Thanks Andy! (5 Viewers)

[Capitolron]

I agree with many things said here - but, like Rob, Brad & Louis - I just can't see me collecting the range that Glorifies the NAZI Party. War is war and like Louis said - your American troops need someone to shoot at ! and I personally believe that the AK & WS range does have a little more less shock value to people who see it - than the LAH Range.

But, hey whatever makes your boat float - I must say that the figures are very impressive. You know everything I see them - I think of Indiana Jones III when he is in Berlin during the book burnings and Hitler signs that Book - haha

 

[Pierre]

Like I said, war is such an ordinary thing

If your American troops need German to shoot at, at whom the said German are shooting at??? Penguins???

 

[6th Wisconsin]

Of course not all SS were German either. As the war progressed, the Waffen SS took in more and more foreigners. There is no doubt though that although the Wehrmacht was not uninvolved with atrocities from the beginning - notably in the East, which as noted was always a very different war from the West - the SS was different. From what I have read it was pretty common for Wehrmacht soldiers to blame attrocities on the SS too. They knew it was different, and they knew others knew it was different.

 

[Saber]

You know everything I see them - I think of Indiana Jones III when he is in Berlin during the book burnings and Hitler signs that Book - haha

LOL ! That scene is so hilarious! I wonder if the film took flak for such a comedic portrayal of ol' Adolph. Almost as good as when he shoots the swordsman in Raiders.

 

[Spitfrnd]

... I must say that the figures are very impressive. You know everything I see them - I think of Indiana Jones III when he is in Berlin during the book burnings and Hitler signs that Book - haha

Maybe that is what is missing from the line.

 

[OzDigger]

Hi There... Just a word in the spirit of friendly clarification:

Nobody in Germany was discouraged (much less ordered) from joining the Nazi party. In fact, all members of the Allgemeine-SS, SD, and Waffen-SS, and Totenkopfverbaende were members of the Nazi party by default. Perhaps the primary reason why the Allies singled out the SS as a criminal organization is that every member could be directly linked to the party and it's decisions. Certainly there were members of the Waffen-SS who could claim that they had only fought as "soldaten wie andere auch" (such as Gunther Grass), but in the early years of the organization (1925-40), membership was a political decision, one where a new recruit took a personal oath the Hitler as a "Political soldier".

Anyone who collects WSS or LAH should expect to receive some Flak (no pun intended) from knowledgeable people who see his collection. In the case of the LAH, there is no way to place distance between the genocidal crimes of the regime and a set of 20 or so marching party members lovingly displayed on a mantlepiece or bookshelf. I have quite a collection pf W-SS myself and I'm aware of how folks react when they see the Greek Cross on the Panther tank, even if they don't know what or who the SS were.

As for the Waffen-SS, anybody who served as a guard in the death camps was Waffen-SS. Even if we argue that the WSS models KC sells represent only the front-line troops (not an unreasonable claim), the Waffen-SS consistently engaged in mass atrocity as soon as the war in Russia kicked-off. In recent years, scholars such as Omar Bartov have decisively concluded that the Wehrmacht was equally guilty of war crimes in Russia--the war there was (as we all know) as viciously genocidal as the Japanese occupation of China. When Hitler issued the infamous "Commissar order" in 1941, his justification for ignoring the rules of the Geneva Convention and the Hague Conventions was that the war against bolshevism was like none other in history. It was a race war wherein party commissars and Jews mixed in with the civilian population (which itself was sub-human in his eyes). Is it any wonder that 16 million Soviet civilians died? The entire German war machine was on a mission to enslave all of eastern Europe.

On the western front, the Waffen-SS fought with more restraint than they did in the east, but they remain infamous for numerous atrocities totally unrelated to "battlefield frenzy". Oradour, the execution of unarmed Canadians by 12th SS, and the Malmedy Massacre are the best known examples of W-SS brutality. For the most part, these actions reflected the racist, social-Darwinist will of Hitler, the party, and Himmler's SS.

So... what does that mean for a collection of LAH or WSS?

I'm not sure. People "in the know" will think us strange and perhaps even unbalanced. Our friends and familiy will take it in stride because they know we're more than our toys. I own the RA series and much of the WS series. I hope that most people who see them only see my love of history reflected in toy soldiers and don't think that I romanticize either regime. If Andy had released Wehrmacht '44 soldiers earlier, I'm sure I would have had them instead (so long as I have a foe for my Russkis). If I were queried directly and sharply about my choices, I would have to say: "Hey, I've got German, French, American and Russian toy soldiers. I've also got X-Files action figures (sweet!) and Barzso's Aztecs and Conquistadors. I collect the WSS figures because Andy's product was simply too beautiful to pass up (so much color to their uniforms). No, I'm not a Nazi. No, I'm not a Stalinist. They're toys for crying out loud."

