Another common explanation for heavy casualties among the Waffen SS, in addition to their fanatic readiness for sacrifice, was their lack of professionalism. There are numerous complaints about this in official Wehrmacht files.⁷⁸⁸ It is difficult today to evaluate whether they had any real basis, but their frequency suggests that they weren’t completely spurious. The Waffen SS, however, wasn’t the only target. Official Wehrmacht correspondence is full of griping about often absurd forms of alleged misbehavior by the army and the Luftwaffe as well. Moreover, there were countless instances in which Wehrmacht members praised the achievements of the Waffen SS. Sergeant Grüchtel, who piloted transport aircraft to and from Stalingrad, reported about the collapse of the southern wing of the Eastern Front in the winter of 1942–43: “We were all convinced in January and February that things would go badly in RUSSIA. The Russians were hot on our heels. We had already packed our bags in SABROSHI (?), the Russians were 6 k. from the airfield, half of the UKRAINE had already been lost. Then on the 19th (?) February ADOLF arrived in person. From then on things went well. Then the S.S. Leibstandarte arrived. I didn’t think much of them till then, but the fellows set about it damned well.”⁷⁸⁹

With reference to the battles in Normandy in summer 1944, a primary group leader from the Organisation Todt, the Third Reich’s corps of engineers, opined:

The Allies more or less confirmed these assessments, writing with “respect” of the SS division “Hitler Youth.”⁷⁹¹ And the veteran armored division commander General Heinrich Eberbach also regarded the SS group as “excellent” and “illustrious.”⁷⁹²

All in all, in terms of fighting morale and professionalism, the Waffen SS was a heterogeneous institution, as was the case for all other branches of the military. Its military achievements, even in the narrow sense, can by no means be reduced to the cliché “fanatic but unprofessional.” The Waffen SS fought in much the same way as other elite units. An occasionally greater willingness to follow orders to the letter and fight to the death is the lone, if significant, difference between SS men and regular soldiers.

CRIMES

Wehrmacht soldiers defined the difference between themselves and the Waffen SS not only in terms of defiance of death, but brutality as well. It is somewhat surprising how widespread this view was among army, navy, and Luftwaffe men.

“The difference between Waffen S.S. and other troops is that they are rather more brutal and that they never take prisoners,” said one Luftwaffe gunner in January 1943.⁷⁹³ A war correspondent agreed that this was the standard procedure: “The S.A. troops, the ‘ADOLF HITLER’ bodyguard and the ‘Death’s Head’ ‘Standarte’ never take prisoners, they shoot them.”⁷⁹⁴ A navy radio operator offered a moral assessment: “In POLAND it was all right for them to kill captured Poles, because the Poles had killed and burnt captured German airmen, but I think it’s wrong that the S.A. troops should have killed innocent French prisoners.”⁷⁹⁵ The moral standard here was clear. There was nothing wrong with shooting captured soldiers in reprisal, but it was unjust to kill innocent civilians. It is unclear where this radio operator, who fell into British hands after U-99 sank on March 7, 1941, got his information. It could well have been secondhand, which would be an indication how early the Waffen SS accrued its ambiguous reputation.

News of war crimes committed by the Waffen SS in France apparently spread like wildfire. A Luftwaffe reconnaissance specialist told of a friend who was in the SS “Death’s Head” Division: