The first foreign units

As Hitler ordered the expansion of the Waffen-SS in the summer of 1940, the first foreign units were formed from Belgian, Danish, Norwegian and Dutch recruits. Himmler's racial purity requirements could be fudged because of the alleged "kindred stock" of these Germanic recruits. These men were either pre-war fascists or opportunists who wanted to show their allegiance to the New Order in Europe.

The recruits from the Low Countries were formed into the Westland Regiment, while the Scandinavians were assigned to the Nordland Regiment. They were eventually linked in December 1940 with the Germania Regiment for the nucleus of the Waffen-SS Wiking 5th Motorized Division. Its commander for the next three years was Felix Steiner, who was one of the more talented Waffen-SS divisional commanders.

Himmler's lust to expand the Waffen-SS was not quenched by the formation of the Wiking Division, though, and he quickly moved to tap further the manpower pool of the occupied territories. He wanted to set up so-called "legions" recruited from Belgian, Dutch, Norwegian, Danish and Swedish volunteers. A French legion was initially set up under army control, before eventually being transferred to the Waffen-SS. These legions were all closely linked to fascist or right-wing nationalist groups in their home countries. Norwegian collaborator Vidkun Quisling's government, for example, was instrumental in recruiting volunteers to the Waffen-SS.

The anti-Bolshevik crusade

Nazi propaganda sold these foreign legions as part of a pan-European anti-Bolshevik crusade, and they were quickly dispatched to the Eastern Front to fight the Russians. Regular heroic newsreel reports recounted their exploits fighting the Red Army, although during the first two years of the Russian campaign they were more likely to be found on anti-partisan duty behind the front. Later in the war they would be given more than enough opportunities to die in battle against the Soviets.

The Flemish-speaking Belgian-Dutch legion was bound together by a common language and hatred of the old Belgian state. A French-speaking Belgian unit, drawn from the Walloon region of Belgium, was formed in 1941 under officers who were high-ranking officials in the fascist Rexist Party. It served for three years on quiet sectors of the Eastern Front until the desperate situation in the Ukraine forced the unit to be transferred to a key sector. In the process, it was expanded into Storm Brigade Wallonien and then fought side by side with the Wiking Division in the Cherkassy-Korsun Pocket. It covered the withdrawal of the Wiking as a rearguard. The brigade's combat exploits earned it the Führer's gratitude and its commander, Rexist leader Léon Degrelle, the Swords and Oakleaves to his Knight's Cross. The unit was destroyed in the battle for Berlin in 1945, but Degrelle managed to escape to Spain. He was one of only three of the original 850 recruits to the brigade who survived the war.

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