Wehrmacht foreign volunteers and conscripts

Andrey Vlasov and General Shilenkov (center) of the Russian Liberation Army meeting with Joseph Goebbels (February 1945)

Among the approximately one million foreign volunteers and conscripts who served in the Wehrmacht during World War II were ethnic Germans, Belgians, Czechs, Dutch, Finns, French, Greeks, Hungarians, Norwegians, Poles,^[1] Portuguese, Spanish, Swedes and British,^[2] along with people from the Baltic states and the Balkans.

Russian émigrés and defectors from the Soviet Union formed the Russian Liberation Army or fought as Hilfswillige (approximately another 800,000 to 1,000,000 voluntary assistants) within German units of the Wehrmacht primarily on the Eastern Front.^[3] Non-Russians from the Soviet Union formed the Ostlegionen (literally "Eastern Legions"). These units were all commanded by General Ernst August Köstring (1876−1953)^[4] and represented about five percent of the forces under the OKH.

List of volunteer units

Foreign volunteer battalion in the Wehrmacht. Soldiers of the Free Arabian Legion in Greece, September 1943.

Vault of the Blue Division, La Almudena cemetery, Madrid

Soviet Union

• 162nd Turkoman Division: The 162nd Turkoman Division was formed in May 1943 and comprised 5 Azeri and 6 Turkestani artillery/infantry units.^[5]
• XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps: Until 1 February 1945 under command of the Wehrmacht, then the Corps was transferred to the Waffen-SS^[6]
• Kalmykian Voluntary Cavalry Corps
• Nachtigall Battalion
  • predominantly foreign sub-battalion of the Brandenburgers
• Ostlegionen: By late 1943 the Eastern legions contained 427,000 volunteers and conscripts
• Roland Battalion (Special Group Roland)
  • predominantly foreign sub-battalion of the Brandenburgers
• Russian Liberation Movement
• Russian Corps
• Russian Liberation Army
• Ukrainian Liberation Army
• Ukrainian National Army
• Belarusian Home Defence
• Luftwaffen-Legion Lettland
• Lithuanian Territorial Defense Force

Croatia

• 369th (Croatian) Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)
• 373rd (Croatian) Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)
• 392nd (Croatian) Infantry Division (Wehrmacht)
• 369th Croatian Reinforced Infantry Regiment (Wehrmacht)
• Croatian Naval Legion
• Croatian Air Force Legion

Other Europe

• Poles in the Wehrmacht
• Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism
• Blue Division^[7]
  • including one company (150 to 200 volunteers) of Portuguese
• Blue Legion

Asian states

• Indische Legion
• Free Arabian Legion

See also

• Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts
• Schutzmannschaft
• Selbstschutz
• Hiwi
• Kapo
• Brandenburgers: German Special Forces of the Wehrmacht (Abwehr)

References

1. Ryszard Kaczmarek: Polacy w Wehrmachcie. Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków 2010. ISBN 978-83-08-04488-9
2. Wangel, Carl-Axel (1982). Sveriges militära beredskap 1939-1945 (in Swedish). Stockholm: Militärhistoriska Förlaget. ISBN 978-91-85266-20-3.
3. M. V. Nazarov, The Mission of the Russian Emigration, Moscow: Rodnik, 1994. ISBN 5-86231-172-6
4. Dermot Bradley, Karl-Friedrich Hildebrand, Markus Rövekamp: Die Generale des Heeres 1921–1945. Band 7: Knabe–Luz. Biblio Verlag, Bissendorf 2004, ISBN 3-7648-2902-8.
5. Nikolai Tolstoy. The Secret Betrayal. Charles Scribner’s Sons (1977), ISBN 0-684-15635-0, page 304ff.
6. Rolf Michaelis: Die Waffen-SS. Mythos und Wirklichkeit. Michaelis-Verlag, Berlin 2001, p. 36
7. Carlos Caballero Jurado, Ramiro Bujeiro (2009). Blue Division Soldier 1941-45: Spanish Volunteer on the Eastern Front. Osprey Publishing. p. 34. ISBN 1-84603-412-4.