Germanic SS

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Germanic SS
Schutzstaffel Abzeichen.svg
The Germanic SS were foreign branches of the Allgemeine SS.
Schalburgerblegdamsvej.jpg
Headquarters of the Schalburg Corps in Copenhagen, Denmark, c.1943.
Agency overview
FormedSeptember 1940
Dissolved8 May 1945
JurisdictionGermany and German-occupied Europe
HeadquartersSS-Hauptamt
Employees~35,000 c.1943
Minister responsible
Parent agencyFlag Schutzstaffel.svg Schutzstaffel

The Germanic SS (German: Germanische SS) was the collective name given to paramilitary and political organisations established in parts of German-occupied Europe between 1939 and 1945 under the auspices of the Schutzstaffel (SS). The units were modeled on the Allgemeine SS in Nazi Germany and established in Belgium, Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway whose populations were considered in Nazi ideology to be especially "racially suitable". They typically served as local security police augmenting German units of the Gestapo, Sicherheitsdienst (SD), and other departments of the German Reich Security Main Office.

Establishment[]

Before the war, both Denmark and Norway had fascist parties. The Danish National Socialist Workers' Party (Danmarks Nationalsocialistiske Arbejderparti, or DNSAP) was founded in 1930, however, only held three seats in parliament by 1939.[1] By 1933, Vidkun Quisling was the leader of a Norwegian political party, National Unity (Nasjonal Samling, NS).[2] However, it was not effective as a political party until the pro-German government took over after Norway was occupied. At that point, its state police, abolished in 1937, was reestablished to assist the Gestapo in Norway. In the Netherlands, the National Socialist Movement (Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging, NSB) had greater success before the war. The party had four per cent of the vote in the 1937 national elections. After the occupation in 1940, all these groups worked in their respective countries in support of Nazi Germany and became recruiting grounds for the Waffen-SS.[3]

The Nazi idea behind co-opting additional Germanic people into the SS stems to a certain extent from the Völkisch belief that the original Aryan-Germanic homeland rested in Scandinavia and that, in a racial-ideological sense, people from there or the neighbouring northern European regions were a human reservoir of Nordic/Germanic blood.[4] Conquest of Western Europe gave the Germans, and especially the SS, access to these "potential recruits" who were considered part of the wider "Germanic family".[1] Four of these conquered nations were ripe with Germanic peoples according to Nazi estimations (Denmark, Norway, Netherlands, and Flanders). Heinrich Himmler referred to people from these lands in terms of their Germanic suitability as, "blutsmässig unerhört wertvolle Kräfte" ("by blood exceptionally highly qualified people").[5] Accordingly, some of them were recruited into the SS and enjoyed the highest privileges as did foreign workers from these regions, to include unrestrained sexual contact with German women.[6] Eager to expand their reach, fanatical Nazis like Chief of the SS Main Office, Gottlob Berger considered the Germanic SS as foundational for a burgeoning German Empire.[7]

Himmler's vision for a Germanic SS started with grouping the Netherlands, Belgian, and French Flanders together into a western-Germanic state called Burgundia, which would be policed by the SS as a security buffer for Germany. In 1940, the first manifestation of the Germanic SS appeared in Flanders as the Allgemeene SS Vlaanderen to be joined two-months later by the Dutch Nederlandsche SS, and in May 1941 the Norwegian Norges SS was formed. The final nation to contribute to the Germanic SS was Denmark, whose Germansk Korpset (later called the Schalburg Corps) came into being in April 1943.[8] For the SS, they did not think of their compatriots in terms of national borders but in terms of Germanic racial makeup, known conceptually to them as Deutschtum, a greater idea which transcended traditional political boundaries.[9] While the SS leadership foresaw an imperialistic and semi-autonomous relationship for the Nordic or Germanic countries like Denmark, the Netherlands, and Norway as co-bearers of a greater Germanic empire, Hitler refused to grant them the same degree of independence despite ongoing pressure from ranking members of the SS.[10]

Duties[]

Vidkun Quisling inspects the Germanske SS Norge on the Palace Square in Oslo, Norway

