A unique fighting force

While their despicable cause and bloody massacres were universally held in contempt, the combat record of the Waffen-SS was recognized as being unsurpassed. It played a key role in many of the German Blitzkrieg victories in Russia in 1941-42, and then fought determined rearguard actions during the final years of Hitler's empire. It was during the years of defeat that the Waffen-SS earned the respect of its opponents, time and again fighting against overwhelming odds. Kharkov, Kursk, Normandy, Arnhem and the Ardennes are synonymous with the Waffen-SS. In these battles and in scores of other actions in the dying days of Hitler's Reich, the Waffen-SS fought tenaciously to inflict heavy losses on their British, Russian and American opponents. Amid the ruins of the Third Reich, the Waffen-SS men left alive were marched into captivity and history. Some faced trials for war crimes; others fled into exile to escape the victors' justice. The vast majority suffered years of captivity before returning to Germany to rebuild their lives.

What kind of men swore their loyalty to Hitler and all he stood for? The early recruits to the SS in the 1920s were largely disillusioned former soldiers and policemen who fell under the Hitler's spell during his early efforts to form the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or Nazi Party. These men acted as bodyguards and drivers to Hitler and other Nazi leaders in the days after the disastrous Beer Hall Putsch, a coup d'etat attempt in Munich in 1923.

After Hitler rose to ultimate power in Germany in 1933, the SS began to attract a very different type of recruit. Ambitious young men from all over Germany saw the SS as a way to secure access to future careers at the centre of their country's government as it appeared to enter an exciting new phase. These men were also attracted to the glamour of the SS, which was at the heart of Nazi propaganda during the 1930s.

As the SS expanded and the Waffen-SS was born, the members of the new force were put through intensive military training to prepare them for the challenges to come when Hitler launched them on the offensive. The intensity of their training and Nazi ideological indoctrination made these men self-confident to the point of arrogance. Nazi propaganda told them that they were "super-human" Germans who were destined to rule over lesser races. Once it began its war of conquest in 1939, the prejudices of the Waffen-SS were reinforced as army after army collapsed in the face of the German Blitzkrieg.

At this early stage of the war, the small Waffen-SS units were led by a group of determined and charismatic officers who moulded them into an élite force. Men like "Sepp" Dietrich, Paul Hausser, Joachim Peiper and Kurt Meyer would win their spurs in these Blitzkrieg battles, and then go on to lead the Waffen-SS in the desperate final battles of the war. These men became infamous as they led the Waffen-SS through battles in France, the Balkans and Russia. Often their leadership was the only thing that held their units together in circumstances that would have forced other units to collapse. They led by example rather than brutal discipline. When the fighting was at its worst, they would be leading from the front, rather than skulking in the safety of a headquarters far to the rear.

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