Why did foreigners join the Waffen-SS?

Discussions on the foreigners (volunteers as well as conscripts) fighting in the German Wehrmacht, those collaborating with the Axis and other period Far Right organizations. Hosted by George Lepre.
Rob - wssob2
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Re: Why did foreigners join the Waffen-SS?

#46

Post by Rob - wssob2 » 21 Nov 2012, 07:32

Hi Martinski,
I fully second Wim but have to add some remarks. Our main problem (I am Flemish too) is that our political situation is so complex and not undertandable by anyone who is not Flemish.
I disagree with your statement because it implies that Flemish automist aspirations cannot be understood but only felt; if you're not part of the "volksgemeinschaft" so to speak, you won't get it. If a political platform, however complex, can't be explained cogently, then I'd argue it isn't much of a political platform. And certainly many AHF audience members here - myself included - have read books like Littlejohn's The Patriotic Traitors or Stanley Payne's A History of Fascism, 1914–1945 and have a greater-than-average understanding of European politics of the 1930's-40's.

Even the German military Government did not understand (or even did not try to cope with) the "Belgian" situation during their occupation.
Which illustrates the point that the Third Reich had absolutely no interest in fostering the nationalist ambitions of any of their conquered subjects.

Take Otto Abetz - the Ambassador to Occupied France - for example. His diplomatic plan, endorsed by Hitler in September 1940, was to deliberately foster infighting between the Vichyites and the various "Paris Front" fascist parties. Deat, Deloncle, Darnand, Laval et. al. were pitted against each other as a means for the Germans to maintain control. Such political mechanizations existed throught the Occupation, such as when the SS combined the Flemish and Walloon volunteer family assistance programs in the spring of 1943 and essentially fired Mme Degrelle from her job as head of the Walloon welfare organization.
My main point: recently, a Flemish historian, Aline Sax, published an excellent study about the reasons and motivations of the Flemish Voluntary collaborating (in different German organisations and on different levels). She used an awful lot of personal files (still hidden in the vaults of the belgian Ministry of Justice) and studied the mail (Feldpost) contained in these files.

And her conclusions are fascinating! It is certainly╩NOT╩the "Yes / No" or "Good / Bad" discussion as in the previous posts but really very differentiated. The reasons and motivations of these volunteers are a broad spectrum, ranging from pure ideological to even personal, economical and irrational ones... Just a pity that the book is published in Flemish language.
George Stein in book The Waffen-SS: Hitler's Elite Guard at War on pp.140-41 references a similar study:
"...In 1948 a Dutch psychologist, Dr. A. F. G. van Hoesel, published the results of a study he had made of 450 young Netherlanders who had been arrested for military collaboration with the Germans. Most of the men had served in the Waffen-SS. After personally interrogating them, interviewing their parents and friends, and screening their court records, van Hoesel concluded that the vast majority had been motivated to volunteer by such factors as a desire for adventure, better food, the prestige of wearing an SS uniform, sheer boredom, desire to avoid the unglamorous compulsory labor service, and a variety of personal factors which included, in some instances, a wish to avoid prosecution for juvenile delinquency or petty criminality. In any case, few of the youths who made up the bulk of the Dutch SS volunteers were motivated by any form of political or ideological idealism.(see also footnote 12)"
Concerning Degrelle, you wrote:
But another reason that, in my point of view is even more detestable, is the fact that the real (political) leader of the walloon volunteers, Leon Degrelle, could not cope with the fact that his volunteers were considered as "second category" and only served as a Wehrmacht bataillon, underwent all possible steps and making up stories to convince the RFSS and the RSHA that the walloons somewhere in the ancient times detained Germanic blood. So, by his own choleric character and endless efforts, he made it possible for "his guys" to change uniform and enter the rangs of the Waffen-SS in Summer 1943. And to continue this discrepancy, the walloons continued to bear the BELGIAN colours (black / yellow / red) as an opposition against the Flemish, historically more correctly, bearing the Flemish colours and heraldic symbols. Entering the Waffen-SS was for Degrelle more a political step and an individual satisfaction to his own ego than a rational one. With even consequences up to today.
Absolutely!

