Utterly beyond belief the French SS volunteers..madness!

I have to be a pedant that those pictures of the French are LVF, they were Wehrmacht Infantry regiment 638. They were later consripted into the SS and a considerable number weren't happy about it.

 

Thanks mate for this valuable information. This means that these "volunteers" weren't happy with their brand new SS uniforms.

To others:
Slowly I start to understand this flood of diluting posts with "interesting" images. Not bad idea - very useful.

 

True and a well known fact (for those who speak French it was included in the link I provided earlier. ) Many were anti Bolshevisks , not all were Nazis and some of them were being even former Red Brigade veterans who had been disappointed by Stalinism. However when they were thrown into the SS , many were't too happy about this, but they did not have the choice. On the other hand they participated in what the Germans called the anti Partisan struggle (in fact an euphemism for war crimes and attrocities) ....

 

In short, Nazis used them to do the dirty job. Rene was smarter:

 

At first the Germans didn't trust the LVF recruits, I will try to find the name of the German officer who said "whe'll use them to unload the trucks with potato bags"

 

Napoleon has persuaded 500.000 Frenchmen to follow him to Moscow.

That's actually an interesting example for our discussion. Only about half of Napoleon's army in Russia was French; there were contingents from almost every nation or principality in Europe. In most cases it wasn't a matter of persuading individuals to join up but rather persuading/compelling rulers to send units of their regular armies.

There were roughly 600,000 troops of which about half - 300,000 - were French, about a third - 200,000 - German, about 1/12 - 50,000 - Polish, and the rest from all over - Italians, Swiss, Croats, Illyrians, Spanish, Portuguese. The Poles were one of the few groups with much to gain from the campaign; Napoleon had re-created a Polish state, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and his success was their best chance to retain their independence which had been lost in the partitions of Poland by Russia, Prussia, and Austria - the latter two of which were also represented in Napoleon's array in 1812.

 

WW2 figures of volunteers could aslo be compared with other countries. the LVF never exceeded 6000-7000 men at the time , as compared with the Belgians 20.000 who followed Degrelle from a country which had, at the time, a population roughly ten times smaller than France.

 

All that is true and the Greek resistance to the Fascist is commendable - however at the same time a lot of Greeks were willing to become Communist; and, apparently, recently they seem to tend to socialism.

 

That is not new news. There were the British free corps! Plus Muslims, Poles, Asians that fought for Hitler.

 

I'm surpised noone commented on the black "volunteer" (I'd rather think he was used for Propaganda and wouldn't be surprised to learn there is a Signal article about him) in the German army, you don't see this every day do you? He's wearing a German uniform and is carrying food supplies in Norwegian jars to his comrades. From what I read the picture was taken in the Summer of 1943 .

 

Feldgrau.net • View topic - African German Soldiers?

These Africans seem to be French African troops wearing German uniforms.

The thread was started by me.

 

I don't see anything disputable about that because they just chose what they want in their own country. That's their own business.

 

this would seem logical indeed, but I wonder what made this particular fellow switch side? Probably more a matte rof survival and food rather ideology. I'd be interested to know what happened to him.

 

Maybe Germans forced them near the end of the war, trying to gain any man they could? Same, I wonder if those Africans would had been treated like any white non-German soldier fighting for Hitler? A traitor! regardless of their skin colour.

 

I think this is debatable Aly. First of all this was a colonial soldier (Probably a Senegalese) so he was drafted into the French army and send far away to Europe in the middle of a war that was not his. He was far from his family and having to fight for a colonial power with people who did not always respect him.
So fighting for one side or another did probably not matter for him. All he wanted was to survive and go home. Considering many Colonial troops were killed and denied the Geneva Convention treatment ; the man may have been lucky not to be killed upon being captured. Was he really a "volunteer"? The same thing happened with Russian pows: if you see your friends starve to death and are offered a daily meal if you wear a different uniform, then yes, I would opt for survival too and I don't blame the man for having chosen this option, considering he had no place to hide and would be spotted at once if joining any Resistance and knowing he was manipulated by German Propaganda. Don't get me wrong the colonials fought bravely for France and often until the last man, but when the war was over for them they had to survive more than anybody else because being captured by the wrong officer meant death.

 

If we take as a parallel, West African (mostly Nigerian and Ghanian) who fought in East Africa and then Burma with the British, there was a lot of respect for these soldiers from their white officers and this seemed to be returned from the soldiers themselves.

There are quite a few interviews which support this.

However, when it comes to the reason why these black soldiers fought for Britain, it had nothing to do with "loyalty to the cause or supporting the Empire".

They simply saw themselves as professional soldiers getting paid for something they enjoyed.

Essentially mercenaries, I doubt they saw much difference in fighting for a different army provided they were well treated and respected.

 

Do we know if the French "drafted" native soldiers or they were voluntary recruits - all were in the British Army.

 

Right. Yes, I would say so, the Africans were not volunteers; I would believe that they had to fight. That would totally s/ck for him. Was that because his homeland was part of the French empire? I believed Indians and Muslims had to fight WWII for the British because the British told them they had too?

 

A cynic would say that in time of famine Devil feeds on flies.

Seriously now: This photo is absolutely a fake even though Nazis desperately needed fresh troops. An African in the Nazi uniform is entirely in collision with everything the Nazis fought for.

PS: I was wrong! Believe it or not but that is entirely true! Soldiers of the Free Arabian Legion in Greece, September 1943:

 

Not strictly true.

The Indian Army was always over subscribed with volunteers. It was looked upon as a well paid and honourable profession. In fact the British only recruited from the "martial races" which were judged to be high class Brahmins, Punjab Muslims and Sikhs.

Of course in the 1930s, India was in huge state of flux with Gandhi's pacifist independence movement and muslim\hindu agitation, so I guess many Indian soldiers had not realised that they would be required to fight in South East Asia and North Africa to prop up an Empire whose time was up. Still most did and fought very well.