Hitler's Non-white soldiers.

Hitler tried to use and to abuse the antisimitic and anticolonial (against the English) feelings of the Arabs who lived in the Middle East. He tried to begin a revolution against England in Iraq and then in Palestine. He also tried to recruit Arabs. In the second picture Hitler is together with the Great Mufti of Jerusalem (you can find the full story in another thread of the forum). The first photo shows some Arabs volunteer who joined the Africa Corps.

In the 5th picture most probably we see members of the 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian).
In the last 2 pictures i noticed a badge in the right arm of the black soldier.
I made a little research and found it. There are 2 words in the bottom of the badge 'FREIEN ARABIEN'.
There were 2 battalions. The 1st Free Arabs training Batallion and the 845 Free Arab Infantry Training Batallion.
Both of them involved in anti-partizans operations in Greece and their base was a camp in Lavrio, appr. 50 km SE from Athens. After the fail of the Iraqi's revolution against the English, the Prime Minister of Iraq Rasint Ali al Gailani who has anti Jew and anti English feelings and he was admired the Nazi's regime escaped
(May 1941 to Persia and then via Turkey to Germany.He decided, with the support of the the Germans, to establish an Arabian Legion from Arrab volunteers to fight on the side of the Germans. So in JUly of
1941 was established the 1st Deutsche Arabische Lehr-Abteilung in Lavrio a small city 50 km SE of Athens. The members of this Batallion were mainly Iraqis, Syrians, Palestinians, and Tunisians. Also
from Morroco and Algiers. Some of them were escaped from Iraq as Gailani and others were ex POW's or students in the European universities. German officers trained them in Desert war tactics. Their equipment was from the French Army
which was taken from the Germans. they had the Usual German helmet.They had the badge with the Iraq's flag and the words 'FREIEN ARABIEN' on the right arm and a white stripe with the words 'AT SERVICE
OF THE GERMAN WERMACHT' on the left. This unit fought against the Greek partisans and in some cases they make atrocities against the local people (Distomo village massacre). On November of 1943 another similar
unit came to Greece. The 845 German Arabian infantry batallion. It was established nearby Lintch-Austria. Arab students from France and Italy and other Arabs were among the 600 members of it. Their
mission was to guard railway stations, main roads and military facilities. they also participated in operations against the communist partisans. When Germans evacuated from Greece -October of 1944- the
Arab Batallion was serviced in Zagreb-Croatia against the local partisans in cooperation with the 104 German division.

 

I was shocked when I first saw these black Africans in Wehrmacht uniforms. I've heard about Muslims in Wehrmacht but never about Africans in Wehrmacht. This is very interesting and strange to me. Thank you for sharing this.

 

Du Bois did visit Germany in 1936 and after he returned to the US, he wrote extensively about the racism there against the Jews. Although treated courteously by most Germans, he clearly distinguished between encounters with individual Germans, Germany as a whole, and Nazi politics, both in articles from 1936 and 1940. Du Bois recognized how grave the situation was for Jews and others.

 

Why so shocking? The Germans captured I dont know how many Black French Colonial troops, ive got a few pictures of. Also, there were many serving in the FFL and undoubtedly, some joined the Germans cause to get better rations and such and were used no more than as Black "Hiwis". I also have a few pics of Hiwis mixed with their German masters.

A German FFL Vet once told me that about half of the men serving in the FFL, went to serve the Germans and the rest-the Allies. This German FFL vet had been a "Partisanjager" in the Waffen SS in WWII, then spent many years serving the French as an FFL volunteer and then finally, tried to lend his services to the US Govt-to help them on the Vietnam War.

The others like the Indians and such were in what they called Volunteer units and rarely had more than enough men in them to make even a full strength Battalion-which was less than 1,000 men. Not very good odds on numbers im afraid.

The Arabs were considered the worst soldiers ever, not my words but the words of a couple of German Vets I knew who are now no longer living.

 

To me it isnt a surprise that the German Whermacht had soldiers from other countries and volountaries from middle east or africa etc. True that nazism is a bit racist of themself with believeing in that some races is better than others and communists and jews is the worst people. Other than that they didnt have much against other people, but the allied claimed them to be much worser than the reality was and since they won the war that was needed. But the history got a bit corrupted at some points due to the allieds claims of their version of history but enough of that, it belongs to another thread.

DAK (afrika corps) had some africians and muslims fighting with them to get free from the brittish control in their colonies and was threated well under the german command and the people was not against the germans either and often helped them.
On the eastern front they had jews, soviets, even communists and checks and many other nationalist fighting with them and they was treated as any other soldier by the germans. Okay: SS didnt but that isnt a surprise either since they took the nazism to a new level which inspires todays nazism into more racist form.

But yes, those photos(not all) are true and the german army wasnt against and racists to other peoples as some schools today teaches out.

When the allied landed on Normandy they meet some koreans and muslims and russians and black people fighting against them and the allied believed they were forced by the German nazis under gun threat to fight against the allied and was used as slaves. They send home some videos of it and claimed they were released and libereted by the allied from their slavery. So wrong they were. They were fighting volountary and to hopefully win on D day and take up the fight with soviet union, if Germany would lose the war then they wouldnt have any home to come home to and the soviets would shot them.
Few survived.

