 HIAG never grew to the size of other West German veterans' organisations, the most successful of which, VdH, had membership approaching 500,000.Diehl, who studied postwar veterans' movements in West Germany, writes that the overwhelming majority of Waffen-SS veterans, who were more interested in rebuilding their civilian lives or getting too old to consider returning to military service, ignored "Der Freiwillige"s "fire-eating editorials".HIAG's membership began to fall sharply in the 1960s, while the organisation itself was never a significant threat to democracy.