| DanaC |
03-25-2016 11:53 AM |
They had a lot of foreign troops once they opened it up to non-Germans in the early '40s. The percentage of the SS that were foreign grew drastically as the war progressed, I think.
[edit] from wiki:
Quote:
Initially membership was only open to people of Germanic "Aryan" origin,[6] the "master race", according to Nazi racial ideology. The rules were partially relaxed in 1940, although groups considered by Nazis to be "sub-human" like ethnic Poles or Jews remained excluded.[7][8] Hitler authorized the formation of units composed largely or solely of foreign volunteers and conscripts. Foreign SS units were made up of men from Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium (both Wallonia and Flanders), Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Galicia, Georgia, Hungary, India, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Romania, Russia (including Cossack and Tatar, Turkic SSR Republics), Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Ukraine, Independent State of Croatia, Asian Regiment, Arab Regiment, USA (15-20 volunteers) and a small number of British troops.
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The use of foreign regiments was very well established in European warfare. Most European armies had multiple foreign regiments, as well as, often individual foriegn volunteers in their regular regiments. It seems surprising that Hitler would accept that paradigm for the SS given they were the armed wing of the party, rather than formally part of the national army - but they became so much more of an army than a police force through the course of the war, and they were basically a way for Hitler to build a party-loyal full-scale army, despite his intentions for them to act as more as police in his nazi empire. Once you've accepted the need for a full-scale army, you kind of have to accept the need for foreign troops. Then as the war ground on, the death toll was such that the recruitment pool necessarily shifted outwards. |
