A better inter-service cooperation between the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS

For what i knew there was a inter-service rivalry between the branches of the Wehrmacht themselves and between the Wehrmacht and the SS that would have made the US army and the USN look like Romeo and Juliet.

So,what if the German forces were more integrated and had a better cohesion?
 
Not going to happen. The split and rivalry were by design , Hitler and his cronies believed that competition was the way to promote excellence ( and ensure no one had an uncontested power base ). To make them work better together means ditching a key part of their ideology. The SS were the parties guardians and so were always going to get better treatment than the Heer which would cause resentment in virtually any scenario.
 

EMTSATX

Banned
The SS was set up to keep Hitler in power. They were the Guardian's of the party. In reality they kept any type of Heer coup against Hitler.

If you recall a central part of Valkryie was the arrest of the SS and Gestapo. It is also the part of Alternate History where Himmler launches his civil war using Waffen-SS troops.

There was a ton of resources wasted with Goring's little fantasy units and the SS. However, from the parties perspective it was necessary. As mentioned That and Hitler's style of pitting people against each other.
 
Not going to happen. The split and rivalry were by design , Hitler and his cronies believed that competition was the way to promote excellence ( and ensure no one had an uncontested power base ). To make them work better together means ditching a key part of their ideology.

Right, this far.

The SS were the parties guardians and so were always going to get better treatment than the Heer which would cause resentment in virtually any scenario.

The first part of this is wrong. We know for a fact the Waffen-SS (not to be confused with other parts of the SS empire) did not "always" get better equipment, because in the beginning they very simply did not, exactly because they were a party militia and not a professional army.
Later on, once the Heer started disappointing Hitler, that changed, and yes, the Waffen-SS began receiving better equipment.

Yet the second part of your statement is entirely correct, in that even in 1939-1941, when the Waffen-SS were being armed with Austrian and Czech second-rate arms, the generals resented them anyway; not because of the armaments, but because of the men. Every man who was in the Waffen-SS uniform wasn't wearing a Wehrmacht uniform, and this annoyed the generals no end. It is also the reason why, after the first few divisions, the Waffen-SS resorted to recruiting abroad.
 
You would need a change in Hitler's mindset and ideas on divide and rule.

Case in point in 1934 a small obscure military instructor Captain Rommel decides he would personally hold up a massive military parade by himself because he won't let his men march with the SS because they are thugs loyal to a political party over country and not real soldiers in his view. Some high ranking Heer officers start to agree with the small obscure Captain on the matter and the SS and Army are suddenly in real tension.

Hitler is happy with the events as he plays Captain Rommel and the Heer officers who started supporting his move and the SS against each other as part of his divide and rule philosophy.
 
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You would need an entirely different Nazi leadership. Hitler never liked the Wehrmacht as he saw them as nothing more than Conservatives who stood in the way of National Socialist ideology. He planned to completely replace the Wehrmacht with the Waffen SS by the end of the war.
 
OTL the Waffen SS were only the military wing of the Nazi Party. SS were outside the normal Wehrmacht supply chain which meant that SS carried Erma SMGs and Czech-built SS41 7.92mm anti-tank rifles.

What sort of innovative weapons would Waffen SS field in 1946?
 
It would require a different Hitler, but...

I would have organized the Waffen SS along the lines of a mix of present-day SOCOM and the post Korean War USMC. It's job would be to do the uniformed groundside killing the Heer either wouldn't or couldn't do, under those scenarios less glamorous and photogenic than those the Heer operates under. There would have been no SS Panzer divisions, though Werewolf guerrillas, and anti-partisan units would not be out of the question. If I can get the Brandenburgers, at least as instructors, in it, so much the better. The Heer would win the battles, the Waffen SS would make sure they do, and the war as well.
 
For what i knew there was a inter-service rivalry between the branches of the Wehrmacht themselves and between the Wehrmacht and the SS that would have made the US army and the USN look like Romeo and Juliet.

So,what if the German forces were more integrated and had a better cohesion?

Ideally there would be no 'Private Armies' at all - the SS Recruits as well as the Luftwaffe field division recruits were man for man generally of higher quality than the Heer average but tended to take higher losses than their Heer equivalents either through fanaticism or in the case of non FJ LW units lack of 'tribal' knowledge (Pilots became field officers - not particulalrly suited for that job)

A private in an SS Unit for example would be far more likely to have become an NCO in a Heer outfit and the same LW soldier would be far more likely to become a specialist had he been recruited into the Heer from the start. The same for officer material.

I know that there was a lot of insanity, Evil and not a little substance abuse going on the in German leadership but perhaps a better idea would be to have kept a few SS Regiments of the old boys around Hitler himself and for camera opportunities etc but the rest of the formations never to have been formed and those soldiers entering the Heer instead.

Hitler then awards the SS title to units that have performed well in battle (a 'bit' like the way in which russian formations were awarded Guard Status or US units given Presidential citations etc)

For example 21st Panzer Division becomes 21st SS Panzer Division after its successes in 1941.
 
Ideally there would be no 'Private Armies' at all -

Right.

the SS Recruits (...) were man for man generally of higher quality than the Heer average ...

Wrong. The low-numbered Waffen-SS divisions were choosy as to their personnel, and some of the ethnic divisions performed at least as well as, if not better than, the average Heer units, probably mostly thanks to motivation.

Then you have all of those which had poorer manpower material. The Albanians deserted almost to a man as soon as they got their rifle and enlistment bounty. The 13. Division saw mutinies and desertions. The 8. Division was made up of concentration camp goons and was routed twice. The 9., 10. and 12. performed very well, but that was thanks to their cadres and NCOs; the manpower was simply too young. The same applies to later, high-numbered units which included 17-year-olds and pupils of assorted military, police and SS schools, save that they did not perform as well at all. The second Dutch division consisted of the Dutch equivalent of the French Milice - a paramilitary police of collaborationists - being slapped with a Waffen-SS title, you can imagine what kind of manpower pool it relied upon (especially given that the truly motivated Dutch volunteers had long before joined the previous, above-average Dutch division). The 29. and 36. Divisionen were simply made up of criminals of all stripes.

Then you have those divisions whose manpower was no better and no worse than the Heer's simply because they were run-of-the-mill German draftees - or even run-of-the-mill Hungarian draftees. Some of the Waffen-SS divisions were made up this way, late in the war.
 
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