War and Game

Battle fought by Nobunaga Oda (1534–1582) and his ally Ieyasu Tokugawa (1543–1616) with Takeda Natsunori, around the strategic fortress of Nagashino. In this encounter, the forces of Tokugawa and Nobunaga Oda were the first to rely primarily on massed firepower in the form of Western armaments, helping to transform samurai warfare while pushing both houses closer to hegemony over Japan.
Ieyasu Tokugawa had actually forged a familial alliance with the Takedas, whose territories bordered his own in central Honshu. He married both a son and daughter into the Takeda household in the 1560s, but in the world of shifting alliances and steady warfare that characterized Japan at the time, the alliance quickly foundered. The Takedas were soon at war with the Tokugawa again.

The death of the elder Takeda (Shingen) in 1573, at the hands of a sniper in battle, placed his son Natsunori at the head of the Takeda house. The rising fortunes of the Tokugawa had made them fierce rivals of the Takedas, and when in 1575 a traitor to Tokugawa offered to hand over the vitally strategic castle of Ozaki to the Takedas, Natsunori Takeda jumped at the opportunity. Ozaki was the capital of Mikawa Province, the heart of Tokugawa territory, and its castle was guarded by Tokugawa’s own son.
Takeda led a force of 15,000 warriors in what was expected to be a near-bloodless seizure of Ozaki Castle. Instead, they discovered en route that the treachery had been discovered by Tokugawa. Rather than face a humiliating retreat, Takeda opted to send his troops instead against the nearby fortress of Nagashino, another strategic castle sitting at the convergence of three rivers and guarding the entrance to Mikawa and Totomi Provinces.

Takeda began his siege of the castle in May 1575 but was still unsuccessful when word came that relief forces led by Tokugawa and Oda were on their way. Takeda opted to stand his ground near Nagashino and engage the approaching allied armies, though his forces were outnumbered more than two to one. At the Battle of Nagashino in June 1575, the alliance’s greater numbers and, more important, overwhelming firepower, including musket volley fire by alternating ranks (the first time that this technique is known to have been employed in warfare), carried the day. Takeda lost almost two-thirds of his men and generals, and the mortally wounded Takeda clan would linger only until 1582, when it was overrun for good.

References and further reading: Parker, Geoffrey. The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West, 1500–1800. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1988. Sadler,A. L. The Maker of Modern Japan: The Life of Tokugawa Ieyasu. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle,1937.

LINK

Supplies dropped by parachute Supplies are parachuted from a Douglas C-47 of the Tenth US Army Air Force on the 10 December 1944. The C-47 was the workhorse of Allied air transport, and the war in Burma could scarcely have been won without it.

The year 1944 witnessed a major change of fortune in Burma. In March, the Japanese launched a major offensive designed to take them into India. It was repulsed after bitter fighting and the British 14th Army began a counter-offensive that would prove decisive.

Lord Louis Mountbatten became supreme Allied commander of the Southeast Asia Command in October 1943. He brought fresh purpose, while the British 14th Army, under General Bill Slim, had been undergoing rigorous training in jungle warfare. Mountbatten wanted to use amphibious operations to weaken the Japanese hold on Burma, but the priority of shipping lay with Europe and the Pacific, and there was virtually none to spare for Burma. Even so, the British had begun to advance again into the Arakan, Burma’s coastal region. Also, in north Burma, General Joseph Stilwell and his Chinese troops had begun their advance from Ledo, building a road as they went, to link up with the old Burma Road at Lashio. Mountbatten therefore agreed to mount a second Chindit expedition to tie down Japanese forces in the north and thus assist Stilwell’s advance.

Japan on the offensive
The Japanese also had plans. They were to attempt an invasion of India in the expectation that the Indians themselves would then rise against their colonial master. The main attack would be made in central Burma, but they would also mount a diversionary attack in the Arakan. This opened on February 6, 1944. However, instead of withdrawing as in the past, the British stood their ground and fought. Some elements were surrounded and were resupplied by air until they could be relieved and, after three weeks, the Japanese forces halted their attacks.

In the meantime, the first Chindit brigade had set off on foot and two more were flown into rough landing strips behind the Japanese lines in early March. The main Japanese offensive opened on the night of March 7/8. General Bill Slim had expected an attack, but not so early. His forces withdrew toward his main forward supply base at Imphal. Here, they resisted a succession of Japanese attacks. North of Imphal a crucial battle now developed at Kohima, the small hill village that guarded the road to Dinapur, the main railhead for supplies. The fighting, much of which was at close quarters, continued for two weeks until the British garrison could be relieved. The battle then continued, with the British gradually forcing the Japanese back. Meanwhile, the Chindits had been advancing north to link up with Stilwell, fighting some fierce actions as they did so.

Stilwell, too, was making good progress and, on May 11, Merrill’s Marauders, the US Chindit equivalent, took Myitkyina airfield, although the Japanese in the town proved too strong for them. Simultaneously, forces from China began to advance down the old Burma Road. Mogaung was captured by the Chindits at the end of June, but having spent months behind Japanese lines, the men were by now at their last gasp.

 Japan on the defensive
The Japanese were also exhausted and had virtually run out of supplies. Hence, on July 11, they called off their offensive and began to withdraw, with Slim’s men following, to the Chindwin River. Three weeks later Stilwell finally secured Myitkyina, but by then the monsoon season had arrived, calling a halt to operations. Now forced onto the defensive, the Japanese drew up fresh plans. In the north they intended to prevent the link-up of the Ledo Road with the original Burma Road. In the center they planned to hold the British 14th Army on the Irrawaddy River, as well as stemming any advance west of the Irrawaddy to Rangoon.

While the advances in northern Burma continued, Slim began his offensive in early December with crossings of the Chindwin. Desperately short of supplies the Japanese were unwilling to give battle forward on their main defensive position on the Irrawaddy. Slim’s plan was to trap the Japanese in the loop of the Irrawaddy based on Meiktila. Given the lack of Japanese resistance between the Chindwin and Irrawaddy, however, he amended it. Now his intention was to make the Japanese believe that his next objective was Mandalay, when in fact it was Meiktila, a key communications center, which would also give him the ability to dash southwards to the ports of Rangoon or Moulmein. While this was happening, the advance down the Arakan continued, accompanied in January 1945 by a number of small amphibious operations designed to outflank the Japanese.


Building the Ledo Road A triumph of engineering, the Ledo Road ran 465 miles (750 km) from Ledo to the old Burma Road. It took two years to construct, through some of the country’s most inhospitable terrain.

Burma liberated
In mid-January Slim’s troops established bridgeheads across the Irrawaddy north of Mandalay, and Japanese forces spent the rest of the month trying to destroy them, but without success. Meanwhile, in northern Burma a momentous event had occurred. On January 27 the forces advancing along the Ledo Road, under the command of General Stilwell, linked up with the Chinese troops that were advancing south, down the old Burma Road. Apart from mopping-up operations, the north of the country had now been liberated. Mid-February saw Slim’s troops cross the Irrawaddy opposite Meiktila. The latter fell at the start of March, the Japanese having been convinced that Mandalay was the main objective, as Slim had hoped. Realizing their mistake, Japan launched a series of counterattacks against the town. The battle for Mandalay was taking place at the same time. The Japanese resistance was bitter, but finally, on March 20, Fort Dufferin, the last bastion in the town, fell. A week later the Japanese ceased their attacks on Meiktila and began to withdraw. Slim’s sights were now set on Rangoon, some 300 miles (480 km) to the south.

The advance to Rangoon began on March 30. It followed the line of the Sittang River, brushing aside any Japanese opposition. The main concern was the approaching monsoon season. The Mango Rains, which preceded the monsoons, did arrive on April 20, but Slim’s men remained undeterred.

To ensure that Rangoon was quickly seized, paratroops dropped at the mouth of its estuary on May 1, and Indian troops made an amphibious landing the next day. They entered the Burmese capital on May 3, a day after the Japanese had evacuated. Three days later, these forces joined up with the troops advancing down the Sittang.

Japan’s predicament
The remnants of Japan’s forces were now in two groups. Those east of the Sittang had withdrawn to the Shan Hills on the border with Thailand, while what remained of the Twenty-Eighth Army was trapped west of the Sittang. Neither group was fit enough to withdraw to Malaya.

By Jean-Luc Leleu
Is it still useful to talk about the Waffen-SS? No other military corps in contemporary history has gained such terrible notoriety. In the social memory of European nations the image of the “fanatic” SS soldier prevails, associating him with the bloodiest crimes on the front and in the occupied territories.1 But who really were the volunteers who joined this troop? Except for the officers’ corps, this question has so far not been systematically addressed by historical research.2

As a “parallel army” (E. Neusüss-Hunkel), the Waffen-SS was a paramilitary organization whose status obliged it, at least in theory, to recruit only volunteers – in contrast to the Wehrmacht, a state institution composed of professional soldiers and conscripts. While it would be impossible to present the profiles of all the approximately 800,000 men who served in the ranks of the military branch of the SS during the conflict, this chapter will try to give in outline a collective portrait of these men. To this end, I will first discuss how the SS-Hauptamt – the main SS office in charge of the recruitment – organized recruiting channels. Inside the Reich this was mainly done by establishing partnerships with the National Socialist youth organizations (Hitlerjugend and Reichsarbeitsdienst). In the occupied territories the strategies were (1) organizing the so-called Volksdeutsche communities (ethnic Germans living outside the Reich’s borders); (2) addressing more or less artificially constructed “Germanic” groups, and; (3) targeting the “non-Germanic” with specific measures. I will then try to determine the social background of the volunteers and to explain the evolution of their motivations before and during the war. Finally, the role of coercion in the enlistment of Waffen-SS volunteers during the war, which has been the topic of intense historical debates, will be assessed.

