National Socialism was a dynamic, expansionist ideology whose main aim was the reintegration of German lands and peoples "stolen" under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles into the Third Reich. Once this had been achieved, Germany would need "living space" in Eastern Europe to sustain the Reich.

Europe after World War I

When at last the fearful bloodletting of the conflict, with its 10 million dead and 20 million wounded, was over, there seemed good reason to believe that World War I would indeed be the "war to end all wars". Unfortunately, it culminated in an uneasy peace. The Allies, who had finally succeeded in destroying Germany's formidable war machine, had, in the peace treaty agreed at Versailles, imposed conditions designed expressly to make it impossible for the world again to be disturbed by German militarism. Germany's army was to be reduced to 100,000 men, and her navy to 15,000. She was forbidden to possess armour or an air force, and there were safeguards to ensure that she was not able to build up a hidden military reserve.

The Treaty of Versailles

The Treaty of Versailles was draconian and sowed the seeds of many future grievances. The population and territory of Germany were reduced by about 10 percent. In the west, Alsace and Lorraine were returned to France, and the Saarland was placed under the supervision of the League of Nations until 1935. In the north, three small areas were given to Belgium, while northern Schleswig was returned to Denmark. In the east, Poland was resurrected and given large chunks of German territory: most of former German West Prussia and Pozn‡n (Posen), a "corridor" to the Baltic Sea (which separated East Prussia from the rest of Germany), and part of Upper Silesia after a plebiscite. Danzig (Gdansk) was declared a free city. All Germany's overseas colonies in China, in the Pacific and in Africa were taken over by Britain, France, Japan and other Allied nations. The Versailles Treaty thus left many ethnic Germans outside post-war Germany. Called Volksdeutsche, around 10 million of them lived outside Germany in Central and Eastern Europe (this figure also includes ethnic Germans who had lived in the Hapsburg Empire). This caused resentment in Germany, and later the idea of uniting all Germans became a central plank of Nazi racial policy, not by bringing them back to Germany but by absorbing them into an expanded Reich.

A point often overlooked alongside the emasculation of Germany was the destruction of the Austrian Empire and the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. Austria, the former military superpower, was reduced to a rump state. From the splintered empire the new countries of Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia were formed, with other countries, notably Italy, absorbing lesser or greater slices of Austrian territory. The Treaty of St Germain limited the Austrian Army to 30,000 men and prohibited the building of an air force (no air force existed between 1919 and 1934, but then Austria secretly created one). Europe now descended into a period of turmoil and civil unrest.

The "war guilt clause"

The "war guilt clause" of the Treaty of Versailles deemed Germany the aggressor in the war and consequently made her responsible for making reparations to the Allied nations in payment for the losses and damage they had sustained in the conflict. It was impossible to compute the exact sum to be paid as reparations for the damage caused by the Germans, especially in France and Belgium, at the time the treaty was being drafted. However, a commission that assessed the losses incurred by the civilian population set an amount of $33 billion in 1921. Although economists at the time declared that such a huge sum could never be collected without upsetting international finances, the Allies insisted that Germany be made to pay, and the treaty permitted them to take punitive action if Germany fell behind in its payments. Events would verify this prediction: in January 1923, French and Belgian troops occupied the Ruhr in response to Germany falling behind in reparation payments.

The social and political turmoil of inter-war Germany does not concern this study, but two elements that emerged from the 1920s and 1930s would have a dramatic influence on the way foreign units were subsequently raised and employed by the German armed forces in World War II. The first was Adolf Hitler; the second was National Socialism.

A drop-out and failed artist before World War I, Hitler fought for the German Army and afterwards became leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei - NSDAP).

