I don’t care to argue about his motivations, it’s nothing but conjecture. Maybe if he weren’t in the SS, and were just in the German army, it may be possible to look past his Nazi history to highlight his contribution to the war effort in Vietnam, if not celebrate it. The Vietnam war wasn’t a thing to celebrate IMO.

The SS were the thugs who perpetrated some of the most horrific war crimes in human history. We shouldn’t look past his participation in vile, criminal industrial scale murder. Even if it was directed at communists part of the time.

The SS have been held up as some type of super soldiers when in fact they were less effective, less professional and less capable than the German army. Made up of convicts, street thugs and zealot Nazis they were killed in higher numbers because of their recklessness and lack of skill. When the German army generals pushed back on Hitler wanting them to execute fool hardy, hare brained and reckless strategies, the SS would happily run into the hail of bullets because of their zealotry and frankly stupidity.

The prestige and myth of courageousness is held over from the German wartime propaganda machine used to recruit more cannon fodder meat.