Recruiting SS soldiers in and outside the Reich
The perception of the Waffen-SS oscillates between two extremes. It is considered by some as a body of enthusiast “fanatic” National Socialists, by others as an organization of conscripts more or less pressured to join its ranks in the second half of the war. Neither perspective is wrong, but neither picture is complete on its own. For the development of recruitment within the Reich, the measures introduced by SS General Gottlob Berger were decisive.3 As soon as he became head of the SS Recruiting Office in summer 1938, he concluded agreements with the Hitler Youth to organize a Patrol Service (Streifendienst) and a Rural Service (Landdienst). The ranks of both organizations were filled with young Germans who met the racial and physical SS criteria, and who were therefore a target for SS recruiting commissions as soon as they arrived at an age to bear arms (17 years old). In the same way, an agreement was concluded in December 1941 with the Reich Labour Service (Reichsarbeitsdienst) to facilitate the entry of SS recruiting commissions into the camps in which young men had to serve for a period of three to six months before joining the army. In addition to the establishment of these institutional links, Berger targeted the countryside, employing “honourable”, locally well-known personalities who had a strong influence on their fellow-citizens, such as teachers, landowners or civil members of the SS.4

When, from 1941/1942 onwards, the army started to enlist ever younger men, Berger’s main objective became to recruit candidates as early as possible – primarily before they were called up by the army, since after this point it was generally no longer possible to join the Waffen-SS. This strategy reached its full effect in 1943, thanks to the full powers given by Hitler, with the creation of three “teenager” SS divisions (9th, 10th, and 12th SS divisions, of which two were filled by young men from the Labour Service – born in 1925 – and the third by young men serving in the Hitler Youth and born in 1926).

Finally, this policy found its apogee in a large but clandestine census of the age group born in 1927 and 1928, carried out by the SS under the cover of a general detection of tuberculosis during the winter and spring of 1943/1944. This elaborate and secret census helped Berger to find SS recruits during the growing manpower shortage in the Reich. The SS was thus copying the increasingly aggressive recruiting strategy of the army, which from 1943 onwards started pressuring young men to join the army as early as possible. Yet, despite some successes, none of these measures resolved the manpower problem of the SS; not enough young men were persuaded to join the Waffen-SS until the end of the war.5

As in Germany, the SS strove to create recruitment channels abroad. An obvious target of recruitment campaigns were the Volksdeutsche, the German communities settled in the Balkans, Eastern Europe and Nordschleswig (southern Denmark). Before recruiting operations began, Himmler ordered large censuses of those communities. In this case, among others, the statisticians of the Third Reich became real “scientific soldiers”, as has been pointed out by Götz Aly and Karl Heinz Roth.6

Results were impressive. By June 1944, about 150,000 Volksdeutsche were serving in the Waffen-SS.7 In September 1944, 60,000 Romanian Volksdeutsche, about 12 per cent of the whole German community in Romania, had enlisted.8 In Hungary, this figure reached 13 per cent.9

In the “Germanic” lands – the Netherlands and Scandinavia – the absence of organized recruiting channels led to poor results at the beginning. This proved the need for such channels. As an interim solution, it was decided to recruit men from the paramilitary groups of the local fascist parties. After Himmler’s order in January 1941 to pursue this avenue, the SS, for example, undertook negotiations with the Dutch Anton Mussert’s NSB (Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging) and obtained about 1,000 men in five weeks – a number to compare with the 786 “Germanic” volunteers from the Netherlands, Flanders and the Scandinavian area that the SS had been able to recruit in the five months between August and December 1940.10

In comparison to the large number of Volksdeutsche who joined the ranks of the Waffen-SS, the numbers of “Germanic” volunteers always remained very low, showing the inability of the SS to convince these populations of a “community of destiny” with the Reich. Nonetheless, some increase was noted from the summer of 1943, after Berger’s SS-Hauptamt had introduced in all “Germanic” countries a card index system to register all citizens who manifested a certain sympathy for the Reich, or at least an absence of hostility: militants of fascist or pro-German organizations; students who had received a scholarship to study in the Reich; workers who had volunteered to work in Germany; and members of territorial units in service with the German armed forces (e.g. “Landwacht Niederlande” or SS-Wach-Bataillon 3 in the Netherlands).11

From 3,000 men at the beginning of the war against the Soviet Union in June 1941, the number of “Germanic” volunteers rose to 12,021 in January 1942, 19,331 in June 1943, and 34,887 (37,367 including the French) in January 1944. Many of these men did not meet the SS’s high physical standards and racial criteria (in particular, the minimum height of 1.70 m), but only the military service criteria.12 This total is far below the exaggerated estimates given in the tendentious literature written during the Cold War by former SS officers in order to rehabilitate the Waffen-SS and to present it as a NATO avant-garde seeking above all to fight communism on the Eastern Front.13 The number of Dutch volunteers, for example, could never have been as high as 50,000 to 60,000 men, as former SS General Steiner maintained in his book in 1958, since we know that the exact number was 21,908 on 1 January 1945.14

In the second half of the war, POW camps and factories in the Reich became common recruiting grounds for the SS, especially after Hitler’s order of March 1944 giving Himmler the authority to liberate any POW who volunteered for armed service in the Waffen-SS or for service in the Security Police (Sicherheitspolizei or Sicherheitsdienst).15 This procedure became de facto the only possibility for the SS to recruit foreigners after the evacuation of the occupied territories in 1944, but results were nevertheless poor.16

Of course, all these strategies encountered numerous obstacles. The SS experienced frequent problems due to National Socialist leaders, German institutions such as the army, the German Foreign Minister, and satellite states such as Romania and Hungary, among other things.17

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.”

Spontaneous, suggested or enforced enlistment?
In theory, the Waffen-SS was forced because of its status to recruit only volunteers. In reality, an increasing number of men were pressured into joining the Waffen-SS during the conflict. The question is, therefore, when and by what means the SS overrode its own principles and broke both German and, in the case of foreigners, international laws by enlisting non-volunteers. Contrary to preconceived ideas, the pressure on “volunteers” did not evolve in a linear fashion during the conflict. The application of coercion fluctuated, depending both on SS needs and on available manpower. As early as spring 1940, when the SS wanted to complete its “Death’s Head” regiments, civil SS members, teenagers of the Patrol Service and the Hitler Youth, and even members of the SA were pressured to enlist in the Waffen-SS.41 A rise in enforced enlistments occurred again one year later, just before the invasion of Russia, when the SS had to fill up its active and reserve units, in the form of a “20,000 men campaign” within a period of seven weeks.42

The transformation of the Waffen-SS into a mass army in the years 1942–3 certainly marked a clear breach of earlier practices.43 From this point onwards, coercion was no longer applied only to men who were more or less closely connected with a SS or Nazi organization, but also to common conscripts. The recruiting methods did not change, but the population affected by them did.44

The increasing scarcity of manpower in the Reich also contributed to this evolution. The growing need for soldiers, particularly due to the Wehrmacht’s losses in Russia, obliged the army to enlist ever younger age groups. From the end of 1942, the number of age groups available for enlistment was reduced to only one (year class 1925), while there had been three at the beginning of the year. Consequently, constraint took on a cyclic form: each time a new age group was available to be enlisted, the SS and Wehrmacht had no difficulty in finding a certain number of enthusiastic young volunteers. But these volunteers did not suffice. For the Wehrmacht, the problem was easily solved by conscription. The SS, however, had to increase the pressure on the passive members of each age group to fill its ranks.

With regard to enlistment, the SS was not as powerful within the Reich as is believed in current secondary literature. A number of cases prove that it was possible to avoid enlistment in the SS, at least by enlisting in the Wehrmacht.45 The existence of complaints proves, also, that it was possible to oppose an arbitrary decision. In February 1943, for example, 2,500 teenagers who had been coerced to enlist in the Waffen-SS were released and handed over to the police.46

Enforcement sometimes took radical forms, including the death penalty at times. Still, this was only possible by consent of both Hitler and the Wehrmacht high command.47 On the other hand, the SS found in the army an increasingly dangerous competitor for recruits, since in summer 1943 the army started to use the same methods as the SS, only on a larger scale.48 The figures speak for themselves: enforcement did not lead to an increase in SS enlistments. In fact, the number of new recruits in the Waffen-SS diminished in 1944 in favour of recruitment into the army.49 Nonetheless, since both air and sea were controlled by Allied forces, the course of the war necessitated the dispatch of Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine soldiers to ground-battle units. If the Army (Heer) received the greatest part of them, the Waffen-SS received, for its part, about 40,000 men, because Himmler had meanwhile been designated Chief of Army reserve, after the assassination attempt on Hitler of 20 July 1944, and so could give some advantages to “his” Waffen-SS. As these men had no choice, it is hard to say whether or not they accepted their transfer willingly. Some of them were satisfied; 50 others protested in vain – not always for political reasons, but also due to being “loathe to become common infantry.”51 Hence, as has recently been shown by the case of the German Nobel prize winner Günter Grass, who confessed to having belonged to the Waffen-SS after having volunteered for the submarines, towards the end of the war it became increasingly difficult to make a distinction between real volunteers and others.52

This is also true for the Volksdeutsche. While the SS took much care to stress the voluntary character of the enlistment of “ethnic” Germans at the beginning of the war,53 it began to use more forceful tactics when it failed to achieve its recruiting objectives in 1942, at the time of the formation of the “Prinz Eugen” division with men of the former Yugoslavia. Himmler even decreed the conscription of the Balkans’ Volksdeutsche from 17 to 50 years old, “if necessary to 55 years old”. They had, according to him, the duty to serve “not by formal law, but by the brazen law of their Volkstum”.54