Hitler and National Socialism

Without the individual magnetism of Hitler there would have been no National Socialist mass movement, and no Third Reich. To his followers, Hitler had the historical personal greatness of Caesar or Napoleon. A man of monstrous egotism, his total self-confidence made him believe himself to be a man of destiny, chosen by an act of providence to lead the Nordic world. Whatever we may believe about Hitler with the benefit of hindsight, in the 1930s the great majority of Germans believed both in him as a leader and in his vision of a greater Germany. And this is all the more astounding given that the Germans were among the best-educated people in the twentieth century. As this chapter will show, by 1938 Hitler had made Germany the most feared and powerful state in Europe (a feat achieved without firing a shot in anger). In Germany, this made him an almost Messianic figure, but beyond the Reich's borders such leadership also had an effect on impressionable non-Germans, especially young men. This theme will be explored in later chapters, but suffice to say that in the 1930s Hitler's admirers could be found throughout Europe.

National Socialism

The second element that was to have a profound effect on the recruitment of foreign nationals in particular was National Socialism. Though an ideology with peculiarly German roots, its main themes - violent nationalism, contempt for the Slavs and anti-Semitism - had widespread appeal throughout much of Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. Essentially a radically conservative ideology, National Socialism contained concepts that were very attractive to young males in particular. These included the subordination of the individual to the state, the inequality of men and races, unswerving obedience to a leader, and the right of the strong to rule the weak.

Race and land

For Hitler and the Nazis, National Socialist ideology came down to space and race. His main aim was to achieve German unification with Austria and all those Germans wrenched from the Reich as a result of Versailles; thus, all German-speaking peoples would be as one. Further, the concept of Lebensraum (living space) was crucial to Germany's survival. This required the conquest of Slav lands to the east, which would allow Germany to acquire sufficient land to become economically self-sufficient and militarily invincible. Having acquired the space, the Third Reich would be ruled by a German master race (Herrenvolk). The chosen race of Aryans (a term used from the nineteenth century to denote a race responsible for the progress of mankind; the Nordic or Germanic peoples came to be regarded as the "purest" Aryans), possessing blue eyes, blonde hair and striking Nordic features, would rule over the "lesser peoples", who would ultimately be reduced to a class of slaves.

Race and Nazism

Race lay at the core of Nazism. Nazi publications talked of the fragmentation (Zerreissung) of the German people, of the loss of tracts of land to "alien" states and peoples. The following is from the NSDAP monthly publication Nationalsozialische Monatsschriften: "Adolf Hitler and his National movement became the vehicle through which the work of bringing into existence a new Germany and a new Europe could begin. Its basis was the creation of the German national community which was no longer the sum of Germans living within the state borders, but its German people rooted in race, soil and history." Thus, the ideas of Nordism and Aryanism were not necessarily constrained by political boundaries. This would later make it possible for Nordic recruits to enter the SS, the Nazis' racial élite. Therefore, foreign nationals, as long as they were racially "pure" - not mixed with the blood of "inferior" peoples, especially Jews - could become part of the German blood community.

The threat of communism

Hitler also portrayed National Socialism as being a bulwark against Bolshevik communism, and later the fight against Bolshevism was to be a popular reason why many non-Germans volunteered for military service in the Third Reich. However, anti-Bolshevism was not unique to the Nazis. In the aftermath of World War I in Germany, a great number of ex-soldiers had formed or joined ad hoc volunteer units collectively known as Freikorps. Freikorps units could consist of small groups of fewer than 100 men loosely thrown together along quasi-military lines to defend local areas; others were divisional-sized formations consisting of infantry, artillery, machine-gun and motorized units, logistical support, engineers and even air power. Estimates put the number of Freikorps units formed during the period 1918-23 at about 200-300. Freikorps units served as the basis for combating communist revolution across Germany, seeing service in the Baltic region where they fought the Poles along the eastern frontier during various Polish territorial incursions. The Freikorps saw themselves as being the saviour of Germany, and had taken to the streets to counter the communist thrusts that sprang up immediately following Germany's fall in 1918. In much the same way, foreign nationals would take up arms with Germany in World War II to defend Europe from the perceived Bolshevik threat.

Reclaiming the Reich

After Hitler became chancellor in January 1933, he set about reclaiming German lands "stolen" under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Notwithstanding the subsequent brinkmanship of the Führer and the appeasement of Britain and France, the string of diplomatic victories Hitler won reinforced his image as a man of destiny and of National Socialism as an all-conquering ideology.