That said, I boxed it all away when my wife and I had the house on sale.

Imagine how you might respond if you encountered somebody's lovingly kept collection of photographs and writings of 9/11 conspirators and the attacks on the WTC... Out of context. You wouldn't know what to think.

A final thought regarding the issue of SS war crimes as somehow more or less eggregious than those committed by the Allies or by any army in other modern conflicts is this: All armies kill civilians. All armies create wanton destruction. But the German army in WWII (SS and Wehrmacht) faithfully served a regime dedicated to world conquest and genocide. The genocide of Jews, Gypsies, and Slavs was policy. The massacre and forced starvation (to the point of cannibalism) of over 80% of Russian POWs was policy. The plunder of Russian villages and enslavement of the population was policy. Did American troops beat up and abuse Waffen-SS soldiers that they took prisoner in the Bulge? Yes. Did the order come down from FDR? No.

I won't go into Allied war crimes at this point since I've already gone on too long. I hope that this post is recieved in the spirit intended. My apologies if anything I wrote is misconstrued as criticism.

No worries here Buzz I re-checked the reference I obtained that info from. Which was actually a DVD on the History of the Third Reich that included a good deal of interesting information on the early years of Hitler and the NAZI Party.

To be specific it was only the Wehrmacht that had the non political party policy. NAZI Party members were obliged to join the Waffen SS. However the ban on NAZI Party members from joining the Wehrmacht was removed in 1939.

 

[fmethorst]

In case any of you AK collectors out there think the subject matter you collect is any less complicit than LAH.

A 2006 study by the German historians Klaus-Michael Mallman and Martin Cueppers says that an Einsatzgruppe was created in 1942 to kill Jews in the British Mandate of Palestine. “Einsatzgruppe Egypt” was standing by in Athens, Greece and was prepared to go with General Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps to Palestine, once German forces arrived there to kill the roughly half a million Jews in the Mandate. The mobile killing unit was to be led by SS Obersturmbannfuehrer Walter Rauff. The plan was for the 24 members of the death squad to enlist collaborators from the local Arab population so that the “mass murder would continue under German leadership without interruption.”

The group never left Greece, however, because Rommel’s force was defeated at Battle of El Alamein by the allied forces; otherwise, the history of the Middle East might have been different. [12]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einsatzgruppen

As far as I'm concerned the Wehrmacht is as guilty as the Waffen SS. After all they had to conquer the foreign lands first before the Einsatzgruppen could move in.

I also feel that some of the responsibility sits with the various officials in the occupied territories who, with the possible exception of Denmark, collaborated to varying degrees. Ironically there were volunteer Danes serving in the Nordland regiment of the 5th SS Panzergrenadier Division "Wiking"

As noted there were many foreigners involved. Most of the guards at the extermination camps were Ukranians.

I also want to comment on the camps themselves. First we need to clarify the different types of "camp". I admit by the end of the war the differences certainly blurred.

The original "Concentration Camp" was a forced labor camp where political prisoners and other security risks were sent. The "Extermination Camp" on the other hand was where people were sent to be killed. Essentially people were taken straight off the train and marched directly into the gas chambers. Auschwitz and Majdanek are unique in that they were both type of camp. The extermination camps ("Operation Reinhard") were an evolutionary extension of the open air shootings conducted Einsatzgruppen in the east. Aside from being inefficient it was found that going out and killing people all day long had a negative psychological impact on the killers.

http://frank.mtsu.edu/~baustin/holocamp.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_camp

Further reading:

Auschwitz, A New History (ISBN 1-58648-357-9)

Why is it other K&C ranges don't generate so much controversy? In this day and age of political correctness I would think the Crusader line would offend plenty of people.

 

[Buzz]

I think it's related to historical distancing. Unless somebody believes that NATO soldiers in Central Asia are latter-day crusaders (and those who do probably don't spend their money on "materialistic" pleasures such as toy soldiers), he won't be too upset by the line. In contrast, there are still survivors of Hitler's genocide on the streets. Their children feel just as strongly about what happened. Allied veterans who saw what the Nazis did and risked life and limb to destroy them are still alive as well.

 

[6th Wisconsin]

I have always been more interested in the European theater of WWII, but I have been thinking at some point I might create a diorama to honor my grandfather (whose uniform I am lucky enough to have). He fought in the Phillipines (the return campaign). I am not sure about whether to include Japanese or not. He never said anything negative about the Japanese, and in fact in the post-war years my mother had a pen pal there. He almost never talked about the war though, and from what my mother said recently it was a pretty haunting experience for him.