Narcissism and self-aggrandizement were Degrelle's primary characteristics. Even in the 1930's, the Rexist political platform was a muddle and was little more than a vehicle for Degrelle's attempts to fashion himself as a Belgian Mussolini. The Rexists were basically washed up after the 1937 elections. Even in 1940, the German occupation authorities considered the Rexists too insignificant to play a major collaborationist role, although clearly Degrelle has his uses.

With the encouragement of German Ambassador to France Otto Abetz and Operation Barbarossa, Degrelle saw that the only way he and his Rexist cohorts could work their way up in the New Order was to win some spurs on the battlefield. Remember, it wasnt so much the Nazis asking for foreign volunteers against "Judeo-Bolshevism" as the collaborationists first offering themselves up. The Germans clearly recognized that such volunteer units would be a very useful tool to encourage compliance and collaboration among the occupied nations.

Clearly Degrelle recognized the power of the "SS State" within Nazi Germany and attached himself and his unit to the Waffen-SS in an effort to be closer to the levers of power. But such a move was an effort to win more prestige for himself; it certainly had no effect on mitigating German occupation policy. He may have talked about Belgium, or perhaps more accurately Wallonia, but all he really cared about was Degrelle.

There seems to be an implied assumption in several of these responses that these volunteer units such as the Walloon Legion were big, popular and militarily proficient.

This is false. In terms of manpower, they were insignificant. (a battalion of Walloon volunteers compared to what - a thousand odd German Army battalions on the Eastern Front?) In terms of popularity, their supporters were few. (By 1942 Degrelle was scraping the bottom of the Rexist manpower pool) In terms of military prowess, they were poorly lead, poorly trained and, frankly, frequently incompetent. (For example, see Stein p.156: "...Poorly trained, ill-equipped, partially demoralized, and sent into action piecemeal, the legionnaires were badly mauled during the winter's fighting." - that's something you won't read from Richard Landwehr!)

Rob - wssob2
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Re: Why did foreigners join the Waffen-SS?

#47

Post by Rob - wssob2 » 21 Nov 2012, 08:09

The primary reason and motivation why foreigners joined the Waffen SS was the struggle against communism/Bolshevism.
Certainly a motivation for the top-level collaborators and organizers, although I'd counter that guys like Mussert, Darnand, Doriot, Degrelle, Quisling et. al. certainly saw the volunteer units as a means to increase their own power first and foremost.

As for the rank and file - probably not. And noone's mentioned the 500
Flemings tricked into Waffen-SS service with promises to do "labor service" in Poland (Stein, p.155)

I also fail to see how anyone could possibly think that Hitler - who never once expressed any desire to form a "pan-European" federation - would somehow grant the occupied nations sovreignity if they fought on the Eastern Front, or that fighting Ivans thousands of kilometers from home would somehow ease the occupation policies, address social issues, and beat the Commies back in Brussels.
This can be judged by the fact that numerous volunteer units made it clear that they could only be used in the Eastern Front against the Russians and NOT against the Western Allies. (A fact that Rob-WSSOB2 rarely mentioned in his postings about foreign Waffen SS units)
Because it goes without saying it's an indication of how the Germans perceived the reliability of the foreign volunteers and their fealty to National Socialism.

