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HIAG (German: Hilfsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit der Angehörigen der ehemaligen Waffen-SS, literally “Mutual aid association of former Waffen-SS members”) was a lobby group and a revisionist veterans organisation founded by former high-ranking Waffen-SS personnel in West Germany in 1951. Its main objective was to achieve legal, economic and historical rehabilitation of the Waffen-SS.
To achieve its aims, the organisation used contacts with political parties and employed multi-prong historical revisionism and propaganda efforts, including periodicals, books and public speeches. A HIAG-owned publishing house, Munin Verlag (de), served as a platform for its publicity aims. This extensive body of work, 57 book titles and more than 50 years of monthly periodicals, has been described by historians as revisionist apologia.
Always in touch with its Nazi past, HIAG was a subject of significant controversy, both in West Germany and abroad. The organisation drifted into right-wing extremism in its later history; it was disbanded in 1992 at the federal lev HIAG (German: Hilfsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit der Angehörigen der ehemaligen Waffen-SS, literally “Mutual aid association of former Waffen-SS members”) was a lobby group and a revisionist veterans organisation founded by former high-ranking Waffen-SS personnel in West Germany in 1951. Its main objective was to achieve legal, economic and historical rehabilitation of the Waffen-SS.
To achieve its aims, the organisation used contacts with political parties and employed multi-prong historical revisionism and propaganda efforts, including periodicals, books and public speeches. A HIAG-owned publishing house, Munin Verlag (de), served as a platform for its publicity aims. This extensive body of work, 57 book titles and more than 50 years of monthly periodicals, has been described by historians as revisionist apologia.
Always in touch with its Nazi past, HIAG was a subject of significant controversy, both in West Germany and abroad. The organisation drifted into right-wing extremism in its later history; it was disbanded in 1992 at the federal level, but local groups, along with the organisations monthly periodical, continued to exist into the 21st century.
While HIAG only partially achieved its goals of legal and economic rehabilitation of Waffen-SS, its propaganda efforts led to the reshaping of the image of Waffen-SS in popular culture. The results are still felt, with scholarly treatments being outweighed by a large amount of amateur historical studies, memoirs, picture books, websites and wargames.
Contents [hide]
Post-World War II context
Formation
Leadership
Organisational principles
Ideology
Waffen-SS advocacy
Tracing service meetings
Inaugural convention
Waffen-SS war criminals as victims
Relationship with political parties
Controversies
Effectiveness
Waffen-SS historical revisionism
Periodicals and illustrated books
Public speeches
Memoirs
Munin Verlag imprint
Unit histories and biographies
Successes and outcomes
Transition into right-wing extremism
Dissolution
Assessment and legacy
Performance as lobby group
Revisionist tradition outside of HIAG
References
Notes
Citations
Bibliography
Further reading
External links
Post-World War II context[edit]
The Potsdam Conference held by the Soviet Union, United Kingdom and United States from 17 July to 2 August 1945 determined the occupation policies that the Allied-occupied Germany was to face. These included demilitarisation, denazification, democratisation and decentralisation. The Allies attempts were often perceived by the population as “victors justice” and met with limited success.[1] For those in the Western zones of occupation, the arrival of the Cold War undermined these policies further by reviving the ideas of the necessity to fight against Soviet communism, echoing those of Hitler.[2]
Another important post-war development was the decision to rearm West Germany. In 1950, after the outbreak of the Korean War, it became clear to the Western Allies that a German army would have to be revived to help face off against the Soviet Union. Many former German officers were convinced, however, that no future German army would be possible without the moral rehabilitation of the Wehrmacht. To this end, in October 1950, a group of former senior officers produced a document, which became known as the Himmerod memorandum, for West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer. It included these key demands:
that all German