# SS (Schutzstaffel) recruits ordered to break the necks of puppies they raised: UL or based on fact? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 26, 2010, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445 "2010-10-26T21:49:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/21 "2010-10-27T17:05:47Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > See, the problem with this method of “training” is that it doesn’t make any sense. I suppose people like to think that the best soldiers are emotionless killers, who obey orders without question, even if ordered to kill their best friend. > > Except, in real life, every military organization in the world tries to foster esprit de corps. They want soldiers who are devoted to their buddies. What good is an emotionless killer? An army of sociopaths is just as likely to shoot their officers rather than the so-called enemy. Except the SS were not military, at least not in the usual sense (except for the [Waffen SS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS), of course). What mattered to TPTB of the SS and Nazi Germany _was_ blind obedience. And, in particular, obedience to very distasteful, likely upsetting orders such as “kill your dog! Now!” or “Kill this Jew dog! Now!”. ---
**Author:** ![PoorYorick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@PoorYorick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PoorYorick)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/22 "2010-10-27T18:01:57Z")
> [@Quercus](#): > > Well, from what I understand most Native Americans saw dogs not as pampered pets but as livestock that were both useful and edible, like cows or sheep. Just to present a single data point, I’ve examined dozens of [Fourche Maline](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourche_Maline_culture)burial remains, probably around 3000 years old or so, and it wasn’t uncommon to find puppy remains with child burials. I have no idea what this might mean (I don’t think anyone else can claim to, either), but you’d also sometimes find toys buried with them. I never saw dog or puppy remains with adults. My gut feeling was that there was some special association between the children and puppies, more than dogs as stock animals. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/23 "2010-10-27T21:37:17Z")
> [@Argent\_Towers](#): > > Given how much Hitler loved dogs, I highly doubt he would have allowed such a practice. I don’t know about that – he did feed poison to his own pet dog, after all. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/24 "2010-10-27T21:41:25Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > “Kill this Jew dog! Now!”. There were no Jew dogs during the war. The Nuremberg laws of 1935 prohibited Jews from having any pets. (And they couldn’t even give them away to non-jewish friends or neighbors – the laws required them to turn their pets in to local authorities to be euthanaized. Nice people, those Germans.) ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/25 "2010-10-27T21:48:13Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > Except the SS were not military, at least not in the usual sense (except for the [Waffen SS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS), of course). The peak strength of all branches of the SS was ~1.25 million, of which 900,000 were in the Waffen-SS. The actual concentration camp guards, the SS-Totenkopfverbände, became administratively part of the Waffen-SS in 1942, and the Waffen-SS Division Totenkopf had already been formed in 1939 from mobilized SS-Totenkopfverbände. When the Einsatzgruppen who shot ‘undesirables’ by the hundred of thousands were disbanded, their personnel were folded into the Waffen-SS. > [@](#): > > What mattered to TPTB of the SS and Nazi Germany _was_ blind obedience. And, in particular, obedience to very distasteful, likely upsetting orders such as “kill your dog! Now!” or “Kill this Jew dog! Now!”. The orders to kill your dog and to kill a Jew are completely different to those who carried out mass murder in the SS. The dog would be a pet that they had developed a personal bond with, while the Jew was (to them) a subhuman with whom they had no bond whatsoever. Shooting a pet dog, or your wife, or your mother when suddenly ordered to doesn’t really demonstrate blind obedience so much as it demonstrates two things armies or those conducting mass genocide don’t want in their personnel: a psychopathology and blind **disloyalty**. If someone would be so completely disloyal to their pet, spouse or mother at the drop of a hat when told to kill them, they would likely be just as disloyal to those who ordered them to kill. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/26 "2010-10-27T22:00:39Z")
I have never heard this UL ascribed to the SS, but as part of the training of torturers in dictatorships. Then again, in one South American country, they trained a class of “special interrogators” (euphenism for torturers) by watching a torture session on TV, watching it live, up to the final stages where they were told to slice an ear of the prisoner bound to the chair in front of them, and progress further. The final exam was to torture a prisoner to death. Anybody who flinched or showed any doubt during that training was dropped out, because they didn’t want any empathy or fraternisation between torturer and prisoner. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/27 "2010-10-27T22:02:50Z")
Exactly. Shooting your buddy without hesitation isn’t loyalty. It’s the opposite of loyalty. A guy who can casually shoot his buddy when ordered is a guy who can just as easily casually shoot the guy issuing the orders. How do you achieve blind unthinking obedience? When the soldiers trust their leaders. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/28 "2010-10-27T22:15:58Z")
