Dirlewanger and Figures of the Third Reich

[cats]

[Image: https://files.catbox.moe/vunrql.jpg]
Was he a true adherent to the ideals of National Socialism?

Discussion of other figures in the Third Reich is also acceptable in this thread.

[Svevlad]

Strikes me as an useful idiot sort of figure. Had there been no war, he'd probably be executed for some degeneracy, but if the war was won and he lived, he'd either be sent on a suicide mission to work in the occupied Slavic lands, or (((kill himself)))

[cats]

I read or heard somewhere that Dirlewanger spent quite a bit of time conversing with Hitler personally. Not sure where. Might've been a Mark Felton video, to be honest.

He probably would've been killed due to internal politicking post-war, yeah. Hitler notably did everything in his power to not have Rohm killed, but ultimately caved to pressure from the SS. A similar situation might've unfolded with Dirlewanger, although I'm not so sure how fond Hitler was of him. He seemed to enjoy strange company.

[Fresh Prince]

Oskar Dirlewanger, PhD: economist, rapist and war criminal.

[Leverkühn]

Strikes me as an useful idiot sort of figure. Had there been no war, he'd probably be executed for some degeneracy, but if the war was won and he lived, he'd either be sent on a suicide mission to work in the occupied Slavic lands, or (((kill himself)))

This seems mostly correct to me. Reading up on his experience during WWI and the Civil War in Germany, it seems like he did have promise as some kind of irregular military commander or internal police force. His career seems to have been largely capped because of his terrible alcoholism, and he definitely would have been executed for sexual degeneracy if not for the war--if I recall this almost happened but one of his old WWI buddies helped him go serve in the Spanish Civil War, after which his charges were dropped. As to Cats' original question asking if he was a 'true adherent of national socialism or not,' I can't imagine he was. He was anti-semitic and militaristic, so he aligned with them enough, but I have trouble imagining him being into any of the ethnogenesis stuff or having much of a mind for the economic policies of the Reich. That being said I guess he did get a doctorate in political science so I doubt he was entirely retarded. But the fact he consistently got caught for petty theft makes me think he at least had terrible impulse control. More than anything it seems he just wanted to fight battles and torture people, had natural aversions to the degenerate masses (so communism was off the table), and therefore the Nazi party was the best place for a guy like him to do what he wanted to do in life.


If anyone has access to his doctoral thesis (supposedly a critique of planned economies) I'd be interested in reading it, but it seems difficult to find. One blog user on an axis history forum had posted it (in german) but the links are all broken, sadly:
https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic....8&t=258816

[BillyONare]

Based zero impulse control lolibertarian.

[calico]

My vague recollection is that Dirlewanger's contemporaries claimed his personality changed drastically after a serious head injury, but if my mind didn't invent it I can't seem to find a source anywhere.

Despite their portrayal in popular media; true psycopaths are generally unambitious losers and tend to have below average IQ.

[Datacop]

I find it hard to form an idea of Dirlewanger when reading about the war. I have an immediate distrust of all the stories of Dirlewanger electrocuting / eating / torturing Jews to death, as the sources of those often come from historians like Richard Grunberger and Timothy Snyder who make a living off tilting at swastika windmills, but the sources I consider reputable don't paint a very flattering picture either. Clearly he wasn't just a feral rapetard. There's even a handful of accounts of him being a (comparatively) honorable and disciplined Lieutenant during WWI.

My vague recollection is that Dirlewanger's contemporaries claimed his personality changed drastically after a serious head injury, but if my mind didn't invent it I can't seem to find a source anywhere.

He suffered a head wound in 1921 at Sangerhausen which was nearly fatal, but I also can't find any source that he changed in behavior at all. By 1921, Dirlewanger had already volunteered for frontline combat twice, joined different freikorp militias twice, been arrested twice, and been injured thrice.

On the question of his adherence to National Socialism, Dirlewanger was an early member of the Deutschvölkischer Schutz Und Trutzbund at a time when, though popular among students, there was no real reason to join the organization for anything other than real conviction. His doctoral thesis was, if I remember correctly, a critique of socialism that was barely accepted for being too political. He briefly renounced his völkisch beliefs for a time to get a job at a factory, but who among us hasn't pretended to be bluepilled for some cash? My boss thinks I'm vaccinated, we all have our secrets. At the heart of it, Dirlewanger was an embodiment of blind, mad, retarded war. Everything in his career paints a picture of a man totally captivated by power and conflict. A rebuke of Dirlewanger from the right would have to be something along the lines of him being what happens when our ideals go too far, which I consider a bad thread to follow; what modern society needs is MORE madness, not warnings away from it— Dirlewanger is an exception to this rule. I personally think there's some value in appreciating Dirlewanger, if only because giving any ground in the "Were Nazis Evil" debate is a waste of breath. If he was an insane pedophile murder-rapist, then he's our insane pedophile murder-rapist. This forum has several members who fit into that description already.