Captured Armour

And spanish, hungarian, bulgarian, romanien...and even french forces too.

 

The only French forces serving in Russia that I know of were the Normadnie battallion; Free French pilots fighting with the Soviets...

Do you mean to say that there were French conscripts fighting with the Germans?

 

The Charlemagne (Sp?) SS fought for Germany on the Eastern front and were amongst the last troops defending Berlin.

 

Thanks Simon
You learn new things every day on this forum :smok:

 

I had no idea.I've never come across a source concerning troops other than German.

 

Almost forget the finnish, belgian and slovakian troops...

 

...and Norwegians.

 

Unfortunately I must admit that almost 6.000 Danes served in Waffen-SS


:roll:

They were pimarily employed in Russia and the Balkan countries (Yugoslavia) where they suffered heavy losses.
:bang:
(I really hate hard-core NAZI's but feel sorry for those mislead young men being tricked into the evil Waffen SS)

 

Why unfortunately? Most of Europe contributed manpower to Germany one way or the other, even Russians and Ukranians fought in German Uniform. About the only occupied nation that didn't contribute fighting manpower directly for Germany that I'm aware of is Poland. Spain also contributed a division of volunteers who fought for Germany on the Eastern front.

In terms of Europe at least it would probably be easier to list those nations whose members didn't serve in German uniform, even Britain wouldn't figure on such a list, although the numbers involved were small and AFAIK they didn't see combat.

 

Your broad brush paints over many issues and does little justice to the topic of collaberation with the Nazis. Some occupied countries contributed far more readily and in greater numbers than others thus relvealing a greater proportion of Nazi sympathisers in said countries. In the Soviet Union (particularly in certain states) there was great repressed opposition to the Stalin which seized enthusiastically upon the opportunity to assist in his downfall. As for the British - give me a break - you are well aware that that was a tiny, failed experiment involving a handful of POWs - it shouldn't be mentioned along side other nations contributing Waffen SS divisions unless the object is to disprove the point.

 

Why unfortunately?
After all the germans had invaded this little peaceful country for the second time with-in 76 years and these men should have known better than joining the Waffen-SS.
I am really ashamed of this fact.

I respect that many danes didn't like the soviets and joined the Finnus´h army and airforce during the first Finnish/Soviet war.

But then again : men joined the war for many reasons - Shame of their country not defending itself, fear for communism, lust for adventure etc. I suspect quite few were Nazi's from the start.

A lot of men from the danish minority in Northern germany also served as conscripts in the regular army, airforce and the navy.
I am not ashamed of this fact.

 

Just to show off, I posted here a list of the non-German troops actually involved in Barbarossa, and their fate:

 

That was deliberate, since Nazi-collaboration wasn't the point of this thread and I didn't want to take it off at too much of a tangent.

Agreed entirely, the only point I was trying to make was that there were those even amongst the British who were willing to fight for the Nazis. I know that it didn't even come close to the various foreign SS units and that the only managed to recruit less than a platoon's worth of men, but nevertheless they were still willing to fight for Germany.

 

jackals

Actually of the few Brits who joined most of them joined on the promise of drink and sex, very few had any political views and saw it as a good move to get out of the POW camps.The whole event was a non-starter, in no way can it be compared to the many non-german divisions, for instance, the Dutch had the highest number of SS volunteers per head of population than any other country. You should read if possible, 'Patriotic Traitors' by David Littlejohn. 1972

 

Even before the war, the Dutch National Socialist League was one of the biggest political parties, and these were open admirers of Hitler and his NSDAP. During the war, more than 25,000 Dutchmen voluntarily joined the SS to fight on the Eastern Front, mostly because they believed it would halt the approach of Communism.

 

Almost useless, but one of my favorites:
(Found in a hungarian book about the eastern front activities of the 2nd HunArmy)



So catch this:

A US made M3 Stuart landleased to the Red Army, captured and used by the Hungarian Army...towing a czech made Pz38(t), used by the German Army...

Any questions? :lol:

 

That is an odd pair.

 

.
To be fair some " allies " were sent there such as the romanians and hungarians , I'm not sure about the italians
the spanish blue division , french LVF , belgian wallonia , a regiment of the viking , baltics units and other various groups , were volunteers
increasingly volunteers were send into the SS as the german army was
rather distaintful of all those people ,
the last fighting units in berlin were mostly foreign SS of the french , belgian and spanish divisions going down virtually to the last man
covering the retreat of the liebstandarte units escaping the bunker , then
fighting beyong hope as late as 1 may 45

there was a strong political commitment against communism ,
they claimed they were the precursors of NATO

.

.

 

Typically warped Nazi logic and quite an insult to the ideals upon which NATO was founded - just goes to show how deluded many of these people were.

:x

 

.
not quite so , when one's go east , it get confused ,
the balts have some issues distinguishing the white hats from the black ones
as for the poles anything wich is against russia got to be a good thing , they are quite insane on the subject :roll:
there was a well designed nazi poster called the european crusade , it was quite effective

.