Talk:SS-Gefolge (Women's SS Division)

Women only allowed to serve in limited capacity

I've made this edit as the previous description seems to contradict other information such as Himmler's declaration that women in the SS should be regarded by SS men as equals. From what I can ascertain from the German-language page it seemed to refer specifically to SS-Gefolge being limited rather than SS women in general; though it is a subject that seems to lack much clarity vis-à-vis the exact role of e.g. SS-Frauenkorps, SS-Helferinnenkorps, other women who apparently don't fit into those groups, or the distinction between SS-Gefolge, Aufseherin and SS-Helferin, especially in English-language descriptions I have found so far. --Vometia (talk) 05:09, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

Hello @Vometia When translating this I was under the impression that the Gefolge were under the control of the waffen-SS and the other women's groups were all under the Allgemeine-SS. I'm now wondering how women were treated in the Allgemeine vs the Waffen and the hierarchical differences between all the groups of SS women. I will be doing some further reading for sure!ShaveKongo (talk) 21:52, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

I think it's a difference between civilian employee vs. enlisted member rather than Allgemeine vs. Waffen SS, at least as far as I understood it. I think (at least as far as I've surmised, I speak with no authority on the matter) that both were under the Waffen SS, with Gefolge being the organisation that employed the civilians (including most/all of the camp guards) who worked for the SS but weren't part of the organisation in any formal capacity. The situation with the Hilferinnenkorps (and I'm not sure if Hilferin/Hilferinnen should always be considered to refer to its members/an abbreviation, or if there's some differentiation) is less clear cut, with some sources saying they were regarded as full members of the Waffen SS but only if they had graduated the SS training school for women, which would limit their number to ~2,350ish. I can't say offhand if that squares with Himmler's diktat that they were to be considered equals to their male counterparts. It also doesn't help that post-war they were frequently presumed to have a degree of responsibility on par with the Gefolge or Wehrmachtshilferinnen (i.e. a significant downgrade, probably beneficial for their outcomes in the post-war trials but not for historians) and the general lack of information available but it's good if we can start addressing that.

Especially if it can counter the misinformation circulating in general, which I've just been encountering (again) trying to research uniforms and the "but everybody knows" wisdom out there is that any woman wearing an SS uniform is "obviously" wearing her boyfriend's, whether or not there's any supporting evidence. Though it was known to happen, one in particular kept coming up where e.g. the collar was way too small for a man anyway and in another picture of the same woman taken at another time, probably years later, she's wearing the same uniform but with a new jacket and has a side-arm which would be a massive no-no unless it's hers. So unless it's staged (seems unlikely given factors like the photo quality and timespan), it's hers. Its badges (whatever SS-Hilfernnenkorps called Untersturmführer, i.e. 2nd lieut.) and what seem to include DSL & BSLA (uniform sports achievement badges, made available to women in the early 1930s) seem to be congruent. But, er, that's a massive diversion off-topic that you didn't ask for so I do apologise: sorry about that, just expressing my frustration of another recent experience that trying to find useful information out there so often ends up this way! --Vometia (talk) 02:36, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

You're certainly right about there being quite a lot of misinformation regarding women's involvement in the SS. it's hard to find English sources specifically talking about the women's groups and when you do (as you pointed out) they contradict themselves! I still don't know exactly what the SS-Frauenkorps were because some sources use that interchangably with other groups, very frustrating. I would be highly interested in collaborating on women's history within the SS with you if we can get some kind of article going. ShaveKongo (talk) 04:48, 22 February 2023 (UTC)

This is certainly incredibly hard to find out any information with much certainty! I'm currently trawling various photos I can find online to see if they throw up any clues, though of course a lot of them are fake, from TV/films, others were people larking about. I'm not sure if there was even much standardisation of uniforms either, especially in the latter days of the war; and in addition, most actual enlisted soldiers have various types of uniform anyway (personal experience: I spent a brief time enlisted in the army myself before deciding I didn't like being shouted at. I had three different types of uniform, two of which could also be worn in different styles, depending, comprising at least half a dozen complete uniforms; and that was just in the few months I remained). So I probably shouldn't rely too much on what they're wearing and whether or not the field uniform was the same pattern as the men's, it's likely the men's stores would've been raided for equipment as the war progressed.

