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From: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Newsgroups: net.flame
Subject: Re: WW 2
Message-ID: <881@mnetor.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 28-May-85 10:55:02 EDT
Article-I.D.: mnetor.881
Posted: Tue May 28 10:55:02 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 28-May-85 12:28:10 EDT
References: <667@dataio.UUCP>
Reply-To: clewis@mnetor.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Organization: Computer X (CANADA) Ltd., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 36
Summary: 

In article <667@dataio.UUCP> bright@dataio.UUCP (Walter Bright) writes:
>Some points I feel need to be raised about all the discussion
>about Reagan's Bitburg visit:
>3) Being in the SS was different, one had a choice about that. Correct
>   me if I'm wrong, but I think that one had to be a card-carrying
>   Nazi to be in the SS, else you wound up in the Wehrmacht. Also,
>   the SS, not the Wehrmacht, was in charge of the concentration
>   camps.

I certainly agree with your first and second points.  However, some
comments on your third:

	1) No, you didn't need to be a card-carrying Nazi to be in
	   the SS.  Many of them were, in fact, drafted into the SS.
	   (A friend of mine's father was drafted into the SS as an 
	   engineer building bridges on the Eastern Front)
	2) True, the SS did run the concentration camps.  But certainly
	   not all of the SS did.  The SS were also the "crack" front-line
	   troops (particularly on the Eastern Front).  Yes, I know
	   that some these troops were also involved in "battle-ground"
	   "atrocities" (eg: alleged SS Panzer's execution of 40 U.S. 
	   prisoners), but so were all combat forces (eg: during
	   the D-day invasion, American pilots strafed downed German
	   pilots while they were trying to surrender to British troops.
	   At other times, some allied units simply didn't take 
	   prisoners.  Nor can you consider what happened in Dresden 
	   to be a particularly legitimate war-time exercise.)
	3) Many members of the SS, indeed, were given a choice
	   to join or not.  However, during the war, very few people
	   outside of the camps really knew what was going on.  Once
	   they were in, it was probably too late to do anything about
	   it.  You did what you were told or were shot - immediately.
-- 
Chris Lewis,
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