European Confederation of Germanic Nations - Multinational Waffen-SS

Pan-German revolutionary Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler

Dutch SS volunteers of Vrijwilligerslegioen Nederland

Minister President of Norway Vidkun Quisling

The Waffen-SS cultivated contracts with influential persons in many foreign countries, in preparation for the time when these nations would unite with the German Reich into a Nordic union. In accord with the SS pan-Germanic ideology stressing Nordic blood ties, the Waffen-SS would accept only truly “Germanic” legions recruited in Denmark, Flemish Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, leaving the proposed Croatian, French, Spanish, and Walloon Belgian contingents to the Wehrmacht for training and deployment. During the war, Walloon Belgium was given Germanic status and Finland became an “honorary Germanic” nation due to its unique ethnic origin. Men and often women front nurses from all of these counties served with the Waffen-SS during World War II, and their story is complex and interesting, not least because it is often told simplistically and inaccurately. German dictator Adolf Hitler had doubts about recruiting foreigners into the Waffen-SS, but he gave approval for the first Germanic multinational division to be formed from foreign nationals with German officers in 1940. A sufficient number of Nordic and Western European volunteers came forward requiring the SS to open a new training camp just for foreign volunteers at Sennheim in Elsaß-Lothringen. By the second half of 1942, an increasing number of foreign ethnic Germans, so-called 'Volksdeutsche, began entering the ranks. The Waffen-SS expanded further in 1943 and the first non-Germanic division was formed, and in 1944 it expanded again with Baltic formations. The Waffen-SS could no longer claim to be an elite fighting force overall. Recruitment and conscription based on numerical over qualitative expansion took place, with many of the foreign units being good for only rear-guard duty. Hitler was categorically opposed to non-Germanic volunteers in the Waffen-SS but the military situation of the Reich forced him to approve this state of affairs. Credit: authors Kenneth Estes and Marc Rikmenspoel, Waffen-SS Encyclopedia. Top image: Austrian-born Adolf Hitler at the Wolfsschanze in 1941. Photo by cameraman Oberleutnant der Luftwaffe Walter Frentz. Walter Frentz Collection. FU. Middle image: Dutch Waffen-SS volunteers of the Volunteer Legion Netherlands sworn-in by SS-Sturmbannführer d. R. Gunter d'Alquen in Berlin-Zehlendorf on February 1 1942. Oorlogsbronnen. Fair use. Bottom image: Minister President of Norway Vidkun Quisling during a gathering with Norwegian volunteers in Oslo in Norway in December 1943. Quisling was charged with high treason after the war and executed by firing squad in Oslo on October 24 1945. Scanpix Sweden AB. PDM.