Mutual aid community of members of the former Waffen SS

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
HIAG logo.svg
Traditional bearer of "HIAG Ostsachsen" as part of the Ulrichsberg meeting on Ulrichsberg 2003

The mutual aid community of the members of the former Waffen-SS e. V. ( HIAG ) was founded in 1951 as a "traditional association" in Germany. The founders, functionaries and speakers were various officers of the Waffen SS . The federal association dissolved in 1992, but regional organizations still exist in isolated cases. The HIAG was at times observed as right-wing extremist by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution and was increasingly controversial among the population and in the media from the 1960s. One of the stated goals of the HIAG was to change the social and legal perception of the members of the Waffen SS as normal soldiers.

society

Organization and history

The former SS Brigade Leader and Major General of the Waffen SS Otto Kumm is considered the founder of HIAG.

HIAG was initially organized on a decentralized basis, but this structure was discontinued in the 1950s. The aim of the "aid community" was the legal equality of the former members of the Waffen-SS with the soldiers of the Wehrmacht and the rehabilitation of the Waffen-SS. The association was a major member of the Association of German Soldiers and exerted a great influence in the network of soldiers and traditional associations.

From November 1951 the Wiking-Ruf appeared as the mouthpiece of the HIAG. He was replaced in 1956 by the monthly magazine Der Freiwillige . It appeared in a maximum print run of 12,000 copies, in 1992 it was 8,000. The editor was Erich Kern . The magazine was published by Munin-Verlag until 2014 . The main content of this publication was the portrayal of the Waffen SS as a normal fighting force and military nostalgia ; In addition, there were also historical revisionist articles that do not only concern the history of the Waffen SS.

From its founding until the 1970s, HIAG not only had considerable influence in the network of soldiers' and traditional associations, but also maintained intensive contacts with the parties represented in the German Bundestag . In this way, she achieved the “rehabilitation” and unrestricted pension provision for the former members of the Waffen SS, while the parties hoped in return that such concessions would integrate the members and supporters of the HIAG into democratic society and win their votes. It was not until the 1980s that they distanced themselves: CDU members of the Bundestag ended their work; the SPD decided on the incompatibility, since the HIAG "contributes to representing or playing down National Socialist ideas".

When the HIAG federal umbrella organization was dissolved in 1992, twelve regional associations, twelve troops and numerous district comradeships were affiliated. The last federal executive committee in 1992 included Hubert Meyer , August Hoffmann and Johann Felde . Up to this time, the federal management was the "object of observation" of the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution , and information within the meaning of Sections 3 and 4 of the Federal Constitutional Protection Act was collected and evaluated.

Some state associations and regional comradeships of the HIAG as well as the " War Graves Foundation When All Brothers Are Silent " founded in 1993 will continue to be run. This foundation, based in Stuttgart , is headed by the chairman August Hoffmann, the deputy chairman Heinz Berner and the treasurer Werner Bitzer. According to their own admission, their task is primarily " to look for and secure soldiers' graves at home and abroad - especially our troops - and to notify the Volksbund Deutsche Kriegsgräberfürsorge about the graves ".

Demarcations against war crimes

The delineation and rejection of war crimes allegations is a constant theme at HIAG. Even the name of the association is a position against the Allgemeine SS , which was not maintained in practice. Although the name of the association refers to the "former members of the Waffen-SS" and thus positioned the HIAG as a military veterans association, members of the death's head associations or the SD were also organized in it. One reason for this is certainly the relative permeability of the individual SS parts. Theodor Eicke, for example, initially played a key role in the development of the German concentration camps as the commandant of the Dachau concentration camp and inspector of the concentration camps. Later he was in command of the SS Totenkopf Division , which arose out of the guards of the concentration camps. A traditional meeting of the SS Totenkopf Division with the HIAG took place around 1979.

Dealing with war criminals

Kurt Meyer , who became the spokesman for the HIAG in 1959, fended off criticism that the HIAG also represented the SS-Totenkopfverbände and the SD: "Where the crime begins, the comradeship ends." Against this self-portrayal speaks that Meyer himself because of convicted of the murder of Canadian prisoners of war as war criminals. Other HIAG functionaries, such as Otto Kumm , Sepp Dietrich or Richard Schulze-Kossens , were also involved in war crimes and in some cases were legally convicted.

HIAG did not exclude any commanders of the Waffen-SS from comradeship because of war crimes or other crimes. In April 1975, HIAG celebrated the 80th birthday of SS General Gustav Lombard , who coined the term “De-Judaization” for the murder of the Jewish population in the German-occupied areas of Eastern Europe that he organized.

