Waffen SS Mythology and War without Mercy - Roots of German Militarism № 1

🔥PREVIEW ALL YOUTUBE VIDEOS
www.Patreon.com/Military1945

Roots of German Militarism
Episode № 1

Military1945
Episode № 274
Be sure to give this video a THUMBS UP! Best way to support the channel!
SUBSCRIBE to M1945

The roots of German militarism evolved over centuries and culminated during the 3rd Reich. It grew to dominate most aspects of German society and eventually resulted in the nation’s complete annihilation. Relying heavily on primary historical sources, we’ll focus on evidence of the influence of this tendency. In part one of the series I’ll introduce an example of how Waffen SS men were indoctrinated to embrace the violence and cruelty of the allegedly heroic struggle that they were engaged in. To keep your attention I’ve mixed in nice film footage that goes well with the subject matter so go ahead and subscribe to the channel and stick around, it’s worth it, I promise.

Today’s source is a text from this original late1943 Schützstaffel Handbook. The article stresses the responsibility to past, present and future generations even reminding the SS man of their comrades who lie buried in the east. It attempts to justify the psychological damage received by soldiers engaging in close combat as necessary in order to gain a heightened awareness of one’s role within the German Ethos.

WAR WITHOUT MERCY

We have entered the arena of a battle that is without mercy. The people who clash in it are two types of the human race, mortal enemies. In a higher sense, a war is being fought here that is truly the father of all things. Its outcome will decide the face of a future world. In the fury of this battle, the world must be transformed, the features of satanic hatred and barbarism must be erased, the face of the new world must no longer have a place for it. The sword alone decides in this battle, in which all the fragments that could lead to one another have been destroyed.

How many times in this campaign has the soldier of the Eastern Front stood face to face with this enemy. Even in the fury and rage of modern battles, that will always be the decisive, the most difficult moment. When man faces man with weapon in hand, burning hate in their eyes, the will to destroy in their hearts, and one has to sink to clear the way for the other to continue on to a new fight.

It will always be the most terrible moment when human being collides with human being and the final decision is made. Close combat is without mercy! You or I, there is nothing else left in the world. Anyone who has never felt the enemy's hot breath on his face or seen the murderous look in his eyes does not know the deepest secret of war that is revealed at this moment.

Man is the master of all things; the power of the world lies in his will and in his hands. Only he has felt this who has gone through this merciless battle and, purified, even stronger, knowing his own power and the limitlessness of the human will, has passed through a hundred deaths and once again entered the gate of life.

We have long since stopped fighting for victories and successes, as we know them from other battles. The whole of the West is fighting its final, decisive battle within us, within each and every one of us. Two worlds are at war, one of which must and will break apart, otherwise world history would have lost its meaning. Each and every one of us feels the violence of this battle with full awareness, as a battle in which everything that a thousand-year history has placed in us is fighting with us. And the good spirits of our comrades in Russian soil live on in us day after day and warn us not to tire. Bolshevism itself has taught us the lesson that there can be no half-measures in this conflict. We have become as hard as steel, only willpower decides. We know that fate is in our hands, and we will force it.

(...)