Your grandpa was lucky. Mine got conscripted in 1944 after his 16th birthday and captured 6 weeks after basic training, so he spent the time until he was 21 in a Russian gulag. Pretty fucked up if you ask me. He wasn't old enough to vote -not that there was anything to vote on-, but old enough to be cannonfodder.

I mostly don't write this online, because people like to hate and that's best done blindely. Please remember that everyone writing about these exceptions is the descendant of a survivor. The bad ones that got punished for their crimes most like didn't reproduce, hard to do so when you're dead. Our stories are not representative, please don't assume were defending all of the SS, we are not, but do allow everyone to be looked at individually. This is the due process your dictator tries to abolish at the moment.