Читаем Soldaten полностью

Förster is happy to chat about atrocities committed by his unit. When Bässler criticizes the number of partisans executed and the gruesome nature by which they were hanged, Förster claims that it was done out of solidarity for fallen comrades, and this was the only time he had been in favor of such reprisals. The event Förster is probably describing was the execution by the division “The Reich” of ninety-nine men in the southern French village of Tulle, after the SS men had discovered the bodies of sixty-nine Wehrmacht soldiers killed by the French resistance.⁸²¹ As we have observed before, the trope of retribution is used to justify acts of inhumanity, indeed barbarity. It is interesting that Förster exaggerates the number of victims. This is a typical means of making a story more interesting. It also shows that numbers of dead were a way of impressing listeners with one’s story. Figures were part of the narrative aesthetic of violence.

The surveillance protocols conclusively illustrate the nonchalance with which Waffen SS men spoke about war crimes. Historical research explains this attitude as the result of ideological indoctrination and brutalization during training, both of which were also closely connected to the concentration camp system.⁸²² Evidence for this view can be found in statements by SS men throughout the surveillance protocols.

Kurt Meyer, one of the most prominent Waffen SS officers in the camps, did not bother at all to conceal his political orientation from the Wehrmacht generals. He had adopted National Socialism like a religion from a young age and dedicated himself to the ideology, saying a person could only give his heart once in life.⁸²³ Lingner, on the other hand, tried to explain his beliefs:

I am convinced there is hardly anything to be said against National-Socialism as such, against its basic idea. It represents a German tendency absolutely. That some so-called Nazis like WEBER at MUNICH and lots of others behaved like swine, is a different story. Who can tell whether a true cult of National-Socialism wouldn’t have been able to prevent this war!⁸²⁴

Men like Meyer and Lingner were not just paying lip service to Nazi ideology. Along the lines of Himmler, they truly saw themselves as political soldiers, whose task it was to school their men in Nazi ideas:

There is considerable evidence that Lingner wasn’t the only Waffen SS leader to attempt the sort of ideological indoctrination he felt was lacking in the regular armed forces. Beginning in September 1940, unit leaders were officially responsible for both the military and political training of SS soldiers.⁸²⁶