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So I've been reading and listening to a lot of WWII memoirs, specifically of Germans on the eastern front. I want to find out for myself the motivations of these men, dispel the myths and western propaganda of WWII, and find any parallels to our modern times. Many of these memoirs are written by soldiers of a Waffen-SS division. What I have picked up from reading these memoirs, is that the reasons these men joined the Waffen-SS are diverse and not as dubious as our western propaganda and the myth of the just war would have you believe. The Waffen-SS were elite units composed of volunteers, whereas I imagine the Wermacht were comprised of mostly conscripts.
Based on the accounts I have read, many of the men joined the Waffen-SS out of pure hatred for the communists and concerned the growth of communism would swallow European culture and religion. The time they spent in the Ukraine often talked of the local populace's hatred of the communists and the atrocities that were committed against them by the bolsheviks. The more fanatical SS that one usually thinks of were termed the Allgemeine SS and were often thought of poorly by the soldiers of the Waffen-SS.
So, it is no surprise that many Ukranians such as Mr. Hunka volunteered to serve in a Waffen-SS division as a matter of revenge against the bolshevik hordes. This hardly makes him a nazi as is the common narrative and its hilarious to see this backfire on Canada. Many if not most of these brave heroes died and its sad to see them slandered after the fact, when they were right to fear, and fight against communism.
Relevant Books
The Eastern Front: Memoirs of a Waffen-SS Volunteer
Für Volk and Führer: The Memoir of a Veteran of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler One of my favorites and actually has a really good audiobook on Audible, which as you can imagine is hit or miss on these memoirs.
The Forgotten Soldier This one is unique as the author was a young poor french kid who joined the army under Vichy France because of little opportunity when he came of age, then found himself a part of the Großdeutschland division. Also had a real good audiobook on audible.
Take them all with a dump truck of salt given the incentives. "I wasn't a real fascist, I was just an over eager patriot who donned the swastika to fight muh godless commie bolshevik asiatic hordes" is on the bingo card next to -
"I was just following orders"
"actually I never hated Jews"
"we lost because of numbers alone, not superior enemy tactics and strategy"
"those war crimes were carried out by this other officer who is now conveniently dead"
-and so on for conveniently self-serving narratives commonly encountered among accounts by nazis and quislings living in NATO countries seeking to ward off prison, hanging, repatriation or pariah status by whitewashing their past and selling themselves as useful assets for NATO. Historians are lately more critically approaching such works rather than taking them mostly at face value as before, which is really improving military history around the eastern front.
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Interesting how all those brave heroes went to fight against "communism" and "bolshevik hordes", yet ended up mostly fighting Soviet people.
You could turn this same argument around on every western ally justifying their fight against Nazi's. Don't forget the soviet forces had political commissars in their units.
"Justifying" their fight against Nazis? The nazis attacked the allies and countless neutral countries first, that's all the justification needed to fight.
I'm not going to get dragged into a justification debate on WW2. You will clearly stick to the usual normie narrative so it's not worth the reddit style back and forth.
Retreating because you can't back it up. The "normies" are far more correct than the neo-nazis on this topic. The Gleiwitz incident was a false flag attack ordered by Hitler; the nazis attacked first and did so after years of other powers making nonaggression pacts, trade deals, territorial concessions, lifting Versailles treaty enforcement, and other negotiations in an attempt to avert another war. All of that amounted to a big waste of time, because the nazis were just acting in bad faith stalling to arm up and backstab everybody.
A bunch of my family died fighting in the Wehrmacht, then even more when Hitler in his incredible arrogance and egomania refused to allow civilians to evacuate as the front lines crept closer and closer. The region they were from doesn't even exist any more. Know who the survivors blame? Not the Allies, not even the Red Army, they place it squarely on Hitler and Nazism for starting the war then refusing to surrender when it was clearly lost.
I don't really understand why you feel the need to argue something I didn't even bring up. I'm not a "neo-nazi", merely trying to understand the time and motivations of the men that fought there, especially the eastern front.
My point, which I should have spent more time on, was that communists committed atrocities in these areas before the nazi's showed up. So it stands to reason that some men in the Waffen-SS, volunteered for retribution or to fight against a fear of spread throughout Europe. Which IMO is a valid reason.
To answer:
Yes justifying, as in the common narrative of the western soldier going off to fight the Nazi's but ended up just fighting normal German people. This was in response to sun's comment.
I don't appreciate your emotional appeal in your argument, and nowhere did I defend Hitler, his strategies, or motivations. I'm not a Nazi, however I also don't think the narrative that is so common in regards to WW2 is 100% correct. In order to find out the truth I read first hand accounts and other history in order to form my own opinion. I'm also not an expert on the subject and freely admit that. Sorry to trigger you I guess.
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