Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: nyconse

Drafted into the Waffen-SS? I must admit, that's a new one on me. Anyone have a reference to such a thing?


17 posted on 08/11/2006 1:56:01 PM PDT by Petronski (Living His life abundantly.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies ]


To: Petronski
I think that near the end of WW2 they were often drafting to Waffen-SS just like to regular army, so that's possible.
23 posted on 08/11/2006 2:25:14 PM PDT by Grzegorz 246
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies ]

To: Petronski

It's possible that he was requested to "volunteer", either through bribery or intimidation. Or, he could be blowing smoke up our collective skirts and was an ardent Nazi. Only he knows the truth.

The Waffen SS formations competed with the Wehrmacht for personnel. Especially after the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, all manpower pools were increasingly tapped to the limit. The SS first went after ethnic Germans living outside of Germany - the Volksdeutsche, and foreign volunteers living in places like Denmark, Norway, and other "Germanic" places. After 1943, they even went after non-Germans, building units including Muslim, Ukranian, Lavtian, French, Italians, Serbs, Cossacks, etc. By 1945, half of the Waffen SS were non-German citizens.

After the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler failed, the Waffen SS was given even more priority on the dwindling manpower pool. Their units had first dibs on men and equipment. By this time, many of the men were "volunteers" in name only.

If you were a young man in Germany in late 1944 or early 1945, most probably you were going to end up in some unit. Whether it was the SS or not sometimes depended on which recruiting dragnet got to you first.

The Oxford Companion to World War II has a good discussion of this - see the section on the SS.


27 posted on 08/11/2006 2:37:08 PM PDT by Strzelec
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies ]

To: Petronski

I am skeptical too that anyone was drafted into the SS. In the beginning, the SS was highly selective of its recruits. Later, they were less stringent. But I have not read anywhere that they ever drafted anyone. They were all volunteers.


34 posted on 08/11/2006 3:15:26 PM PDT by Enterprise (Let's not enforce laws that are already on the books, let's just write new laws we won't enforce.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies ]

To: Petronski

I know that definity quite a lot of people were drafted into the Waffen-SS during the late war.


88 posted on 08/12/2006 8:26:36 PM PDT by Atlantic Bridge (De omnibus dubitandum.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 17 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson