Traitors III.

This is coolbert.

All throughout the second World War [WW2], the Germans were able to find in countries they occupied, willing collaborators. And many of these collaborators were organized into volunteer military units under the auspices of the Waffen SS. The military branch of the SS.

This concept runs counter to the basic tenets of fascism to begin with. Hitler wanted to man his army with men that were strictly of Germanic or "Nordic" stock. And this was done until it was realized that Germany faced a protracted war. At that time, the Germans realized that all and any manpower they could muster for their cause was a must. And so the decision was made to accept persons in volunteer SS units that were not of Germanic or "Nordic" stock.

And large numbers of willing volunteers were found in almost all countries that were occupied by the German Army. Within these foreign volunteer units, national integrity was highly desired, though as a rule not 100 % complied with.

Excluding Russia, the Germans were able to muster volunteer units from among these occupied countries:

Holland, France, Italy, Belgium, Hungary, Croatia, Bosnia, Estonia, Latvia.

These units were usually called "divisions". But this is somewhat misleading. These were not normal TO&E units with a fixed complement of troops, say a divisional strength of 10,000 men. Usually somewhat smaller units, sometimes much smaller, but also possessing a capability at times much more potent than larger units, due to the motivation of the volunteers. And make no mistake about it. THESE WERE VOLUNTEERS. Men that willingly joined the German military with the intention of taking up arms and fighting on the side of the country that had conquered and occupied, sometimes brutally, their own lands.

I think it can be safely said that most of these volunteers were persons that had been in the years leading to WW2, had been members of, or were in agreement with, various fascist movements in Europe. Fascism WAS seen as an alternative to what was felt to be a senile, corrupt and antiquated system of democracy and capitalism. Many disaffected persons in Europe did flock to either communist or fascist movements as they did not see any hope for a solution to the many problems that faced Europe and indeed the world in the 1930's.

The British military historian James Lucas comments about this in his book, "War on the Eastern Front": [this book is one of the best, perhaps the best military history book I have ever read, I recommend it highly].

"One of the most interesting features of the war against the Soviet Union was the enthusiasm with which this was taken up by certain European peoples as a crusade against Communism. It might have been expected that the extremely Catholic countries would have sent contingents but the enlistment of men with such widely diverse cultures as Scandinavians and Muslims was an unusual feature. They and the other men who fought, whether they were Dutch, Norwegians, Christians, or Muslims as well as those who accepted some mystic Nordic belief, all fought together and for any one of a number of reasons, some for political beliefs, some for racial, some for sheer adventure, others for the sake of Western civilization, for that vaguely-felt struggle of west against East which has been alluded to in earlier pages. The reasons are not important; rather more interesting is the fact that they fought and, according to the SS, as a supra-national European army."

And devotion to duty even unto death was an unquestionable fact for these units. As was mentioned earlier, even the French contributed a division to the Waffen SS. This was called the "Charlemagne" division. And as was mentioned before, this unit did not consist of full size TO&E unit. At the Battle of Berlin in 1945, only about 300 Frenchmen were left in the unit. Given the opportunity to take their leave or fight, they fought. And died! Almost to the last man, this unit was destroyed. Click here to see an interesting site about one Frenchman who fought gamely for the occupiers of his country.

"During the battle for the German capital, the French volunteers put up a truly heroic resistance in Neukölln, on the La Belle-Alliance Platz, on the Wilhelmstrasse and the Friedrichstrasse. They fought on to the last round of ammunition on the last day of the battle, destroying (among other things) some 62 enemy tanks in the process.

On 2 May 1945, most of the surviving Frenchmen (about three dozen out of an original total of 300 or more), went into Soviet captivity near the Air Ministry building. Hstuf. Fenet had been badly wounded in the last days of the fighting, and he was first sent to a hospital before being imprisoned in Soviet and French POW slave labor camps and prisons."

Like I said, devotion unto death!!

To be continued.

coolbert.