Epilogue - The Nazi’s European Soldiers

Summary

On 24 April 1945, a scarce and poorly equipped jumble of SS fanatics, young boys and middle-aged reservists arrived in Bavaria as reinforcements for the 13th SS corps. There, under the impressive designation 38. SS-Panzer-Grenadier-Division ‘Nibelungen’ they were now facing American troops. The name was a reference to the German composer Richard Wagner's famous four-opera cycle, The Ring of the Nibelung, based on his interpretation of Norse Sagas and the German Medieval heroic poem Nibelungenlied. The complete work, 15 hours, ends in the Götterdämmerung (the twilight of the gods), the end of the world. It is fair to guess that the reason why the SS leadership, in March 1945, decided on this name was their premonition of the imminent end fight on German soil. Initially, it had been considered to call the division Junkerschule Tölz after the institution providing the officers.

The division's designation bears witness to the fact that, as in all cases where the central SS authorities were involved, ideology was in focus. From what we know about the Nazis’ view of the military situation in spring 1945 it seems reasonable to assume that the name Nibelungen was meant to symbolise that, now, the last fanatical warriors plunged themselves into battle. Now, it was neck or nothing, and if the enemy was not stopped, Armageddon waited – a downfall that, according to Hitler, the Germans deserved were they not strong enough to win the war.

But Himmler's last array of warriors did not fight to death, and although millions of soldiers and civilians fell victim to the Third Reich's struggle, the day of doom envisaged by the top Nazis did not materialize for everyone – not even within the Waffen-SS. Here and there along the front, Waffen-SS soldiers fought to the last round, committed suicide or went underground to fight on for Nazism as ‘werewolves’, but, in May 1945, the vast majority surrendered alongside the army. Moreover, it was a minority of the Waffen-SS veterans who continued fighting for the re-birth of Nazism after the war had ended.

In that sense, the experiment of training an army of political soldiers never fully succeeded. In the end, the combination of ideological tuition, cultivation of an élite identity, and the creation of a judicial system identifying, segregating and punishing those who failed had to yield to realities.