Masters of mechanized warfare

When the Waffen-SS found itself locked into the bloody war of survival on the Eastern Front from late 1941, Hitler's élite was soon fighting for its life. No mercy was shown by either side. The Waffen-SS now showed that it was more than just a glorified murder squad. Its commanders and soldiers showed they could master the art of mechanized warfare, and scored a number of highly impressive victories in tank battles against overwhelming odds. In these defensive battles, the early arrogance of the Waffen-SS was replaced by grim determination and hard, skilful soldiering. Time and again, Waffen-SS units were defeated in battle but quickly regrouped and struck back when other armies would have given up the fight.

During the Blitzkrieg years, the mass of the Waffen-SS was still inspired by Nazi ideology to win "living space" for the German people. As the war degenerated into a bloody battle of attrition, less idealistic motives came to the fore as the hard-core Waffen-SS officers found themselves being dispatched into battle repeatedly against impossible odds. Casualties took their toll, and the time to recuperate between campaigns became shorter. At this time the loyalty from shared experiences and battles came to the fore, as Waffen-SS men fought increasingly for the sake of their comrades rather than for their Führer. Senior Waffen-SS officers also began to take common cause with their Wehrmacht colleagues and question Hitler's orders to fight to the last man.

Nazi ideology saw non-Aryan races as inferior to Germans and consigned Europe's Slavs and Jews to servitude or extermination. In the conquered countries of Western Europe, Hitler and his SS supremo, Heinrich Himmler, were keen to recruit non-German Aryans to their cause. Puppet pro-Nazi parties were used to help rule in occupied Norway, Denmark, Holland and France. After the invasion of Russia in the summer of 1941, the need for manpower to feed the Eastern Front led Himmler to begin setting up so-called foreign legions in the Waffen-SS. These were manned by opportunists, adventurers and Nazi fellow travellers, who often did not know what they had let themselves in for.

High casualties in battles with the Red Army forced Himmler to look to Eastern Europe to fill the ranks of the Waffen-SS. Germany was running out of manpower, and the number of Western Europeans volunteering to serve in the Waffen-SS was also dwindling. Increasingly, conscripts and unemployed Luftwaffe ground staff and Kriegsmarine sailors were also finding themselves drafted into the Waffen-SS to replace those killed or wounded in battle. They were far from being highly motivated.

At first, so-called Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans) living outside Germany were called upon to serve their new homeland, but these manpower pools were soon bled dry. In an act of desperation, Himmler then turned to Muslims from Yugoslavia and Albania, Catholic Ukrainians and citizens of the Baltic states to serve in the Waffen-SS, turning Nazi racial theory on its head. The final irony was the recruitment of former Soviet soldiers from German prison camps into the Waffen-SS.

prev | next