Waffen-SS: Casualties and losses

Dansih SS Volunteers during Memorial Day activities

Where the Iron Crosses Grow

Won the Battles but Lost the War

Total casualties amongst the Waffen-SS will probably never be known, but according to a report from July 12 1972 approx. 950,000 men passed through its ranks up to the end of World War II, and 253,000 were listed as killed or missing in action or died in POW camps. This equals just less than 27 percent. Other reports, however, indicates that the Waffen-SS suffered 314,000 killed and missing in action or died in POW camps. This equals just less than 35 percent. Wounded or captured volunteers were often executed when falling in Soviet hands once their interrogations were completed. The volunteers had no illusions about their fate if taken prisoner. The Soviet atrocities carried out against surrendered elite troops were well known among the Waffen-SS. On several well-documented occasions their fallen comrades had been found bestially mutilated and murdered. For the survivors, it was a small, but appreciated act of thanks when, in 1990´s, Finland and newly-independent Estonia issued memorial medals to foreigners who had fought against Communism in those two countries during World War II. The dead have also been honored in recent years through memorials placed in Canada, Estonia, Flanders, Germany, Hungary, Latvia, Ukraine and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. Top screenshot: Danish Waffen-SS men during Memorial Day activities on June 2 1944. The Waffen-SS memorial service was held at Høveltegård near the town of Birkerød. Various high-ranking SS members attended the memorial service for Denmark's fallen volunteers. Present among others were SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner, SS-Gruppenführer Herbert Gille and SS-Obersturmbannführer Fritz Klingenberg. After the war, the memorial was destroyed by the Danish resistance movement. Credit: Danish Defence. Middle image: a volunteer Waffen-SS soldier mourns by the fresh graves of his fallen comrades somewhere on the Eastern front. The left grave marker's name inscription is Karl Herbrechter, most likely from the LSSAH, an SS-Untersturmführer Karl Herbrechter born 1918, is known to have served in 14th Co. of 3rd Bn. of the Leibstandarte SS in 1941. c. Bundesarchiv. Bottom image: three battle-exhausted Waffen-SS volunteers in Ukraine in 1943. Photo by SS-Unterscharführer and Kriegsberichter Max Büschel. The talented war correspondent Büschel himself survived the war and managed to evade captivity when the 1.SS-Panzer-Division Leibstandarte SS surrendered to American forces in the area of Steyr in Austria in May 1945. He made his way back to his family in Berlin but was apparently shot to death when the Soviet occupational forces found out he was a former member of the elite Leibstandarte SS. U.S. National Archives.