Any foreigners in the Kriegsmarine or Luftwaffe?

[Sawpatin]

I know that the Heer and the Waffen SS organized units of foreigners; was there much enrollment by foreign nationals into the Luftwaffe or Kriegsmarine, either as ship/plane crews or ground forces?

[gebhk]

Many Poles were conscripted into both services after signing or being forced to signed the VL. However they served in regular units, so this aspect probably does not come under a definition of 'foreign units' as such.

[Sawpatin]

Many Poles were conscripted into both services after signing or being forced to signed the VL. However they served in regular units, so this aspect probably does not come under a definition of 'foreign units' as such.

Weren't Poles technically subjects of the Reich after 1939? I don't know what their nationality status was under German occupation. By "foreign" I was asking more about guys who came from outside the Third Reich, such as the Spanish Blue Division or the Turkestanis who defected from the Soviet military to the Wehrmacht.

By the way I'm not only asking about foreign units, I just mentioned them as an example of how many people from outside the Reich served in the Heer and Waffen SS. If foreigners in the Kriegsmarine/Luftwaffe only served at the individual level, integrated among Germans, I'm still interested to hear about them.

[gebhk]

Weren't Poles technically subjects of the Reich after 1939?

Technically no, but we are into very murky grey areas. You may want to have a look at the following thread: "Related blood peoples - the Poles - citizenship after the invasion of Poland".

[Wim]

Hello,

Dutch and Flemish volunteers served in the Kriegsmarine.

Flemish volunteers of the Fabriekswacht/Wachtbrigade who guards airfields and Luftwaffe depot after belguim got liberated 09.1944 retraeted to Germany and formed the Flemish Flak Brigade (Fläm. Flak Abt. 590).

Greetings

Wim

[Sawpatin]

Hello,

Dutch and Flemish volunteers served in the Kriegsmarine.

Flemish volunteers of the Fabriekswacht/Wachtbrigade who guards airfields and Luftwaffe depot after belguim got liberated 09.1944 retraeted to Germany and formed the Flemish Flak Brigade (Fläm. Flak Abt. 590).

Greetings

Wim

Thanks. Did they have their own officers and non-coms, or were those Germans?

[Wim]

Hello,

About the Flemish in the Kriegsmarine they were dispersed over different ships.

The Flemish Flak Brigade had own officers and non-coms.

Here a picture of the Flemish Flak.

What rare is on this picture is that the man on the left in the door opening has 2 Flemish medals on a German uniform.
The top medal is the Tollenaere Badge and the other one is a VNV (flemish collaboration party) medal.
If i am not mistaken in the Waffen SS was somewhere in 1943 forbidden to wear them on the uniform.

Greetings.

Wim

[LColombo]

I remember reading mentions of Italian naval personnel, recruited through the Italian Social Republic, serving on German warships in the Mediterranean between late 1943 and 1945. But the extent of this is not clear to me.

[Ironmachine]

By "foreign" I was asking more about guys who came from outside the Third Reich, such as the Spanish Blue Division

Well, in case you don't know, there were five Spanish escuadrillas (staffel) that served (successively, so only one in service at any one time) on the Eastern Front with the Luftwaffe, as part of Jagdgeschwader 27 and Jagdgeschwader 51. It's fairly easy to find information about then in the web.
Regarding the Kriegsmarine, there were Spaniards in German ships but in that case they were Spanish Navy's officers and sailors sent to Germany for training courses and exercises and served individually onboard German warships and even took part in combat missions. They were very few in number, a mere historical curiosity.

[Sheldrake]

Walter Rubensdorffer Swiss
https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/709 ... Walter.htm

[Xavier]

spanish personell on some s-boats too, at the beggining of the war.

[Ironmachine]

At the beginning of the war? AFAIK, there were no Spaniards in the Kriegsmarine before late 1942. Before that, the only Spaniards serving on S-boats I know of were the crews of the Spanish Navy's schnellboote, not Kriegsmarine's.

[Sid Guttridge]

There were a number men of German origin with Latin American citizenship enlisted, particularly from Brazil, where there was a large German community in the south. These included a number of pilots, such as the ace Egon Albrecht (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egon_Albrecht-Lemke).

There is a Brazilian book (in Portuguese) on the subject: Os Soldados Brasileiros de Hitler by Dennison de Oliveira. You can buy it on an Amazon-like site called Estantevirtual for £6/$7. (Amazon.com has it, but at an inflated price of $60+).

However, most Brazilian Germans were well assimilated and served Brazil. I once did a headcount of the pilots of the Brazilian Thunderbolt squadron that served in Italy with the Americans and reckoned about a sixth of them might have German surnames.

Cheers,

Sid.

P.S. I see that nearly 2,500 Brazilians were repatriated from Germany to Brazil over 1945-49. I presume they had been there pre-war and were largely of German ethnic origin. Some of them must have volunteered for the Wehrmacht during the war.

[sveahk]

Walter Rubensdorffer Swiss
https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/709 ... Walter.htm

Born in Switzerland, but flying in the Luftwaffe as a German citizen.

Cheers Hans K

[Sheldrake]

Walter Rubensdorffer Swiss
https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/709 ... Walter.htm

Born in Switzerland, but flying in the Luftwaffe as a German citizen.

Cheers Hans K

Like Americans in the RAF?