Enhance Your Quote Experience
Enjoy ad-free browsing, unlimited collections, and advanced search features with Premium.
" "The SS increased its power over the Army dramatically in July 1944, as individual members of the Waffen-SS were attached to regular Army units to improve their reliability. Waffen-SS units were used to prevent mass desertions or unauthorized withdrawals. Waffen-SS personnel formed the nucleus of the Volksgrenadier and in some instances of Volkssturm units. Large contingents of the Luftwaffe and Kriegesmarine were pressed into the service of the Waffen-SS when it became urgent to reform badly mauled Waffen-SS units.
At the end of 1940, the Waffen-SS numbered slightly more than 150,000 men. By June 1944, it had grown to 594,000. Intended as an elite force, the Waffen-SS evolved due to the exigencies of war from the original SS concept of a military organization imbued with Nazi ideology and loyalty to Hitler into a polyglot force of decreasing combat effectiveness.
The Waffen-SS (transl. Armed SS) was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and unoccupied lands. Members of the Waffen-SS were involved in numerous atrocities. At the post-war Nuremberg Trials, the Waffen-SS was judged to be a criminal organisation due to its connection to the Nazi Party and direct involvement in numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity. Former members, with the exception of conscripts, who comprised about one third of the membership, were denied many of the rights afforded to military veterans.
Enjoy ad-free browsing, unlimited collections, and advanced search features with Premium.
Related quotes. More quotes will automatically load as you scroll down, or you can use the load more buttons.
When you're a paratrooper, you're the elite of the Army, you're always on the front lines. You know you're going to pay the price. Then you had the German army. They were fighting the war for years. By World War II, they had it perfected, they had the best weapons in the world. We were no match for German artillery. Those Germans were technologically advanced for being a small country. They had the best fighters in the world, the Fallschirmjaeger, German paratroopers, and the SS- Nazis, even the Germans were scared of them. They were fearless, raised as boys to live and die for Hitler. Germany was prepared, and America was sound asleep. We didn't make the plans for it, kid.
Over time, the Waffen-SS created some 42 divisions and three brigades as well as a number of small, independent units. Of the divisions, seven were panzer divisions. The balance included 12 panzergrenadier divisions, six mountain divisions, 11 grenadier divisions, four cavalry divisions, and a police division. Many of the divisions, organized late in the war, were divisions in name only and never exceeded regimental strength.
The SS panzer divisions were the purest in terms of German members, as well as being the best equipped and supported of all German combat units. They formed the strongest and politically most reliable portion of the Waffen-SS.
The creation of an SS panzer division was sometimes evolutionary. Formed from Hitler’s bodyguard unit, the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler became a full infantry regiment with three battalions, an artillery battalion, and antitank, reconnaissance, and engineer attachments in 1939. After it was involved in the annexation of Bohemia and Moravia, it was redesignated the Infanterie-Regiment Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (motorized). In mid-1939 Hitler ordered it organized as an SS division, but the Polish crisis put these plans on hold. The regiment proved itself an effective fighting unit during the campaign, though several Army generals had reservations about the high casualties it had sustained in combat.
They were constantly in battle achieving a remarkable reputation for aggression and stamina in combat, but the constant combat came at a high cost in casualties. Additionally, thanks to their political connections, they enjoyed higher establishments of men and equipment.
Of the eight Waffen-SS divisions, four were SS-Panzergrenadier divisions: 1st ‘Liebstandarte SS Adolf Hitler’, 2nd ‘Das Reich’, 3rd ‘Totenkopf’, and 5th ‘Wiking’. Of the remaining four divisions the 4th ’Polizei’ operated as an infantry division, the 6th ‘Prinz Eugen’ and 7th ‘Nord’ Divisions were designated as Gerbirgs (Mountain) divisions, and the 8th ‘Florian Geyer’ was a cavalry division.