Seriously, had the Sturmbrigade Wallonia been sent to the Ardennes in 1944, you would have had a 50% desertion rate faster than one can say "Hercule Poirot." Half of Degrelle's staff would have been stripping off their SS uniforms and hiding in Herge's basement. The SS had a hard enough time with the Jadgverbande deep penetration units, many of whom mysteriously lost their radios and explosives and dissappeared into the liberated woodwork.
From the Ukrainians of the 14th SS Division "Ukrainische Nr.1', the Walloons of the Wallonie Division, Flemings of the Langemarck Division, the French of the Charlemagne Division, the Danes of the Freikorps Danmark, the Norwegians of the Norwegian Legion, the Finns of the Finnish SS Battalion (of the multinational SS Panzer Division Wiking), the Dutchmen of the Legion Nederlande, the Latvians of the Latvian Legion, the Estonians of the Estonian Legion the Swedes, the Spaniards and a lot of more had made it clear that the struggle was ONLY against the Soviet Union and not against the Western Allies.
Lumping all the heterogenerous volunteer units into this "anti-Bolshevik crusade" is part of the simplified Waffen-SS mythology and ignores the often quite pronounced nationalist/regional differences in motivation. I don't think a Flemish SS soldier would give a hoot about the nationalist aspirations of a Galician SS soldier, and vice versa. What the Waffen-SS was EXTREMELY good at was adopting whatever local nationalist/regional gripes existed and cynically using them as a means to get cannon fodder.
The motivation against the communist hydra that were beginning to envelope Europe were so strong that there are even more volunteers enlisting in 1943 as compared in 1941. In fact, the last foreign volunteers for Waffen SS actually enlisted as late as March 1945 (!).
Beats getting strung up by a mob back in your hometown. That's the price of collaborating with a bestial regime.

See Stein, p. 163 "...Paradoxically, German military reverses and the increasing danger of an Allied invasion of Western Europe worked to the advantage of SS recruitment in this area. Those who had collaborated with the Germans now found themselves in an extremely unpleasant position. They feared not only Allied retribution but also local resistance movements, which endangered the lives of the more active collaborators. For many of these men, the shadowy danger of the eastern front seems less frightening than the very real dangers at home.")


Lasse
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Re: Why did foreigners join the Waffen-SS?

#48

Post by Lasse » 10 Dec 2012, 15:22

Panzermahn wrote:
From the Ukrainians of the 14th SS Division "Ukrainische Nr.1', the Walloons of the Wallonie Division, Flemings of the Langemarck Division, the French of the Charlemagne Division, the Danes of the Freikorps Danmark, the Norwegians of the Norwegian Legion, the Finns of the Finnish SS Battalion (of the multinational SS Panzer Division Wiking), the Dutchmen of the Legion Nederlande, the Latvians of the Latvian Legion, the Estonians of the Estonian Legion the Swedes, the Spaniards and a lot of more had made it clear that the struggle was ONLY against the Soviet Union and not against the Western Allies.
The subject of why Swedes joined the SS is way more complex than simply stating "they wanted to fight against communism". Yes, many of them considered the Soviet union to be something of an enemy given that they had invaded Finland during 1939, many of them had also before fought against the Red Army as volunteers in Finland, and some stated that they would only wish to fight against the Red Army. A large part of the Swedish SS-Volunteers were also members or sympathisers with different national socialistic movements such as the SSS.

However, it would be wrong to state that the Swedes joined the SS simply by some noble thought of defending Europe from communism - often it seems like their primary reason was more personal. Many of them had lost their employment, had been denied to serve in Finland, had bad family relations, went through divorces, escaped from punishment, failed school, were bored with their slow civilian lives in Sweden while the youth of other counteries were participating in what they saw as a "great adventure".

Claiming that politics was unimportant is simply not correct. While a quite large part (I do not have the numbers in hand ATM but I belive it was over 50%) openly proclaimed that they were members or sympathisers with national socialistic movements, this can be compared with the general elections in Sweden (which will give some insight in the number of national socialists amongst the general Swedish population) - where the nationalsocialists recieved less than one % if I remember correctly. Also remember that atleast 46 Swedes sent in applications to the German consulate to investigate the possibility to join the SS PRIOR to Operation Barbarossa, and several also joined the SS prior to Operation Barbarossa. While this might seem to be a little group of only 46, remember that the total amount of Swedish SS-volunteers were less than 200.

