numbers to the Waffen SS, or to any of the German armed forces, then why didn't Mr. Safer
commend Ukrainians for their relatively small contribution to the German war effort?
(4) It would have been instructive of Mr. Safer to inform 60 Minutes viewers whether the Waffen
SS divisions of other countries were created under the same proviso that they not be used
against the Western Allies, but only against the Soviets on the Eastern Front? Perhaps
Ukrainians are to be commended again for limiting the role that their Waffen SS troops played
within the German military.
(5) Finally, given that Canada's Deschenes Commission on War Criminals failed to identify even a
single member of the Galicia Division as calling for further investigation; and given that not a
single member of the Division has ever been convicted of any crime, or even tried for any crime;
and, most importantly, given that nobody has ever specified any crime of which the Galicia
Division as a whole, or any member of the Galicia Division, might have been guilty - given all
this, it would have been instructive of Mr. Safer to inform 60 Minutes viewers whether the
Waffen SS divisions of The Netherlands, Belgium, and France have proven to be as free from blame
as has the Ukrainian Galicia Division.
Why Did Himmler Want a Waffen SS?
If the Wehrmacht was the combat arm of the German forces, and Himmler's SS was dedicated to
running the concentration camps, then why were there combat units within the SS? Why weren't
non-German combat units such as the Galicia Division considered to be part of the Wehrmacht
rather than part of the SS? The suspicion in the mind of the impartial observer might readily
be that any unit that was considered part of the SS may in fact have performed some duties that
were uniquely SS, and thus was more likely to be guilty of war crimes than a Wehrmacht unit.
Israeli historian Leni Yahil provides an answer - the war effort had taken center stage; Himmler
wanted to remain on center stage; and it is for that reason that Himmler defined certain combat
units as falling within the SS:
The very fact that Himmler and his executors became the central force
directing the implacable war against the Jews accorded them, and primarily
Himmler as their leader, a crucial position in the hierarchy of Nazi rule
wherever it extended. Hitler's hatred of the Jews and the importance he
ascribed to solving the Jewish problem according to his concept were among the
factors that ensured Himmler's status as the man who carried out the fuhrer's
program.
It might have been assumed that in wartime, when stress is necessarily laid
on the military struggle, the influence of the SS would have declined, since it
no longer held the center stage. If Hitler had lost interest in Himmler's
activities, the latter's own political career would have come to an end. He
forestalled the danger in two ways: one was by associating the SS with the war
effort through the establishment of the armed or Waffen SS while being careful
to prevent the army's influence over these corps from overriding his own.
(Leni Yahil, The Holocaust: The fate of European Jewry, 1932-1945, Oxford, New
York, 1990, p. 145)
The Nightingale Unit
60 Minutes also mentioned the Nightingale Unit, otherwise known as the Nachtigall Unit. The
Nachtigall Unit was eventually merged with the Ukrainian Roland Unit, some 600 Ukrainian
soldiers in all. These two units were formed on German territory prior to the outbreak of World
War II by Ukrainians who had either not fallen within the Soviet zone of occupation, or who had
escaped from it, and who anticipated German assistance in liberating Ukraine from Soviet rule.
These units too, however, fail to support the picture of Ukrainians "marching off to fight for
Hitler."