Dr. Oskar Paul Dirlewanger

[vonLind]

I have read too many posts regarding the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, and now I think it's enough!

How can anyone in their right mind discuss this notorious child molester as a soldier?

[mathiass]

I have read too many posts regarding the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, and now I think it's enough!

How can anyone in their right mind discuss this notorious child molester as a soldier?

A man with all those awards and at the same time his dark life as a civilian. How can this not be a man of interest?

[Ian Hulley]

I have read too many posts regarding the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, and now I think it's enough!

Then don't read them.

Dirlewanger (and many, many more of his ilk) holds a historical place in the story of the period. Was he a great soldier ? Certainly a brave one. Does that make him a hero ? Definitely not ... nor does it excuse the flawed nature of the man. However many of the people we find interesting were nothing more than murderers in uniform.

Ian

[Lloyd I.]

He found a home in a depraved regime. Self servers such as Dirlewanger and Otto Skorzeny will always hold a certain aura for sick reasons for some and for others in an attempt to understand the madness of the time as well as the psychology of these men.

Is Joachim Peiper less complex or less culpable for his willingness to look the other way at genocide or massacre yet have his own men shot for taking chickens? he is another subject of countless books, forum narratives, and worshippers. Or Kurt Meyer for that matter for obliterating a village in Russia while espousing the human side to his men postwar as an author? Eloquent,violent, and unrepentant men. For every Dirlewanger we know of there are probably a handful who got away with it and far, far more who fought the entire war with principle. That is the dichotomy of the German Soldier in WW2. Nobility and Chivalry were ingredients that went into the same stew pot as brutality and lack of conscious.

Dirlewanger by all recorded accounts outdid them all in terms of depravity.

[Seigfried]

I have read too many posts regarding the SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger, and now I think it's enough!

How can anyone in their right mind discuss this notorious child molester as a soldier?

Excuse me, but WTF has this to do with 'Living History'??

[Jägermarty]

excuse me, but wtf has this to do with 'living history'??

^^this!^^

[Seigfried]

^^this!^^

How does it fit into 'Discussions of battlefield sites, reenacting, veteran news, and all "current" historical events'.

[Lloyd I.]

I agree with Siegfried. This should likely be moved to an appropriate category outside of Living History. Such as Order of Battle and Individual Research Forum