Not to stifle further discussion, but this answer to the question "How much was the SS a "vacuum" for actual psychopaths?" by /u/commiespaceinvader . The long and the short of it is that the Waffen-SS like the rest of the SS was a diverse organization and it may have included men who may have been diagnosed with some sort of antisocial disorder, the war crimes and other acts of sadism were so widespread within both the SS and the German military that seeking a psychological cause for them is not supportable.