> [@Dissonance](#): > > If someone would be so completely disloyal to their pet, spouse or mother at the drop of a hat when told to kill them, they would likely be just as disloyal to those who ordered them to kill. Huh? How do you get that? Maybe you misunderstand how the thinking (and training) in these units goes? It’s like sects, quasi-religious: all ties of loyalty to people outside are cut off; the leader is almost-god, so his orders are obeyed unthinkingly. Killing people you would usually have a high loyalty for shows that you only have the loyalty for the new group and the leader, nothing else. That’s how sects and other ideological organizations produce killers and assassins. ---
**Author:** ![constanze](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f9ae1b/32.png) [@constanze](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/constanze)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/29 "2010-10-27T22:18:18Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Exactly. Shooting your buddy without hesitation isn’t loyalty. It’s the opposite of loyalty. A guy who can casually shoot his buddy when ordered is a guy who can just as easily casually shoot the guy issuing the orders. > > How do you achieve blind unthinking obedience? When the soldiers trust their leaders. Yes, they trust their leaders because they have been anointed by God/ choosen by Fate/ been born smarter and better, and therefore, their leaders know what they are doing. So when the leader orders you to kill your buddy, it will be for the best and he knows what he’s doing and you are going to obey - otherwise, your leader would be wrong, and that’s impossible to believe. ---
**Author:** ![Dissonance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/85f322/32.png) [@Dissonance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dissonance)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2010, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/30 "2010-10-27T23:17:27Z")
> [@constanze](#): > > Huh? How do you get that? Maybe you misunderstand how the thinking (and training) in these units goes? It’s like sects, quasi-religious: all ties of loyalty to people outside are cut off; the leader is almost-god, so his orders are obeyed unthinkingly. Killing people you would usually have a high loyalty for shows that you only have the loyalty for the new group and the leader, nothing else. That’s how sects and other ideological organizations produce killers and assassins. Spontaneous killing people you _have_ a high loyalty to only shows a remarkably high willingness to be utterly disloyal, not something armies, or the SS, or even cults want. Cults go to great efforts to break outside ties of loyalty. Armies not so much, they are generally reinforced if anything by instilling a sense of patriotism or nationalism; doing it for mom and apple pie. They go to much greater length to instill an entirely new loyalty to your buddies and your unit, which is what the world boils down to in combat. The SS certainly didn’t try to cut off all loyalty to anything else; they pounded a sense of patriotism and nationalism and racial unity. The Waffen-SS also did what any army does in instilling loyalty to the unit and comrades. The genocide committed by the SS-Totenkopfverbände and Einsatzgruppen certainly wasn’t done to people the members had a high loyalty or any loyalty to at all; it was done to people the powers that be had thoroughly indoctrinated them to not even consider human beings, they were [Untermensch](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Untermensch), quite literally sub-human. I rather doubt that even these butchers would have carried out an order to say shoot all Aryans in Berlin just because they were told to by a superior officer. This urban legend has the SS, or marine, or whatever being told to kill a puppy they had been given by the SS with the intention of developing companionship and loyalty with, or a parent or spouse they had an existing loyalty to immediately with no signs of hesitation. The tale would make more sense if the powers that be forced the recruit to first break their loyalty to a puppy and in a final act of devotion to kill it. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/31 "2010-10-28T02:26:35Z")
Some people have said that this idea (true or not) doesn’t make any sense. But actually it does. What an organization wants is build up its member’s loyalty to the organization. And one way to do that is to order its members to do something they would normally consider to be wrong. People rationalize their actions. If they do something they were taught to believe is wrong then they try to rationalize to themselves why they did it. They’ll tell themselves that while they did something wrong they did it for a greater good. A better known version of this is somebody telling himsel “this cause is so worthy that I’m willing to kill for it”. In this situation a person is manipulated into telling himself, “this cause must be worthy because I killed for it.” Once somebody has formed this rationalization, it’s almost impossible to break them of it. People become fanatical in their loyalty to the cause because it their belief in the worth of the cause allows them to maintain their sense of self-worth. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/32 "2010-10-28T04:59:45Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > Except the SS were not military, at least not in the usual sense (except for the [Waffen SS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waffen-SS), of course). > > What mattered to TPTB of the SS and Nazi Germany _was_ blind obedience. And, in particular, obedience to very distasteful, likely upsetting orders such as “kill your dog! Now!” or “Kill this Jew dog! Now!”. You are remarkably attached to this notion that sounds like world class bullshit from practially any angle. ---