This unilateral decision complicated the matter rather than resolving it. It was, in fact, very hard to enforce, for many reasons. Himmler’s main chiefs of staff were opposed: for the chief of SS recruitment, the results would be counterproductive, because enlistment into the SS would be seen as a punishment; for the military chief of staff, the results on the battlefield would be poor with such conscripts; finally, it would be impossible to publish this decision, for propaganda and diplomatic reasons.55 Consequently, the issue of general conscription for the Volksdeutsche remained unresolved until the end of the war.56 In itself, it had no more importance. As the SS judge in Himmler’s office wrote in February 1945, “the SS and police courts had always taken care of the Reichsführer’s point of view, even without such legal basis, and [...] used it as fundament of their decisions with all consequences which proceeded from it.”57

During the war, the SS paid much more attention to the voluntary character of enlistments of “Germanic” foreigners in the occupied countries than of Germans in the Reich. More than the will to adhere to the international laws of war, the racial conceptions of the SS can explain this choice. The SS, for example, respected its engagements and liberated its “Germanic” volunteers who had enlisted for a short six-month service. Even men who wanted to go home before the end of this period were released in March 1941.58 In October 1942, more than 20 per cent of the “Germanic” SS volunteers had been released from armed service since the beginning of the war, while 2,404 out of 10,821,509 had been killed (4.7 per cent).59 Of course, there were cases of constraint, especially from 1943 onwards.60 But these remained at a very low level. And, although Himmler considered introducing conscription in the “Germanic” countries, he did not do so.61 By contrast, the SS dealt otherwise with “non-Germanic” volunteers. In fact, it rounded up the young male inhabitants of some countries when it needed men, for example in Zagreb when the Bosnian Division was set up in summer 1943.62 Men were also rounded up to fill the ranks of the Second SS Armoured Corps in Ukraine, in spring 1944.63 Such operations were not, however, a “Waffen-SS exclusivity”.64 Finally, conscription was introduced in 1944 in Bosnia, Estonia, and Latvia.65

Conclusion
To sum up, it has become clear that the profiles of the Waffen-SS volunteers are much more complex than is usually believed. Even more important, independently of their profiles or their motivations, these volunteers came to serve as an example after which the Reichsführung SS and the government intended to model the Wehrmacht. In the competition created by the Nazi leaders between the “conservative” German army and the “revolutionary” Waffen-SS, the latter gradually became the model of reference regarding efficiency on the battlefields – or so, at least, it was successfully represented by propaganda.

The ideological conviction of these “new types of political combatants” was declared as more important than their professional value. Furthermore, through the successful enlistment of foreigners, the Waffen-SS gave the illusion that patriotism was henceforth transcended by ideological education. Given this example, the German Army was intended by the government to evolve in the same direction. The army’s Volksgrenadier- Divisionen, which were set up under the aegis of the SS even before the attempt on Hitler in July 1944, and later the Volkssturm were means of copying this ideological “success”. They were a direct extension of the social model of the Waffen-SS to the regular army, and by the end to a whole society at war.

