Did Dutch serve in the division Florian Geyer ???

[George Lepre]

Hi Rob -

As far as the historical significance of the member's inquiry, one can use such information in conjunction with similar cases in other formations to make determinations about Waffen-SS personnel policies. For example, one would think that keeping the foreigners together in their own units might be good for their morale/cohesion and ease such matters as language barriers, national customs/aspirations (such as imams or Orthodox clerics with the Bosnians and Ukrainians), or even mail delivery. However, if they sent a Dutchman to an all-German cavalry division or Italians to the Leibstandarte, the researcher would then have to logically ask whether this was standard procedure throughout the war or only during the last chaotic months, and what effects such transfers had, if any, on the morale of the volunteers. It might be a small point, but it is indeed a point.

Having said that, I do think that your comment raises yet another question: for some reason, it does seem that SS researchers are far more concerned with Stellenbesetzung than historians who examine other armies, to include the Wehrmacht. Why this is so might be an interesting topic of conversation.

Best regards,

George

[Crazy_Ivan]

Hi Rob

As I recall this member was writing a book about his experiences, I figured if he was in Florian Geyer then the OP would have some answers to his question and perhaps even gain some further info he needs. I was actually trying to help out, perhaps you should ask the O.P. your questions.

[Heimatschuss]

Hi,

presumably you're referring to haen but IIRC he was in 'Landstorm Nederland' only. He also goes by the name 'haen2' on the Feldgrau forum.

Best regards
Torsten

[Rob - wssob2]

Hi all:

As far as the historical significance of the member's inquiry, one can use such information in conjunction with similar cases in other formations to make determinations about Waffen-SS personnel policies. For example, one would think that keeping the foreigners together in their own units might be good for their morale/cohesion and ease such matters as language barriers, national customs/aspirations (such as imams or Orthodox clerics with the Bosnians and Ukrainians), or even mail delivery. However, if they sent a Dutchman to an all-German cavalry division or Italians to the Leibstandarte, the researcher would then have to logically ask whether this was standard procedure throughout the war or only during the last chaotic months, and what effects such transfers had, if any, on the morale of the volunteers. It might be a small point, but it is indeed a point.

I agree that it is a small point - up to a point!

If I read his post correctly, jan willem stokkers responded to Brabander's post with 6 names

• Kleinjan
  Lensing
  Paulen
  Van Aken
  Gerbrand van Akker,
  Pieter Verhoeven

waffen-IDF and freddiefro provided information on a Dr. Pieter Paulen (1895-1971). Dr. Paulen seems to have been a Dutch doctor who joined the Freiwilligen Legion Niederlande when the unit was first forming, was transferred to the SS Hospital in Kiev, and then to the medical detachment of the 8th SS Division. My observations would be the following

1) I doubt Dr. Paulen's case illustrates Waffen-SS personnel policies vis a vis the 8th SS Division. He was older (44 at the beginning of WWII) and as a medical doctor, well-educated. It is more than likely he spoke German. I do suspect that he was probably a Dutch fascist and pro-Nazi, having joined the Legion when it first formed.

If anything, the fact that a Dutch doctor in the 8th SS Division probably has little to do with the division (they probably needed a doctor in the latter half of 1942, as the division was going through an extensive refitting process after the horrendous casualties of the1941/42 winter) but is probably more significant with regards to W-SS medical staffing patterns.

Now I know very little about W-SS medical personnel policies, but I do suspect that medical training and specialty and training may have played a more important role than nationality or ethnic affiliation. For example, many of the staff nurses of SS-Feldlazarett 501 were hiwis from the Soviet Union, specifically from the Ukraine.

However, if I wanted to get serious about this vein of research, I'd have to take John Moore's database and Excel and do some serious number crunching among thousands of W-SS medical personnel to see if I could identify any statistical patterns between nationality and posting.

But - an alternate - and perhaps better - method to research these policies would just be to study the relevant SS-HA medical branch records and see what they had to say about personnel transfer policies rather than wade through data.

