# Foreign Soldiers in the SS/Wehrmacht?



## Nieghorn (28 Feb 2006)

I've heard of SS Wiking and other foreign soldiers given the opportunity to fight for the Germans instead of spending their time in prison camps.  Today, while watching a pretty basic film on Canada's role in WWII, I noticed a line of German prisoners being marched somewhere in France and something stood out.  In this line were two soldiers who undoubtedly look 'Asian.'  Knowing that there were probably large numbers of Czechs and Poles in the western front, what is the possibility that the Germans could have conscripted Asian soldiers?  

The only thing I can think of is maybe Asian-Russians (Mongolian?), given the option of fighting in a volunteer unit rather than rotting in a horrible prison camp.

Any thoughts?


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## big bad john (28 Feb 2006)

If you check your history you'll find that the Waffen SS was made up of a large percentage of foreign volunteers.  A quick peek in the catalogue of your local library will help as it is a common topic.


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## Genetk44 (28 Feb 2006)

Just do a google on " SS history"  loads of links    heres just one    http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=307 

Cheers
Gene


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## Michael OLeary (1 Mar 2006)

Some related discussion:

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?t=72415



> They’re not Japanese, actually they’re Koreans. I came across this story a while back.
> 
> They were a small group of Korean conscripts serving in the Imperial Japanese Army in northern Manchuria. During one of the border skirmishes with Siberian Soviet forces in the late 1930s early 1940s they were captured.
> 
> ...


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## Michael Dorosh (1 Mar 2006)

The Soviet Union occupied a huge land mass and covered many ethnicities; soldiers recruited east of the Urals may have had "mongoloid" facial characteristics and there were definitely "Asiatic" looking ethnic Soviets, in addition to Korean labourers, etc.  Many Soviet soldiers took the opportunity to desert the Soviet Army, and some were re-employed in the west.  German divisions in the East employed thousands of "Hilfswilliger", or "Hiwis" - volunteer helpers, who were given German uniforms (minus insignia) and worked as labourers directly for the combat formations.

India also produced volunteers for the Germans, incidentally, though the Free India Legion and other assorted units never saw combat IIRC.  Made for good propaganda once the Germans were losing, wearing turbans with their swastikas and giving the impression of a pan-global crusade against Communism.


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## Nieghorn (1 Mar 2006)

Wow, thanks guys!

I pondered this issue with a few people and did some quick, fruitless, google searches.  But in the end, I knew someone from the army.ca faithful could help me out!

Cheers!


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## pbi (7 Apr 2006)

IIRC, Waffen SS units were raised from a bunch of different nations' volunteers:

Croatian (SS "Handschar");
French (SS "Charlemagne");
Belgian;
Dutch;
Norway/Denmark (SS "Wiking"); and
Slovak


among others.

The Fascist/ant-Communist cause, and service with an apparently invincible military force, were alot more attractive in early WWII than many people mght be willing to admit today.

Cheers


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## geo (7 Apr 2006)

Josef Stalin had a scorched earth & last man view of withdrawals. Soviet POWs could expect harsh & fatal attention from the NKVD if they ever fell into the hands of their countrymen.... so it was a pretty basic choice - 
- Veg out in a prison camp and wait for the NKVD to come a calling OR
- get proactive, taste a little bit of freedom & have some hope of surviving the war.


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## larry Strong (8 Apr 2006)

It sucked to be a Soviet prisoner period. You were under suspicion even when released at the end of the war.


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## geo (8 Apr 2006)

but.... your job prospects in a siberian lead mine were excellent


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## Michael Dorosh (8 Apr 2006)

pbi said:
			
		

> IIRC, Waffen SS units were raised from a bunch of different nations' volunteers:
> 
> Croatian (SS "Handschar");
> French (SS "Charlemagne");
> ...



http://www.canadiansoldiers.com/mediawiki-1.5.5/index.php?title=The_Axis

Putting together some of my notes from the past few years on the page above.


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## Rhibwolf (10 Apr 2006)

Interestingly, nationality didnt preclude you from advancement or recognition:  Leon Degrelle, a Belgian, steadily climbed in the SS hierarchy after the inclusion of Walloons in the Waffen-SS, being made a Standartenführer in the early months of 1945. He received the Ritterkreuz, a unique distinction for a foreigner, from Hitler's hands.

This interesting tidbit comes from the transcripts of post war trials: 
Q. Did members of foreign countries serve in the Waffen SS besides Reich German soldiers? 

A. Yes. Our good racial Germans should be especially mentioned. They formed the majority of these alien soldiers. The Reich had reached agreements and State treaties with the countries that these people were to do their military service in the Waffen SS. From the Germanic countries we took almost exclusively volunteers for our "Wiking" division and for the other Germanic units. 

In 1943 - and still more in 1944 - we also set up alien units. Most of these people were volunteers, but many of them were drafted on the basis of the laws of their own countries. Among them, people of completely different racial, religious, and psychological backgrounds came into the ranks of the Waffen SS, and they were allowed to retain their own characteristics. 

Q. Please give a brief survey of how great the number of such foreigners was, since it is important for the accusation that supposedly a unified ideological unit had been set up here. 
<...snip...>
A. Certainly, 1944. I beg your pardon. Up to the end of 1944 we had drafted 410,000 Reich Germans, 300,000 racial Germans, 150,000 foreigners, and about 50,000 Germanic soldiers in the Waffen SS.


