War and Game

The background of volunteers
In spite of the Nazi propaganda’s efforts to portray the Waffen-SS as a European formation, it was actually and primarily a German organization. During the war, its “best” divisions were recruited inside the Reich’s borders and were more or less completed with Volksdeutsche from 1942 onwards. Thus the division “Wiking”, set up in autumn 1940, which was presented as the first “Germanic” unit with Dutch and Scandinavian soldiers, had no more than 6 per cent “Germanic” volunteers in its ranks in June 1941 (1,142 out of 19,377 men).18 The recruitment of “non-Germanic” volunteers did not begin until 1942 (Baltic, then Bosnian and Ukrainian legions or divisions) and, on a larger scale, from spring 1944, as soon as the Reichsführung-SS launched its “cultural revolution” and agreed to enlist volunteers without integrating them as SS members.19

Inside the Reich, the Black Order’s success in finding volunteers was subject to significant regional variations. It is impossible to draw a unified profile of regions that provided particularly large numbers of volunteers. The common picture of a Waffen-SS recruiting on a large scale in the Protestant Northern German provinces is, if not actually wrong, too one-sided. The relative number of enlistments depended above all on social environment.

Two socio-economic patterns gave the SS recruiters their best results. Recruitment was particularly fruitful in rural, mostly Protestant regions such as Pomerania and Eastern Prussia, as well as in some Catholic rural regions such as the Austrian mountain provinces. But the best results were achieved in the provinces where a majority of the population lived in medium-sized towns (between 2,000 and 100,000 inhabitants) shaped by commerce, such as the SS-Oberabschnitte (SS Main Districts) “Südwest” (south-western Germany) and “Mitte” (corresponding largely to today’s Lower Saxony). Between the small rural communities (so-called Dorfgemeinschaften), which were led by their elites, and the working class of the industrial regions impregnated by a trade-unionist culture, there existed a middle tier of clerks, artisans and salesmen ready for enlistment in the Waffen-SS.20

Four further comments complete this analysis. First, the regional recruitment numbers for the year 1940 – the only figures we have – are the result of a selection process in which more than 80 per cent of candidates had been rejected after a moral, physical, and racial examination. 21 Only the initial number of candidates would be pertinent to analysing the more “enthusiastic” regions inside the Reich, and, unfortunately, we do not have these figures.22 The small percentage of candidates accepted proves, however, that the SS had a strong appeal, at least at the beginning of the war (450,000 men were examined in 1940, for example, and only 82,833 were accepted into the SS and police).

Secondly, we have to remember that SS ideology differentiated between the respective “racial values” of the inhabitants of the Reich itself. Thus the SS discriminated against people from some regions (such as the SS main regions “Elbe”, “Südost” or “Main” – that is, the military districts of Dresden, Breslau, and Nürnberg) and favoured people from regions such as “Mitte”, “Nordwest” or “Südwest” (that is, the military districts of Hanover, Hamburg and Stuttgart), whose inhabitants were usually judged “racially better”.23 Thirdly, the disparity of the Hitler Youth’s different branches in various regions can explain at least part of the campaigns’ regional variations. The Patrol Service – in which teenagers were selected following SS criteria – often found no competition in rural regions, while in and around the cities other attractive pre-military branches of the Hitler Youth (such as those who prepared for service in the Air Force, the Signals or as drivers) were available.24 Fourthly, the human factor could also be decisive, as shown by the example of Bavaria, which illustrates many typical difficulties: bad relationships between the regional SS leaders and the other Nazi leaders, internal opposition among the SS chiefs, and, finally, a long tradition of enlistment in the army’s mountain infantry, which created a strong competition, reduced the Waffen-SS’s success.25

It is important to note that by the end of the war the impossibility of finding enough Germans to fill its ranks led the SS to make up the losses of its oldest “German” units with Volksdeutsche. During the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, about half of the 2nd and 9th SS Armoured Divisions were composed of so-called Volksdeutsche, for the most part coming from Hungary for the 2nd, and from the Ukraine for the 9th.26

Ages
The age of the SS soldiers reflected the policy of the SS-Hauptamt, which constantly anticipated the roll-call of the young conscripts in the army.27 More than 76 per cent of the volunteers recruited in 1940 were under 21 (37,612 out of 48,894).28 This policy was continued and even extended during the war. The German SS units created in the first half of 1943 were very homogeneous, and the median age of the members was very low: 18½ years for the 9th and 10th SS divisions (officers and non-commissioned officers included), 18 years for the SS brigade “Reichsführer-SS”, and probably less for the 12th SS division.29

