 This apologist position also ignored the fact that the organisational structure of the SS tied Waffen-SS to the Nazi annihilation machine through the transfer of personnel between various SS units and the shifting responsibilities of the units themselves, as they might perform frontline duties at one time, and then be reassigned to "pacification actions" — the Nazi term for punitive operations — in the rear.Kurt Meyer embodied the voice of Waffen-SS apologists.Speaking before some 8,000 SS men at the HIAG convention in Karlsberg, Bavaria, in 1957, he stated that "SS troops committed no crimes, except the massacre at Oradour, and that was the action of a single man," who, moreover had died a "hero's death" before he could be court-martialed.