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## bLUE fOX (11 Apr 2006)

Osprey Publishing has a neat book about this in there Men-At -Arms series: Foreign volunteers of the Wehrmacht. Although I thought one of the driving prerequisites for the SS was proof of Germanic descent to four(?) generations. I guess everyone makes allowances in times of war,eh?


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## vonGarvin (11 Apr 2006)

Part of the way the germans kept their "racial" distinctions in the Waffen SS was by way of naming of the units.
SS-Division meant a division of Germans (from Germany)
Division der SS (I think) meant a division of Germans (but not from Germany, from Rumania, for example, the so-called "Volksdeutsche", or ethnic Germans)
SS Freiwillige Division meant a division of Germanic volunteers.  And yes, they were volunteers, bored of living under the jackboot, perhaps, and in many cases anti-communists who bought into the Nazi propaganda
There were other divisions, such as Handschar, which were neither German nor Germanic.  Heck, they even skewed their own propaganda to satisfy bosnian Moslems!  

(edited for spelling)


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## larry Strong (11 Apr 2006)

After the Polish campaign Himmler won permission from AH to increase the number of SS divisions from 1 to 3, and to this task he devoted much of his energy during the _Sitzkreig_. They were to be difficult months for he encountered many restrictions in his freedom to recruit, some imposed by his own strict code of selection, but most by the army which had in the Reich conscription laws a powerful weapon to thwart his efforts.

These laws laid down that no German of military age could join the armed services until the local military registrar had given him clearance, a process which was governed by an adjudication between the manpower demands of the three branches, Heer, Kreigsmarine, and the Luftwaffe. The proportion of recruits each was allotted fell roughly into the ratio 66:9:25, no special provision being made for the SS.

While the SS was free therefore to solicit volunteers, it could give them  no assurances, even if they met its standards, that they would eventually secure a posting. That would  depend upon the Wehrmacht's goodwill and they strictly rationed the SS to no more recruits than would fill out its prescribed divisional strength. The announcement of the raising of its two new divisions won grudging approval from the Wehrmacht for the release of the necessary quota from the manpower pool, but raw lads of eighteen to twenty were of no use to a man in a hurry, like Himmler. He needed trained men immediately if his new division were to take place in a campaign which was expected no later than the upcoming spring.

The solution which he hit upon is an illuminating demonstration of his skill in manipulating administrative machinery, and his readiness to compromise with his conscience. Reluctant to turn away the flood of teenage applicants which a nation wide recruiting campaign had brought in, he formed for each division a replacement cadre which could hold them until they were trained. To fill out the skeletons of his new divisions meanwhile, he decided on wholesale embodiment of formations of the _Totenkopfverbande_ which till this time had been strictly used as camp guards and of the German civil police. The incorporation of the former, who were of course not strictly soldiers at all, was made possible by a loophole in the Fuhrers decree of 1938. These allowed Himmler to call up older men on the outbreak of war to replace the permanent units of concentration camp guards.

These units, in particular _Totenkopfverband-Standarten_  1, 2, and 3 were drafted into the second of his new divisions (henceforth known as _Totenkopf_) and were replaced by newly formed units of volunteers. Thus he created a reserve pool for his field divisions, and one over which the Wehrmacht could exercise no control. The formation of his third division was made possible by his decision to suspend the voluntary principle in its case. Thus it was that thousands of constables suddenly found themselves in field grey and faced with a program of training which, for many, was taxing to men of their years. As a result this division, _Polizei_ remained as something of a second class unit for some time.

With Poland  conquered and Slovakia subjected, a third solution to the manpower problem, and one which in the long run was to prove the most effective, offered itself to Himmler and to his chief of recruiting, Gottlieb Berger. This was to enlist volunteers from among the Polish and Slovakian _Volksdeutsche_, those German speaking communities which the Nazis chose to regard as citizens of the Greater Reich and whose existence justified in their view the enlargement of Germany's frontiers to include their homelands. The history of the _Volksdeutsche_ under Nazi rule was to be as unhappy as almost any other people Europe, treated as they were, to be as pawns of Nazi racial policy, but in 1940 the programme of displacement and resettlement which they were to undergo had not yet begun in earnest. their future under German rule looked bright and their young men volunteered for the SS enthusiastically. They were as enthusiastically accepted, for German. Though the Nazi leaders insisted that they were German, the German state did not yet regard them so and had no means therefore to conscript them into the Wehrmacht. The SS was therefore free to recruit as many as it could find without any interference from the army.Their members were still insufficient to provide sizeable contingents but the principle was a promising one.

Taken from ""Waffen SS the asphalt soldiers" by John Keegan

Hope this helps some. I could go on for awhile yet. Also a lot of it also had to do with "Empire building", Himmler viewed himself as some kind of Norse god/soldier/settler. All the big leaders were into it. Goering had his Para Divs and later the Luftwaffe Field Div's. Speer had his own Transportflotte Speer, and Transportkorps Speer, There was the TENO and RAD construction units, all with their own command structure, uniforms, rank insignia etc.


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