Chapter 64: The Racial State - The Third Reich Part Three: European Support For Hitler Hitler was not only popular in Germany: many Europeans of other nationalities openly supported the Nazi ideology and volunteered, either as workers or as military servicemen and women, to actively assist the German war effort. This support for Nazism was widespread: sweeping across the European continent from Britain, Ireland, France, the Low Countries, Scandinavia, Eastern Europe right into Russia itself. Of the more famous pro-National Socialist movements with large followings: the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists, the Francistes in France, the Rexist party in Belgium, the Dutch National Socialist Bund, the Iron Guard in Romania and the Russian National Liberation Army, amongst others.
Above: In France, anger at the pre-war Jewish Prime Minister Leon Blum’s repression of democracy and banning of French nationalist groups saw a dramatic rise in support for the Franciste movement after the German occupation of France in 1940. Here, a Franciste rally at the Velodrome d’Hivier in Paris, attended by thousands. Below left: The British Union of Fascists and National Socialists rally in Earl's Court, London, 1936 - one of the largest public meetings ever held in that country. Below right: BUFNS leader Oswald Mosely addresses an open air meeting in Limehouse, London.
Below: Foreign labor in the Reich: Millions of Europeans voluntarily migrated to Germany during the war to work for the German armaments and other industries while large numbers of Germans themselves were called up to military service. Here, labor delegates representing nineteen nations visit Berlin, 1941. Visible signs in the picture show representatives from Romania, Belgium, the Ukraine and Serbia.
Contrary to post-war propaganda, the Nazis were not seen by all Europeans as invaders, but often as welcome allies by elements of the resident populations. Below left: Dutch National Socialists greet German troops pouring into Holland with the Hitler salute, and below right, ecstatic Ukrainians welcome the German Army into their land with the Hitler salute, regarding the Nazis as salvation from what they saw as Jewish Communism.
One of the most striking example of this popularity came with the emergence of the first pan-European army, the Waffen-SS. The SS, or Schutzstaffel (defense echelons), had started as a small bodyguard unit for Hitler's personal protection: it grew into the ideological army of the Nazi Party, eventually forming a state within the state, with its own officers and infrastructure. The SS developed three distinct branches: the Gestapo, or political police; the Hitler bodyguard unit; and eventually their own army, called the Waffen-SS ("fighting SS"). The Waffen SS became, ironically enough, the best known SS division, even though it was the last to be created, and often the Waffen SS is confused with the Gestapo, who administered the concentration camps and were completely separate to the Waffen-SS. The Waffen-SS was an entirely voluntary, ideological army. Because of its voluntary nature, it developed a unique spirit amongst its members. In the ordinary German army, the Wehrmacht, soldiers were under strict orders to keep their trunks containing their personal possessions locked at all times to prevent theft. In the Waffen-SS all personal trunks were open at all times by order: no Waffen-SS man was expected to steal from another Waffen-SS man. This rule was easily enforced after one famous incident: two Waffen-SS men were caught stealing from a fellow soldier's trunk: they were both shot, buried without gravestones and the entire regiment then marched over their graves. There was never again a single incident of theft in the whole Waffen-SS. SS-LEADER Heinrich Himmler SPEAKS on the White Race A valuable insight into exactly how the Nazis viewed other European populations is afforded through the memoirs of Artur Silgailis, chief of staff of Inspection General the Latvian Legion, the Latvian Waffen-SS, in his book "Latvian Legion" (James Bender Publishing, 1986, pages 348-349.) In that book, Silgailis describes a conversation he had with Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS and the second most powerful man in Nazi Germany:
"He (Himmler) then singled out those nations which he regarded as belonging to the German family of nations and they were: the Germans, the Dutch, the Flemish, the Anglo-Saxons, the Scandinavians and the Baltic people. 'To combine all of these nations into one big family is the most important task at the present time' (Himmler said). 'This unification has to take place on the principle of equality and at that same time has to secure the identity of each nation and its economical independence, of course, adjusting the latter to the interests of the whole German living space. . . After the unification of all the German nations into one family, this family. . . has to take over the mission to include, in the family, all the Roman nations whose living space is favored by nature with a milder climate...I am convinced that after the unification, the Roman nations will be able to persevere as the Germans...This enlarged family of the White race will then have the mission to include the Slavic nations into the family also because they too are of the White race . . . it is only with such a unification of the White race that the Western culture could be saved from the Yellow race . . . At the present time, the Waffen-SS is leading in this respect because its organization is based on the principle of equality. The Waffen-SS comprises not only German, Roman and Slavic, but even Islamic units and at the same time has proven that every unit has maintained its national identity while fighting in close togetherness . . . I know quite well my Germans. The German always likes to think himself better but I would like to avert this. It is important that every Waffen-SS officer obeys the order of another officer of another nationality, as the officer of the other nationality obeys the order of the German officer." This private discussion is illuminating, as it shatter a few myths which have arisen around Nazi Germany's racial policies: namely that the Nazis viewed Germans as the only superior race, and that they regarded Latin or Slavic nations as inferior. Both these allegations are utterly false, as revealed here in Himmler's own words.
