Foreign Legions Of The Third Reich

Bind 1 (norske, danske og franske frivillige), bind 3 (sydeuropæiske frivillige) og bind 4 (østeuropæiske frivillige) findes under SYSnumrene hhv. 5088, 5099 og 5105.

Bind 2 (vesturopæiske frivillige), bind 3 (sydeuropæiske frivillige) og bind 4 (østeuropæiske frivillige) findes under SYSnumrene hhv. 5081, 5099 og 5105.

Bind 2 (vesturopæiske frivillige), bind 3 (sydeuropæiske frivillige) og bind 4 (østeuropæiske frivillige) findes under SYSnumrene hhv. 5081, 5099 og 5105.

Examines the motivation and reasons as to why two million foreign volunteers joined the German Army and Waffen-SS from countries as far as India to the Balkans.

In Hitler’s Foreign Executioners, Heinrich Himmler’s secret master plan for Europe is revealed: an SS empire that would have no place for either the Nazi Party or Adolf Hitler. His astonishingly ambitious plan depended on the recruitment of tens of thousands of ‘Germanic’ peoples from every corner of Europe, and even parts of Asia, to build an ‘SS Europa’. This revised and fully updated book, researched in archives all over Europe and using first-hand testimony, exposes Europe’s dirty secret: nearly half a million Europeans and more than a million Soviet citizens enlisted in the armed forces of the Third Reich to fight a deadly crusade against a mythic foe, Jewish Bolshevism. Even today, some apologists claim that these foreign SS volunteers were merely soldiers ‘like any other’ and fought a decent war against Stalin’s Red Army. Historian Christopher Hale demonstrates conclusively that these surprisingly common views are mistaken. By taking part in Himmler’s murderous master plan, these foreign executioners hoped to prove that they were worthy of joining his future ‘SS Europa’. But as the Reich collapsed in 1944, Himmler’s monstrous scheme led to bitter confrontations with Hitler – and to the downfall of the man once known as ‘loyal Heinrich’.

An essential part of German propaganda was the raising of non-German volunteer contingents, variously named as 'Legions' and 'Free Corps'. These units were from their outset mere token forces, comparatively insignificant in numbers and maintained chiefly for their propaganda value. However, as the tide of battle turned relentlessly against the Germans, the appeal for volunteers became ever more desperate. In this second of three volumes examining the flags of the Third Reich [see Men-at-Arms 270 and 278] Brian L. Davis examines the flags of the Waffen-SS: those of Walloon, Flanders, Norway, Finland, Danzig, Denmark, Estonia, Latvia, Croatia, France, Spain and India. Men-at-Arms 270, 274 and 278 are also available in a single volume special edition as 'Flags of the Third Reich'.

A ground-breaking study that looks at why European nations sent troops to take part in Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union.