Soldiers of Germania - The European volunteers of the Waffen SS by Gerry Villani

Author:Gerry Villani [Villani, Gerry]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2019-03-13T00:00:00+00:00

6. SS-Sturmbrigade and 27. SS Freiwillige-Gren.-Div. Langemarck

This is the story of Toon Pauli who was a member of the 6. SS-Sturmbrigade Langemarck and later on the 27. Freiwillige-Grenadier-Division Langemarck, Panzerjäger Abteilung 27. I knew Paul personally from the “Sint Maartensfonds” in Antwerp, Belgium. He was always prepared to tell me stories about the war together with his brothers-in-arms Alfons Janssens and Dries Decru.

“First of all, I’m a Fleming, not a German. And if you can’t place your way of thinking back to those days then you’ll have no clue what happened back in those days. You have to be capable to show some empathy towards the Waffen SS, for the men that served in their ranks, and then you’ll be capable to understand me and my fellow brothers of the Waffen SS. Today we can’t judge about the things that happened back then with the information that is given to us today through modern history books. Modern history books aren’t that accurate as they tend to lean towards a distorted truth!

Flemings in the Waffen SS: we were with 12,000 from which 4,000 never came back. Now, how do you join the Waffen SS? First I want to tell you the following story from when I was at a cemetery in Langemarck for a remembrance service. A man approached me and asked me why I, as a Belgian, fought with the German Wehrmacht. I replied to him: “You have to understand, my friend, that I’m a Fleming and not a Belgian!” “But your passport says you’re Belgian” he replied. “That is correct,” I said, “However that’s just a formality!” Now, how does a Fleming ends up in the Waffen SS? For that, you have to look at Europe just after WWI. Just after WWI, it was the time of the first revolution in the Soviet Union – communism was on the rise. Then followed Mussolini in Italy with his fascists, Portugal, Franco in Spain, Mussert in the Netherlands, and Quisling in Norway. As you can tell in the whole of Europe there were these nationalist groups emerging who were pretty strong in their politics. In Belgium, it started with Staf De Clerq in Flanders and Leon Degrelle in Wallonia, two men you’d probably know from the history books. All these “revolutions” had the goal to erase the bad times Europe had known for so long. They wanted to start all over again, a new beginning for Europe! So as this was occurring in Belgium and the rest of Europe so was it happening in Germany as well under Adolf Hitler. Personally, I believe this was necessary so that we could all fight for the same goal and in the best interest of our people!

In 1939 the war broke out in Europe but you have to ask yourself what the reason was that started this conflict? On what grounds did World War II start? Was it really because of Danzig? It was known that Poland, under pressure of England and France, was not allowed to give in to the German demands about Danzig.

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