The purpose of the Germanic SS was to enforce Nazi racial doctrine, especially anti-Semitic ideas. They typically served as local security police augmenting German units of the Gestapo, Sicherheitsdienst (SD), and other main departments of the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt, RSHA). Their principal responsibilities during wartime were to root-out partisans, subversive organizations, and any group opposed to Nazi ideas. In other cases, these foreign units of the SS were employed by major German firms to distribute propaganda for the Nazi cause among their compatriots and to police and control workers.[11] In addition, the inclusion of other Germanic peoples was part of the Nazi attempt to collectively Germanize Europe, and for them, Germanization entailed the creation of an empire ruled by Germanic people at the expense of other races.[12]

One of the most notorious groups was in the Netherlands, where the Germanic SS was employed to round-up Jews. Of the 140,000 Jews that had lived in the Netherlands prior to 1940, around 24,000 survived the war by hiding.[13] Despite their relatively small numbers, a total of 512 Jews from Oslo were hunted down by the Norwegian Police and the Germanske SS Norge (Norwegian General SS); once caught, they were deported to Auschwitz. More Jews were rounded-up elsewhere, but the total number of Norwegian Jews captured never reached a thousand throughout the course of the war.[14] Similar measures were planned by the SS against Danish Jews, who totaled about 6,500, but most of them managed to go into hiding or escape to Sweden before the senior German representative in Denmark, SS-General Werner Best, could marshal the SS forces at his disposal and complete his planned raids and deportations.[15][16]

Germanic SS organizations[]

The following countries raised active Germanic SS detachments:

Country or region Name Description
Denmark Germansk Korpset, renamed the SS-Schalburgkorps The Germanic Corps (Germansk Korpset) was established in April 1943 and renamed the SS-Schalburgkorps[a] shortly afterwards. It was formed under the leadership of K.B. Martinsen.[20] According to historian Martin Gutmann, this professional paramilitary group was "meant to replace the interned Danish army."[21] By the winter of 1943, Martinsen had built up the unit to some 1,000 men commanded by two-dozen Danish Waffen-SS officers.[22] Under plans devised by Himmler, Best, and Martinsen, the SS-Schalburgkorps was used to crush Danish resistance. It participated in the murder of opposition figures—including the Danish playwright, Kaj Munk—and bombed buildings with suspected links to Danish resistance.[23]
Flanders (Belgium) Algemeene SS Vlaanderen,
renamed the Germaansche SS in Vlaanderen in 1942 		The General SS Flanders (Algemeene SS Vlaanderen, or Alg. SS-Vl.) was originally founded in November 1940 and was one of the first collaborationist formations to become part of the Germanische SS in 1942. It was created as a political militia under the leadership of the radical flamingants René Lagrou and Ward Hermans. From 1943, it became associated with the radical political faction DeVlag which sought to supplant the larger and more conservative Flemish National Union (Vlaams Nationaal Verbond, VNV) as the principal collaborationist group in Flanders. Unofficially, Himmler wanted to use the organization to penetrate occupied Belgium, which was under the control of a military administration run by the German Army rather than the Nazi Party or SS.[24] It was also used to staff the anti-Jewish units of the German security services with auxiliary staff and provided guards for the prison camp at Fort Breendonk.[25] It also published a newspaper entitled De SS Man. Under the leadership of Stormbanleider Robert Verbelen, DeVlag and the SS-Vlaanderen collaborated in the killings of civilians and public figures in notional reprisals for attacks committed by the Belgian Resistance. According to historian Jan Craeybeckx, "their 1944 raid in the Hageland near Leuven left a trail of death and destruction" and "countless people were deported to concentration camps."[26] Alexandre Galopin, the incumbent governor of the Société Générale, was assassinated on Verbelen's orders in February 1944. As the Allies entered Belgium in September 1944, many of the perpetrators and collaborators fled to Germany.[26]
Netherlands Nederlandsche SS,
renamed the Germaansche SS in Nederland in October 1942.[b] 		The Dutch SS (Nederlandsche SS) was formed by the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands (Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging in Nederland, NSB) in September 1940 under pressure from the German authorities. It was led by Henk Feldmeijer, an early NSB member, and longstanding member of the party's more radical Völkisch faction. Although notionally part of the NSB, the Nederlandsche SS increasing rejected its and gravitated towards the idea of integrating the Netherlands in a Greater Germany. It published a newspaper entitled Storm and served an important role in facilitating recruitment for Dutch Waffen SS units on the Eastern Front. This substantially diminished its own numbers which peaked at around 4,000 in 1942. It was integrated into the Germanic SS as the Germaansche SS in Nederland in November 1942. Feldmeijer, who himself enlisted for service on the Eastern Front, participated in the killing of Dutch civilians in retaliation for attacks by the resistance in September 1943.
Norway Norges SS,
renamed the Germanske SS Norge 		The Norwegian SS (Norges SS) was formed in May 1941. It was notionally a sub-organisation of Quisling's National Union which had opposed its creation as a dilution of its own autonomy in Norway. It was led by Jonas Lie, part of a notable family of writers, and later Sverre Riisnæs. It published a newspaper entitled Germaneren. The organisation's membership reached around 1,300 in 1944. A large part of the members were recruited from the police, and about 50 percent served in the Waffen SS on the Eastern Front.[28][29]