On 1 March 1935, the German Army, accompanied by armed SS units, marched into Saarbrücken. No resistance was encountered. Thus buoyed up, on 16 March Hitler made his famous proclamation repudiating the Treaty of Versailles and its disarmament clauses. He reintroduced military conscription, announcing this to the German Reichstag as a political statement (parts of his speech were, word for word, those written seven years earlier by Defence Minister Groner, but Hitler was the only German politician prepared to stand up and present it). He certainly expected some repercussions from the Allies (Britain and France), but they were too engrossed in their own internal affairs and took no notice.

At this time, Hitler also officially established the SS-Verfügungstruppe, the armed wing of the SS. The SS (Schutz Staffel) - Protection Squad - was founded in 1925 as a small personal bodyguard to protect Hitler at public meetings. From 1929, it was headed by Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler, and entry into its ranks was governed by strict racial criteria. The SS was the racial and ideological élite of the Nazi Party and thus of the Third Reich. The intention was that the SS-Verfügungstruppe, which later became the Waffen-SS (Armed-SS), would benefit from the highest possible standards of training available. To facilitate this, two highly regarded former army officers, Paul Hausser (appointed Inspector-General of the SS-Verfügungstruppe in 1936) and Felix Steiner, were recruited. Both were ultimately to become among the finest field commanders in the Waffen-SS. The SS will be dealt with in later chapters, but suffice to say here that its armed units were never intended to rival those of the army in terms of manpower. Rather, they were to have experience of combat to enhance their reputation in the post-war Third Reich.

The Rhineland

Hitler now turned his attention to the Rhineland. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles it had been demilitarized, producing between France and Germany an unoccupied buffer zone. It comprised all German territory west of the River Rhine and a 48km (30-mile) strip east of the river, which included Köln, Düsseldorf and Bonn. Hitler yearned to send troops into the Rhineland, both in order to assert that it was an indivisible part of his new Germany and to demonstrate his contempt for the treaty. The opportunity presented itself in early 1936.

In May 1935, a Franco-Soviet five-year treaty of mutual assistance had been signed (part of Stalin's policy of providing a counterweight to Hitler's Germany). While the French Senate was still debating whether to ratify the treaty, Hitler on 7 March 1936 repudiated the Rhineland clauses of the Treaty of Versailles and the Locarno Pact and announced that German troops had entered the demilitarized zone. The Locarno Pact had been signed on 1 December 1925 by Germany, France, Belgium, Britain and Italy. It guaranteed the borders as laid down in the Versailles Treaty and provided for mutual support and peace in Western Europe. Implicit in the pact was that Germany would renounce the use of force to change her western frontiers.

Against the advice of his more cautious commanders, Hitler ordered his army to march into the Rhineland, in an operation codenamed Winter Exercise, on the morning of 7 March. The new Luftwaffe fighter aircraft made their first public display, while the SS-Leibstandarte (Hitler's bodyguard regiment) provided the advance guard. The Wehrmacht was ordered to retreat immediately should French forces move to oppose the occupation. The French General Staff refused to act unless partial mobilization was ordered, a request the French Cabinet refused. Thus, the French Army, one of the largest in the world at that time, stood by and did nothing. That evening the Führer made a gloating speech to a packed Reichstag. The occupation had been an enormous risk, which only a man as driven as Hitler would have taken. The German Army had mustered only one division, a mere three battalions of which had actually crossed the Rhine. If the worst had occurred, only a few brigades could have reinforced these minute forces. The French, on the other hand, with their Polish and Czech allies, could have immediately fielded 90 divisions and brought up reserves of 100 more.

Hitler had become the undisputed demigod of European fascism. He now became even more confident and began to look at the absorption of the other Germanic territories, which led to what has been euphemistically called the "flower wars".