Notes
I would like to thank Karen Weilbrenner for proofreading the English.
1. For a general perspective: G. H. Stein (1967) La Waffen-S.S., American edn 1966 (Paris); B. Wegner (1997) Hitlers politische Soldaten. Die Waffen-SS, 1933.1945, 5th edn (Schoningh); J. L. Leleu (2007) La Waffen-SS. Soldats politiques en guerre (Paris).
2. B. Wegner (1997); G. C. Boehnert (1978) A Sociography of the SS Officer Corps, 1925.1939 (Ph.D., University of London), V; H. F. Ziegler (1989) Nazi Germany’s New Aristocracy. The SS Leadership, 1925.1939 (Princeton/ New Jersey), XX. A sociological study about NCOs and all ranks of the Kommandostab Reichsfuhrer-SS units is available in M. Cuppers (2005) Wegbereiter der Shoah. Die Waffen-SS, der Kommandostab Reichsfuhrer-SS und die Judenvernichtung 1939.1945 (Darmstadt).
3. For bibliographical accounts about Berger, see G. Rempel gGottlob Berger . eEin Schwabengeneral der Tatf h, in R. Smelser and E. Syring (eds.) (2000) Die SS: Elite unter dem Totenkopf, 30 Lebenslaufe (Paderborn), p. 45.59; J. Scholtysek (1997) gDer .Schwabenherzogh. Gottlob Berger, Obergruppenfuhrerf in M. KiƒÀener, J. Scholtysek Die Fuhrer der Provinz. NS-Biographien aus Baden und Wurttemberg (Konstanz), p. 77.110. See also H. Hohne (1995) Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf. Die Geschichte der SS, 1st edn 1967 (Augsburg), p. 420.
4. J. L. Leleu (2007), p. 118f. See too G. Rempel (1971) The Misguided Generation: Hitler Youth and SS, 1933.1945 (Ph.D., University of Wisconsin).
5. Ibid., p. 129.135 and chapter 6. 6. G. Aly and K. H. Roth (2000) Die restlose Erfassung. Volkszahlen, Identifizieren, Aussondern im Nationalsozialismus, 1st edn 1984 (Frankfurt/Main), p. 19.
7. Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde (later BABL), NS 19/370: Der Reichsfuhrer-SS, 11.6.1944.
8. BABL, NS 19/3987 (fol. 13): gAuf dem Weg zum germanischen Reichh, Ansprache des Chef des SS-Hauptamtes [Tagung auf der Plassenburg, 26.2.1944.1.3.1944]; NS 19/2859: Reichskommissar fur die Festigung dt. Volkstums/Hauptamt VoMi an Reichsfuhrer-SS/Pers.Stab, IX/13/III/22 g.Rs., betr: Unterstutzung der z.Zt. unter rumanisch-sowjetischem Bereich lebenden Deutschen in Rumanien, 26.9.1944.
9. L. Tilkovszky (1974) gDie Werbeaktionen der Waffen-SS in Ungarnh, Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, XX, 1.2, 137.181, p. 180.
10. Vojensky Historicky Archiv, Prague (later VHA), SS-Nachrichten-Stelle gNordwesth, 9/3: Fernschreiben (FS) 2216, SS-Standartenfuhrer Jungclaus an Reichsfuhrer-SS, 14.2.1941, 11.00 Uhr; SS-Nachr.Stelle gNWh, 10/3: FS 2604, Erganzungs-Stelle Nordwest an Chef des SS-Hauptamtes, 28.2.1941, 11.35 Uhr; SS-Nachr.Stelle gNWh 12/4: FS 2958, Erganzungsstelle Nordwest an Chef des SS-Hauptamtes, 13.3.1941, 16.25 Uhr; SS-Nachr.Stelle gNWh 14/5: FS 3531: Ergänzungsstelle Nordwest an Ausbildungs-Bataillon Sennheim, 7.4.1941, 17.30 Uhr. M. P. Gingerich (1997) “Waffen SS Recruitment in the ‘Germanic Lands’, 1940–1941”, The Historian, 59, 826.
11. J. L. Leleu (2007), p. 177–78, 186–89.
12. BABL, NS 19/1735 (fol. 37–39): Chef des SS-Hauptamtes an den Reichsführer-SS, Betr: Germanische Freiwillige, 28.7.1943; NS 19/3987 (fol. 12–13): “Auf dem Weg zum germanischen Reich”. Ansprache des Chefs des SS-Hauptamtes [Tagung auf der Plassenburg, 26.2.1944–1.3.1944].
13. See G. Stein (1967), chap. 6, p. 155 (the numbers given by Stein are nevertheless wrong).
14. G. Stein (1967); p. 155–164. F. Steiner (1958) Die Freiwilligen. Idee und Opfergang (Göttingen). The total of Dutch SS soldiers is derived from their number in January 1944 and the recruitments during the year 1944. See BABL, NS 19/2429 (fol. 126): SS-Obergruppenführer Rauter an Reichsführer-SS, betr: SS-Werbungen 1944, 11.1.1945, 19.45 Uhr. P. Pierik (2001) From Leningrad to Berlin. Dutch Volunteers in the Service of the German Waffen-SS 1941–1945. The Political and Military History of the Legion, Brigade and Division Known as “Nederland” (Soesterberg), p. 56f.
15. BABL, NS 19/1480: Reichsführer-SS an Chef des SS-Hauptamtes, 23.3.1944. See too J. R. Stovall (1976) Gottlob Berger and Waffen-SS Recruiting Policies (Ph.D., Boulder, University of Colorado), p. 101f.
16. See, for instance, the case of the SS brigade (then division) “Wallonie” at the end of the war. Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amtes, Berlin-Mitte (later PA/AA), Inl II/D, R 100658 (n.f.): A.A./Pol II (Inf II c), betr:Flämisch- Wallonische Befreiungskomitees und die Lage in Belgien, 18.12.1944. E. De Bruyne (1994) Dans l’étau de Degrelle. Le Service du Travail Wallon 1944–1945 ou de l’usine à la Waffen-SS (Jalhay); E. De Bruyne (1998) Le recrutement dans les Stalags et Oflags en faveur de la Légion Wallonie, Housse, dact., 41 p.
17. J. L. Leleu (2007), p. 179–86.
18. M. P. Gingerich (1997), p. 829. 19. J. L. Leleu (2007), chapter 3.
20. Ibid., chapter 8.
21. Ibid., p. 224–25.
22. We only know the number of candidates in Bavaria in 1941. BABL, NS 31/145 (fol. 9): Ergänzungsstelle Süd (VII) an SS-Hauptamt/II, betr:Rassische Statistik für 1941, 14.7.1942.
23. BABL, NS 19/218 (fol. 84–85): Arbeit des Ergänzungsamtes, 5.6.1942.
24. BABL, NS 19/3517 (fol. 154): Chef des SS-Hauptamtes an Reichsführer-SS, 43/41 g, betr: HJ/Luftwaffe, 26.2.1941.
25. BABL, NS 19/1863 (fol. 23): Chef des Ergänzungsamtes der Waffen-SS an Stabsführer des SS-Oberabschnittes Süd, 4.5.1940; NS 19/2651 (fol. 24–25): Chef des SS-Hauptamtes an Chef des SS-Personalhauptamtes, 536/43 g, betr.: Beförderungen, 29.1.1943.
26. J. L. Leleu (2007), p. 201f.
27. Age of roll-call for the young conscripts in the Services varied considerably during the war (officially from 22 to 16). At the beginning (i.e. August 1939), age groups born in 1918 and 1919 were called. But, between February 1941 and October 1942, four age groups born between 1921 and 1924 were incorporated in order to prepare for the war against Russia and then to fill the losses of the army on the Eastern Front. See B. R. Kroener (1988) “Die personellen Ressourcen des Dritten Reiches im Spannungsfeld zwischen Wehrmacht, Bürokratie und Kriegswirtschaft 1939–1942”, in B. R. Kroener et al. (eds.) Organisation und Mobilisierung des deutschen Machtbereichs. Kriegsverwaltung, Wirtschaft und personelle Ressourcen, 1. Halbband: 1939– 1941 (Stuttgart), 693–986, p. 727.
28. BABL, NS 19/3517 (fol. 245): Einberufungen bei der Waffen-SS im Jahr 1940.
29. Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freiburg im Breisgau (later BAMA), RH 20-7/105: Bericht über die Fahrt des Chefs des Generalstabes in Bereich des LXXXVII. A.K. u. XXV. A.K. v. 27–29.3.1943, 30.3.1943, § II, p. 3. H. Heiber (ed.) (1962) Hitlers Lagebesprechungen. Die Protokollfragmente seiner militärischen Konferenzen 1942–1945 (Stuttgart), p. 335 (26.7.1943).
30. National Archives and Records Administration, College Park, Maryland, USA (later NARA), RG 492/Entry ETO-MIS-Y Sect/Box 63: First Army Special Report, Facts and Figures about the 9 SS Div “Hohenstaufen”. A statistical Survey, 15/16.1.1945, p. 4; RG 165/Entry 179/Box 719: PWIS (H)/LDC/219 & 223; Box 721: PWIS (H)/LF/397.
31. Public Archives of Canada, Ottawa (PAC), RG 24, C 17, vol. 13651: First Canadian Army, Intelligence Summary Number 236, 21.2.1945, § II, p. 2. See too NARA, RG 492/Entry ETO-MIS-Y Sect/Box 63: First Army Special Report, Facts and Figures about the 62 VG Div, a statistical survey, 6/7.1.1945, p. 3. Service Historique de la Défense-Terre, Vincennes (later SHD-Terre), 7 P 149-3, Front Ouest: Situation des forces allemandes au 31.1.1945 (annexe 1). B. R. Kroener (1999) “Menschenbewirtschaftung, Bevölkerungsverteilung und personelle Rüstung in der zweiten Kriegshälfte 1942–1944”, in B. R. Kroener et al. (eds.) Organisation und Mobilisierung des deutschen Machtbereichs: Kriegsverwaltung, Wirtschaft und personelle Ressourcen, 2. Halbband: 1942– 1944/45, (Stuttgart), 777–1001, p. 997f.
32. M. Cüppers (2005), p. 83f.
33. SA = Sturmabteilung (Storm Group); NSKK = Nationalsozialistisches Kraftfahr-Korps (National Socialist Motor Corps). BABL, NS 31/299 (fol. 2): Oberste SA-Führung/Hauptamt Führung, Briefb. Nr. 11159, 28.10.1939; Ausführungsbestimmungen zur Anordnung des Stellvertreters des Führers v. 19.1.1940, betr: Ergänzung der Waffen-SS (Auszug); NS 19/3901: Reichsführer-SS, SS-Befehl, 27.11.1939; ibid., 13.12.1939; NS 19/1863: Lieber Pg. Hess !, Lieber Pg. Dr. Ley !, 26.1.1940; NS 31/366 (fol. 81–83): Ergänzungsamt der Waffen-SS/I an alle Ergänzungsstellen, betr: Einstellung von Werkscharmännern und Politischen Leitern, 16.1.1940; NS 19/3510 (fol. 149–151): Mob-Personal-Bestand der NSDAP, ihrer Gliederungen und angeschlossenen Verbände, 5.2.1940; NS 19/3521 (fol. 282): Chef des Ergänzungsamtes der Waffen-SS an Reichsführer-SS, 45/40 g.K., betr: Übersichtsliste, 2.4.1940; NS 19/218 (fol. 74): Arbeit des Ergänzungsamtes, 5.6.1942.
34. NARA, RG 492/Entry ETO-MIS-Y Sect/Box 63: First Army Special Report, Facts and Figures about the 9 SS Div “Hohenstaufen”, 15/16.1.1945, p. 2 ; Box 64: ibid., 12 VG Div, 1/2.3.1945, p. 2.
35. Der Reichsführer SS – SS-Hauptamt (1943) Dich ruft die SS (Berlin-Grünewald and Leipzig), p. 6f.
36. BABL, NS 19/3520 (fol. 23): Chef des Ergänzungsamtes der Waffen-SS an alle Leiter der Ergänzungsstellen, 13/40 g., 1.2.1940.
37. Bundesarchiv Koblenz (later BAKO), Plakate 3/25/13, 3/25/20, 3/25/22, 3/25/25.
