CanadianCombat
Active member
Just a fact i wanted to share.
The waffen SS, the armed forces of the German Nazi Party, filled the majority of their nearly forty combat divisions with non-Germans. Over half a million foreigners served in twenty-seven of these Waffen SS divisons (as well as in many smaller, independent units and as replacements for the horrendous losses SS divisions took). The radical racial purity message of the Nazi Party got a bit garbled by the SS recruiters, as the largest single ethnic group enlisted was Slavic Ukrainians (100,000) followed by the "Aryan" Dutch (50,000). Three divisions were formed from among Bosnian Muslims and Croation Christians and, like most non-German SS divisions, were used against partisans. So successful was this program that even the regular army regularly filled 20% of its divisions (after late 1943) with foreign "volunteers." These were usually Soviet POWs who were given the choice of starving in a POW camp or serving as combat support troops in the German infantry divisions. Most of these foreigners in German uniforms, especially the Soviets, were killed or imprisoned by their countrymen after the war.
The waffen SS, the armed forces of the German Nazi Party, filled the majority of their nearly forty combat divisions with non-Germans. Over half a million foreigners served in twenty-seven of these Waffen SS divisons (as well as in many smaller, independent units and as replacements for the horrendous losses SS divisions took). The radical racial purity message of the Nazi Party got a bit garbled by the SS recruiters, as the largest single ethnic group enlisted was Slavic Ukrainians (100,000) followed by the "Aryan" Dutch (50,000). Three divisions were formed from among Bosnian Muslims and Croation Christians and, like most non-German SS divisions, were used against partisans. So successful was this program that even the regular army regularly filled 20% of its divisions (after late 1943) with foreign "volunteers." These were usually Soviet POWs who were given the choice of starving in a POW camp or serving as combat support troops in the German infantry divisions. Most of these foreigners in German uniforms, especially the Soviets, were killed or imprisoned by their countrymen after the war.