You'd be the ignorant fuck ignoring facts, Andy the Little Nazi Boy, the Waffen SS recruited from the Hitlerjugend to bolster its 'racial purity' agenda and began recruiting and accepting und3r@g3 enlistees as early as 1940 (pp. 205-06), while the Wehrmacht was still conscripting 20 year olds.
Originally Posted by I B Hankering
The only pertinent "fact" from the reference you cited is this one:
The RJF, in fact, informed HJ leaders that long-term volunteers could enlist in the W-SS at seventeen.
But the RJF (Die Reichjugendfuhrung, the Reich Youth Leadership) has no jurisdiction to dictate the daily operations of the Waffen-SS, which has been under the direct command of Heinrich Himmler. So what the
RJF had "suggested" in 1940 "that long-term volunteers could enlist in the W-SS at seventeen" is not a pertinent fact to support your argument.
On the other hand, my argument is supported by the measures that Gottlob Berger, chief of the Waffen-SS recruiting department, had undertaken in the spring of 1941:
At the end of April[1941], Himmler ordered Berger to obtain 20,000 new recruits for the Waffen-SS by the end of May. With Hitler's authorization, the recruitment quotas were lifted by the Wehrmacht, allowing Berger an essentially free hand for a limited time. He did not disappoint, misleading the new recruits as to the length of their service obligation, and signing up 22,361 new troops by 29 May, many of whom were only 18 years old. (wiki)
So it's obvious that your citing of a "suggestion" is trumped by my presentation of the relevant facts, ignorant Little Hans.