38. BAKO, Plakat 3/25/11. BABL, NS 31/154 (fol. 105): Ein Wille: Sieg! For more details and examples of some placards, see J. L. Leleu (2007), p. 232–41 and colour inset after p. 304.
39. Ibid., p. 255–60.
40. Franz Hellebaut to Léon Degrelle, in E. De Bruyne (1991), Les Wallons meurent à l’Est : La Légion Wallonie et Léon Degrelle sur le Front russe 1941– 1945 (Brussels), p. 130. See too A. Luyckx (1946–1947) “La répression de l’incivisme en Belgique. Aspects judiciaire, pénitentiaire et social. Les porteurs d’armes”, Revue de droit pénal et de criminologie, 843–55.
41. See the reports of the XXth Military District (Wehrkreis) of Danzig (Gdansk) dated of 10th and 18th June 1940, in BAMA, RH 14/44 (fol. 141–168). BABL, NS 19/979: Oberster SA-Führer/Stabschef an Stellvertreter des Führers, betr: Übertritt zur SS, 26.6.1940. Tribunal Militaire International (vol. XLII), SS-28, p. 481. B. R. Kroener (2005), “Der starke Mann im Heimatkriegsgebiet”: Generaloberst Friedrich Fromm. Eine Biographie (Paderborn), p. 907/n 144.
42. BABL, NS 19/3517: Chef des SS-Hauptamtes an Reichsführer-SS, Aktion 20.000 Mann, 1. Meldung, 14.5.1941; 2. Meldung, 20.5.1941; 3. Meldung, 24.5.1941; NS 19/3518: Chef des SS-Hauptamtes an Reichsführer-SS, betr: 20.000 Mann-Aktion (Zusammenstellung der Einberufungen 15.4.41–9.6.41), 6.6.1941; NS 19/3518 (fol. 151–165); NS 19/2652 (fol. 2–3): NSDAP/Gauleitung Halle-Merseburg/Gauleiter, Schnellbrief an Reichsverteidigungskommissar Dresden, 27.5.1941. B. Wegner (1997), p. 275/n 57, 276/n 64. P. Witte et al. (1999) Der Dienstkalender Heinrich Himmlers 1941/42 (Hamburg), p. 428/ n52.
43. B. Wegner (1997), p. 277.
44. J. L. Leleu (1999) 10. SS-Panzer-Division “Frundsberg” (Bayeux), p. 10–13. H. Höhne (1995), p. 338–40. G. Rempel (Januar 1980) “Gottlob Berger and the Waffen-SS Recruitment, 1939–1945”, Militärgeschichtliche Mitteilungen, 27, 107–22, p. 114–15.
45. BABL, NS 31/148 (fol. 8): betr: Angehörige der Allgemeine SS, die eine Dienstleistung in der Waffen-SS ablehnen, 31.7.1941; NS 19/3665 (fol. 56): Chef des SS-Hauptamtes an Reichsführer-SS, 228/41 g.K., betr: Besprechung OKW, 8.12.1941. H. Buchheim (1994), “Befehl und Gehorsam” in H. Buchheim et al. (eds.) Anatomie des SS-Staates, 6th edn (Munich), p. 213– 320, here p. 314–18.
46. BABL, NS 19/229 (fol. 3 & 5): Chef des SS-Hauptamtes an Reichsführer-SS, 931/43 g, betr: Nachersatz, 11.2.1943; SS-Hauptamt/II an Reichsführer-SS, 12.2.1943, 12.40 Uhr; NS 19/3871 (fol. 32): Chef des SS-Hauptamtes an Reichsführer-SS, 390/43 g.K., betr: Vortrag General Schmundt bei Reichsführer-SS, 18.4.1943. See too VHA, SS-Ausb.Btl. z.b.V., 11/3: SS-SSFührungshauptamt/ V/IE (A/VIII) an SS-Ausbildungs-Bataillon z.b.V., SS-Tr. Üb.Pl. “Heidelager”, II/3854/43 g, betr: Beschwerden gegen Einberufung, 29.5.1943.
47. G. Weisenborn (2000) Une Allemagne contre Hitler, 1st edn 1953 (Paris), p. 150f. NARA, RG 165/Entry 179/Box 712: M.I.19(a)/PWIS/366, Report on the interrogation of SS-Mann S. Alfred of “SS-Reichsführer”, -.4.1944; RG 165/Entry 179/Box 719: PWIS (H)/LDC/108, Consolidated Report on 21 Alsatians of SS PGR 4 “DF”, 13.7.1944. SHD-Terre, 10 P 141, chemise 1re Armée Française/2e bureau/Section PG (États numériques): Direction du Service des PG de la Zone Avant de l’Armée, n°361, Note de service concernant les Alsaciens et les Lorrains incorporés de force dans les Waffen “SS”, 8.3.1945.
48. BABL, NS 19/4 (fol. 57): Chef des SS-Hauptamtes an Reichsführer-SS, 5199/43 g, betr: Untersuchung des Jhrg. 1927 (später 28 u. 29), 17.8.1943.
49. B. R. Kroener (1999), p. 858.
50. As in this case described by a US intelligence report: “PW[,] a former G[erman] A[ir] F[orce] man[,] volunteered for the SS because he admired both the SS and Himmler.” NARA, RG 492/Entry ETO-MIS-Y Sect/Box 63: First US Army, Prisoner of War Report, 20/21.1.1945 (#12).
51. SHD-Terre, 10 P 142-2: Mobile Field Interrogation Unit N° 2, PW Intelligence Bulletin N° 2/26, 12.1.1945, § 12, p. 16.
52. NARA, RG 165/Entry 179/Box 716: Mobile Unit N° 1 Field Interrogation Detachment, Prisoner of War Intelligence Bulletin 1/14, 4.12.1944; ibid. 1/19, 26.12.1944, p. 8. PAC, RG 24, C 17, vol. 13648: First Canadian Army, Intelligence Summary Number 153, 30.11.1944, § II, p. 6. SHD-Terre, 10 P 141, chemise 1er CA/EM/2e bureau: 1re Armée Française/EM/2e bureau/ Section PG, Compte Rendu N° 240, 9.4.1945. A. Míšková and V. Šustek (2000) Josef Pfitzner. A Protektorátní Praha V Letech 1939–1945, Tome 1: Deník Josefa Pfitznera : Úøední korespondence Josefa Pfitznera sKarlem Hermannem Frankem (Prague), p. 197 (7.10.1944).
53. BABL, NS 31/366 (fol. 120): Ergänzungsamt der Waffen-SS/II, betr: Untersuchung der Volksdeutschen aus den russischen Umsiedlungsgebieten auf Tauglichkeit für die Waffen-SS und Allgemeine SS, 2.10.1940.
54. BABL, NS 7/91 (fol. 2–6 & 9): Leiter der Volksdeutsche Mittelstelle an Reichsführer-SS, 18.6.1942; Reichsführer-SS an SS-Obergruppenführer Lorenz, AR 36/24/42, 13.7.1942 (cit.); Reichsführer-SS, AR 36/41/42, Lieber Lorenz, 10.8.1942. V. O. Lumans (Sept. 1989) “The Military Obligations of the Volksdeutsche in Eastern Europe toward the Third Reich”, East European Quarterly, XXIII:3, 305–25, p. 312.
55. BABL, NS 7/91 (fol. 26–28 & 34): SS-Führungshauptamt/B 12f/V/IIb (1) an Pers.Stab/Reichsführer-SS, II/3817/43 g, betr: Wehrpflicht der Volksdeutschen, 27.5.1943; Chef des SS-Hauptamtes an Reichsführer-SS/ Pers.Stab, 3706/43 g, betr: Wehrpflicht der Volksdeutschen im Südosten, 16.6.1943; Hauptamt SS-Gericht an SS-Richter beim Reichsführer-SS, Ia 155 35/42, betr: Völkische Wehrdienstpflicht von Volksdeutschen ausländischer Staatsangehörigkeit, 11.11.1943. P. Witte et al. (1999), p. 351/n 67, 534/n 2. G. Stein (1967), p. 186.
56. BABL, NS 7/91 (fol. 1 & 29): SS-Richter beim Reichsführer-SS an Hauptamt SS-Gericht, 198/43, betr: Völkische Wehrdienstpflicht von Volksdeutschen ausländischer Staatsangehörigkeit, 19.6.1943; Aktenvermerk für SS-Obf. Bender, betr: Wehrpflicht der Volksdeutschen aus dem Südost-Raum, 14.2.1945.
57. BABL, NS 7/91 (fol. 64): SS-Richter beim Reichsführer-SS an SS-Standartenführer Dr. Brandt, II-1318/4[5], betr: Wehrpflicht der Deutschen aus den Volksgruppen, 19.2.1945.
58. VHA, SS-Nachr.Stelle “NW”, 10/3: Spruch 2458, Ergänzungsstelle Nordwest an SS-Hauptamt/SS-Ergänzungsamt, 22.2.1941, 14.45 Uhr; SS-Nachr.Stelle “NW”, 11/4: FS 2826, SS-Standartenführer Jungclaus an Reichsführer-SS, 6.3.1941, 18.50 Uhr; SS-Nachr.Stelle “NW”, 12/4: FS 3046, Ergänzungsstelle Nordwest an Chef des SS-Hauptamtes, 18.3.1941, 18.15 Uhr; FS 3065, Ergänzungsstelle Nordwest an Chef des SS-Hauptamtes, 19.3.1941, 9.30 Uhr.
59. The SS respected in the same way its volunteers who enlisted into its “Germanic legions” (these legions were composed of “Germanic” foreigners who presented a good “racial value” for the SS, but did not conform to its strict physical requirements – such as minimum height – and therefore could not be SS members). So at the same time, October 1942, 2,154 of the 9,773 volunteers serving in the “Germanic legions” had been released (22.0%) and 747 killed (7.6%). BABL, NS 31/455 (fol. 34): SS-Hauptamt/VI, Statistische Aufstellung über zur Waffen-SS und Legion eingestellte, entlassene und gefallene germanische Freiwillige, Stand: 30.10.42, 14.12.1942.
60. Facing the accusations, the SS-Hauptamt of course denied such doings. PA/ AA, Inl II/D, R 100658 (n.f.): Königl. Schwedisches Konsulat Düsseldorf/ Niederländische Schutzmachtangelegenheit an Kgl. Schwedische Gesandtschaft/Abt. B, 193/12a, 11.3.1943; SS-Hauptamt/Germanische Leitstelle/Amtsgruppe D, Herrn Konsul Dr. Ashton, A.A., 2.4.1943; Königl. Schwedische Gesandtschaft/Abteilung B an A.A., B N 167/3, Mi/J, Verbalnote, 9.6.1944; SS-Hauptamt/Amtsgruppe D/D II 2 an A.A., betr: Werbung von Niederländern für die Waffen-SS, 8.11.1944.
61. BABL, NS 19/3650: Reichsführer-SS an SS-Obergruppenführer Rauter, 23.2.1945. N.K.C.A In ’t Veld (1976) De SS en Nederland: Documenten uit SS-Archieven 1935–1945 (’S-Gravenhage, Rijksinstituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie/M. Nijhoff), 2 vol., 1692 p., vol. II, p. 1481 (doc. 647).
62. BABL, NS 19/2117 (fol. 2–3): Chef des SS-Hauptamtes an Reichsführer-SS, 2042/43 g.K., betr: Reise nach Kroatien, 13.7.1943; NS 19/2601 (fol. 169): 13.SS-Div., Flugblattentwurf Nr.2. BAMA, MSg 175/55: 13e Division de Montagne “Handschar” des Waffen SS, p. 2. M. D. Grmek and L. L. Lambrichs (1998) Les révoltés de Villefranche: Mutinerie d’un bataillon de Waffen-SS à Villefranche-de-Rouergue, septembre 1943 (Paris), p. 158–60, 166. G. Lepre (1997) Himmler’s Bosnian Division. The Waffen-SS Handschar Division, 1943– 1945 (Atglen), p. 37. H. Sundhausen (1971) “Zur Geschichte der Waffen-SS in Kroatien, 1941–1945”, Südost-Forschungen, 30, 176–196, p. 193.
63. NARA, RG 165/Entry 179/Box 716: Mobile Unit N° 1 Field Interrogation Detachment, Prisoner of War Intelligence Bulletin 1/19, 26.12.1944, § 4, p. 7.
64. PAC, RG 24, C 17, vol. 13645: First Canadian Army, Intelligence Summary Number 27, 26.7.1944, § II, p. 2.
65. BABL, NS 33/31 (fol. 10): Rede des SS-Obergruppenführers Jüttner auf der SS-Führer-Tagung in Prag am 13. April 1944, p. 9. PA/AA, Inl II g, R 100998, 2577 (fol. 393393): 13.SS-Div./Ic 77/44 g.K., Richtlinien für die Sicherung des Landfriedens in Bosnien, 9.3.1944.

