To achieve these aims, the organisation used contacts with political parties, and employed multi-prong historical negationism and propaganda efforts, including periodicals, books, and public speeches.

[6] A public declaration by Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower followed in January 1951,[7] distinguishing "between the regular German soldier and officer and Hitler and his criminal group...

Unlike the Wehrmacht, the SS had been deemed a criminal organisation at the Nuremberg trials and could thus act as an "alibi of a nation" (as Gerald Reitlinger's 1956 book of that title suggested), as being solely responsible for crimes of the Nazi regime.

Encouraged by the shifting tone of the World War II discourse and the courting of the Wehrmacht veterans by the West German government and political parties, former Waffen-SS members came forward to campaign for their interests.

For example, the group openly embraced and advocated on behalf of Dietrich, Walter Reder, and Herbert Kappler, former SS men convicted of wartime massacres.

In response, Hausser wrote an open letter to the Bundestag, West Germany's parliament, denying these accusations and describing the HIAG as an advocacy organisation for former Waffen-SS troops.

[19] The HIAG bylaws of 1952 described the aims of the organisation as providing comradeship, legal assistance, support for those in Allied captivity, help for families, and aid in searches for those still missing.

The HIAG campaigned for Waffen-SS veterans to be awarded the legal status of persons formerly in the public service, under article 131 of the Basic Law, so that they would qualify for the same rights and pensions as Wehrmacht's career soldiers.

Large argues that the equivalence is meaningless, as, contrary to the myth of a clean Wehrmacht, it actively participated in the racial war of extermination in the Soviet Union.

[26] The Suchdiensttreffen events (literally: tracing service meetings) later evolved into annual Kameradschaftstreffen ("veterans' reunions"), which were large-scale conventions, often accompanied by rallies.

It began respectably, with Gille announcing that the veterans were ready to "do their duty for the Fatherland" and Steiner declaring support for "freedom, order and justice".

Periodicals as far as the U.S. and Canada carried headlines "Hitler's Guard Cheers Ex-chief" and "Rabble-Rousing General Is Worrying the Allies", with the latter article reporting that Ramcke's speech had been greeted with "roars of approval and cries of 'Eisenhower, Schweinehund!'

In meetings with politicians in the early 1950s, HIAG claimed to represent 2 million potential voters, a vast exaggeration, as only 250,000 Waffen-SS veterans were living in West Germany at that time.

When he first met with its leaders, Schumacher believed that 150,000 people were already members of HIAG, as evidenced by internal party correspondence; he considered that number to be "politically significant".

Referencing Wilke's work, Der Spiegel quoted a HIAG member's letter to the leadership conveying the dismay at "Jews" who became "powerful once again" and could thus stand in the way of political support for the Waffen-SS rehabilitation.

[42] Large describes this declaration as "irresponsible and unhistorical",[43] while the military historian Simon MacKenzie refers to it as "the least credible" of the several claims put forth by Waffen-SS apologists.

[48] This was the timeframe when HIAG achieved its last success in economic rehabilitation: in 1961, the West German government partially restored pension rights to Waffen-SS personnel under the 131 legislation.

The Tribunal found that "the units of the Waffen-SS were directly involved in the killings of prisoners of war and the atrocities in the occupied countries" and judged the entire SS to be a criminal organisation.

(...) Let us be clear about it: the [Allied] battle was directed not only against the authoritarian regime of the Third Reich, but, above all, against the resurgence of the strength of the German people.Erich Kern, a far-right Austrian journalist and a former Nazi war correspondent, became the organisation's key employee responsible for its publishing arm.

"[57] Glossy books, such as Waffen-SS in Pictures (1957), featured, as described by MacKenzie, "tales of valour and heroism" and "propaganda photographs of Aryan-ideal volunteers from all over the Continent".

In 1957, Paul Hausser wrote, in Der Freiwillige, an open letter to West Germany's minister of defence, stating that the concentration camp guard units (SS-Totenkopfverbände) served on external detail only, "without the possibility of interfering with the internal procedure".

Hubert Meyer's speech later appeared in the November 1976 issue of Der Freiwillige:[66] For a broad public in Germany and even more throughout the rest of the world, [Peiper] has become the embodiment of that which all of us were clearly, intentionally and wrongly burdened in Nuremberg.... We have not forgotten what Jochen Peiper wrote to us from Landsberg Prison in 1952: "Don't forget that the first Europeans killed in action were in the units of the Waffen-SS, that the ones beaten to death during the post war period mostly were men from our ranks.

[53] The Munin Verlag titles did not go through the rigorous fact-checking processes common in peer-reviewed historical literature; they were revisionist accounts, unedited by professional historians, presenting the former Waffen-SS members' version of events.

[78][n 4] HIAG worked with Rudolf Lehmann, chief of staff of the 1st SS Panzer Corps, to produce what Parker calls an "exculpating multi-volume chronicle" of the division, which even whitewashed the Malmedy massacre.

[78] The project also included the former chief of staff of the unit, Dietrich Ziemssen, who in 1952 produced a denialist version of the massacre in his pamphlet Der Malmedy Prozess.

[12] John M. Steiner, in his 1975 work, points out that SS apologists, especially strongly represented in HIAG, stressed that they were the first to fight for Europe and Western civilisation against "Asiatic Communist hordes".

[81] Quoting German political journalist Karl Otto Paetel, the historian George Stein writes, in his 1966 book, that the works produced by HIAG's circle were trying to show "the soldiers of the Waffen-SS were brave fighters, suffered big losses and, as far as they served in the front line, did not run exterminations camps".

[86] Historian James M. Diehl writes that, contrary to HIAG's claims, the Waffen-SS was not the fourth branch of the Wehrmacht and it was outrageous to describe it as a precursor to NATO.

He later published a damning article called "Nazi Family Reunion"[n 6] containing statements from a Waffen-SS veteran that ranged from virulent antisemitism to Holocaust denial and mentions of happy concentration camp inmates "singing like birds".

[93] These groups worked to maintain momentum through the recruitment of younger generations and through outreach to foreign veterans of the Waffen-SS, aided by the continued publication of Der Freiwillige.