Above left: General Augustin Muñoz Grandes, leader of the Blue Division volunteers from Spain who fought on the Eastern Front alongside their German allies. Above right: Two Spanish Blue Division volunteers with the Luftwaffe on the Eastern Front. 60 PERCENT OF THE WAFFEN SS WERE NON-GERMANS The Waffen-SS was also the foremost indicator of the popularity of Nazism beyond the borders of Germany: it is a little known fact that of the one million men who served in the Waffen-SS during the course of the war, 60 per cent - 600,000 men - were volunteers from countries outside of Germany. Ethnic Germans were in fact a minority of the Waffen-SS, a fact often forgotten. Non-German volunteers came from the Netherlands, Belgium, Finland, France, Denmark, Norway, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, the Ukraine, Byelorussia, Spain, Italy, Hungary, Yugoslavia and even a very small group of British volunteers, known as the Legion of St. George. The foreign Waffen-SS units were all deployed on the Eastern Front for two reasons: firstly they had specifically volunteered to fight Communism; and secondly so that they would never be asked to fight fellow countrymen in their native countries. All but a few thousand of the 20,000 French Waffen-SS volunteers, organized into a division called Legion Charlemagne, were killed in the Battle of Berlin in 1945.
Above left: French Waffen-SS volunteers of the Legion Charlemagne in Smolensk, Soviet Union, on the Eastern Front, 1943. Note the French flag arm flash. Above right: With "Heil Hitler" and "Vive le France" scrawled on their train, French SS volunteers leave Paris for the Eastern Front. The Legion Charlemagne was to distinguish itself in combat right up to the end of the war, when it was almost wiped out in the Battle of Berlin.
Above: French Waffen-SS men, returning from the Eastern Front, march down the Champs-Elysées.
Above: Leon Degrelle, a Belgian who became a Waffen-SS General, takes the salute at a Belgian Waffen-SS march past in Brussels, 1944. Degrelle took personal part in the fighting on the Eastern Front, escaping to Spain at the end of the war. Hitler once remarked that if he had a son, he would wish for Degrelle. Despite massive hardship, Degrelle retained his devotion to Hitler right up to his death - in exile - in 1984.
Above left: The Scandinavian countries contributed heavily to the Waffen SS - here two Danish men stand guard at a 'Regiment Nordland" recruiting station in Copenhagen. Above right: Dutch SS march through Amsterdam. The Dutch provided the single largest volume of volunteers for the SS out of any European nation. RUSSIANS VOLUNTEER IN THEIR THOUSANDS TO FIGHT COMMUNISTS
Above left: Cossacks, from the steppes of Russia, volunteered for the Waffen SS, fighting bravely for the National Socialist Cause against the Communists. Above right: General Andrei Andreevich Vlassov, a former Soviet Army General who, when captured by the Germans, asked to raise an anti-Communist army. His ‘Russian Army of Liberation’ who fought heroically against the Soviets right until the end of the war, when the Western Allies turned him and his surviving over to the Soviets. Most were executed. Here, Vlassov inspects a unit of his Russian army, equipped by the Germans. The Waffen SS also recruited heavily amongst Russians, Ukrainians, Cossacks, Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians. Thousands more Russians volunteered for service with the German army: in 1944, they were organized into a separate unit under a former Soviet Army general, Vlassov, who had been taken prisoner by the Germans very early in the war. Vlassov and his Russian army fought bitterly until the end, and when all was lost he and thousands of his soldiers fled into the West to surrender to the Americans and British rather than face capture by the Soviets. His hope was misplaced: in an operation codenamed Keelhaul, Vlassov and around 20,000 of his soldiers were then handed over to the Soviets by the Western allies: unsurprisingly, they were never heard of again. SUPPORT DISSIPATED BY DEFEAT AND REPRISAL MASSACRES This widespread support for Hitler and National Socialism had however been dissipated by the end of the war, mainly due to the defeat - and subsequent propaganda against - of Nazi Germany. Few people chose to actively associate themselves with a defeated enemy who had effectively been demonized as well. In addition, the German tactic of taking reprisals against civilian population for the activities of resistance groups, further served to alienate non-Germans. Resistance movements, encouraged by the Allied powers, sprang up in almost all of the occupied countries, despite the fact that they were in breach of the Geneva Convention, which specifically stated that once a country had formally surrendered, it was a breach of that convention to once again take up arms. These most famous of these reprisals - which were always in retaliation for guerilla activities - took place in Oradour in France, Lidice in Czechoslovakia (in both these instances, entire villages were wiped out, creating much bitterness), in Amsterdam in the Netherlands, (where groups of civilians were rounded up at random and shot in public squares), and at several places on the Eastern Front. Even though events then caused support for Hitler to have almost evaporated by 1945, the fact remains that prior to his defeat, his popularity amongst Europeans generally was significant and growing, an unpalatable fact for many people today. Part Four: The "Final Solution" - Nazi Policy towards Jews Part One: The Ideological background to Hitler's Germany Part Two: Racial Hygiene - Nazi Germany's Racial Laws All material (c) copyright Ostara Publications, 1999. Re-use for commercial purposes strictly forbidden. |