The takeover of Austria

The new Austrian republic, like Germany but on a much smaller scale, had embarked on its own rearmament programme. Her small army for defence had been secretly swollen. No air force existed between 1919 and 1934, but from the latter date Austria secretly created one. On 25 July 1934, Austrian Nazis, who together with German Nazis attempted a coup but were unsuccessful, assassinated Austrian chancellor Engelbert Dolfuss. An authoritarian right-wing government headed by Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg then took power in the country. During the next 44 months, Austria was overrun by Nazi agents who, with the support of Austrian sympathizers, were able to subject the citizens to a constant barrage of propaganda. This authoritarian right-wing government perhaps kept half the population from voicing legitimate dissent. In February 1938, Hitler invited von Schuschnigg to Germany and forced him to agree to give the Austrian Nazis a virtually free hand. Schuschnigg later repudiated the agreement and announced a plebiscite on the Anschluss (union with Germany) question. He was bullied into cancelling the plebiscite, and then obediently resigned, ordering the Austrian Army not to resist the Germans. President Wilhelm Miklas of Austria refused to appoint the Austrian Nazi leader Arthur Seyss-Inquart as chancellor. Hermann Göring ordered Seyss-Inquart to send a telegram requesting German military aid, but he refused, and the telegram was sent by a German agent in Vienna instead. On 12 March 1938, Germany invaded, and the enthusiasm that followed persuaded Hitler to annex Austria outright on 13 March. A controlled plebiscite of 10 April gave him 99.7 percent approval for his actions.

Czechoslovakia

After his success in absorbing Austria into Germany, Hitler looked covetously at Czechoslovakia, where about three million people who lived in the Sudeten area were German in origin. It became known in Prague in May 1938 that Hitler and his generals were drawing up a plan for the occupation of Czechoslovakia. The Czechs were relying on military assistance from France, with which they had an alliance. As Hitler continued to make inflammatory speeches demanding that Germans in Czechoslovakia be reunited with their homeland, a general European war seemed imminent. Neither France nor Britain felt prepared to defend Czechoslovakia, however. In mid-September, Hitler agreed to take no military action without further discussion, and Neville Chamberlain, the British prime minister, agreed to try and persuade his cabinet and the French to accept the results of a plebiscite in the Sudetenland. The French premier, Edouard Daladier, and his foreign minister, Georges Bonnet, then went to London where a joint proposal was prepared stipulating that all areas with a population that was more than 50 percent Sudeten German should be returned to Germany. The Czechs were not consulted. The Czech Government initially rejected the proposal, but reluctantly accepted it on 21 September. On 22 September, Chamberlain again flew to Germany and met Hitler, where he learned that the Führer now wanted the Sudetenland occupied by the German Army and the Czechs evacuated from the area by 28 September. The Czechs rejected this, as did the British Cabinet and the French. On the 24th, the French ordered partial mobilization; the Czechs had ordered a general mobilization one day earlier. In a last- minute effort to avoid war, Chamberlain then proposed that a four-power conference be convened immediately to settle the dispute. Hitler agreed and, on 29 September, Hitler, Chamberlain, Daladier and Mussolini met in Munich, where Mussolini introduced a written plan that was accepted by all as the Munich Agreement. The agreement stated that the German Army was to complete the occupation of the Sudetenland by 10 October, and an international commission would decide the future of other disputed areas (though Germany was given de facto control over the rest of Czechoslovakia as long as Hitler promised to go no further). Britain and France informed Czechoslovakia that it could either resist Germany alone or submit to the prescribed annexation. The Czechs capitulated. Following a little over five months of internal discontent between Czechs and Slovaks, the latter proclaimed their independence on 14 March 1939. Germany received Slovakia into its web of power as a satellite state the day after Germany had occupied Bohemia and Moravia as "protectorates". The annexation of Czechoslovakia was undoubtedly Hitler's greatest "bloodless conquest", and was the second of his "flower wars". This was the first time Germany was able to annex a state with a largely Slav population, and Czechoslovakia disappeared from the map of Europe.

In the aftermath of World War I, an area of East Prussia known as the Memel District with a population of 160,000 people was turned over to Lithuania following the Memel Convention of 1924. Its significance in the history of Nazi Germany came on 20 March 1939, when Hitler demanded the return of the area and its ethnic German population to the Reich. Surprisingly, Lithuania accepted and the bloodless turnover was effected on 23 March. In truth, the German community had remained unreconciled throughout the decade and a half of Lithuanian rule. Martial law had been imposed on them in 1926 and again in 1938. National Socialism had gained favour among the German community, and anti-Semitism grew steadily during the 1930s. The Nazis won 26 of 29 seats on the local council in the December 1938 elections, for example, and Memel's Jews began a mass exodus. The acquisition of the Memel District marked the end of Hitler's bloodless conquests and thus the "flower wars".

