As it is, my last life was filled with pain and suffering, to be sure. But it was also full of love, camaraderie, honor, glory and purpose. Fighting the bolsheviks in particular was the right thing to do. We broke them and their backs and they never managed to conquer all of Europe, as was their intention. We struck first with Barbarossa, but only because we had good intelligence. They were going to invade and we knew it early, long before they were ready. And we hit and kept hittinh them. History would have been quite different if we hadn't made that unprecedented sacrifice. A future unspeakably evil. The hundred million or more killed in Soviet Gulags would have been increased to the tenfold. Their genocide of people exhibiting any free will and their destruction of all things that make life worth living would still have been ongoing and the Soviet Union would never have fallen. It would literally be global and all-powerful like some satanic vision of Star Trek. Humans devolving towards behaving like a hive of mindless drones. Our purpose was to stop that from becoming reality, and we did, by God! We lost our good name, our honlr was dragged in the mud, we have been slandered and vilified to no end. You may even feel guilty. Don't, brother. You did the hard thing, but the right thing.
Ultimately, I was tortured, mutilated, shot and burned alive, barely alive, by supposed "good guys". After the war. Remembering it all enough, I don't love war. I am sick of it and I don't want to be reborn again, truth be told. I am tired of the world. Tired of killing and dying, I want peace and quiet. My heaven is a farm (without the bad parts). We - all of us - won't get peace this time, either, sadly. Again, we have been born into "interesting times", as the Chinese would put it. I have no idea why, but perhaps it is a very long and arduous test of character. I hope this is my final round. I know why I am here, this time, too. I was aware of my previous lives last time around, too. Have you managed to figure out your purpose yet, Sturmbannführer?
Hello Ritter!
What a beautiful surprise! I thank you a million times for taking the time to write such a long answer. And you are writing to me on a special day, as today is Eugen's birthday. It is very special to read your words.
It makes me feel less alone to know that I am not alone it remembering the slaughterhouse of the East. I don't think words can truely describe what went down there.
I would be very interested to hear a detailed account of your story, even if your answer is already very precise.
Leibstandarte was the elite, like the Reich and Totenkopf. We saw the toughest battles. I could talk about fighting the Soviets for days, personally. They took us to the deepest parts of hell. It has been a very tough thing to remember, and it made me feel extremely alone for a long time. However I have to say that it doesn't drag me down that much, today, since it's part of something bigger and, as I said previously, it is now a very strong fuel towards living a life that I choose. I am the captain of my own life and it is very good this way. Suffering was a brilliant teacher but I'm free now.
I do however share a lot of what you said about what the Waffen-SS really was. They were not a band of trained sadists as it is often pictured now. I remember very trained, disciplined men who held themselves to the highest standard of fidelity towards their units. Apart from a minority, most were not psychopaths, they were men forged in troubled times who, growing up in a nation traumatized by the aftermath of the Great War, went on and formed ruthless and fierce band of soldiers.
I do share with you the feelings regarding Communism back then. I don't think Eugen was a pathologic antisemit like some key-figures of the SS. His demons were communism, as he held them responsible for the chaos, somehow, and felt that they were the ennemy to beat and banish. As I said earlier, I remember him in street fistfights with communist bands before enlisting.
But I don't really share your point of view regarding the intelligence we had prior to Barbarossa. I remember realizing that there had been a huge underestimation of the reserves of the Soviet forces. I read that the Germans had estimated that, during Barbarossa, the Soviets would be able to raise 150 Divisions - 100 Divisions existing plus 50 more to be formed after beginning of the invasion. Well in reality, my friend, the Soviets had formed 851 Divisions at the end of Barbarossa. 16 times more than estimated. Hell, we even could only guess the identity of their highest commander. Same thing during Kursk, I read that the OKW hadn't been aware of a whole army in reserve behind the Steppe front on the Southern Salient of Kursk. That's nearly 800 000 men we couldn't foresee.
Regarding the professionalism of the Waffen-SS: a lot of things were said about how cruel they were, when today I remember their cold, hard efficiency, however sad it was for who they faced. Rapists and pathological personalities simply wouldn't handle the discipline of our ranks. I do have strong negative feelings for the original Totenkopf Division. I remember that, along the men of the SS-Verfügungstruppe, they stood out as less battle-efficient, less disciplined, and the joke would go that they were only good for elimination of resistance pockets that we would leave behind while we'd do the real job. Lot of it came from the personality of their founder, Eicke, who was a political animal who made a name for himself when he shot Röhm, the head of the SA, in his cell to ensure the dominance of the SS as the strong arm of the Nazi Party. His men were all originally concentration camps guards and, albeit they fought hard, they did so with little tactical skill and got an entire generation of Totenkopfverbände officers killed in 1941.
When Eugen joined the Totenkopf Division, it was after it was written off on the aftermath of the Demjansk pocket and rebuilt as a PanzerDivision in early 1943. Purged from it's bad elements, it was finally a decent fighting force and Eugen clearly commited to make it efficient and well-commanded.
Ah, I could talk about it for hours.
We, Waffen-SS and Soviets, became ruthless. I still acknowledge the many war crimes of both, especially the ones I witnessed or committed personally. Those were the hardest to remeber. Among the officers and political commissars we captured, few ever saw an internment camp. It must not be forgotten, although you are right, both sides were brutal and merciless.
It's very sad to see how history remembers the losers. No prayers for them