[Wolfshook]

I believe you answered your own question. Of course they believed in Hitler to a certain degree...how much each man did, no other man can say. It is not stretching things far, however, to say that they believed in what Hitler was saying about Communism.

They were lied to...I never said they weren't. Hitler was a sick man, and drove Germany into ruin. But, you cannot say that the people who believed in him, and fought for Germany, or their own country's within Germany's armed forces, were psychotic, brainwashed, or anything else. It's all a matter of what kind of culture you grown up in, and most people really don't understand what it was like for most Germans at that time.

There were a lot of people, in other countries, who saw Germany, and Hitler, as uniting against a common foe...Communism. These people, whether intentionally or not, felt that whatever Hitler said, they felt that fighting for him was the best thing. They had two choices, fight for Germany, or fight against Germany. They all knew that fighting against Germany, meant fighting for the Allies, which mean fighting to aid Communism, because Russia was backed by every single Allied power, during WW2.

It is not really as simple as saying they were brainwashed, or warmongers, or that they loved Hitler. It was a lot more complicated than that.

For most Europeans, who volunteered to fight for Germany, whether it be in the Luftwaffe, Heer, WaffenSS, or Kriegsmarine, it was a easy choice, when you looked at Communist Russia, and all that they stood for. People really lose sight of the fact of the things that Russia did before, during, and after the war. Can you really say these men were wrong in making this choice?

They were doing the right thing, in their own minds. I cannot judge a man's decisions, unless I know that man personally. I cannot ever know what it was like to grow up living in Europe, at that time.

We all know what Hitler did during the war, sitting here in 2002. But, you cannot expect the people living during that time could even dream of that happening. Did any of you ever really think an airplane could plow into the WTC? Yet people talked about a terrorist act against the WTC all of the time. It's the same thing here. Of course Hitler used Anti-Semitic speaches, but do you expect that most people really thought that Hitler would go to such extremes to kill all Jewish people?

The young men and women who ended up fighting for Germany, weren't listening to a radio out in the field, while they were getting their *** shot at.

Some people are to blame, I'm not saying they aren't. Alot of German people did know what was going on, and didn't speak out.

The Waffen SS were no better or worse than any other fighting force, for any other country. Allied forces committed atrocities, the same as German ones. Human beings are all the same, and the Waffen SS was no different.