I recieved this gem of an insult for saying a guy was in the wrong for continuously cheating on his wife without attempting to divorce or separate. Its been my display name on discord ever since
I recieved this gem of an insult for saying a guy was in the wrong for continuously cheating on his wife without attempting to divorce or separate. Its been my display name on discord ever since
What I learned from Reddit is that debate is a waste of time.
I once had a guy argue that Wernher von Braun wasn’t in the German Military.
I reminded him that von Braun was a Colonial in the SS.
“The SS was not part of the German military”
Not arguing again,but technically that’s correct. The German SS was split between the “military part” (SS Verfügungsgruppe, later Waffen-SS) that were front line/fighting formations and the “Allgemeine SS” (regular SS) that was more modelled like a “executive branch”, having absorbed the German police forces, customs and having tasks like concentration camp guarding, “behind the front line work”, etc. (On the other hand this is a matter of definition,the Carabinieri are also military but also executive branch - but the definition mentioned above is the one the SS used for itself)
Von Braun was an (voluntary and quite keen) officer of the later, so one could indeed argue that he was not part of the military (and actually the SS almost executed him for that as he leaned towards the Wehrmacht at some part).
So…one could indeed argue he was not a military officer. Does that make him less of an asshole? Absolutely fucking not. It makes him worse. Because he voluntarily and quite happily joined the far more evil side and had other options all along - and his fellow “Allgemeine-SS” members were actually the ones who were responsible for most of the real fucked up shit the SS did (which does not mean that the Waffen-SS guys were nice, they did almost as horrible shit…comparing evils here…). So…in the end one should probably compromise on “he was a fucking asshole with a lot of blood on his hands. No matter if he was military or not.”
Not to be a dick but i think the ss was more like private militia. They famously had beef with the classic military. Iirc
Nope, while you are right about the constant conflict with the Wehrmacht (which was very much intended by Hitler), the SS had designated military structures (first called Verfügungstruppe,then Totenkopfverbände,later the infamous Waffen-SS) that were acting as regular military formations and for quite a while were subordinated under the Wehrmacht command.
These military parts were having a fully military structure (that later on was kept within the SS but directly under Hitler’s high command nevertheless), service within these SS formations did “count” the same as regular service, people could get drafted into these formations instead of the Wehrmacht(especially when they were Germans who lived in a conquered country as these could not be part of the Wehrmacht). They had tanks, etc.
So from a purely technical standpoint they should probably be more seen as a separate,even more evil,military branch - none would say the US marines are not part of the military because they are not army, neither would someone say something like that to the Carabinieri.
BUUUUTTTTT: The SS also had the “regular” non military SS (Allgemeine SS) which was more based on a executive branch and absorbed the German police forces, customs, etc. in it, but also worked in various other functions, from guarding concentration camps and “behind the front lines work” to wartime economic stuff. (So in terms of crime not even a bit less evil than the Waffen-SS) Von Braun was a (very keen and voluntary) member of this regular SS.
So… Yeah… If one wants to be nitpicky, he was actually not part of the military,but the SS had military parts. What is much more sure: He was an absolute asshole.