Strange names for the Schutzstaffel

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Does anyone happen to know why the SS were called die Amseln (the Blackbirds) during the War? I would be also interested in why the word seems to be used as phonetic alphabet by pilots in the Luftwaffe. Thank you.
 
I wasn't aware of either of those things until now. I've been searching for the last fifteen minutes and can't find any connections. Can you give an example or two where the SS were called by that name and also perhaps an example showing the Luftwaffe using "Amsel" in the phonetic alphabet as opposed to the more usual "Anton"?
 
The designation Amsel for the SS is used in the play by Walser Eiche und Angorra and the phonetic word is used by the Luftwaffe in many radio messages monitored in England during the Battle of Britain
 
Never heard anything of the sort before. Ever, Also never read it anywhere.
 
Some extra thinking

I dont think Walser invented the term out of nowhere.Could it not be phonetic code for Allgemeine SS or similarly SS Abschnitt ? The evidence for the Luftwaffe usage is in records of monitoring during the Battle of Britain but as yet I have no other proof from written sources that the Amsel word was used for the SS. Is it a sarcastic phrase for their black uniforms as Himmlers nickname was Huehnenzuchter?
 
At that time there was the german designation "Asphaltsoldaten" for the parade units of the Leibstandarte.

"Their impeccable appearance and precise drill led them to earn the somewhat derogatory nickname of 'asphalt soldier', good for parades but unsuitable for field combat."

I only know this term from hearsay, but I think it is quite realistic.

Such designations in the German population were not unusual at that time, people liked to make fun of the staunch National Socialists behind closed doors.
But when the SA smashed up another local workers' bar once again, the workers quickly realized, who was striving for power and who was already in power.

There are hundreds and thousands of such memories, you can find these memories in many regional german chronicles.

Most of it is oral tradition, much was never written down out of sheer fear.

In my northern German homeland, early units of the SA and SS raged very badly, usually simple people from a rural background, but that would be a very long and different story to tell... ;)

Micha
 
At that time, entire family groups went over to the SA or the SS.

These people terrorized whole areas for many years, many opponents disappeared without a trace, ended up in the Emsland Camps, or these people were left to starve in the Wehnen sanatorium.

A more than horrible story, which has been worked up many times in books and films, a German history...

In some places you literally walk over corpses, even today, it's still very bad...

Micha
* I remember a sentence from my grandfather, who himself achieved a "career" under the Nazis:
"When shit becomes something, only shit comes out of it!"

Grandpa wasn't a stupid person, but the man howled with the wolves, for his own career, which one of us would have acted differently back then, you, me, I don't have an answer to that...
 
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My school friend B.'s grandfather served as a guard and auxiliary police officer in the very early Emsland camps.
A simple man from the country, but probably at that time one of the few opportunities to find a "job" at all.

The topic is very complex, and much has never been worked through to this day, all contemporary witnesses are no longer alive, only the grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
All of this is no longer an issue in the families of the descendants today, anyone who still has documents or photos from this time keeps this information to themselves, which is a pity, but understandable.

Emslandlager: Emslandlager – Wikipedia

Those of you who know these places are now wondering, how something like this was possible.
I don't have an answer of my own, they're horrible places and better avoided.
If you have a kind of "feeling/sense" for such places, then these places still cause discomfort today, a very uneasy feeling.
I can't describe it any better.

Micha
 
Wehnen:

"The Wehnen sanatorium and nursing home (today's Karl-Jaspers-Klinik Wehnen) has long been considered a psychiatric facility in Germany where no euthanasia was carried out. However, this does not correspond to the facts: About three years before the start of the T4 campaign, a euthanasia program began in Wehnen by starving patients and presumably also by administering medication. In addition, the facility was overcrowded from 1939, when the facility, which was designed for 400 beds, gradually had to care for up to 1,200 patients. The patient mortality rate peaked in 1945, when it was six times the normal rate. It is estimated that around 1,500 patients were deliberately killed in the Wehnen sanatorium during the National Socialist era..."

Link: Alte Pathologie Wehnen – Wikipedia (Only in german language, sorry)

Since I mentioned the name Wehnen above, just this one link.

Micha
P.S. To this day there are always graves found, in which the victims were buried underground, one cannot speak of a normal burial in this context.
I remember some families whose relatives disappeared without a trace in Wehnen, many descendants never found answers, never.
 
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