In his meeting with Hitler on October 10, 1939, Raeder warned that the British might have imminent designs of their own on neutral Scandinavia. Should they stage a coup de main and capture Norway, “the northern part of the North Sea would then be flanked on both sides by the British Fleet and Air Force, which could definitely deny it to our use except for submarines. Our surface ships would no longer have any chance of reaching the Atlantic, and with enemy mine barriers set like those in World War I, the exit even for submarines would be extremely hazardous.” Furthermore, any occupation of Norway by Britain “would put tremendous pressure on Sweden” to join the Allies, thus denying Germany its ore supplies.

Hitler was at first resistant. Determined to attack France and the Low Countries the following spring, he did not wish to stretch his commitments further. Moreover, seizure of a nation whose coastline extended nearly eight hundred miles would be a staggering undertaking for Germany’s minuscule navy, no matter what help could be expected from the Wehrmacht and Luftwaffe. But Raeder returned to the Reichschancellory in mid-December with further arguments, and the appearance in Berlin of a Norwegian named Vidkun Quisling who was eager to do the Nazis’ bidding served to turn the führer’s mind. Hitler was further made uneasy by Churchill’s invitation on January 20, 1940, to all “northern neutrals” to join the Allies. Although the first lord’s call was rejected, it certainly indicated the direction of British thinking, and in German eyes British seizure of the supply ship Altmark in a Norwegian fjord several weeks later confirmed the impression that London would never allow Norway to remain truly neutral. According to a source within the German supreme command, “Hitler chose to solve the [Norwegian] problem by military methods.”

Staff planners from all three German services worked with greater closeness, harmony, and imagination than ever before or again to craft orders for a sudden assault to seize Oslo and all of Norway’s North Sea and Atlantic coast port towns from Kristiansand to Narvik. For the first time in history, warfare would be integrally conducted in all three dimensions: air, land, and sea. Norway would set the pattern for later Allied operations in North Africa and Europe and Japanese and American activities in the Pacific. Then, days before “Operation Weser” was to take place, Raeder suddenly got cold feet. His entire surface navy would have to be dedicated to the enterprise, and the prospect that it could be sunk in toto could not be dismissed. The grand admiral therefore begged his führer to try to ensure continued Norwegian neutrality by diplomatic means alone. But as Raeder soon realized, preparations were too far advanced to be reversed. With a somewhat heavy heart he therefore recommended invasion day as April 7 (when the moon would be full). Hitler decided to wait a further forty-eight hours.

Enjoying interior lines of communication, the Germans mounted the Norwegian campaign primarily from the sea, supplemented by limited parachute assaults. The navy embarked more than ten thousand troops on cruisers, destroyers, and small merchantmen and successfully landed them at Oslo, Kristiansand, Stavanger, Bergen, Trondheim, and Narvik. The task forces assigned to seize Trondheim and Narvik in northern Norway were given distant support by Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, which acted as decoys to keep the Royal Navy away from the Norwegian coast. To ensure air control over the Norwegian battlefields and adjacent seas, the Wehrmacht invaded Denmark and seized several airfields.

In its opening stages Weser proved a stunning success. Interservice cooperation among the assaulting forces was outstanding. Only at Oslo did the invasion fleet suffer stiff opposition, with the brand-new heavy cruiser Blücher going down before the guns and torpedoes of the outer fortresses. In the first twenty-four hours, the Germans seized all their objectives before the Anglo-French could react. Thereafter, the navy’s job was simply to keep the enemy sufficiently off balance to allow the army to complete its work of subduing two million widely scattered Norwegians. With essential support from the Luftwaffe, the navy performed its task brilliantly.

Hitler had, in fact, beaten his Anglo-French enemies to Scandinavia by less than a day. The British War Cabinet, and especially Winston Churchill, had been as mindful of Norway’s importance as Raeder had guessed. Churchill was determined to reverse the unhappy trend at sea, and throughout late 1939 and early 1940 he pondered several schemes to get the Royal Navy on the offensive. The first lord not only contemplated an attack against Norway but also pondered forcing the Skagerrak and Kattegat with a powerful battle fleet to control the Baltic. Correlli Barnett has sneeringly dismissed Operation Catherine as belonging to “the same category of Churchillian cigar-butt strategy as his 1915 brainwave of capturing the Friesian island of Borkum, or even the Dardenelles expedition itself: glibly attractive when arrowed broadly on a map of Europe, but a nonsense in terms of the technical means and military forces available.” Certainly, the poor showing of the Home Fleet off Norway lends credence to Barnett’s biting skepticism. And aviation historian Allen Andrews has argued that the Luftwaffe would have massacred any warships that Churchill might have sent to the north German coast. But a quick British thrust into the Baltic in the first days or weeks of the war to disrupt German naval exercises and perhaps bombard the Hanseatic towns might have been worth the gamble (even with the loss of a precious battleship or two) in stiffening Scandinavian resolve to stand up to Hitler. Instead, Denmark and Norway remained strictly neutral (though clearly sympathetic to the British), while Sweden continued to supply Berlin with iron ore.

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The Anglo-French forces reacted as swiftly as they could, but it was too late. By the time ships could be again combat-loaded and sent north, the Germans were ashore and well entrenched and the Allied riposte proved too little and too late. A daring British naval thrust up the Vest and Ofoten Fjords led by battleship Warspite destroyed a half-dozen German destroyers and bounced the small Nazi invasion force out of Narvik for a time, permitting an Allied counterlanding in the area. But the Luftwaffe kept British reinforcements, including carriers and their aircraft, from effectively supporting the shore party, and Forbes was so intimidated by initial German air attacks against his ships that he kept his fleet far at sea. Gneisenau and Scharnhorst periodically lurked about to keep the British further off balance without subjecting themselves to a decisive naval engagement. Churchill meddled disastrously in the arguments between the senior army and navy commanders at Narvik, while the Luftwaffe, “using bombers, transports and seaplanes with the utmost flexibility,” had demonstrated brilliantly that “a country could be laid open for occupation by ground forces although the attackers were faced by a superior naval power.” The overall result was to neutralize whatever effect the Royal Navy might have had on the campaign. When Hitler unleashed his offensive in the West a month after the Scandinavian invasions, Anglo-French forces were promptly pulled out of northern Norway, but as they left Narvik the always aggressive Admiral Marschall, in Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, fell upon the unsuspecting carrier Glorious (having just missed Ark Royal) and blew it out of the water, despite gallant and futile attacks by the carrier’s destroyer escorts that previewed the actions of American small boys at Leyte Gulf four and a half years thence. Barnett is caustic about the Allied disaster. Although Norway portended the vast amphibious operations of 1942–1945, “those later maritime operations were thoroughly prepared and planned beforehand.” Combined task forces “working together to cover and support major expeditionary forces ashore . . . were organised and rehearsed for their roles in good time.” In contrast, Churchill “precipitately” threw the fleet and British army into a campaign that neither was prepared to wage.

The Battle of Baliqao was the culmination of the Second Opium War. An Anglo-French force of 4000 men soundly defeated a Qing Army of 30,000 east of Beijing. The allied victory was followed by the sacking of the Imperial Summer Palace northwest of the city, and the conclusion of the conflict. Prince Seng-ko-lin-Chin, one of the most successful Qing generals and Prince Sengbao, brother of the Emperor, blocked the road to Beijing with troops drawn from the Green Standard Army, reinforced by Imperial Guard troops of the Banner Army. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Anglo- French force led by French General Cousin de Montauban and British General Sir John Hope Grant attacked the Qing positions at the front and flank. After hard fighting the Qing cavalry was repulsed. The Imperial Guard held the bridge at Baliqao, but French artillery, and a determined bayonet charge by experienced infantry, dislodged them with heavy losses for the Chinese.
The Anglo-French expeditionary force landed and seized the forts at Tangku, then advanced up the Peiho River to Beijing. The combined Anglo- French force fought two successful engagements against overwhelming Qing forces, ultimately defeating them at Baliqao.

The victory at Chang chi wan over vastly superior forces gave Grant and Montauban even greater confidence in reaching the capital. As the Allies were en route to Toung-chou, the 101st Regiment under General Jamin arrived, further increasing French strength. After spending the night encamped outside the walled town, Grant and Montauban followed a canal tributary of the Peiho towards Baliqiao and its stone bridge, which carried the metalled road to the imperial capital. On the morning of 21 September, as the British and French columns moved out of their encampments past Toungchou, they found Prince Seng-ko-lin-ch'in's army, reinforced by Imperial Guard soldiers under General Prince Sengbaou, brother of the emperor. Some 30,000 strong, it stood in position before Baliqiao Bridge.

The Chinese position was formidable, with its left on the canal, reinforced by the village of Baliqiao, another village in the centre, and a third on the far right. The road to Beijing passed through the rolling and wooded terrain and veered towards the canal and its stone bridge. Seng-ko-linch'in had brought order to his routed army, and strengthened its resolve with several thousand troops from Beijing. The prince's position was supported by more than 100 guns in the villages, across the canal defending the bridge, and along the entire front. His army included a division of Banner soldiers, but the majority were drawn from the Green Standard Army and assorted cavalry. The Imperial Guard were kept in reserve at the bridge, but the main army under Sengbaou was disposed with strong cavalry on the flanks deployed in depth of squadrons and interspersed between the infantry battalions in and behind the villages. The Chinese front covered a distance of 5km (3 miles) but lacked substantial depth. Yet, there were significant knots of trees, which obstructed the line of sight of both armies.

Keeping to the line of battle used at Chang chi wan, Grant took the left and Montauban the centre and right with the canal to protect his flank. Montauban used the wooded terrain to mask his paltry numbers, sending the first column in a slightly oblique attack against the Chinese centre. General Jamin would move to Collineau's right and against the Chinese left. Grant moved to the far left of Collineau, hoping to flank the Qing army with his column. General Collineau's advance guard comprised the elite companies of the 101st and 102nd Regiments, two companies of the 2nd Chasseurs a pied (elite light infantry), an engineer detachment, two batteries of horse artillery and a battery of 4-pound foot artillery. Montauban and Jamin commanded the 101st Regiment along with two more companies of the 2nd Chasseurs a pied, a battery of 12-pounders and a Congreve rocket section.

