Waffen-SS
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Recruitment poster of the Waffen-SS. ("Enlistment at the age of 17")The Waffen-SS (German for "Armed SS", literally "Weapons SS") was the combat arm of the Schutzstaffel or SS. It was founded in Germany in 1939 after the SS was split into two units [1] but the title of Waffen-SS only became official on 2 March 1940. [2] Although headed by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, the Waffen-SS saw action throughout the Second World War under operational control of the Wehrmacht. During the war it grew to 39 divisions that served as elite combat troops alongside the regular army. [1] [3]
After the war, at the Nuremberg Trials the Waffen-SS was condemned as a criminal organisation due to their political connections to the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), except conscripts sworn in after 1943, who were exempted from the judgment on the basis of involuntary servitude. Therefore Waffen-SS veterans were denied many of the rights afforded to other German combat veterans who had served in the Heer, Luftwaffe or Kriegsmarine. [4] Waffen-SS soldiers were held in separate, more rigorous confinement by the Western Allies and were punished severely by the Soviet Union, which held some Waffen-SS prisoners until 1956, e.g. Wilhelm Mohnke. As well, many Waffen-SS men recruited from German-occupied countries in Europe were punished by their home countries.
In the 1950s and 1960s Waffen-SS veteran groups fought legal battles in the newly founded West Germany to overturn the Nuremberg ruling and win pension rights for their members. The judgment of Nuremberg could not be overturned, but many of the former enemies of the Waffen-SS appeared to question the black-and-white assessment of the German elite troops during World War II. [5]
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