Valhalla's Warrior: A history of the Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front 1941-1945 by Terry Goldsworthy

Author:Terry Goldsworthy [Goldsworthy, Terry]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Publisher: Dogear Publishing
Published: 2016-03-16T16:00:00+00:00

The concentration-camp system was just too big, and the Waffen-SS too closely entwined for the soldiers of the Waffen-SS not to have known about the activities that were going on there. For instance, SS-Obersturmbannführer Jochen Peiper was a leading figure in the Waffen-SS. Many would say that he was the epitome of the Waffen-SS, officer being resourceful, tough and brutal. He would rise to prominence in the public eye after the war when brought to trial for the massacre at Malmedy in Belgium of American soldiers. From November 1939 he performed the role of military adjutant to Himmler before going to become one of the most wellknown officers of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. Although not directly associated with the camps, there is no doubt that he had knowledge of the camps and their function:

As personal adjutant he would have been privy to virtually everything in Himmler’s office and he could not have failed to be aware of Hitler’s and Himmler’s policies for ethnic cleansing of the Greater Reich, the organisation and establishment of concentration-camps and the overall policy for the genocide of the Jewish race. Indeed, there is photographic evidence of Peiper with Himmler at Mauthausen during a visit to this, the most deadly of all the existing concentration-camps, at the end of May 1941. (Reynolds, 2002:27)

His case highlights the fact that as well as those directly involved in the camps system there would have been hundreds of Waffen-SS soldiers involved in the administration or supply of such a system. In addition to these officers who actually served in the fighting divisions of the WaffenSS, in excess of 50 SS officers also served in other Waffen-SS non-divisional organisations such as corps headquarters, independent regiments, etc (MacLean, 1999a).

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