Danzig

Hitler also coveted the Free City of Danzig and the "Polish Corridor", a strip of land 32-112km (20-70 miles) wide that gave Poland access to the Baltic Sea. Despite their policy of appeasement, both London and Paris finally realized that Hitler was determined to absorb Poland just as he had the Austrians and Czechs. They therefore signed treaties with the Poles guaranteeing to declare war on Germany should Hitler invade. But the Russo-German Non-Aggression Treaty (23 August 1939), which sealed the fate of Poland, stunned the world. The details were as follows: the two countries agreed not to attack each other, either independently or in conjunction with other powers; not to support any third power that might attack the other party to the pact; to remain in consultation with each other on questions touching their common interests; not to join any group of powers directly or indirectly threatening one of the two parties; and to solve all differences between the two by negotiation or arbitration. The pact was to last for 10 years, with automatic extension for another 5 years unless either party gave notice to terminate it 1 year before its expiration. More importantly, perhaps, a secret protocol divided the whole of Eastern Europe into German and Soviet spheres of influence. Poland east of the line, formed by the Narew, Vistula and San rivers, would fall under the Soviet sphere of influence.

World War II begins

On 1 September 1939, German forces attacked Poland - World War II had begun. The Blitzkrieg completely destroyed Poland, whose total armed forces exceeded three million men, in a campaign that lasted 36 days. Shortly after Warsaw had fallen, Hitler informed his military chiefs of his monumental decision to attack in the West that autumn. Great consternation was engendered among the German Army leaders, who felt that a decisive conflict with the Western Allies was not at this point within Germany's grasp. In fact, Hitler then ordered various postponements to the attack, which put back the offensive in the West to the following spring. Ironically, this was the date proposed by the OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres - Army High Command) in opposition to Hitler's original demand for an immediate offensive. A winter of inactivity on the British and French side, and preparations on the German side, followed.

Fall Weserübung

The invasion of Denmark and Norway, codename Fall Weserübung or Operation Weser Exercise, began in the early dawn of 9 April 1940. The operation was characterized by lightning speed, meticulous planning and total secrecy. In Denmark it met with virtually no resistance. Two German aircraft were shot down, a few armoured cars were damaged, 13 Danish soldiers were killed and another 23 wounded. It was nothing more than a skirmish. Before the Danes had had breakfast, it was all over. The Volksdeutsche and pro-German Danes were as surprised as any by their fate, which literally fell from the sky upon them. It was the first example in any war of a successful airborne operation. However, once they had recovered from their shock, the North Schleswig Germans welcomed the arrival of "their" army. They offered hospitality, directed traffic and in some cases even took it upon themselves to round up and guard Danish prisoners of war. But nowhere did any Danish citizen indulge in any acts of premeditated sabotage. Before the invasion, the Germans had dispatched a small commando unit to Pagborg to ensure that the Danes did not try to impede their advance by blowing up the important bridge there - the Danes had not even mined it. Norway was a tougher nut to crack, but by 1 May only some northern parts of the country remained in Allied hands.

On 9 May 1940, Hitler decided to unleash the Blitzkrieg in the West the following day. At nine o'clock that evening, the codeword "Danzig" was given, signalling the launching of Fall Gelbe or Case Yellow, the invasion of France and the Low Countries. The campaign concluded on 25 June, after which the French were forced into a humiliating capitulation. Hitler had enjoyed six years of continuous diplomatic and military successes, which was not lost upon the populations of Germany or Western Europe.

Despite the fiasco of Italian arms in the Balkans, which forced Hitler to divert divisions south to conquer Greece, Yugoslavia and Crete between April and May 1941, by June the Third Reich stood poised at the borders of the Soviet Union.