Happened sometimes they treated other nationals soldiers badly but the americans and brittish didnt was so kindly to their own either but that isnt written in any book from that time. The camps america did for all american japanese people during the war. That the black people was inferior to the whites and couldnt take the same busses or the soldiers couldnt sleep in the same tent as the whites etc.
Both sides made horrible stuff, but the allied wona nd therefore we only remember the germans war crimes. But war and history works that way.

 

It is likely that overall the Germans treated these troops better in some ways than the Allies did theirs. But, that said, I know in at least the case of the SS Hanschar (Muslim Croats and Bosnians) that the division's performance in combat was very erratic and not particularly good. The division had at least two mutunies, one in France during training. After training it was used pretty much exclusively in Yugoslavia against ethnic rivals and Christian factions there.

The Cossacks were mainly in a Whermacht Cossack division under German command. This unit was somewhat unique in that it had a semi-automonous status and proved hard to control except by a handful of German officers for which the Cossacks had developed an affinity. Later, the SS took the division over and expanded it to a "Corps." At the end of the war the division surrendered to the British. As part of the surrender the division also had a very large camp following of familes, wives and, such that it had aquired. The British had promised fair treatment but several months after the war ended they handed the whole unit to the Russians who did the inevidable and expected to the entirety.

 

I am currently reading Forgotten Legions: Obscure SS Formations which has chapters on Balkan and other eastern troops in Nazi service. Germany had trouble finding the right officers to command these troops, and so far as I've read, their combat record was mixed at best. In fact many of them did better as independent battalians attached to the Heer rather than when they were transfered into the SS and formed into brigades/divisions.

 

Osprey published at least one book on the subject (probably more by now) and the one I am thinking of here was one about the Arabs in the Wehrmacht. The Germa cadre instructors couldnt stand having to try to train men to be soldiers who all really thought war was only a game. You see several photos of them trying to teach them how to march in sync, but you can clearly see that most or all of them thought of it mainly as a game.

 

The East Came West by Antonio Munoz is a good one.I own this book and it talks of the subject matter of this post.

 

I have heard stories of Jews in the German army for the early part of the war and they kept their identity secret. It is good enough for me to know they would not be acceptable as citizens or soldiers of Nazi Germany. I am not surprised that Blacks were in the group or other Arabs. The real question is, if Germany had been successfull, how long would these people be safe in this society if they ran out of Jews to blame everything on. They clearly do not fit the accepted description of the "Master Race" so your guess is as good as mine as to the safety of their future. As you may know Hitler was astute at knowing when to pounce after he made friends of some before he conquered them. He made it most of the way across Europe just doing that. Yes, we as Americans were not perfect in our treatment of many.....yes some minorities may have been treated better in German armies.......however the Americans do and continue to improve with the guarantees of our United States Constitution. Tuskegee airmen raised themselves up by their own bootstrap by flying, Navajo Code Talkers raised themselves up by their linguistic skills by speaking, because these two groups had a certain amount of freedom. Perhaps as we try we may take an occasional step backward but hopefully we learn along the way. I know of no other better form of government with its goals as high as those we try to live under and I am thankful for my citizenship under the U.S. Constitution. We are not perfect in this system but we are all free to try to make it better every day and I try to do that. This is the value of our ways in the USA.

 

buy the book on amazon called hitler's jewish soldiers or you can watch a video documentary also sold there
that will answer your question on jews in germany's army.
i do believe around 150,000 men were considered mischlinges (mongrels) as they were all part jewish.
the reasons they served varied but two most important points would be
1.the hope that serving would save their family members
2.that they were just as german as non-jews and just as tough too.

as far as blacks go i am almost sure that their was a plan to make black soldiers as germany was trying to conquer the n.african region
i am also sure it never really came to be.there were some uniforms and some approached but to late as germany lost out in africa

 

I had that book and read it but I was very disappointed with it. It started out very intresting but quickly went downhill. Mine was also autographed by the author but, I gave it away about 4 years ago.

 

i think that there are only a few books that even touch on this subject though i may be wrong.i also own the other book he wrote.i forget the name but it has more info on the subject.
i wanted to learn more of this subject and did learn something from his books.guess they could be written better.
i did like watching the video documentary which has some interviews with men who did serve.

 

I admit that at least he did try to shed light on the subject but, personally, I was looking more for names and units served in than the almost constant references to Mischlings and such.

Im aware of two other titles that more than touch on the subject but I cant remember who wrote them or the names of the books. One book I do remember, was written by a guy who only wrote about the negative stuff and was one-sided in is writings. That book is here at a local branch of the Autin Public Library but, I cant go in there because I was banned because I wore my cap indoors and also I dont feel like going to jail for beating this one library worker, I totally loathe ;-)) So I stay away from it and that branch of the library.

One book you might want to read even if its so full of vague crud and almost nothing is substantiated with proven fact, is a book about Hitlers Executioners: The Police Battalions by a guy with the last name of Goldhagen. I could barely stomach his crap for writing.

 

thanks a lot.I will try and find more books on the subject.
there is a decent book i have with units and battles.
the jew with the iron cross on amazon
Amazon.com: The Jew with the Iron Cross: A Record of Survival in WWII Russia (9780595379873): Georg Rauch: Books