" 
 :::Well, no, that's not what I was trying to get across at all- especially since the Waffen-SS was absolutely, positively not a branch of the Armed Forces (Wehrmacht). I was simply pointing out that direct translations, even of cognates, doesn't always work (for example, we use ""engineers"" to translate both Ingenieure and Pioniere; ""pioneers"" in that sense is found archaically but is misleading today).  Waffe is cognate with ""weapon,"" but also means a ""branch"" with weapons, not unlike English ""arm""; hence Luftwaffe, and for that matter the more comfortable ""Armed-SS"" as opposed to the more cognate ""Weapon-SS.""  "