Were there any "part-time" foreign volunteers?

[Hayes]

We hear about the foreign volunteers recruited by the Axis to serve full-time at the front or in support roles. But were there any foreign volunteers who were only recruited for part-time service? Perhaps a foreign-volunteer equivalent to the LDV in Britain, recruited somewhere in Axis-held Europe?

[Lasse]

Do you mean in relation to "time limited recruitment contracts" or "held civilian employments at the same time as serving in the SS"?

[Hayes]

Do you mean in relation to "time limited recruitment contracts" or "held civilian employments at the same time as serving in the SS"?

Sorry, I mentioned the LDV (Home Guard) to illustrate my definition of "part-time", but I realise not everyone might be familiar with who the LDV were

By "part-time" I mean people who held civilian jobs while simultaneously being part of some volunteer unit (doesn't have to be SS). For example the Home Guard in Britain was a militia made up of various citizens who weren't serving in the regular armed forces (due to factors such as age, health, or working in critical industries). They held their day jobs as normal (if they had them), and attended training/duty in their free hours (usually evenings and weekends). They often didn't live in a barracks, but went home after their training/duty was done for the day.

I was curious if Germany, Italy, etc. recruited "part-time" units like this from other nationalities in occupied Europe.

[Wim]

Hello,

In 1941 some Flemish volunteers signed a 2 year contract for the Waffen SS. Some of them quit the SS after the 2 year most of them signed on. Not a lot later the only contract they could sign was for as long as the war.

For the NSKK and Org. Todt that were different stories. Here were more part time contracts.

Greetings

Wim

[ML59]

There were many part-time pro-nazis militia all over Europe, meaning units whose members were, mostly, attending their own business and dedicated some hours of their time to train as a militia-men or performing support roles to the Axis. One example is the M.V.A.C. (Milizia Volontaria Anti Comunista), organized and armed by the Italian Regio Esercito and Regia Marina that had some barracked units but also a lot of loosely organized units, called "bande VAC" that were set up in some villages and were subjected to a local chief that called its members to arms when there was a need (attack of partisans, protection of harvest and cattle and so on).

[ML59]

Another strong collaborationist organization that supported the nazis in France was the Milice Francais, with a force of about 15.000 part-time members and about the same number of full-time "milicien".

[Loïc]

Never the Milice was able to gather 15 000 full-time permanent Francs-Gardes but rather only 4000 to 7000, being part, at the very best, of the around 10 to 15 000 total of both full-time and part-time and others members having some real activity in the organisation

the total of 30 000 men and women usually given but often misunderstood is only the theoretical number of memberships including until passive members on the lists registred voluntarily like the sympathizers, or not voluntarily even without their knowledge, or even as a moral guarantee to escape to the STO or the germans in some cases, used as figure for the propaganda and to give more credibility by the Milice

[ML59]

Glad to have more infos about the matter, very fascinating for me. I've got the figures from a Histoire & Collection publication, maybe not the best source.

[Valgor6]

In Russia sometimes a sort of farm-guard - homeguard type of militia was formed. Sometimes very ad hoc and very local. These especially came up when partisans and gangs were to dangerous and stole to much for a village to accept any further. They are sometimes featured in german propaganda and some recieved sturmabzeichen. These would be very hard to research i imagine.