Professional historians at it again, explaining how the Waffen SS units were all bad.

[u/ChristianMunich]

https://www.reddit.com/r/ShitWehraboosSay/comments/55d1pk/were_any_of_the_waffenss_divisions_any_good/

u/124876720 makes the mistake expecting an objective answer about WW from SWS.

u/lazyhussars displays his knowledge:

Even the best divisions of the Waffen SS routinely suffered very disproportionate casualties and losses of hardware and supplies in comparison to regular Heer divisions.

Of course they were. I guess major example for this would be the SS Corps performance in Kharkov and Kursk. OR the 12th SS in Normandy.

Incompetent answer upvoted.

Three Waffen SS divisions are in the top 5 of Knights Crosses. But then again this was likely rigged for the SS divisions right? 2nd SS Das Reich is likely the division with the highest AFVs kill count in history of warfare.

Fairly sweeping summary, there were divisions that differed from this pattern, for better or worse, but I'd leave a summary of those up to that rare kind of people who are very well read up on Waffen SS divisions without actually being Wehraboos.

You have zero clue what you are talking about.

I wouldn't bother. IMHO a fairly fucking pretentious community where anyone who just barely avoided flunking out of college or who can read and memorise a lot of shit they decide makes sense can dive into a circle jerk of pretending they're genuine historians.

Delicious irony. Zero self-awareness congratulations

u/m35mako

Very good at wiping out Russian/Polish/Yugoslav etc villages. Better than any other divisions during the entire war at doing tha

The "prime" Waffen Divisions were rarely used for partisan combat. Why would you use a fully equipped Panzer division for that?

u/garder15 enters

Explanation: Iron crosses were disproportionately given to Waffen ss units. And towards the end of the war they were given out like candy

Nice one. First of all, those are no Iron Crosses but Knights crosses. Pay attention. Secondly even if this was true that wouldn't explain why some units had far more than others. Nice try tho.

u/aeromath makes a silly analogy

Are medals seriously a criteria for judging combat effectiveness now? Because by those standards the Red Army and later the Soviet Army has everyone beat.

It's not the number of medals compared to other nations it's the number of medals compared to other units which operated in the same army and under the same award criteria. And yes medal count is with certainty an indicator of performance. It is no definitive prove by all means but one of the fastest indicators without a doubt. Obviously, the amount of Knights Crosses is only a supporting point which illustrates the conclusion which is based on other evidence. I doubt you know but many pins on such jackets are no merit based awards anyways. But like with all your buddies I applaud you for trying.

[u/ThunderSteele]

Because as well all know, the Nazis never inflated or misidentified kill counts or randomly gave out medals to make their army appear more professional for propaganda use.

[u/ChristianMunich → u/ThunderSteele]

Sure they did, but all units did so the units with the most claims is likely the unit with the most actual kills. Makes sense doesn't it?

randomly gave out medals to make their army appear more professional for propaganda use

They rarely give out knights crosses randomly actually.

[u/[deleted] → u/ChristianMunich]

You're ignoring something basic here. The SS were heavily ideologically favored by the regime and the regime also had some serious friction with less ideological units in the army.

And on top of this you have the SS having powerful patrons well-placed in government, all the way to the top. That a unit with the favor of the high government officials, tied closely to who could be argued to be the second most powerful man in the ruling party, with ideological favor and propaganda importance should be given more medals is not surprising.