One thing I'm trying to find out more information about is whether or not the SS-Gefolge ever wore SS (or any militaryesque) insignia. At present, I don't know. One example that came up was for Dorothea Binz and I thought that might be definitive as there was a photo of someone who is supposedly her wearing the pattern of uniform that has the usual women's open-necked jacket which has the eagle insignia on the jacket and cap, as well as the "signals" badge on the latter, but her page suggests she was just a guard. I checked the German page which was no more informative; it originally said she was SS (which could mean anything anyway) but someone edited it out back in 2006 on the basis that "there were no women in the SS" which is (also) wrong, so a bit of a dead end there so far.

I also don't know what SS-Frauenkorps is, if it even existed in any formal capacity or was just a colloquialism; and if it did exist, whether or not it would encompass the SS-Gefolge: I really wouldn't like to guess. I could try asking a handy German but I don't really want to bug them about WW2 Nazi stuff. One thing that is a possibility concerns my rantle about "the girl in the uniform" a couple of paragraphs back; someone claimed it was a Prinz Eugen (I think) regiment uniform which can only be based on the cuff band as there's nothing else to identify it, but having looked at several examples of the photo... well, you can only see the first three or four letters and they're illegible. I can see how someone might conclude they say "Prin-" but I disagree. The reason I mentioned this again (there is a reason, honest!) is I think that it could conceivably say "Fra-" as in Frauenkorps; but there's a huge risk I'm seeing what I expect to see and having searched around for a bit I can't find any such cuff band documented anywhere. Which doesn't mean it didn't exist but it's not exactly a solid basis for me to make a case. And the cuff band in the 2nd photo seems to say something else but it's at such a sharp angle it's even harder to make anything out. Another example of a different woman wearing a male-pattern field jacket has a marginally clearer but still mostly illegible wrist band; it might say Helferin but again I may be seeing what I want to see. Sigh. The only actually clearly photographed SS women's cuff band I've found so far is for the Reichsschule-SS but none of the three seems to say that; I also wonder if cuff bands indicate secondment which seems like another "fun" thing to look into.

I'll continue looking around though given that there's more unsupported opinion and fiction than actual documentary evidence it's something I may need to take in small doses!

Oh, and I think the title should be changed (sorry!) as its current "Women's SS Division" sounds like the Gefolge were part of the SS and as I understand it our starting point is that they weren't, they were employees of the SS. I'm not sure I would be inclined to use Google's translation of "Entourage" unless it can be verified, though, it sometimes comes out with some weird stuff. I'm not going to move it without discussion though I think I will amend the intro paragraph to make it clear they were employees, not members.

Er, sorry for the lack of brevity. --Vometia (talk) 04:20, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

You seem to have a wealth of knowledge about the various uniforms, I need to learn more myself! Seems like you're on the right track as I would expect that the Nazis of all people would have given specific uniforms to specific groups, but then again perhaps due to wartime shortages they just gave the women whatever uniforms were available instead of designing an entire line for them as they mostly joined or were conscripted later on.

I'm also been wondering how Gefolge should be translated (if at all) It seems that "entourage" "wake", and "retinue" all loosely translate out of gefolge and they could all make sense. I do lean toward calling it Gefolge as most of the other SS group articles seem to use the German name. I agree, we should change the name. Please feel free to discuss or just change it to something that you see as more fitting! ShaveKongo (talk) 16:14, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Actually I don't know nearly enough! Please don't consider me any sort of authority on the matter, I'm really not and what I've written is mostly based on observations of photos I haven't (yet) ruled out as inauthentic, cross-referenced with the existing articles on SS uniforms and insignia and whatever I can find on Google; all to be taken with a pinch of salt. I intend to rectify that shortcoming as best I can, but I do wonder if the only reliable sources would've been those with first-hand experience, and who obviously weren't that inclined to talk about it. Sorry, that may have sounded more defeatist than I'd intended but it's not that, just frustration.

I think I'd be inclined to leave it as Gefolge; many words don't have a direct translation and as you say, that's just the standard elsewhere. We can explain what it is in the article without having to find an English word to replace it IMHO, which is pretty much where we're at now. I may ask an aforementioned handy German if I'm in a suitably foolhardy mood, but that day is not today! --Vometia (talk) 16:24, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Article name change

As @Vometia pointed out in our above exchange, the title to this article is not accurate. Does anybody have any suggestions? We could of course just go with SS-Gefolge, but it would be nice if we could somehow specify that this was a women's group. ShaveKongo (talk) 15:57, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

I'm interested to see others' input, not least as I'm hopeless at doing this sort of thing myself! In lieu of that I'll see if anything comes to mind anyway, though it'll have to wait until I'm a bit less bleary-eyed... --Vometia (talk) 16:11, 24 February 2023 (UTC)