1. NYE thread: the Hausser myths and research of the SS.
Paul Hausser and the erasing of SS crimes.

Born in 1880 in Brandenburg and died in Ludwigsburg 1972. A career from the Imperial Army to SS leader to apologist author/founder SS welfare in West Germany.

2. He was often associated with big battles and was dubbed ‘Papa’ by his veterans. His war record is not the subject - this thread is about the lessor known political activities pre-1939 // post-1945. To reveal the myths about the SS and why it’s necessary to continue research.

3. His way in public politics began with joining the Stahlhelm (1933) - a militaristic organisation with right wing tendencies. They formed an association with the Nazis before 1933, and hosted military events (Waffentag) with reps from royalty, Nazis and the SS.

4. He joined the SS on 1 November 1934, became a Nazi Party member in 1937 and received the Gold Party Badge in 1943. Himmler declared the SS an anti-Bolshevik organisation (1936) - the Nazi mission was set. In 1941 his formations embraced Hitler’s criminal Barbarossa Orders.

5. He was relieved from command in April 1945 and his final days to capture was on Kesselring’s staff. Like all the SS old boys from the 30s, they began to jump ship or escape. As a witness at Nuremberg, he defended the SS as soldiers like any other. He lost.

6. The SS and its incremental association were declared a criminal organisation. He joined the US Army’s historical division’s Foreign Military Studies project - submitted papers about operations in Normandy and the west. In 1950 he became involved in:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HIAG 

7. In 1953 a revisionist book about the Waffen-SS. An army celebrity wrote a foreword and the first photograph was Hausser with Rommel. The devil was in the detail: unnamed in the list of divisions the 36th - Oskar Dirlewanger and a platform for Peiper.

8. The book introduced the myth of the Waffen-SS as a military organisation. Himmler, Nazi racial extermination and the anti-Bolshevik mission were downplayed or removed. The myth adopted army/military ranks a link with the myth of the clean Wehrmacht

9. the book was not politically neutral. Several infamous individuals were depicted including: Eicke (infamous commander of Nazi camp guards), Degrelle a Belgian collaborator, and Phleps accused of crimes in Yugoslavia.

10. one of the first counters to SS revisionism was Lord Russell of Liverpool in ‘The Scourge of the Swastika’. Gerald Reitlinger went further. In 1981 Martin Gilbert referred Reitlinger ‘as a pioneer historian of the Nazi era.’

11. Informal networks. The HIAG’s in-house magazine flourished as a platform for veteran associations. However, crimes were there. The red bits are marginally more surprising than a West German police honour guard for a dead former SS officer. Lammerding’s death on the cover

12. The SS action: men in Dachau awaiting trial, SS cavalry known for hunting Jews in Soviet Russia, the uncertain fate facing Red Army POWs in SS hands, and British paratroops possibly part of the group that ended up in Auschwitz-Monowitz.

13. Hausser died (1972) - successors carried on the business, Willi Bittrich deeply involved in prosecuting Nazi criminal warfare, Wilhelm Mohnke accused of the murder of British POWs in 1940, Richard Schulze-Kossens (Bad Toelz) and perpetuating the Skorzeny/Degrelle myths.

14. the Wilhelm Mohnke scandal in UK - 1988. A visit London was denied by parliament. Jeff Rooker MP and the campaign to arrest and prosecute him for war crimes in the case of Wormhoudt. The case led to some outpouring of anti-SS literature.

15. the case was investigated by Lt.Col Scotland of the PWIS in 1947. Mohnke was the main perpetrator. However this was not the first scandal involving the SS and the UK. In 1968 Russell published. In 1980 Mollo wrote a justification for examining the SS

16. In both East and West Germany there were outcries against the numbers of former SS men in positions of power in Adenauer’s establishment and later. That copy of the Braunbuch was published in East Berlin in 1965. The West German pamphlet was early Antifa literature (1978).

17. March 1980 - university football tour. A German cafe with Hausser’s picture on the wall. Was invited to join a group of former SS men. They wanted to discuss the war. Before leaving they gave me the latest edition. A review caught my attention…

18. the book - former SS officer Rudolf Lehmann. Books in UK were marketed as de-politicised military only studies. However, Der Freiwillige revealed they were political carrying Hausser’s myths into English language. An example of an America SS pulp pamphlet.

19. scholars countered Hausser’s myths. Robert Lewis Koehl (1983) probably the most important. He focused on the power structures that worked the peculiar SS dynamic. Around this time discovered Himmler’s matrix management methods were in common use among international orgs.

20. increasingly the SS myths became wrapped into Holocaust denial. Books and comics flourished. It was not unusual to find re-enactors accepting the blood oath while stringently denying any interest in Nazi politics.

21. discussed PhD research of the SS with Richard Holmes in 1997. He argued against confronting the myth head on. Previous SS-Police/Waffen-SS research was redirected. The topic: Bandenbekämpfung - the transition from anti-partisan warfare to Nazi security warfare.

22. PhD (2001) and book (2006). The title was not my choosing, the publisher refused to headline a German word. Special mention for Dr Nick Terry @historiannick a close friend and colleague since the Anglo-German study group 1996/8. Richard kindly wrote the foreword.

23. Content - destroying SS myths through research was an outcome. The creation of a medal based upon Germanic culture was fundamental to Himmler’s SS dogma. Exposing this reward for genocide was major step in demolishing SS-Wehrmacht myths.

24. Thanks to many for keeping the book in print. Students and interested persons still raise questions through @academia or directly or through web pages. This was the start of my interest in open access scholarship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler%27s_Bandit_Hunters

25. Future - 2021 - a significant element of the PhD research was Luftwaffe operations. Richard had argued the work was ‘the smoking gun of my research.’ My next book will address that topic - published by @ibidem11 ref here https://www.philipwblood.com/