The Ask Jeeves Thread!

[M18922]

Thanks again Tony, I don't think I will ask any more questions. I now know lots more about chin cords then I used to.

Cheers, Patrick

[M18922]

I have another question. This time about coloured pipes on the SS caps. This might seem like a silly question but were there chaplains in the SS? And if so would there be purple piped SS caps?

Many thanks, Pat

[Friedrich-Berthold]

I have another question. This time about coloured pipes on the SS caps. This might seem like a silly question but were there chaplains in the SS? And if so would there be purple piped SS caps?

Many thanks, Pat

I am 95% certain that the SS had no chaplaincy, surely not prior to 1939.
Even a partial familiarity with the SS reveals that it nurtured a deeply pagan and anti Christian, especially anti Catholic agenda along with its hatred for Jews.
Also, I assume that those Waffen SS soldiers in their variety who had need of such aid and succor resorted to army chaplains.

Further reading. I do not know any English sources of any value on this score.


Dörfler-Dierken, Angelika: Zur Entstehung der Militärseelsorge und zur Aufgabe der Militärgeistlichen in der Bundeswehr, 2008





Wehrmacht:

Christen im Krieg : katholische Soldaten, Ärzte und Krankenschwestern im Zweiten Weltkrieg / Brandt, Hans Jürgen. - München : Pattloch, 2001

Das christliche Leben in der deutschen Wehrmacht von 1935 - 1945 : (eine zeitgeschichtliche Dokumentation) / Flieger, Hans E.. - Aachen : Shaker, 2001

Die Bedeutung der Katholischen Militärseelsorge in Deutschland von 1933-1945 / Güsgen, Johannes. - In: Die Wehrmacht (1999), S.503-524

Für Gott, Führer und Vaterland : die Verstrickung der katholischen Seelsorge in Hitlers Krieg / Missalla, Heinrich. - München : Kösel, c 1999

Die Katholische Militärseelsorge und Kleriker als Sanitätssoldaten in der großdeutschen Wehrmacht 1939 bis 1945 / Brandt, Hans-Jürgen. -

Seelsorger in Uniform : evangelische Militärseelsorge im Zweiten Weltkrieg ; Aufgabe - Leitung - Predigt / Beese, Dieter. - Hannover : Luth. Verl.-Haus, 1995

Priester in Uniform : Seelsorger, Ordensleute und Theologen als Soldaten im Zweiten Weltkrieg / Brandt, Hans Jürgen. - Augsburg : Pattloch, 1994

Die katholische Militärseelsorge in Deutschland zwischen 1920 und 1945 : ihre Praxis u. Entwicklung in d. Reichswehr d. Weimarer Republik u.d. Wehrmacht d. nationalsozialist. Deutschlands unter bes. Berücks. ihrer Rolle bei d. Reichskonkordatsverhandlungen / Güsgen, Johannes. - Köln [u.a.] : Böhlau, 1989

[Friedrich-Berthold]

...and a word to the wise: fixation on Waffenfarbe in the Waffen SS leads more often than not to some very dark, hopeless dead ends.
Ergo, you can see here my own colored "pipes" that I sent away to a new home.

[M18922]

Thanks for the informative reply Friedrich, your knowledge is something I want to aspire to.

I figured that there wouldent be, but its nice to know for certain. You have recommended some good books I might check out and try to read them. Though I already have a pile of books and then some to read.



Coloured SS pipes is not an area I want to indulge in for a while.

Many thanks, Patrick

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The images you enclose, Patrick, are from the Rw and Wh and are surely not SS men.

The subject of national socialism and religion is a fascinating one and there is much to learn about it.

I have noted a tendency among especially right wing enthusiasts to assign a kind of religion orientation in the SS that surely never was found in Himmler, Heydrich, Darre, and the others who shaped SS ideology.
However, I am also certain that those Waffen SS troops who wanted a chaplain could find one in wartime.
The SS embodied a general trend of vicious nationalism in Germany that made the Aryan race and the German people into a god.

- - Updated - -

The Waffenfarbe in Waffen SS caps is a sore point with me for various unedifying reasons.

And, Patrick, by the time you get to be as old as I, I have confidence you will know much more, yet still...

[Friedrich-Berthold]

This book is central to Himmler's ideas, including religion. It is an old book, but a fine one.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

The Ackerman book is very old and hard to find, but the best source now is Longerich's biography.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

With Burleigh is also Mosse, which is a classic, a book I read forty years ago and did not understand at the time, and have spent a life time figuring it out.

[Friedrich-Berthold]

There are even "sculls" in a couple of the pictures above....