During the last 18 months of the war, the German SS units lost their homogeneous character. During the Battle of the Bulge, for example, soldiers of all ranks aged from 16 to 45 fought side by side.30 This was certainly also the case in other Wehrmacht units – except the paratroops – but it was also the price paid for the Reichsführung-SS’s short-sighted policy of using its new recruits to swell the number of the SS divisions, rather than managing a manpower reserve of quality in anticipation of battle losses. Breaking point was reached during the summer of 1944.31

Political affiliation
Following the image of the “fanatical” SS soldier created by contemporaries and post-war literature, one might be tempted to think that the SS volunteers all came out of the same mould, and even that most of them had political responsibilities in Nazi Germany. The reality, however, is more complex. The ratio of SS soldiers involved in National Socialist organizations fluctuated strongly depending on the units, the moment and the National Socialist organizations considered. For instance, the “Death’s Head” regiments at the beginning of the war were composed of more than 60 per cent Nazi militants – especially members of the Allgemeine SS, the civil branch of the SS. This proportion was only half as high in the police and army units that have been analysed (the 101st Reserve Police Battalion and the 253rd Infantry Division, for instance).32

In fact, because of the rivalry between the National Socialist organizations (such as Sturmabteilung, Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahrkorps, etc.), the SS did not receive many of their militants.33 With the conversion of the Waffen-SS into a mass army from 1943 onwards, the proportion of Nazi militants among its members decreased markedly – due on the one hand to the massive incorporation of German teenagers who had not had the opportunity for political commitment, and on the other hand to the integration of “ethnic Germans” who were not members of the Hitler Youth or the Labour Service.34

Motivations
To understand the motivations that led men to volunteer for the Waffen-SS, the historian has to face a double problem concerning sources and methodology. Contemporary sources tell us very little about motivation, and the personal accounts given after the war by SS soldiers are, for obvious reasons, difficult sources. One way of ascertaining possible motives for enlistment is to study the SS recruitment propaganda. This allows us to understand the messages to which German recruits responded. Regarding propaganda strategies, three different phases can be distinguished. Until 1941, the call for a “new type of political combatant”35 prevailed. The reasons given for a candidate to enlist were ideological: need of a Lebensraum for Germany; to fight not in a “classical” war between States but in a war against opposed ideologies, such as liberalism and communism.36

Whereas men had enlisted before the conflict for ideological or opportunist reasons, the volunteers in the war years 1939–1941 joined above all a political paramilitary elite, and not – as they said or wrote later – a military elite organization. Indeed, the Waffen-SS was in no way a military elite – nor was it presented as such – at this time.

From 1941 onwards, however, the SS recruiting propaganda changed completely, now using very attractive posters showing SS soldiers. Furthermore, the rational approach that addressed the candidates’ political or ideological convictions gave place to a subjective and emotional message about the possibilities of military elitism. The posters were meant to seduce men into volunteering without conveying any political or ideological statements.37 In 1943, this approach changed once again, as now German teenagers became the main target of the SS. The propaganda was directed at them, and enlistment in the Waffen-SS was presented as a rite that permitted teenagers early entry into the adult world: the “best” poster in this sense presented in a low-angle shot a proud teenager in the uniform of the Hitlerjugend and, in the background, the same person in SS uniform, markedly taller.38

Regarding the motivations of the volksdeutsche volunteers, we can discern three different types: 1) the “enthusiasts” who joined the Waffen-SS at the beginning of the war in order to serve Germany and because they did not feel a strong connection towards their countries of residence; 2) men who were attracted by the material advantages offered by the SS, by the pay and financial help for their families. These incentives were particularly attractive because of the economic difficulties in the occupied countries; 3) finally those who, in the second half of the war, were enlisted like conscripts by the SS, following diplomatic agreements.

In the case of “Germanic” volunteers, the call for a “racial community” had little echo. When the SS recruiting operations were intensified, from 1943 onwards, they attracted primarily men from the lower classes motivated by material advantages or the desire to flee from a taxing or difficult situation.39 From this point of view, the case of the Walloon Legion is certainly interesting, because it was highly paradoxical. The degree of political or ideological affiliation (mostly anti-communism) of its soldiers was far higher at the beginning, in 1941–2, when the unit was created to participate in the “Crusade against Bolshevism” and belonged to the Wehrmacht, than after its transfer to the Waffen-SS in summer 1943. In October 1944, the unit’s commander wrote a stern report about this problem:40 “[...] since April 1944, recruitment for the SS Brigade Wallonie gets more and more difficult. A great number of recruits does not show any social or even moral value: they are young workers from the Reich’s factories who enlist in order to escape from the too harsh and dull life in the industry, and have no kind of care for idealism; many are even not Walloons but belong to nations rotten by democracy.”