2) At any rate, so far we seem to have identified a total of 7 Dutchmen that served in Florian Geyer. Mind you this is a division that had its peak strength approaching 13,000 in June 1944, and perhaps a total of 20,000-25,000 men who served in the unit from 1942-45.

So the division's personnel was 0.0028% Dutch.

Is there anyone who can seriously argue this is statistically significant?

Having said that, I do think that your comment raises yet another question: for some reason, it does seem that SS researchers are far more concerned with Stellenbesetzung than historians who examine other armies, to include the Wehrmacht. Why this is so might be an interesting topic of conversation.

Absolutely. (BTW just for clarity - "Stellenbesetzung" = staffing or assignment)

Let me posit an example:

Does anyone know how many Navaho Indians served with the US 45th Infantry Division?

How many "Rolling W" division members were from Oklahoma City, Oklahoma?

How many Dutchmen served with the British "Desert Rats" 7th Armored Division?

Or how many Norwegians served with the US First Army?

What I find extraordinary is that these kind of questions pop up all the time about the W-SS but seem virtually absent in discussions of other military forces. I don't know exactly why - perhaps other members can chime in. For the Allied forces at least, questions like that seem to provoke a who knows?/who cares?/what's the point? response, whereas similar questions on the W-SS will result in multipage threads with members scurring off to databases to check this or that officer's place of birth or when they won their Iron Cross or when they were promoted to 1st Lt.

3) I suspect - and would welcome members comments on - that it's because the W-SS still has this international "precursor to NATO" multiethnic, non-political Pan-European blond-men-riding-panzer stereotype.

Do a search on this forum and you'll see literally hundreds of thread questions asking how many Chinese, Indians, Somalians, Ukrainians, Dutch, Danish, Swiss, Swedish, Tibetans, Mongolians, English, French, Bosnian, Greek, Polish, Estonian et. al. served in the Waffen-SS. In the realm of popular opinion at least, it seems that the W-SS was more multiethnic than the LA County school system.

Perhaps people want to appropriate whatever data - 0.0028% of a division's personnel - to confirm this preconceived stereotype. To me it sometimes seems crazy - a Third Reich version of "the Metterling Lists" so famously lampooned by Woody Allen (http://www.powells.com/features/metterling.html)

4) In my opinion, trying to use SS personnel statistics to glean beneficial trends in Third Reich occupational policies or project pan-European aspirations is a false and erroneous endeavor, one that conveniently overlooks the mass of historical evidence of the cruelty of the Nazi regime. I'm sure Dr. Paulen got along great with his colleagues in Florian Geyer, but that doesn't change the fact that his country was treated bestially by the Third Reich, or that more Dutch served as slave laborers than as W-SS solders.

5) This Stellenbesetzung fascination seems strange because it also ignores the corresponding contribution that foreign volunteer units played in the Allied armed forces during WWII.

You may have thought I was making a rhetorical point, but there really was a Norwegian volunteer unit in the US Army - the 99th Infantry Battalion

http://www.avalanchepress.com/99thInfantry.php

http://www.army.mil/-news/2009/12/04/31 ... -lighting/

It played an important role in the fighting near Malmedy during the Battle of the Bulge.

If it's so fascinating to study the minutiae concerning how many Norwegians were in the Waffen-SS, why isn't it equally fascinating to study the minutiae of the Norwegian volunteers in the US Army?

And conversely, if we are going to study the foreign volunteer/conscript phenomenon in the Wehrmacht and SS, rather than focusing on exceptions - like the Dutch in Florian Geyer, shouldn't we focus on the known demographics like the divisions volksdeutsche replacements - which made up 80% of the division's troops by Oct 1942.

That's a significant story - and one I don' think hasn't been adequately told.

[waffen-IDF]

B:4.2.96 Netherland

Maj. 1Vc, 34.SS-Frw.Gren.Div Landstorm.Nederland 1.45
Capt. 1Vc, SS-Nacschsch.8 9.43
Capt. SS-Kav.Brigade 9.42 (When he was first assigned to the Kav.Div)
SS:?
Maj:?
Capt:1.9.42