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Other foreigners generally wore the uniform of the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of the SS, a reflection of Himmler's enthusiasm for broadening the avail… - Waffen-SS
" "Other foreigners generally wore the uniform of the Waffen-SS, the combat arm of the SS, a reflection of Himmler's enthusiasm for broadening the available pool of 'Nordic' blood, as well as the Wehrmacht's reluctance to surrender large numbers of Germans of military age to the SS. Formally, some of these foreigners were not supposed to be foreign at all; they were Volksdeutsche, like the 17,000 Croatian Germans recruited or conscripted into the Prinz Eugen division, the 1,300 Danish Germans who volunteered to serve in the Wiking division and the Hungarian Germans who served in the Horst Wessel and Maria Theresa divisions. Residents of Alsace, Lorraine or Luxembourg who could claim two or more German grandparents were also offered Reich citizenship if they joined the Waffen-SS. From an early stage, however, non-Germans were also recruited, beginning with Dutchmen, Belgian Flemings, Danes and Norwegians in the summer of 1940. These nations were supposedly 'Germanic' or 'Nordic' in character, though there were also Waffen-SS recruits from Latin countries, notably Belgian Walloons. In all, these West European countries produced at most 117,000 men, not counting the tiny British Free Corps, made up of around fifty prisoners of war. Recruiting proved easier in Eastern Europe. May 1941 saw the formation of a Finnish legion, which proved to be a highly effective fighting force, followed by Latvian and Estonian division.
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About Waffen-SS
The Waffen-SS (transl. Armed SS) was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's Schutzstaffel (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and unoccupied lands. Members of the Waffen-SS were involved in numerous atrocities. At the post-war Nuremberg Trials, the Waffen-SS was judged to be a criminal organisation due to its connection to the Nazi Party and direct involvement in numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity. Former members, with the exception of conscripts, who comprised about one third of the membership, were denied many of the rights afforded to military veterans.
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The Waffen-SS was the military branch of the SS. Units of the Waffen-SS took part in most of the major military campaigns of World War II. They were heavily involved in the commission of the Holocaust through their participation in mass shootings, anti-partisan warfare, and in supplying guards for Nazi concentration camps They were also responsible for many other war crimes.
Over 400,000 persons were mobilized to carry out fortification work in Berlin. Select police and SS units were concentrated in the city. Many SS regiments and detached battalions which had been deployed in adjacent areas were pulled up to defend the special sector of Berlin. These SS troops were commanded by the chief of Hitler's personal bodyguard, Monke.
The German Fascist command was counting on forcing us to inch our way through one line after another, which meant the battle would be dragged out as long as possible to the point where our forces would be bled white and finally stopped on the close approaches. It was hoped to do to our forces what the Soviet troops had done to the Germans on the approaches to Moscow. But these calculations were not destined to come true.
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In 1933, before the Waffen-SS, there was a portion of the Nazi Party’s Schutzstaffel (SS), armed and trained along military lines and served as an armed force. These troops were originally known as the SS-Verfügungstruppen, the name indicating that they served at the Führer’s pleasure. By 1939, four regiments (Standarten) had been organized.
The Verfügungstruppen took part in the occupation of Austria and Czechoslovakia side by side with the Army (Heer). During the months preceding the outbreak of the war, they were given intensive military training and were formed into units that took part in the Polish campaign. In addition, elements of Death’s Head formations (Totenkopfverbände), which served as concentration camp guards, also took to the field as combat units.
During the following winter and spring, regiments that had fought in Poland were expanded into brigades and later divisions. This purely military branch of the SS was known at first as the Bewaffnete SS (Armed SS) and later as the Waffen-SS. The regiment Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler eventually became a division of the same name; the Standarte Deutschland together with the Austrian Standarte Der Führer formed the Verfügungs Division, to which a third regiment, Langemarck, was later added, creating the division Das Reich; and the Totenkopf units were formed into the Totenkopf Division. These three divisions were to be the nucleus of the Waffen-SS in its subsequent rapid expansion.
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