The invasion of Russia

There had been extended common frontiers between Germany and Russia before, and rarely had they proved anything but sources of constant friction and animosity. In October 1939, a sense of history had prompted many to wonder how long such bellicose neighbours could live in harmony. The war between Nazi Germany and communist USSR was inevitable. Ever since his days as an extremist in the political wilderness, Hitler had been obsessed with what he called the "Jewish-Bolshevik conspiracy", the bastion of which he saw as the Soviet Union. From the earliest days of Nazism, Hitler had looked eastwards to find Lebensraum for the German people. "If we speak of new land in Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her vassal border states," he wrote in Mein Kampf. "Here fate itself seems desirous of giving us a sign." Now the time had come. France had been demolished by one quick thrust, the Balkan sideshow had been concluded, and Germany could now look to the East. Hitler and his party had unconcealed contempt for the Slavs. He lumped them with the Jews as an inferior race, and equated Bolshevism with Zionism.

During the spring of 1941, German units were massed on the Soviet border. Eventually, more than three million men were deployed on Russia's western frontier. Operation Barbarossa, the codename for the attack on the Soviet Union, began on the morning of 22 June 1941.

A wasted opportunity

In many areas, the Germans were initially welcomed with enthusiasm. In the Ukraine, for example, there was little resistance. In fact, some of the villages and towns welcomed the German Army with flowers or the traditional Ukrainian bread and salt of hospitality and friendship. German soldiers were pleasantly surprised that they were welcomed and regarded as liberators from the communist yoke. In 1933, the Ukraine had suffered a man-made famine organized by Lazar Kaganovich, a henchman who followed Stalin's orders to the letter. An estimated seven million Ukrainians died of starvation.

Later in the 1930s, thousands of Ukrainians were arrested and started disappearing, including intelligentsia, writers, artists and even musicians whose patriotism was suspected by the NKVD, the Soviet secret police. The Soviet terror of the 1930s erroneously convinced many Ukrainians that there was nothing worse than communist Russian slavery; they were wrong.

Foreign nationals

Mid-1941 was to witness a surge in the number of foreign nationals volunteering for service in the German armed forces. In Central Europe, volunteers came from Albania, Bohemia, Bulgaria and Croatia. In Western Europe, recruits came from Denmark, Finland, France, Holland, Norway and Spain. As German armies rolled east towards Moscow, Leningrad and Rostov, a diverse range of nationalities came under German control - Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Belorussians, Cossacks and Tartars - many of which would provide soldiers of varying quality to serve the Third Reich.

A pool of recruits or unwanted races?

The many different nationalities that had fallen within the control of the Third Reich as a result of military conquests presented a vast array of opportunities and problems for the Nazi leadership. The addition of millions of people to the Reich's population meant an increase in the manpower pool of potential recruits that could serve the German war machine. In theory, hundreds of thousands of additional recruits meant more manpower for yet further military offensives, which meant more conquests and yet more peoples falling under the yoke of the swastika. The prospects were dazzling. And yet, conquests also threw up a number of problems. Integration of foreign volunteers into the armed forces of Germany was not simply a matter of bureaucratic procedure. Laying aside differences in language and culture, National Socialism was an ideology that had definite views on certain races both within and outside Europe. The peoples of the more "Germanic" nations, such as Denmark and Holland, could be viewed as Aryan brothers and willingly accepted into the fold of Nazism. But what about Slavs and Moslems? What future could Ukrainian and Tartar recruits have serving a military machine whose political masters viewed them as "sub-human", fit only for ultimate slave labour, or even extermination? The circle could not be easily squared. This would be a problem that would never be solved; though it was ultimately to be irrelevant when the Third Reich accepted anyone who would fight on its behalf in an effort to stave off military defeat.

If ideology complicated the subject of foreign volunteers, then practicalities added another layer of difficulty. For, having conquered vast tracts of Europe, the German military bureaucracy was not geared up for the processing of thousands of foreign recruits. Trainers and administrators had to be found, plus barracks, training facilities, uniforms and weapons. For volunteer and officials alike, the recruiting process would be fraught with difficulty.