an aristocrat in the full sense of the word - whom I knew well since 1943. He took part in very dangerous, but successful actions in the ports of Gibraltar and Alexandria. In March 1945, when many of his fellow countrymen changed fronts, he told me: “Dear Skorzeny, we started the same war for a free Europe. Rest assured that I will guide her to the end, no matter what happens.” And he kept his word.

He visited me at the end of July 1974 in Madrid. We were supposed to meet again in early September. Suddenly the sad news came that in August he died in exile in Cadiz.

The military career of this man, who was called the "Black Duke", is little known. He started it during the Spanish Civil War as commander of the submarine Iris. Then, after an internship in Klaipeda among the submariners of Karl Dönitz, he commanded the boat “Vettor Pisani”. Fame found him only on the deck of the pocket submarine Scire and as commander of a flotilla of torpedo boats after raids on Gibraltar and Alexandria.

I can confirm that the next combined attack on Gibraltar was planned for October 1943. However, the capitulation of the King of Italy and Marshal Badoglio, as well as the arrest of the Duce, prevented this. The base at La Spesi, located eighty kilometers from Genoa, was abandoned by the command of Captain Borgio, who, although devoid of illusions, continued to fight in the units of the liberated Mussolini.

The Duke considered the king and Badoglio traitors and fools. In 1943 he told me: “They were promised a lot. However, I assure you that these promises will never be fulfilled. Neither Roosevelt nor will return even an inch of our African territory to Italy. I will say more, the House of Sabaud risks losing the crown in this gloomy and inglorious adventure. You will see that if the fighters for Europe are defeated, Italy will plunge into even greater chaos than in 1918-1921.” And who was right?

Borgio did not consider himself defeated. At the end of 1943, he commanded the “Barbarian” volunteer battalion, which fought on the Southern Front side by side with the 175th Wehrmacht Division. Thousands of young men enlisted under the Duke's tricolor banner and he formed the Lightning, Sagittarius, Avalanche, St George, Wolf and Arrow battalions. Fighting at the head of his brigade, in 1945 he forced the retreat of Joseph Broz Tito's partisans, who were threatening Trieste and Udine. It must be added that the Duke did not find a common language - and no wonder! - with a special envoy

Himmler in Italy, boudoir SS officer Karl Wolf. .

The British captured Borgio and handed him over to Italian anti-fascists. They brought him to trial, and after heated debates, on February 17, 1949, he was sentenced to eighteen years in prison. The communists demanded the execution of the sentence, but Borgio’s authority was so great that, fearing mass demonstrations, the “Black Duke” was released “for patriotic services to Julian Venice.” However, the amnesty law that came into force “consigned some of the incriminated actions to oblivion.” In the end, he was “forgiven” for his good service for his homeland.

In 1952, Borgio became involved in political activity, defending pro-European “left-revolutionary” positions within the Italian Social Movement (MSI), of which he was elected honorary chairman. In 1968 he founded the Tricolor Committee and the National Front. After the death of Marshal Rodolfo Graziani, he was chairman of the Association of Veterans of the Italian Social Republic. .

Otto Skorzeny

From the book “The Unknown War”

Eger is an old city, a fortress of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. According to German sources, the Skorzeny family arrived there from the vicinity of Lake Skorzeny, located in the Poznan Voivodeship of Poland, which belonged to Prussia in the 19th and early 20th centuries. According to the family chronicle, the Skorzeny family were landowners and landowners.

Skorzeny's views on the Gdansk issue do not differ from his views on other political issues. He, as a National Socialist, condemned the decisions of the Treaty of Versailles. He also did not notice the historical connections of Gdansk with Poland and the Polish population living in this city for centuries, and the centuries-old aggressive German policy in this region.

The Security Relays (Schutzstaffeln, SS) were an organization modeled on the Volunteer Corps for the purpose of protecting the National Socialist Party. The backbone of the organization was the General SS (Allgemeine SS), which over time extended its influence to almost all areas of life in the Third Reich. The SS also included SS troops (Waffen, SS), Death's Head units (Totenkopf Verbande), formed for service in concentration camps, and the SS Security Service (Sicherheitsdienst, SD). In 1936, the entire police force was also included in the SS. Differences in the functions of individual components of the SS do not negate their interrelations. The ranks in all SS formations were similar. Outfit,

Cossacks were considered a privileged military caste in the Russian Empire. Apparently, this is precisely why Skorzeny singled them out as a separate nationality, which is a mistake.

Indeed, for operational reasons, parts of the SS troops were subordinate to the commanders of corps, armies or army groups, but within the structure of this organization there was the Main Directorate of the SS Command, led by SS-Obergruppenführer and SS General Hans Jüttner. He held a post that was formally the command authority of these troops, and played a decisive role in the combat training of members of the General SS and the formation of units of the SS troops. This was Himmler's military headquarters - the SS leadership had equal command rights with him. However, Skorzeny in the next chapter of the book repeatedly emphasizes the role of Jüttner.

Himmler, whose power as Reichsführer SS had grown to incredible proportions, greatly desired

receive military honors, although he did not even have a basic military education. To a large extent he succeeded. In 1944, he was appointed commander of the reserve forces, and at the beginning of 1945 - the Vistula Army Group (he had previously been the commander of the Upper Rhine Army Group). However, it soon turned out that Himmler was not competent and removed him from this position on March 20, 1945.

The General SS was the mother organization for all SS units and was by no means civilian, since its members were required to obey general rules of discipline and engage in military training. All units of the SS were assigned the same ranks; the differences were associated only with the nature of the formations. In the General SS and SD, ranks did not correspond to military ones; in the SS troops - they were similar to military and police. A separate issue was the assignment of honorary ranks to the highest party and state dignitaries, although in fact these ranks were not generals.

The volunteer corps, in which Steiner served after the collapse of the German front in the Baltic states, held back the first Bolshevik attack in these states and East Prussia in 1918-1919. During World War II, SS-Obergruppenführer and SS General Steiner commanded the 3rd German SS Panzer Corps.

Duke Valerio Borgio, as a naval officer, led risky submarine raids. The living torpedoes from "X" led by him. Flottiglia MAS ("Torpedo Boat Fleets") carried out attacks on the ports of Gibraltar and Alexandria, inflicting heavy losses on the British fleet. Borgio remained loyal to fascism until the end of the war and maintained a relatively independent position in relation to the authorities of the Republic of Salo.

SS Obergruppenführer and SS General Karl Wolf headed the personal headquarters (I Main Directorate) of the Reichsführer SS for many years. At the end of 1943 he was appointed supreme commander of the SS and police in occupied Northern Italy. At the end of the war, he received authority from Himmler to conduct peace negotiations in Switzerland with American intelligence resident Allen Dulles. In 1945, in Germany he was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for complicity in the extermination of Jews.

A region in northeastern Italy (with Venice and Treviso), annexed to Italy after the First World War.

The Italian Social Republic, also called the Republic of Salo, was formed by Mussolini in September 1943 (the name comes from the town of Salo near Lake Garda). It ceased to exist after the execution of Mussolini in April 1945 and the occupation of Northern Italy by the Allies.