The bulk of the Foreign Legions fought on the Eastern Front. Their ranks were also different to those held by German Waffen-SS. Though a German national commanded them, many men in the SS Foreign Legions only spoke their own language. Most of the Foreign Legions did not wear the SS insignia on their collars as they wore a symbol of their national origin instead. Their commanding officers were national German Waffen-SS and Heinrich Himmler ordered that their units could not be called SS Divisions but Divisions of the SS. They wore a different uniform in terms of the insignia on it. Men in the SS Foreign Legions were treated differently to national German Waffen-SS soldiers. Therefore many men volunteered to join the Waffen-SS.
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The Baltic States and the Ukraine were very keen to free themselves from the rule of Moscow. The sheer numbers involved in terms of recruitment meant that it was pragmatic for the SS to do so. The recruitment of East European men meant that the SS had to dilute its original recruitment requirements with regards to ‘racial purity’. Over 200,000 men from the Baltic States and the Ukraine also joined to fight off the yoke of communism. Lists of recruits that survived World War Two show that 125,000 men in occupied Western Europe volunteered to join the Waffen –SS. Therefore when then Waffen-SS started its campaign to recruit foreigners to join the Waffen-SS against the communists of the USSR, it was not overly surprising that many joined. Since the Bolshevik Revolution of October/November 1917, many countries in Western Europe had done what they could to demonise the USSR. It was against this background that the Nazis introduced a sustained campaign of recruitment based around fighting the Bolshevik horde in the east of Europe. The June 1941 attack on Russia ( Operation Barbarossa) was initially very successful. However, a more sustained campaign started in the summer of the following year. However, a recruitment campaign was started in Western Europe in July 1940 based on the back of the numerous military successes the Wehrmacht had achieved up to that date. However, many Waffen-SS records were destroyed before the war ended so accurate figures are hard to attain.Īgainst a background of military success in the spring of 1940, there was little cause for alarm in the Wehrmacht’s hierarchy with regards to numbers in the army. By the time the war ended it is thought that as many as 750,000 members of the Waffen-SS had been killed or wounded in combat with another 70,000 missing in action. Many of these men fought against the Red Army. However, it grew into a mass unit of 900,000 men who fought in 41 divisions and in time over one-third of its force was made up of foreign volunteers. The Waffen-SS had originally been made up of four divisions of ethnic Germans. Flexible customization of random maps with selection of the desired landscape.The Waffen-SS was the military side of the SS. Possibility to unite into teams or to play against the computer. Naval battles, influence of the landscape and the realistic physics provides the player with a vast number of tactical moves.īreathtaking battles for up to 8 players on the map. Real-time strategy with construction, production of resources, and the development tree. Up to 32,000 units on the battlefield! 20 playing nations, 120 various types of playing units, 100 scientific researches, and over 220 diverse historical buildings. A vast selection of unit types, cold steel and firearms, influence of the landscape, and the realistic physics provide the player with an unlimited number of tactical opportunities. It’s a genuine RTS classic, including construction and production of resources. Modern remake of the best 2001 strategy, with armies numbering in thousands of warriors and reconciled game mechanics. Return of the legendary Cossacks! A large-scale historical strategy on great battles of the XVII-XVIII centuries.