Talk:Waffen-SS

Pictures

I deleted the photo of "The dancing Armenians". User Vonones placed it in the articles about the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS. It doesn't belong in any of these. An encyclopedic article should give an overview of a topic. Details like this picture one can and should find in specialized books on the topic. More important and informativ are photos of personalities and equipment (see the discussion about the dead soldier).

Right reason for creation?

The article states that the SS was formed because of Hitler's "unease" with the "size and strength of the SA"...I thought it was because he wanted an absolutely dependable group of men based in each town/city in Germany that would protect him when he drove around giving speeches (this is before he had achieved any political power, and communists would attempt to break up nationalist meetings). Historian932 (talk) 21:07, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

POV in this article

IMHO this article along with a number of others to do with the SS/atrocities/holocaust should be locked down. It is such an emotive subject that people constantly edit it without paying enough attention to grammar, good English, the context of their contribution w.r.t. the rest of the article, and most of all POV issues. This is bad for the reputation of English Wikipedia and the quality of its articles. Surely there is a better way of dealing with articles containing contentious issues. I can imagine this would apply to Arab-Israeli issues even more.1812ahill (talk) 05:49, 15 March 2009 (UTC)

Dubious TH Flaherty Ref

The Biblio section contains the following entry:

Flaherty, T.H (2004). The Third Reich:The SS (1st Edition ed.). Caxton Publishing Group. ISBN 1 84447 073 3.

The Caxton Publishing Group website shows no evidence of TH Flaherty or his book. Neither Google Books nor Amazon.com list the it. A Library of Congress (which, by law, should list every book published in the USA) search returns 'Invalid ISBN'.

This reference underpins a great deal of the article. Unless someone demonstrates the book is real and credible, and corrects the reference with a valid ISBN, I will procede with deletion.Dduff442 (talk) 06:51, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

--Found it via ISBN link on wiki. Publisher is Time Life Books, not Caxton, and title is wrong. This is a spectacularly obscure title, from a non-academic source. Better sources than this are needed.Dduff442 (talk) 06:58, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the correct book cite, Dduff442. I corrected it in the reference section. This book was number one in a series on the Third Reich first published by the editors of Time-Life books in 1988. I read this book years ago and it is not a bad source; a good introduction type book. However, articles like this can always use more detail and better sourcing. Kierzek (talk) 01:42, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Time-Life books are not necessarily obscure, and in many ways they can be considered popular encyclopedias. In terms of academic sources, I was surprised to see Heinz Hohne's work left off the bibliography, along with other more recent works on the Waffen-SS (all of which are academic). Citing a Time-Life book is really no different than citing Osprey titles.Intothatdarkness (talk) 18:43, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

Why the HJ Motto?

The sidebar to the right of this page has an entry under "Motto" which seems to state that SS men were given an HJ dagger upon their graduation. I think this is a case of faulty reference in English, in that the author intended to say that all HJ members received a dagger upon their HJ graduation day. (I suspect that they received their daggers well before that.) In any case, is this really relevant? It has nothing to do with the SS motto, which is correctly stated. I think this information is confusing at best, and possibly wrong. In any case, it should probably be removed.Rkieran (talk) 21:13, 27 October 2010 (UTC)rkieran

The SS DID present a dagger, but it was not in any way linked to the HJ (which of course refers to the Hitler Youth). If the dagger is going to be discussed, it's important that the correct reference be used.Intothatdarkness (talk) 18:41, 17 March 2011 (UTC)

I went ahead and removed the dagger reference. The motto also appeared on belt buckles, so limiting it to any dagger is incorrect.Intothatdarkness (talk) 17:26, 18 March 2011 (UTC)