Collineau's infantry advanced through the woods towards the Chinese centre. The rapidity of the movement startled Sengbaou, and he moved much of the cavalry from the wings to protect his centre. The French advance guard moved in skirmish order, and formed out along the road towards Baliqiao. Montauban ordered Jamin's brigade forward. Two large bodies of Qing cavalry, some 12,000 in all, charged each of the French columns. Collineau's artillery poured fire into the serried ranks of Mongol and Manchu cavalry, while the elite companies found security in the ditch that ran along the main road.

Accurate fire took its toll on the cavalry, but Collineau soon found himself embroiled in hand-to-hand fighting around his position. Generals Montauban and Jamin also managed to deploy their guns and fire with devastating effect while their infantry formed two squares just before the cavalry hit their position. The French 12-pound battery was positioned between Collineau and Jamin's brigades and continued to pour canister into the enemy. After some time, the cavalry broke off their attack, having failed to break the French squares or overrun Collineau's precarious position. The respite allowed Montauban to take stock, re-form and advance upon the villages held by the Green Standard battalions.

Cavalry Redeployed
Sengbaou and Seng-ko-lin-ch'in did not renew their cavalry assault, as Grant's column moved against their right. Montauban could not see the British advance because he was in one of the squares during the attack. Grant's appearance forced the Qing generals to redeploy their cavalry to the flank, thereby allowing Montauban to attack the village closest to the centre. With an abundance of cavalry, it remains unclear why Singbaou or Seng-ko-lin-ch'in did not leave a substantial body to retard the advance of the French. Grant's force was larger, had more guns and cavalry, and one can only surmise that they perceived this threat to the flank as a priority and underestimated the elan of the French assault.

The 101st stormed the village of Oua-kaua-ye in the centre, dispersing with ease the infantry defending it, and suffering little from their ineffective artillery. Following up, Montauban ordered both brigades to attack the village of Baliqiao, which was defended by more determined troops. Qing infantry defended the road across which Collineau advanced. His elite companies made short and bloody work of these soldiers and continued towards the village. Large cannon in the streets and across the canal fired on the French columns. Jamin brought up his batteries to silence the Chinese guns while the infantry moved in from two directions. The village and bridge at Baliqiao were defended by the Imperial Guard. These soldiers did not give ground. Collineau brought his cannon up to form crossfire with Jamin's batteries.

Collineau Storms the Village
After tearing the Imperial Guard troops apart, Collineau formed his troops into an attack column and stormed the village. Fighting raged at close quarters for more than 30 minutes. Montauban led the 101st to Collineau's support securing the village. Not wanting to lose momentum, Collineau re-formed his command and advanced rapidly upon the bridge, with the French batteries providing effective and deadly fire. The Chinese artillerists manning their guns were killed, and the Imperial Guard gave ground under the canister, followed by Collineau's attack. The bridge was taken.

Grant's column helped the Chinese along as its attack on the left dislodged the Green Standard troops from their village, while the British and Indian cavalry rolled up the line, overwhelming Qing cavalry that tried to hold their ground. The British attack was swift, but hard-fought. Grant's line of attack brought him within sight of a wooden bridge that crossed the canal some 1.6km (1 mile) west of Baliqiao.The arrival of the British on Seng-ko-lin-ch'in's far right, and the collapse of his forces in the face of their attack, compelled the general to pull his army from the field before it was trapped on the far bank of the canal. By noon, only five hours after the battle began, Grant's British were on the far side of the canal across the wooden bridge, while Collineau's elite companies established a bridgehead at Baliqiao. The victory sealed the fate of the imperial government.

The Allied expedition sacked the Imperial Summer Palace northwest of Beijing, and the emperor capitulated to European demands. Napoleon III, flush with victory over Austria the year before, rewarded Montauban with elevation to the rank of Count of the Empire, as Comte de Palikao'. Little did Montauban know that he would end his illustrious career as Minister of War in 1870, presiding over the collapse of the Second Empire and the fall of France to German armies.

The aerial bombardment by the Luftwaffe in August 1942 had left Stalingrad in ruins. Then in September that year, fighting began inside the city, with combatants battling in shattered buildings and factories. Only the Grain elevator and the silos defy the devastation.

The battle for Stalingrad, was to become one of the most savage conflicts of World War II. Neither dictator—Hitler or Stalin—could afford to lose the city whose name was so inextricably linked with Soviet pride. Defeat for either side would mean a crippling, perhaps fatal, blow to morale.

While the German First Panzer Army was bearing down on Maikop, in the Caucasus, its Sixth Army—much of whose transport had been temporarily transferred to Army Group A—was moving slowly down the Don-Donets corridor toward Stalingrad, an industrial city that straggled for some 20 miles (16 km) along the west bank of the Volga River.

The first assault
By August 19 General Paulus, now reinforced by Fourth Panzer Army, was poised to begin his assault on the city. Four days later, following a raid by 600 aircraft, German troops entered the outskirts of Stalingrad and also carved out a salient to the north of the city along the western bank of the Volga. At Hitler’s forward headquarters at Vinnitsa, in the Ukraine, the mood was jubilant. Morale was boosted once more on September 5, when a Russian counterattack, designed to drive off the German forces north of Stalingrad, was thrown back with heavy losses.

Soviet counterattack
Stalin remained determined to hold Stalingrad, whatever the cost. On September 13 he sanctioned a plan presented to him by Zhukov, who in August had been appointed First Deputy Supreme Commander-in-Chief of Soviet Armed Forces and was now in overall command of the entire Stalingrad sector. His plan envisaged a wide encirclement of the Axis forces on the Lower Volga and the destruction of the Sixth Army in Stalingrad.

On the same day, the immensely tough and able General Chuikov was appointed as the new commander of the Soviet 62nd Army in Stalingrad. Fighting in the city intensified, and the battle for Stalingrad now became every soldier’s nightmare, a bloody, house-to-house fight in which the advantage passed to the men of the Red Army.

The Germans edged painfully toward the steep western banks of the Volga. Attrition replaced Blitzkrieg, which had proved so effective in the summer and fall of 1941, and at the beginning of 1942, the Germans had given the Soviet Union the opportunity to prepare for the conflict and to mount effective resistance against the enemy.

The Germans weaken
Paulus established his headquarters in a huge department store a few hundred yards from the Red Army ferry points that plied back and forth at night, bringing out some 35,000 wounded during the battle and returning 65,000 reinforcements. By November the Germans had chopped Chuikov’s command on the western bank into four groups, forcing communications between them to be carried out on the east bank. The Germans reached the river itself, at the southern edge of the city, 11 days later. But the battle had by now become, for them, a struggle whose cost far exceeded its strategic or tactical value, remorselessly sucking in units that were essential for sustaining the dwindling hopes of a breakthrough in the Caucasus. By mid-November Sixth Army had shot its bolt.

At the same time German intelligence was becoming aware of a Red Army build-up on the northern and southern flanks of the Stalingrad salient, which were screened by Romanian, Italian, and Hungarian armies of dubious value. Zhukov’s preparations for the counterblow, codenamed “Operation Uranus,” had been characteristically rigorous and ruthless. The lives of the defenders of Stalingrad had been traded for time, while the Soviet high command waited for the arrival of a frost to harden the ground for armor and for the Allied landings in North Africa to tie down German reserves in Western Europe. By November 18 Zhukov had assembled a counterattack force of over one million men, amply armed with new guns, tanks, and aircraft. The next day these were released against the German flanks of the Stalingrad salient.

EYEWITNESS September 23, 1942, Stalingrad
Between August 1942 and February 1943 German and Red Army forces fought in the streets of Stalingrad. Fighting centered on a massive grain silo, the train station, a giant department store, and Mamayev Kurgan hill overlooking the city. Initially German troops had the upper hand but ordered by Stalin to take “not one step back,” Red Army soldiers defended their city fiercely.

“13 September. A bad date, our battalion was very unlucky. The katyushas [Soviet rocket launchers] inflicted heavy losses this morning: 27 killed and 50 wounded. The Russians fight with the desperation of wild beasts; they won’t allow themselves to be taken prisoner, but instead let you come up close and then they throw grenades. Lieutenant Kraus was killed yesterday, so we have no company commander. 16 September. Our battalion is attacking the grain elevator with tanks. Smoke is pouring out of it. The grain is burning and it seems the Russians inside set fire to it themselves. It’s barbaric. The battalion is taking heavy losses. Those are not people in the elevator, they are devils and neither fire nor bullets can touch them.” GERMAN SOLDIER WILLI HOFFMAN, OF THE 94TH INFANTRY DIVISION, ON THE BATTLE FOR THE GRAIN ELEVATOR

“An attack began in the morning [19 September] and lasted 48 hours. The enemy was moving inexorably towards the summit in six files. At times it seemed to us that they were invincible. But the sixth file did not hold out under our fire, and we rushed into the attacks … Most of the German soldiers appeared to be drunk and threw themselves in a frenzy at the summit. After each round of bombing there would be a moment of dead silence … But then the hill would come alive again like a volcano, and we would crawl out of the shell holes and put our machine guns to work. The barrels of the guns were red-hot and the water boiled inside them. Our men attacked without waiting for orders … It was mass heroism. We lost many men as a result of direct hits on shell-holes … The slopes of the kurgan were completely covered in corpses. In some places you had to move two or three bodies aside to lie down.” RUSSIAN SOLDIER NIKOLAI MAZNITSA, OF THE 95TH RIFLE DIVISION, ON THE DEFENSE OF MAMAYEV KURGAN

Led the British armies in the War of the Spanish Succession with great success and made the fortune of the house of Churchill in British affairs. John Churchill, born to a wealthy but far from prominent family, rose to prominence thanks to the patronage that the Duke of York, the heir to the British throne and subsequent king, and later Queen Anne conferred upon his family. On the duke’s accession as James II (1633–1701, r. 1685–1688), Churchill, a prominent member of James’s clique of young officers, received a senior command in the king’s large new army and took part in the campaign leading up to Sedgemoor. Nevertheless, he betrayed James II in the revolution of 1688 and then turned coat again and conspired with the deposed pretender during the reign of his successor, William III. These political efforts kept Churchill from much active service in 1689–1702, but Queen Anne made him her captain general upon Britain’s entry into the War of the Spanish Succession.