An underground Nazi organization also existed in Switzerland, known as the Germanische SS Schweiz. It had very few members and was considered merely a splinter Nazi group by Swiss authorities.[30]

Postwar[]

After the war, many Germanic SS members were tried by their respective countries for treason. Independent war crimes trials outside the jurisdiction of the Nuremberg Trials were conducted in several European countries, such as in the Netherlands, Norway and Denmark, leading to several death sentences; an example being the commander of the Schalburg Corps, K.B. Martinsen.[31][c]

See also[]

References[]

Informational notes

  1. ^ Christian Schalburg had originally commanded Danish volunteers to the Nazi cause as part of the Free Corps Denmark (Freikorps Danmark),[17] but was killed in 1942.[18] Schalburg had been an instructional officer in the Danish infantry before joining the Waffen-SS. Both he and his wife became close friends of the Danish royal family, especially the Danish prince, Gustav.[19]
  2. ^ Not only was there a Nederlandsche SS branch, Dutch historian Evertjan van Roekel also reports that there were between 22,000 and 25,000 men from the Netherlands who volunteered for service in the Waffen-SS, constituting the largest contingent amid "all the occupied countries of Western Europe."[27]
  3. ^ In total, forty-six Danes were executed by Danish courts, Martinsen and Flemming Helweg-Larsen among them.[32]

Citations

  1. ^ Jump up to: a b Weale 2012, p. 265.
  2. ^ Shirer 1990, pp. 676.
  3. ^ Weale 2012, pp. 265–266.
  4. ^ Puschner 2013, pp. 26–27.
  5. ^ Frijtag Drabbe Künzel 2013, p. 93.
  6. ^ Hilberg 1992, p. 209.
  7. ^ Höhne 2001, p. 500.
  8. ^ McNab 2013, p. 105.
  9. ^ Mineau 2011, p. 45.
  10. ^ Höhne 2001, pp. 500–501.
  11. ^ McNab 2013, pp. 105–106.
  12. ^ Frijtag Drabbe Künzel 2013, pp. 83–84.
  13. ^ Bauer 1982, pp. 240–243.
  14. ^ Weale 2012, p. 387.
  15. ^ Bloxham 2009, pp. 241–243.
  16. ^ Weale 2012, p. 387–388.
  17. ^ Gutmann 2017, p. 142.
  18. ^ Gutmann 2017, p. 8.
  19. ^ Gutmann 2017, p. 65.
  20. ^ Gutmann 2017, pp. 142, 187.
  21. ^ Gutmann 2017, p. 143.
  22. ^ Gutmann 2017, p. 188.
  23. ^ Gutmann 2017, pp. 188–189.
  24. ^ Bosworth 2009, p. 483.
  25. ^ Mikhman 1998, p. 212.
  26. ^ Jump up to: a b Craeybeckx 2009, p. 205.
  27. ^ Roekel 2018, p. 216.
  28. ^ Sørensen 1995, p. 133–134.
  29. ^ Emberland & Kott 2012, pp. 341–349.
  30. ^ Fink 1985, pp. 72–75.
  31. ^ Gutmann 2017, pp. 196–202.
  32. ^ Gutmann 2017, p. 198.

Bibliography

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  • Bosworth, R. J. B. (2009). The Oxford Handbook of Fascism. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-929131-1.
  • Craeybeckx, Jan (2009). "Belgian and Flemish Fascism Before and During the Second World War". In Els Witte; Jan Craeybeckx; Alain Meynen (eds.). Political History of Belgium: From 1830 Onwards. Brussels: ASP. ISBN 978-9-05487-517-8.
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