Paul Hausser

Paul Hausser served as an officer in the Prussian Army during World War I and rose to general rank in the interwar Reichsheer. After retirement he joined the SS and became instrumental in forming the Waffen-SS, eventually commanding at army group level through the Third Battle of Kharkov, Kursk, and the Normandy Campaign. In 1951 he co-founded HIAG, a lobby group of former Waffen-SS personnel, and became its first spokesperson. He wrote two books arguing the Waffen-SS had played a purely military role - the second titled to claim its troops were "soldiers like any other" - and led a propaganda campaign to restore legal and economic rights while reshaping the organization's image as a pan-European force uninvolved in atrocities. Mainstream historians have rejected those claims. He died in December 1972, having also used the name Paul Falk after the war.