As commander on the continent, Marlborough conquered the Lower Palatinate at the head of an Anglo-Dutch army in 1702 and won the Battle of Blenheim-Höchstädt (1704) in combination with Prince Eugene. For this, Queen Anne conferred upon him the title duke of Marlborough. The years 1703, 1705, and 1707 were fallow periods of failed campaigns, but in 1706 Marlborough led the Anglo-Dutch army into Brabant in a brilliant campaign of maneuver that made possible the victories of Ramillies and Turin. In 1708, the Anglo-Dutch forces and the imperial Habsburg army, at last combined in a single theater under the joint command of Marlborough and Eugene, won the Battle of Oudenaarde, and, showing great strategic and logistical daring, took Lille. The year 1709 saw the more ambiguous victory of Malplaquet and the fall of Mons. In subsequent years, Eugene and Marlborough took many fortresses and devastated northern France, conducting an economic warfare that strained the French economy yet could not force peace upon the enemy. By 1712, Queen Anne faced state bankruptcy. She maneuvered her way out of the war, and Marlborough and his aggressive allies fell from office in the process.

Some historians have exaggerated Marlborough’s abilities, portraying him as a prophet rising above the limits of his age and making his Dutch allies scapegoats for his failure to execute a presumed “Napoleonic” vision. Although one of history’s great captains, Marlborough’s genius was in keeping with the spirit of eighteenth-century warfare, and it was nowhere better exhibited than in his operational masterwork, the passage of the determinedly defended ne plus ultra French lines (1711).

References and further reading: Chandler, David. Marlborough as Military Commander. London: Batsford, 1977. Churchill, Winston. Marlborough, His Life and Times. 4 vols. London: Harrap, 1933–1938. Marlborough, John Churchill, Duke of. Letters and Dispatches from 1702–1712. Ed. George Murray. 5 vols. London: J. Murray, 1845. ———. The Marlborough-Godolphin Correspondence. Ed. Henry L. Snyder. 3 vols. Oxford: Clarendon, 1975.

The greatest armored battle in history and one of the largest battles ever fought. The limited success of the Soviet Orel-Briansk offensive operation under General Konstantin Rokossovsky in February and March, along with Field Marshal Erich von Manstein’s successful southern operations ( DON and the Third Battle of Kharkov ), set the lines of the Kursk bulge, a Soviet salient that projected 100 miles deep into German lines. The Wehrmacht built up unprecedented forces around Kursk from March to June.

The great mass of German armor was ordered to the area, to ready to slice off the salient. Meanwhile, the Red Army also built up huge forces inside the bulge as well as along its wider flanks. The Soviets knew of the German plans and intended to meet them with even larger, well-hidden tank and air formations under Marshal Georgi Zhukov. These were deployed in a deep defensive field designed to absorb and bog down the German assault in its earliest stages. After strategically overreaching and failing in December 1941–February 1942, and again in January–March 1943, Joseph Stalin and the Stavka had at last recognized a deep truth about the war: it was fundamentally an exercise in sustained attrition necessary to wear down the Wehrmacht before any decisive thrust could be made into the vitals of Nazi Germany. Soviet forces therefore deployed in an extraordinarily deep set of seven defensive belts designed to absorb, bog down, and kill German armored thrusts at price of massive but accepted Soviet casualties and loss of equipment. The armor, artillery, infantry, and air combat that ensued combined to form the largest battle ever fought. Some 3.5 million troops in total fought at Kursk, nearly half the 8.5 million positioned that summer along a 1,500-mile long Eastern Front.

The German offensive plan, ZITADELLE, was delayed several times from April to July, partly for technical reasons and to refit on the German side but also because of the spring rasputitsa. During the postponements German and Soviet casualties dropped significantly. But there was also a building sense of violent tension as each side waited for the summer explosion into combat. Where Adolf Hitler grew evermore cautious and dubious about ZITADELLE as time passed, the Stavka had to restrain Stalin’s urge to attack prematurely. Zhukov’s plan was to draw the German armor into the Soviet defensive belts, in some places 175 miles deep. Only then would he spring a great trap around the Panzer columns with simultaneous counteroffensives on either side of the salient. For that, he held back huge Fronts whose presence was hidden from B-dienst and the Abwehr by some of the most elaborate and successful maskirovka operations of the war. In the south, the counteroffensive was given the additional task of retaking Kharkov and Belgorod, which had been lost to Field Marshal Erich von Manstein and the SS 2nd Panzer Corps in March. Soviet intelligence was unusually good at Kursk, although it mistook the Schwerpunkt as the north side of the salient whereas the Germans believed it was in the south and concentrated their effort there. Information came from multiple sources that allowed the VVS to catch the Luftwaffe on the ground, attacking forward airfields in a set of pre-emptive strikes carried out from May 6–8. And it then gave the Stavka three days advance notice of the precise hour of the German assault. That enabled Soviet artillery to hammer the armor spearheads at their jump-off points before dawn on July 5. Shelling massed Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS formations just 10 minutes before they were set to attack the first defense belt according to the usual, precise German instructions staggered the attacking troops, upset timetables, and shook the confidence of Hitler and the OKH. The armor and artillery battles that followed, as Panzer columns cut into the salient and through the first defensive belts, were bloody and destructive. The climax came in an armor battle at Prokhorovka, still the single greatest armored battle in history. From that point, Kursk became a vast and chaotic Kesselschlacht —or rather, a great kotel —that engaged over 5,000 tanks and lesser armored vehicles, thousands of guns, several thousand combat aircraft, and several million troops.

The Battle of Kursk saw Germans using aircraft to make up for losses suffered at Stalingrad and in Africa. Specialized Junkers Ju 87G Stukas and Henschel Hs 129Bs were used as flying artillery to compensate for weak ground artillery. Junkers Ju 87G Stuka was the most successful version was the Ju 87G1. This close-support aircraft’s armament consisted of two 37mm BK Flak 18 or Flak 36 cannons mounted under the wing. As German air superiority faded, the thinly armored, slow-moving Stuka was relegated to occasional ground attacks. Their formations were responsible for killing hundreds of Russian tanks. On the Russian side, Ilyushin Il-2M3 Shturmoviks armed with 37mm cannons were used with devastating effect against German armor.

In addition to the flying antitank weapons, the Germans armed their Focke-Wulf Fw 190As with SD-1 and SD-2 antipersonnel containers that rained down fragmentation bomblets on infantry and artillery positions.

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The air battle was also huge. The Red Army suffered about 70,000 casualties of all types in the fighting at Kursk, excluding the wider Soviet counteroffensives on either side of the salient, which cost another 100,000 men. The Soviets lost nearly 500 aircraft and more than half the armor force they deployed, or over 1,600 tanks. In the main battle the Germans lost 57,000 men and considerably fewer tanks and planes, about 300 and 200, respectively. However, they lost so many tanks and planes in the related Soviet counteroffensives that followed Kursk—Operations KUTUZOV and RUMIANTSEV —that the Wehrmacht never again launched a strategic offensive operation on the Eastern Front. Instead, it surrendered the initiative and was confined to local counterattacks. Germany was already being out-produced in major weapons systems. Despite temporarily regaining a technical advantage with its Panthers and Tigers, it was out-produced in armor in such quantities by the Soviet Union and Western Allies that it never recovered its relative position from the loss of combat power in men and war machines suffered in the summer of 1943. For that reason, Kursk is often identified as the major turning point along the Eastern Front, more so even than Stalingrad. The Red Army for the first time at Kursk succeeded in physically blunting a major German offensive, rather than just defending desperately against it until the Wehrmacht ran out of momentum, as happened before at Moscow in December 1941, and at Stalingrad in November 1942. Then the Stavka launched a set of massive counteroffensives, which completely fooled the Germans in their direction, intentions, and timing. Kursk was, in Heinz Guderian’s expert estimation, the decisive defeat for Germany to that point in the war. After Kursk, the Soviets took the strategic offensive, starting a long and bloody drive that ended only with Hitler’s death in the “Führerbunker” beneath the ruins of Berlin in May 1945.

And yet, arms and aircraft production for both armed forces increased to the end of 1943 and again in 1944, while enlistments swelled new divisions, armies, and army groups. Most casualties suffered along the Eastern Front in World War II still lay in the future. Kursk no doubt massively accelerated the pace of destruction of German military power. But it cannot be argued that, had the Soviets lost at Kursk, the final outcome of the war would have been placed in grave doubt. Not even the greatest battle ever fought was sufficient to decide the larger armed struggle between mighty industrial empires. To decide the war in the east it would take a series of additional battles—a full campaign—fought hard to the end of 1943, then more savage campaigns along several axes of Soviet advance and German counterattack in 1944, and yet more thrusts and fighting and destruction over the first four months of 1945.

Meanwhile, the air war continued over Germany and heavy fighting took place in Italy, while the Western powers did not invade France until mid-1944, after which there remained 11 months of fighting in the west. While it cannot really be said, therefore, that Kursk was “the” decisive victory or defeat of World War II, it certainly numbered among its greatest battles and did much to confirm and accelerate the trajectory of attrition that led to ultimate Soviet victory and German defeat.

Suggested Reading: Walter S. Dunn, Kursk: Hitler’s Gamble, 1943 (1997); David M. Glantz and Harold S. Orenstein, eds., The Battle for Kursk, 1943 (1999).