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German soldier info

2K views 22 replies 9 participants last post by  Clyde 
#1 ·
Hi Everyone,
Is there any kind of website or even an actual gov agency where someone could look up or request information on family members that served in the German armed forces in WWII?
A woman I work with brought in a family photo album the other day as she is working on her family tree. She has a photo of her father in his SS uniform. He was from Estonia and forced to fight for the german army. He survived the war with the loss of a lower leg and ended up marrying a German (my coworkers mother) at which time they moved to the United States. Her father died when she was only nine years old and her mother refuses to speak of the war as she lost two of her five brothers in the fighting. At this point she was wondering where else she could turn for information on her father and uncles. Thanks in advance.
 
#2 ·
The Germans have archives - the contents of which have been used to prosecute (persecute?) various former members of the SS (a criminal organization per post-war declarations by the Allies). If he was in the SS (Allgemeine or Waffen), it is unlikely he was "forced to fight for the German army" - you got into those by being eine Freiwilligen (volunteer). AFAIK, they are not available on line.
 
#3 ·
AFAIK, they are not available on line.
I wish my brain worked better because I've read about the "hard copy" SS, SA, etc. archives still available for inspection in Germany. IIRC, they were still not openly available like a library...you had to go through some hoops. Previously you could find Nazi Hunters researching right alongside the descendants of the members.

Be careful Rotten, lots of (very) bad characters out of that era had lots of excuses for where they served and with whom they served. Some valid....some not.

I do not want to besmirch Estonians either, but some Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, etc., could be found right alongside the nastiest "German Nazis" in the death camps or Einsatzgruppen.

I don't think she should keep looking honestly. I doubt she'll find proof that he was forced to serve because the Nazis would not archive a document showing "Herman was abducted today and forced into an SS uniform." She might find something that looks bad, unlikely she'll find anything good in those records. Again, I do not wish to slander her father, I just don't think the effort will likely pay off in a good way.
 
#5 ·
Thanks for everyone's replies. While her primary interest was her father, she also lost two uncles. Which part of the military they served is not known. Her father may have very well volunteered for the german army. She was always told that if it wasn't the german army it would have been the russians so it was pick your poison. Total bunk? Very possible. This was the only info that she was given. If there are archives I can direct her to Id be happy to provide them to her and and let her make that decision.
 
#6 ·
RE:"Balts"

These people have a long history.In 1939 the three Baltic States were free, and then Stalin signed a non-aggression pack with Hiitler giving him these country's.He took over these county's as soon as possable after Sept 1, 1939 when WW2 started.In the 10-12 centuries numberous German's settled there after a failed invaision of Russia.These became "Ethnic Germans" living in the Soviet Union after 1939.When the Germans came into these "Soviet Republic's" they found large numbers of people of German anchestry living there.When the German's left in 1944 they left with them, as the only future they had in Stalin's russia was the Firing Squad.Stalin murdered numberous minories during the war and they were on his list of doom.I knew such a man, he worked with my father after the war as a Machinest at NAS Alameda,in Alameda,CA.When the Germans left,his whole family joined the German army, it was the only way to have a chance to stay alive."Ernie" was lucky, when the war ended he was in the Ruhr pocket along with 320,000 others.He didn;t surrendier and melted into the local population.He came to the USA after the war,and as far as i know is retired on a a Us Civil Service pension, like my father.It was very interesting to talk with a man who knew the Soviet Union so well during the cold war,i learned a lot not in history books.
 
#7 ·
I'd agree with the observations already made regarding criminals and sociopaths 'serving' in the foreign SS regiments.

Don't forget that many who served in the foreign Waffen SS did so not out of hatred of the Jews, but out of hatred for the Soviets that had savaged their countries and murdered their families before and immediately after Barbarossa. This was the case throughout the Baltics, and extended into the mid-1950s before the last remnants were rooted out. Foreigners couldn't serve in the Wehrmacht (Germans only), but they could fight for the Waffen SS, which made provisions for foreign recruits/units.

Lauri Torni/Larry Thorne was one such man, and he never lost his hatred for Communism. Additionally, Finland provided numerous Waffen SS recruits, but never persecuted their Jewish population. Think, 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.'
Pat
 
#9 ·
It should be noted that while a good many sociopaths did wind up in SS uniforms, and at least some - well, many - SS-manner (including Waffen SS) were guilty of atrocities and crimes - a lot were not, just soldiered. The Allied declaration of the organizations (and membership as presumtively criminal unless proved otherwise) as criminal organizations led to a good many injustices.
 
#8 ·
If the father was in the SS, would he have been permitted to even visit the USA much less settle here? The basis of my question:

Just two days ago I got notice that an old friend and former schoolmate had died. His Father had been an SS Colonel but was not allowed to resettle in the USA after the War even though his wife and three children were allowed to and did so. He was not even allowed entry to see his Son, my friend, graduate when we received our undergraduate degree.
 
#10 ·
IF he admitted to SS membership - probably not. But a good many SS-manner concealed that status (Ivan Demjanjuk, the autoworker and SS camp guard, identified, incorrectly, probably, as Ivan the Terrible, as a prominent example). It was harder for colonels (actually SS-Standartenführer, the SS equivalent of a colonel/Oberst) to hide membership and the result was - exclusion because they had been members of a criminal organization.
 
#13 ·
Well, sometimes you find out things you'd like to know, sometimes you discover things you'd prefer you never found when you start poking into family history (knew somebody who got heavy into geneology and family history and discovered a direct ancestor who was a murderous thug during the War of Northern Aggression - stayed home dodging the draft and preying on neighbors; left a chiid before he was idetified, caught and killed by being dragged behind a horse - the folks who caught him were not happy about what he'd been up to, and his widow and child had to move a good distance becas=use the neighbors shunned them).
 
#20 ·
Thank you Clyde. Its the first time I read this statement of Ernst Janning. It was a most impressive movie and a most impressive actor. Richard von Weizäcker, our former president ( and one of the better ones) was a young student of the law and assists to defend his father at the Nürnber trials.
Wolf
 
#22 ·
Fiction, of course - but it does pretty asccurately reflect the (I suppose you could call it0)motivation, or rationalization, of many Germans of the time. There is a book called A CHILD OF HITLER that is the memoir of a young German (still in his teens at the end of the War) that is well worth the finding and reading. As is Seigfried Knappe's memoir SOLDAT! (a review of it: Knappe's Wehrmacht career began in 1936. He participated in the final collapse of the Eastern Front, then spent more than four years as a Russian POW. Readers may doubt Knappe's insistence that he fought not for National Socialism but for Germany, but this mindset, common among his generation, cannot be dismissed out of hand as special pleading or selective memory. His memoir, based heavily on a wartime diary, shows a talented professional soldier and unreflective patriot who initially regarded Hitler as fulfilling legitimate German aspirations; by the time he began probing beneath the regime's surface, it was far too late to take action. Soldat makes a worthwhile companion to Hans von Luck's Panzer Commander ( LJ 10/15/89). Both works highlight an unresolved paradox: never did soldiers perform better in a worse cause than the men who served Adolf Hitler.
- D.E. Showalter, U.S. Air Force Acad., Colorado Springs
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
).

IMO, those books will tell you perhaps more than you want to know about how a fundamentally decent nation and people cn go so very wrong. it could happen here...
 
#21 ·
I knew a college professor in East Texas who said he was in the SS. He is Hungarian by birth. He said he didn't want to join and ran away as soon as he could. I want to believe that his story is true and that the evidence of such is his admission into the US and a peaceful life even after people knew of his past.

But we always want to believe in those things that make us happy.
 
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