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Waffen-SS history
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The Waffen-SS was the combat wing of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel, as well as the multi-ethnic and multi-national military force of Nazi Germany. Throughout the length of the war it would go from a shabby fighting force to the most brutal, feared, and detested military organization in the world.
The Waffen-SS started from three regiments and expanded to over 38 divisions during World War II, serving alongside the Wermacht, but never officially becoming part of it. Adolf Hitler resisted assimilating the Waffen-SS into the army as it was supposed to become a specialized police force at the end of the war. Prior to the war it was under the command of Heinreich Himmler, but upon mobilization control was given to the German High Command.
In the attack on Poland in September of 1939, the Waffen-SS was tactically inferior to the Wermacht and suffered comparatively large losses. They partially made up for this during the attack on France in the spring of 1940, where they were exceptionally successful. After the latter event, another division was ordered to be created. Hitler accredited this achievement to what he called a “fierce will – the sense of superiority personified.”
In mid-1941, on the eve of Operation Barbarossa, the Waffen-SS numbered just 160,000. It had six divisions (Leibstandarte, Das Reich, Totenkopf, Polizei, Wiking and Nordland). It was reserved to play a major part in the attack on Russia, and Himmler had made it plain what was expected of them.
Hitler had already told his Wehrmacht generals that the attack on Russia was to be carried out with “unprecedented, unrelenting and unmerciful harshness.” The Waffen-SS made its name in Russia for its unwavering determination in attack and its cruelty to prisoners and civilian...
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...er had lost all faith in the Wehrmacht. He appointed Sepp Dietrich to lead the counter-attack in the Ardennes – known popularly as the Battle of the Bulge. Waffen-SS units fought hard enough that they managed to successfully push back the Allies temporarily. Their advance was only stopped by lack of fuel for their tanks. At Malmedy the SS showed its darker side when American POW’s were killed after what is thought to have been a singular escape attempt gone wrong. After the war, Leibstandarte SS officer Joachim Peiper was sentenced to death for his part in this massacre, but was later sentences to life in prison instead.
The legacy of the Waffen-SS is much less than direct. On many occasions they proved themselves an elite fighting force, many times on both fronts. However, the harsh aspects of the war that are linked to the Waffen-SS have tainted their acheivments.
The Gestapo, Hitler’s secret Police, instilled a lot of fear into the German people's eyes. With their leader being one of Hitlers advisers, you can tell they were pretty important to Hitler. However, they weren't always lead by one of Hitler’s advisers. The Gestapo had many roles to Hitler's war plan. With this they had many duties to do and many different complicated ways they did their duties.
One of the many secret police forces during the war was the Gestapo. It is short for Gieheime Staatspolizei, which is German for Secret State police. They were a main source of destruction and oppression. They persecuted a bunch of other races and religions, such as Jews, Germans and regimes. The Gestapo was formed before the war began in 1933.
In 1925, Adolf Hitler founded the Schutzstaffel or the "SS". The Schutzstaffel was created to serve as Hitler's personal bodyguards, and as time passed by they became one of the most feared organizations in Nazi Germany. They were considered to be the most elite guard in Nazi Germany.
...types of SS, there were ones who fought, ones who guarded, and ones who executed and caused extreme terror. All of these different SS had their own important role in World War II. The original SS started off as a small amount of people as just Hitler, and other Nazi officials, personal guards. They soon became much more than that and had a major effect on the war and the holocaust. The SS guards had an important role for Germany in World War II because they did most of Hitler’s work. The SS-VT, later named the Waffen SS, were the SS guards that actually fought in the war and they also caused terror for people who opposed Nazi’s. The regular SS’s guarding of Hitler, and of concentration camps affected the war in a major way, also. The SS is a very important topic in the discussion of World War II, they come up with anything that has to do with Germany in the war.
Hitler had to overcome many roadblocks on his way to power, one of which was internal strife within the Nazi party. On several occasions the Nazi party was afflicted by desertion of several high profile members, including Gregor Strasser who was the second most powerful man in the Nazi party before his leaving. The Nazi party itsel...
Operation Barbarossa was the beginning of the end of Germany’s Nazi party. Many historians believe that without Hitler’s underestimation of the Red Army, the Soviet’s response, and more importantly, Hitler’s mistakes leading into the Russian winter, Germany could very well have come out victorious in not only Operation Barbarossa, but World War II. The reasons of failure, clear but not concise, show that many different strategic decisions could have changed the outcome, as well as many other things in the world today.