Having read your Waffen SS webpage I have come across the comment upon the Malmedy Massacre. Having read a couple of British and American books on the subject, plus one Belgian book by Gerd Cuppens, including webpages from Willy Alenus and Henri Rogister, I consider it totally irresponsible and in no way supported by facts to declare that 90 GIs had been murdered at the site. 72 + 12 bodies of GIs had been recovered from mid-January to March 1945 within a radius of 250 to 500 meters from the Five Points Road Crossing. All known witnesses' statements considered with a minimum of investigative sense do not support a massacre: for instance that most GIs had fled into some nearby woods after having survived the first shelling of the U.S. convoy and would therefore neither qualify as having been taken prisoner, leave alone having been massacred in the process. Most bodies appear to be those of fallen soldiers. Individual acts of murder still remain unsolved by normal police procedure standards. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.235.64.76 (talk) 19:00, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Having read on your Waffen-SS page that ca. 90 U.S. soldiers have been murdered by SS-troops at Malmedy I was truly astonished that any such irresponsible and unsupported views would still be published. Most British and American publications on the matter in question have voiced at least some doubt on the matter, some take an even more outspokenly pro-German view. Some Belgian authors have almost come to the point of denial and keep only some doubts alive, pertaining to individual acts of murder in the aftermath of a brutally stopped, attempted escape of U.S. GIs. Belgians who saw what happended and who exchanged their knowledge immediately after the events were never called up as witnesses at the Dachau trials. One said that most (that is more than half, maybe about 40-50 men) of the American survivors of the first shelling of the U.S. convoy fled into nearby woods. This clearly disqualifies them from having been taken prisoners in the first place and to have been massacred as a consequence, either through machinegun fire or murderous, individual pistol or rifle shots afterwards. About 20 men of a route marking detail (see Rogister) and 35 latecomers (Sgt. Bechtel) out of 152 men of the 285th FAOB's complement never arrived at the scene. Ca. 36 prisoners from other U.S. units had arrived there on German vehicles. According to W.Alenus, G.Cuppens, and H. Rogister another ca. 54(?)GIs had had left the scene alive. How many of those had actually been prisoners? Two Belgian witnesses speak of between 13 and 28 killed GIs in the "killing field". It must be assumed that the 72+12 bodies recovered between mid-January and March 1945 had been killed in action except the 13 to 28 mentioned by either one of the two Belgians. All bodies were found near the road crossing and up to 250 meters (72 bodies)to 500 meters(12 bodies) distance from it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Buchorn (talk • contribs) 22:14, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Having read on your Waffen-SS page that ca. 90 U.S. soldiers have been murdered by SS-troops at Malmedy I was truly astonished that any such irresponsible and unsupported views would still be published. Most British and American publications on the matter in question have voiced at least some doubt on the matter, some take an even more outspokenly pro-German view. Some Belgian authors have almost come to the point of denial and keep only some doubts alive, pertaining to individual acts of murder in the aftermath of a brutally stopped, attempted escape of U.S. GIs. Belgians who saw what happended and who exchanged their knowledge immediately after the events were never called up as witnesses at the Dachau trials. One said that most (that is more than half, maybe about 40-50 men) of the American survivors of the first shelling of the U.S. convoy fled into nearby woods. This clearly disqualifies them from having been taken prisoners in the first place and to have been massacred as a consequence, either through machinegun fire or murderous, individual pistol or rifle shots afterwards. About 20 men of a route marking detail (see Rogister) and 35 latecomers (Sgt. Bechtel) out of 152 men of the 285th FAOB's complement never arrived at the scene. Ca. 36 prisoners from other U.S. units had arrived there on German vehicles. According to W.Alenus, G.Cuppens, and H. Rogister another ca. 54(?)GIs had had left the scene alive. How many of those had actually been prisoners? Two Belgian witnesses speak of between 13 and 28 killed GIs in the "killing field". It must be assumed that the 72+12 bodies recovered between mid-January and March 1945 had been killed in action except the 13 to 28 mentioned by either one of the two Belgians. All bodies were found near the road crossing and up to 250 meters (72 bodies)to 500 meters(12 bodies) distance from it.Buchorn (talk) 22:24, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Censorhip of posted Relevant Facts to improve Article by Wikipedia numbskulls

To think that Wikipedia allows a Nazi sympathizer as an "Editor" to delete unsavory details of Hitler and his Waffen SS that were the personable twisted logic of Mein Kampf in a Uniform. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.108.164.2 (talk) 20:03, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

There is no 'censorship', and no evidence of a 'Nazi sympathizer'. Your post was deleted because this talk page is intended for discussions about improvements to the article, rather than as a general forum for debate about the Waffen-SS. If you have any concrete suggestions for improving the article, based on reliable sources rather than your own opinions, then you are welcome to post them here. If you post off-topic comments, or insults directed at other contributors, they will be deleted. This is normal Wikipedia practice. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:39, 14 June 2011 (UTC)

Further, it was deleted per: WP:FORUM. Kierzek (talk) 20:50, 14 June 2011 (UTC)