**Author:** ![sitchensis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sitchensis/32/4892_2.png) [@sitchensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sitchensis)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/33 "2010-10-28T05:10:14Z")
Really, who can’t shoot a dog? That’s what I don’t get. Did the SS consist solely of 10 year olds? It’s a dog in the 1930s, nobody would give it much of a thought. It ain’t Sophie’s Choice. ---
**Author:** ![garygnu](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/garygnu/32/2924_2.png) [@garygnu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/garygnu)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/34 "2010-10-28T05:21:56Z")
I recall something when playing Vampire: The Masquerade, one vampire clan would routinely starve new vampires for days, then put a beloved relative in a confined room for the new recruit to feed on while uncontrollably thirsty for blood. Kill something you love or we kill you. It’s a classic idiom I’ve never heard _actually_ of being practiced in real life. ---
**Author:** ![Smapti](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/smapti/32/17938_2.png) [@Smapti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smapti)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 5:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/35 "2010-10-28T05:41:20Z")
When would a military recruit in training have time to raise a puppy? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 7:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/36 "2010-10-28T07:51:27Z")
> [@garygnu](#): > > I recall something when playing Vampire: The Masquerade, one vampire clan would routinely starve new vampires for days, then put a beloved relative in a confined room for the new recruit to feed on while uncontrollably thirsty for blood. > > Kill something you love or we kill you. It’s a classic idiom I’ve never heard _actually_ of being practiced in real life. Or the street gangs that supposedly initiate new members by having them going out and murder a random stranger. It’s not so much a matter of killing something you love as it is the breaking of the moral code. ---
**Author:** ![Thomas\_E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8c91f0/32.png) [@Thomas\_E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thomas_E)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/37 "2010-10-28T12:01:08Z")
The nazis really liked animals, when Herman Göring became prime minister of prussia in 1933 vivisection was banned. Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS, tried to ban hunting. The german animal welfare law of 1933 was very progressive [http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/Nazianimalrights.htm](http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/Nazianimalrights.htm) . The nazis did a lot of horrible things , it seems silly to try to make them seem even worse by fantasizing about dead puppys, soap and lampshades. Isn’t killing millions of innocent people bad enough. ---
**Author:** ![SSG\_Schwartz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SSG\_Schwartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSG_Schwartz)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/38 "2010-10-28T12:15:19Z")
> [@Smapti](#): > > When would a military recruit in training have time to raise a puppy? At night and on weekends.:rolleyes: SSG (P) Schwartz ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/39 "2010-10-28T12:24:45Z")
> [@sitchensis](#): > > Really, who can’t shoot a dog? That’s what I don’t get. Did the SS consist solely of 10 year olds? It’s a dog in the 1930s, nobody would give it much of a thought. It ain’t Sophie’s Choice. Apparently you have never raised a dog from a puppy. > [@SSG\_Schwartz](#): > > At night and on weekends.:rolleyes: > > SSG (P) Schwartz [Don’t roll those bloodshot eyes](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xR_A4Su-TrI)at us 😉 …I speak on behalf of many civilians when I say we have the impression that training for new recruits is pretty much a 24x7 deal. Are you saying at the end of the week the drill sergeant yells, “DROP AND GIVE ME 20! OK, now TGIF! Go out for a beer, have a good weekend, walk your dog, see you at 0600 Monday”? ---
**Author:** ![SSG\_Schwartz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@SSG\_Schwartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSG_Schwartz)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2010, 12:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445/40 "2010-10-28T12:34:25Z")
> [@CookingWithGas](#): > > … we have the impression that training for new recruits is pretty much a 24x7 deal. Are you saying at the end of the week the drill sergeant yells, “DROP AND GIVE ME 20! OK, now TGIF! Go out for a beer, have a good weekend, walk your dog, see you at 0600 Monday”? There is a middle ground in there. Somewhere in between the Full Metal Jacket 24/7 and the Bill Murray going out for a little oatmeal wrestling found in Stripes. There is some personal time, even during Basic Training, and there are some unsupervised time. (Mostly, I believe because the Drill Sergeants need a break from the Soldiers, not the other way around.) There were Soldiers with pet scorpions, turtles, frogs, and pet cockroach races in the barracks during this free time. SSG (P) Schwartz [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ss-schutzstaffel-recruits-ordered-to-break-the-necks-of-puppies-they-raised-ul-or-based-on-fact/558445.md?page=3)