Hitler still did business with Jewish shop owners in selling his paintings, however, the seeds of hate were planted and would be nurtured by events soon to come, laying the foundation for one of the greatest tragedies in all of human history. Adolf became a drifter for several years after both his parents passed away. Hitler volunteered for the German Army and in his first engagement against the British and Belgians near Pyres, 2,500of the 3,000 men in Hitler's regiment were killed, wounded or missing. This war experience gave Hitler what he needed to one day be a successful military leader. Adolf Hitler joined the committee of the German Workers' Party and entered politics. In the summer of 1920 Hitler chose the swastika for the National Socialist German Workers' Party, for short Nazi.
The Schutzstaffel or SS was created in 1925 by the Nazi party to protect Adolf Hitler and other important Nazi leaders. Heinrich Himmler was appointed leader of the SS by Hitler in 1929. The SS were racial elites with profound loyalty to Hitler and the promotion of Germany. (SS, 2013) In order to become a member of the SS all candidates had to endure selections based on their racial ancestry and support of the Nazi party. In Nazi Germany the SS was responsible for security identification of ethnicity, settlement and population policy and intelligent collection and analysis. (SS, 2013) They also were responsible for the concentration camp system and police forces. In 1939 the SS assumed the responsibility for “solving” the Jewish Question. (SS And The Holocaust, 2013) In the imminent invasion of the Soviet Union Hitler ordered the SS implementation of settlement plans and population policy in conquered Soviet territories. Special SS Einsatzgrupp...
...iques. They were also taught some of the practices that the doctors at Dachau would use to experiment on the prisoners with. Although the camps were ran by the SS they were under the control of the Gestapo. After the war the Gestapo was dissolved and declared a criminal organization. At the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminal the Gestapo was named as one of the chief institutional perpetrators of the holocaust but not very many officers were prosecuted (“Nazi perpetrators”).
The Gestapo were a brutal and reckless police force around Nazi Germany that was truly a disgrace to society in my eyes. The Gestapo were essentially the police force of Germany at the time. They’re methods were notoriously brutal and they showed no mercy while prosecuting helpless Jews. While not as important as the SS, the bodyguards of Adolf Hitler, the Gestapo still played a big role into the way Nazi Germany was ran. As brutal as they were, it is hard not to admit that their fear tactics were one of a kind. The way they struck fear into the hearts of those who opposed them.
The time would soon come for Hitler to seek out his revenge on the nation that delayed his imminent world domination. One year after the siege at Leningrad, Hitler’s once indestructible Axis power had begun to weaken. Hitler began to see his dream fading away. He realized that to maintain hope, he and his army must remain on the offensive, so he decided to go after his most glaring defeat, which was Russia.
In the spring of 1940 Europe was enveloped in war. The German military machine had already conquered Poland, Denmark, and Norway. However, not content with northern and eastern expansion, Adolf Hitler wanted to control the western countries in Europe. Hitler had long been obsessed with attacking and controlling France. After their defeat in World War I, the German people, government, and military were humiliated by the enormous post war sanctions leveraged against them from the Treaty of Versailles. Hitler wanted to defeat and humiliate the French people in the same way that his country had to experience. For him, revenge was necessary. The German plan was to swing into France using a new tactic know as Blitzkrieg or “Lightning War”. Blitzkrieg used speed and surprise along with highly concentrated tank corps, supported by mechanized infantry and airplanes.
The most commonly known fact about the Leader of the Third Reich (Kershaw 1987, 3) was that he was very aware of how important his ‘omnipotent’ image was to his leadership position and the strength of the regime (Kershaw 1987, 3). Hitler, himself as is well known, p...
...then and now by the immense controversy involved and the large amount of faith, responsibility, and bravery needed for the people. Pushing aside the major setbacks Germany had undergone, people today know Nazi Germany as the country that had always found a solution and pushed through, even during the least hopeful times. However, people also know the Third Reich as the horrific time of oppression and discrimination by Hitler and his colleagues; according to some, these actions that made Hitler all-powerful and everyone else weak or nonexistent actually led Germany to their success. This time period will always remain a many-sided topic of debate because of the many ways Nazis were victors, victims, and totalitarians.
Shmoop Editorial Team.” Adolf Hitler in World War 2.” Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 26 Feb. 2014