Simply put: most were not "noble fighters in the struggle to defend Europe from Communism" but rather complex persons with broken backgrounds who choose to serve in the SS as a way out of their missery.

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Truncheons
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Re: Why did foreigners join the Waffen-SS?

#49

Post by Truncheons » 03 Jan 2013, 14:44

Why did foreigners join the Waffen-SS?

It was the only German unit that would accept foreigners.
Im sure some of the soldiers would have prefered to join other units if they were given the choice but this was their only option.

As for motivation, i would imagine a lot of them saw Germany at the time as the land of plenty and being told that you could become part of the elite of this society/nation purely based on your blood and ethnicity was quite attractive bait.......and quite a well thought out ploy by the SS recruiters.

I read about a couple of British guys who were taken prisoner by the LAHSS in Italy and asked if they could stay with the unit and were sworn in and fought in Russia, they were well liked and did well but when the LAHSS were preparing for Normandy they were returned to the POW camp as the SS were sensitive enough to not pit them against their own coutrymen. Their reasons were probably not wanting to sit about in a prison camp for years on end and nothing to do with being die hard NS men.
So i imagine the reasons for people joining up were myraid.

Rob - wssob2
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Re: Why did foreigners join the Waffen-SS?

#50

Post by Rob - wssob2 » 05 Jan 2013, 15:54

I read about a couple of British guys who were taken prisoner by the LAHSS in Italy and asked if they could stay with the unit and were sworn in and fought in Russia, they were well liked and did well but when the LAHSS were preparing for Normandy they were returned to the POW camp as the SS were sensitive enough to not pit them against their own coutrymen. Their reasons were probably not wanting to sit about in a prison camp for years on end and nothing to do with being die hard NS men
Hi Truncheons - thanks for you contribution. Where did you read this, exactly? - R

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Truncheons
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Re: Why did foreigners join the Waffen-SS?

#51

Post by Truncheons » 05 Jan 2013, 18:52

I think i read it in Adrian Weales book about the British Friekorps.Im not at home at the moment so cant check.
I think one of the men was a London or ex London taxi driver and the other was from South Africa or Namibia. Nothing happened to them after the war either in the way of punishment.
When i get back home ill verify that the book "Renagdes" is where i read it.

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amateur
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Re: Why did foreigners join the Waffen-SS?

#52

Post by amateur » 06 Jan 2013, 01:08

Just a brief comment on this topic.

There is no single reason why foreigners from different nations joined W-SS. It is naïve to say that everybody fought for his homeland’s independence and freedom and it is also totally wrong to label all legionnaires fascists, which is unfortunately very common.

Each nation had their own reasons and even within one nationality the motivation may have varied quite a lot. Nazi leadership had probably the best PR experts of the world at that time. They skillfully leveraged historic conflicts and beliefs of different nations against their enemies in different parts of the world. For instance, in the Baltic States, it was quite obvious. The countries were occupied by Soviet Union in 1940. The first year of occupation was quite brutal - so the message was very simple: help to avoid it happening again. Paradoxically, the Baltic States were under German occupation at that time, but there was still hope for independence. The Russian, Ukrainian and Byelorussian volunteers most likely were against Stalinist order in their homeland. In the Balkans, I guess, the reasons were mostly religious. In the previous British colonies the motivation of volunteers was based on hatred towards the colonists. In Scandinavia and Western Europe, I think the volunteers joined their legions mostly for idealistic reasons - fighting against communism, which in its essence is similar to the idea of fighting against fascism. One could ask the same question about American soldiers who volunteered to fight and risk their lives in the European battlefields.

Having said all that, I am absolutely certain that there were also convinced ideological Nazis among every foreign Waffen SS unit, but they were definitely a very small minority.

So, one has to study each W-SS Division and nation separately to understand the motivation behind their decision to join W-SS as volunteers.

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