Behind every old photo there is an unforgettable sadness and loneliness, there is no politics here, only the history behind the old photos.
The Waffen-SS was a fearsome force in the history of World War II and even in human history, of course, there was no shortage of indiscriminate existence, but the overall strength still made the Allied forces at that time sigh, and even Marshal Zhukov of the Soviet Union admitted that these were real soldiers, compared to the Germans themselves and Eisenhower's soldiers can only be called "baby soldiers." "It can be said that this is a team that makes men scream, and the guys in their hands are also very eye-catching", so let's put aside our position and simply look at these SS soldiers who have come out of the "old pictures".
The Waffen-SS was part of the German SS, mainly for participation in foreign wars, under the command of the Führer, and was a German unit capable of good war. Throughout World War II, these camouflage-clad soldiers took part in almost all of Germany's major battles.
During the German "Blitzkrieg against Poland" on 1 September 1939, the SS, which had begun to take shape but had little combat experience, had already been sent to the battlefield. Their mission is not only to show their fists, but also to impress their F-FDTL colleagues through their own actions and increase the face of the Fuehrer.
However, the combat effectiveness at this time was not as fearsome as in the later period, but it stumbled all the way up, and was even surrounded by Poles, which was quite a loss.
The figures in the old yellowed photograph below are two of Germany's most famous celebrities, and although their ranks are vastly different, their names are left in the records of that history.
The figure on the left is Paul Hauser, the de facto "father of the SS", because it was during his tenure as principal of the SS Brunswick Military Academy that he personally established a formalized training system, trained many excellent talents, and developed the SS army (then called the SS Mobile Brigade) similar to the police organization into a regular unit, which was revered by many people, and the young subordinates called him "Daddy", which was a kind of honorific title for the superiors of the SS at that time. , but not every chief can have it.
At the same time, he was also the first commander of the "Imperial Division" and was ordered to form the first SS Panzer Corps, and his contribution made it the true "founder" of this unit.
The officer next to Hauser was named Klingenberg, the commander of the Reconnaissance Company of the Imperial Division, who had led 6 subordinates into Belgrade, the capital of Yugoslavia, and not only raised the German flag at the German Embassy, but also intimidated the mayor to surrender immediately, and finally 200,000 soldiers and civilians in Belgrade raised their hands to surrender, a miracle created by only 7 people until now.
Some people may think that this is a criminal organization that has committed many cruel acts, and this is true, and history proves that many people in this force have done a lot of burning and looting on the Eastern Front. But not everyone is notorious, and veterans like Hauser, who came from a traditional Prussian military family, had a good orthodox education, and experienced the First World War, instead brought many traditional ideas to the SS troops.
For example, the soldiers who really have the traditional Prussian thinking are self-disciplined, rigorous, responsible, disciplined, absolutely obedient, high-quality and cultural and artistic literate, and they should never kill innocents on the battlefield.
However, Hauser's task was mainly training, not ideological education, and in order to allow his soldiers to be bound by traditional Prussian ideas, he even quarreled with Dietrich (the commander of the first SS division) because the latter refused to recognize Hauser's authority to supervise his troops.
Many people who know that history like the "pea camouflage" on their bodies, and this kind of "big killer" that shines on their shoulders.
Now that tragic past is history, many stories have faded over time, the team was identified as a "criminal organization" after the war and received its due punishment, and many soldiers who survived the war are reflecting on what they did on the battlefield.
If you judge them only from the perspective of soldiers, these people are indeed brave and good at fighting, tenacious in willpower, and can be called a unit that makes men "yearn to scream". But real wars are cruel and bloody, and the guys in their hands, although they are bright, are all killing machines. Their appearance was only a drop in the ocean of history at that time, and now the images in these old photographs have become the most valuable material for showing the SS in that period of history.
I want to see, what does the Tibetan cavalry look like?
The Americans used the South Koreans as cannon fodder, what did the South Korean army think at that time? A passage becomes the standard answer...
Chinese, how do Koreans view the defeat of Unsan? The summary of the commander of the Rok army is impressive