Foreign Volunteer RUSSLAND Division emb. insignia WWII Germany

Foreign Volunteer Russland Division emb. insignia WWII Germany, on red wool

One of the most amazing aspects of WWII and one of the least well-known is the incredibly large number of foreign volunteers that joined the German Armed Forces between 1939 and 1945. During WWII, nearly 2,000,000 foreigners served within the German fighting forces, many as willing volunteers, others through varying degrees of conscription. The reasons these volunteers joined the German Wehrmacht were varied, but a simple look at the numbers begins to tell the story – in the East alone nearly 1,000,000 men volunteered for service with Germany. This number is a direct result of the situation millions faced under the brutal rule of the Soviet Empire.

Some of the countries that volunteered to serve in the Wehrmacht and SS:

Bulgaria,  Croatia,  Denmark,  Estonia,  Finland,  France,  Great Britain,  Greece,  Hungary,  India,  Italy,  Latvia,  Liechtenstein,  Lithuania,  Luxemburg,  Montenegro,  Netherlands,  Norway,  Poland,  Portugal,  Romania,  Serbia,  Slovakia,  Slovenia,  Spain,  Sweden,  Switzerland,  USSR

During World War II, the Waffen-SS recruited significant numbers of non-Germans, both as volunteers and conscripts. In total some 500,000 non-Germans and ethnic Germans from outside Germany, mostly from German-occupied Europe, were recruited between 1940 and 1945. The units were under the control of the SS Führungshauptamt (SS Command Main Office) beneath Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Upon mobilization, the units’ tactical control was given to the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht (High Command of the Armed Forces).

The Waffen-SS (Armed SS) was created as the militarized wing of the Schutzstaffel (SS; “Protective Squadron”) of the Nazi Party. Its origins can be traced back to the selection of a group of 120 SS men in 1933 by Sepp Dietrich to form the Sonderkommando Berlin, which became the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH). In 1934, the SS developed its own military branch, the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT), which together with the LSSAH, evolved into the Waffen-SS.  Nominally under the authority of Heinrich Himmler, the Waffen-SS developed a fully militarized structure of command and operations. It grew from three regiments to over 38 divisions during World War II, serving alongside the Heer (army), while never formally being a part of it. Hitler did not want the Waffen-SS integrated into either the army or the state police. Instead it was to remain an independent force of military-trained men at the disposal of the Führer.

In 1934, Himmler initially set stringent requirements for recruits. They were to be German nationals who could prove their Aryan ancestry back to 1800, unmarried, and without a criminal record. Recruits had to be between the ages of 17 and 23, at least 1.74 meters (5 ft 9 in) tall (1.78 meters (5 ft 10 in) for the Leibstandarte). Recruits were required to have perfect teeth and eyesight and provide a medical certificate. By 1938, the height restrictions were relaxed, up to six dental fillings were permitted, and eyeglasses for astigmatism and mild vision correction were allowed.  Once World War II began in Europe, the physical requirements were no longer strictly enforced. Following the Battle of France in 1940, Hitler authorized the enlistment of “people perceived to be of related stock”, as Himmler put it, to expand the ranks.   A number of Danes, Dutch, Norwegians, Swedes and Finns volunteered to serve in the Waffen-SS under the command of German officers. Non-Germanic units were not considered to be part of the SS directly, which still maintained its strict racial criteria; instead they were considered to be foreign nationals serving under the command of the SS.

Recruitment began in April 1940 with the creation of two regiments: Nordland (later SS Division Nordland) and Westland (later SS Division Wiking). As they grew in numbers, the volunteers were grouped into Legions (with the size of battalion or brigade); their members included the so-called Germanic non-Germans as well as ethnic German officers originating from the occupied territories. Against the Führer’s wishes—who forbade using military units of so-called “racially inferior” persons—the SS added foreign recruits and used them to flexibly overcome manpower shortages. Some of these foreign Waffen-SS units were employed for security purposes, among other things.

After Germany invaded the Soviet Union during Operation Barbarossa, recruits from France, Spain, Belgium (including Walloons), the territory of occupied Czechoslovakia, Hungary and the Balkans were signed on. By February 1942, Waffen-SS recruitment in south-east Europe turned into compulsory conscription for all German minorities of military age. From 1942 onwards, further units of non-Germanic recruits were formed. Legions were formed of men from Estonia, Latvia as well as men from Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Georgia, Ukraine, Russia and Cossacks. However, by 1943 the Waffen-SS could no longer claim overall to be an “elite” fighting force. Recruitment and conscription based on “numerical over qualitative expansion” took place, with many of the “foreign” units being good for only rear-guard duty.

A system of nomenclature developed to formally distinguish personnel based on their place of origin. Germanic units would have the “SS” prefix, while non-Germanic units were designated with the “Waffen” prefix to their names. The formations with volunteers of Germanic background were officially named Freiwilligen (volunteer) (Scandinavians, Dutch, and Flemish), including ethnic Germans born outside the Reich known as Volksdeutsche, and their members were from satellite countries. These were organized into independent legions and had the designation Waffen attached to their names for formal identification.[20] In addition, the German SS Division Wiking included recruits from Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Estonia throughout its history. Despite manpower shortages, the Waffen-SS was still based on the racist ideology of Nazism, thereby ethnic Poles were specifically regarded as “second-class people” and the Poles were the only ethnic group from whom neither voluntary SS units nor uniformed auxiliary police were ever created. Early in 1943, the Waffen-SS accepted 12,643 of the 53,000 recruits it garnered in western Ukraine and by 1944 the number reached as high as 22,000.

Recruitment efforts in 1943 in Estonia yielded about 5,000 soldiers for the 20th Estonian Waffen-SS division. In Latvia, however, the Nazis were more successful, as, by 1944, there were upwards of 100,000 soldiers serving in the Latvian Waffen-SS divisions. Before the war’s end, the foreigners who served in the Waffen-SS numbered “some 500,000”, including those who were pressured into service or conscripted. Historian Martin Gutmann adds that some of the additional forces came from “Eastern and Southeastern Europe, including Muslim soldiers from the Balkans.