The HIAG campaigned for imprisoned war criminals. For example, in 1960, in an advertisement in Der Freiwillige , she asked for donations, packages and mail for three “prisoners of war in Italy”. These were the two SS-Sturmbannführer and convicted war criminals Walter Reder and Herbert Kappler as well as Josef Feuchtinger, against whom the perpetrator of the massacre of Bassano del Grappa was determined.

As part of the “War Crimes Lobby” (Westemeier), the HIAG played a key role in the construction of the “Peiper Myth”, alongside the Order of Knight Cross Bearers. Joachim Peiper was an excellent officer and an impeccable person. "Old comrades" in HIAG such as Kurt Meyer and Rudolf Lehmann constructed the story of the Leibstandarte's last fallen victim, while the war crimes for which Peiper was responsible in the Malmedy massacre were negated. The central evidence of HIAG was quotations from Paul Hausser's book "Waffen-SS in use". Peiper was not particularly adored under National Socialism, the “Peiper myth” is based on this post-war work.

HIAG also took care of imprisoned and convicted SS men who had served in concentration camps, for example for Walter Haassengier and Herbert Hartung, who were responsible for the deaths of prisoners in Gusen II , or Johann Haider and Michael Heller, who were responsible for Tortures and murders in Mauthausen concentration camp were convicted.

literature

  • Bert-Oliver Manig: The politics of honor. The rehabilitation of professional soldiers in the early Federal Republic. Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2004, ISBN 3-89244-658-X .
  • Karsten Wilke: Spiritual regeneration of the Schutzstaffel in the early Federal Republic? The “Mutual Aid Community of Members of the Former Waffen SS” (HIAG). In: Jan Erik Schulte (ed.): The SS, Himmler and the Wewelsburg. Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag, Paderborn 2009, ISBN 978-3-506-76374-7 , pp. 433-448.
  • Karsten Wilke: The mutual aid community (HIAG) 1950–1990. Veterans of the Waffen SS in the Federal Republic . Schöningh, Paderborn / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77235-0 (also dissertation, Bielefeld University, 2010).

Web links

Commons : Mutual aid community of the members of the former Waffen-SS  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ PUBLISHERS: Target group Waffen-SS. In: Der Spiegel. March 17, 2014, archived from the original ; accessed on March 2, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Karsten Wilke: The mutual aid community (HIAG) 1950–1990. Veterans of the Waffen SS in the Federal Republic . Schöningh, Paderborn / Vienna 2011, ISBN 978-3-506-77235-0 , p. 344 (quotation) and pp. 421–429 (also dissertation, Bielefeld University, 2010).
  3. ↑ John M. Steiner, Jochen Fahrenberg: Authoritarian attitude and status features of former members of the Waffen SS and SS and the Wehrmacht. An extended reanalysis of the study published in 1970. (PDF)
  4. ↑ On the organizational structure also: Hans Buchheim: Anatomie des SS-Staats. Volume 1: The SS - the instrument of rule. Command and obedience. Munich 1967, p. 179.
  5. ↑ Best will . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 1979 ( online ).
  6. ^ Ernst Klee : The dictionary of persons on the Third Reich. Who was what before and after 1945 . 2nd updated edition. Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16048-0 , p. 408.
  7. ^ Kurt Meyer 1958 based on: Thomas Kühne: Kameradschaft. P. 245.
  8. ^ Thomas Kühne: Comradeship. P. 245.
  9. ↑ Department Order No. 36 and 37 of 9 and August 11, 1941, BA-MA, RS 4/441.
  10. ^ Advertisement in: Der Freiwillige August. 1960, p. 7.
  11. ↑ In a supplement to "So Sees Vocator " to Der Freiwillige. Issue 3, March 1968, says: “Major Walter Reder was punished for something he did not do. He is not a war criminal! "
  12. ↑ The volunteer. Issue 2, Feb. 1968, pp. 21-23 also contains a comprehensive brochure by Rudolf Aschenauer , Kappler's defender.
  13. ↑ Feuchtinger was brought to trial in Vienna in 1963 for the Bassano massacre. See: Wehrmacht Crimes. Suspect takes his own life. In: Frankfurter Rundschau. September 26, 2008.
  14. ^ Jens Westemeier: Himmler's warriors. Joachim Peiper and the Waffen-SS in the war and the post-war period. Schöningh, Paderborn 2013, p. 619 f.
  15. ^ Jens Westemeier: Himmler's warriors. Joachim Peiper and the Waffen-SS in the war and the post-war period. Schöningh, Paderborn 2013, p. 474 f.
  16. ↑ Rafael Binkowski, Klaus Wiegrefe : Brown Bluff . In: Der Spiegel . No. 42 , 2011, p. 44–45 ( online - October 17, 2011 , review).