Considerable parts of the post-First World War veterans’ movement helped pave the way for the Nazi Machtergreifung. Knowing this, it is hardly surprising that, in September 1945, the Allies forbade veterans’ associations and groups wishing to glorify the German military heritage. In December 1949, the ban was lifted in the western occupation zones, and a number of veterans’ societies sprang up. They comprised a wide variety of associations spanning from large communities of interests to small loosely organised bands of comrades sharing a common past in the same unit or arm. While some were based on common interests in material or nostalgic issues, others were founded by individuals who had obvious political agendas and ambitions of bringing back the soldier and militarism into German politics.

Many of these had existed secretly before and striven to ascertain the former regular soldiers’ right to receive a pension. During the early life of the Federal Republic, it was primarily the provision for war veterans and their bereaved as well as the re-establishment of German defence forces that characterised the relationship between the young state and the veterans it had inherited from the Third Reich. The existing pension schemes and provision for invalids had broken down when the victorious powers cancelled all pensions and social rights for public servants. In December 1950, the West German government passed legislation re-introducing pensions to disabled ex-servicemen, war widows and their children as well as returned prisoners-of-war. This law benefitted – directly or indirectly – a total of four million West Germans. Veterans of the Wehrmacht and the SS who were not disabled were not covered by this arrangement, and now a dispute began over what the Federal Republic owed to those who had fought for Hitler, including those of the Waffen-SS. In April 1951, this conundrum was partially solved as the pensions were restored to officers and NCOs of the Wehrmacht. Personnel of the Waffen-SS were not accepted as soldiers employed by the state and were, therefore, not comprised by the law. Thus, over the following years, a change in the legislation to also include the Waffen-SS personnel became a key activity for the HIAG – the main SS veterans’ organisation. Soon after, when the contours of a West German defence force emerged, the veterans’ struggle was extended to advocating for admission on par with former Wehrmacht servicemen.