Hitler's Foreign Legions: The First Volunteer Units
The first foreign units recruited by Germany were raised from pro-Nazi fascists in Austria, the Sudetenland and Danzig. They were all eager for political union with Germany, and agitated for such in their respective countries. They were aided in their efforts by Berlin, and especially by Heinrich Himmler's SS.
Alfred Rosenberg, leading Nazi ideologist (on podium at right), who was appointed Reich Minister for the Eastern Occupied Territories in July 1941. His work, The Myth of the Twentieth Century, became a sort of Nazi bible. He was hanged at Nuremberg in October 1946.
Pre-war militia units
The first "foreign" volunteers for the German armed forces came from Austria, the Sudetenland and Danzig. Initially, they were political fighters organized into legions by their respective fascist parties, which relied in varying degrees upon the Nazi Party in Germany for assistance. These volunteers were in the main modelled on the SA of the 1920s, though as the SS grew in importance and stature this organization became the more preferred model. The Sturmabteilung (SA - Storm Detachment, also called Brownshirts) was a Nazi paramilitary organization founded in Munich in 1921 from the Freikorps. It numbered 500,000 men in 1933. The volunteer units were home-grown, and though in some cases under the jurisdiction of the SS, they must be viewed as separate from Nazi Germany. However, with the annexation of Austria (March 1938), the absorption of Czechoslovakia (March 1939) and the "liberation" of Danzig with the invasion of Poland (September 1939), the majority were then incorporated into the SS.
Himmler and the new religion
These, then, were pre-war militia units, and the Wehrmacht had scant regard for them. The German Army viewed them as part-time rabble-rousers akin to the SA in Germany, which the officer corps detested. On the other hand, the SS saw the potential for exploiting these units, which in the future would enhance its standing. Himmler had grandiose ideas of a Pan-Germanic state, which would encompass all Nordic blood. Himmler became enthralled by a new vision: he would create a Nordic religion. He was to be the "Great Architect" of the new church, a holy order in which the Führer was to be the Messiah. Himmler looked to the Pan-Germanist theories of the nineteenth century, notably those propounded by Gobineau, Chamberlain and Treitschke. Joseph-Arthur comte de Gobineau (1816-82) was a French diplomat who advanced a number of racist theories, in particular the superiority of the white race (whom he labelled Aryans) over others. Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-96) was a German historian and political writer who advanced the theory that the state should be headed by authoritarian leaders, and that war and violence were spiritually liberating. Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855-1927), a political philosopher, owed much to Gobineau. He advocated the racial and cultural superiority of the Aryan race, stressed the greatness and creativity of Europe, and the negative influence of Jewry (his book, The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, became the main ideological text for German National Socialists).
Richard Walther Darré
The thoughts of all three found their way into Mein Kampf, and were taken further by the three Nazi Party doctrinal luminaries: the ethnologist Hans Günther, the "philosopher" Alfred Rosenberg and the agronomist Richard Walther Darré. Of the three, Darré's thoughts had more impact upon Himmler, as to the Reichsführer-SS they were the verification he sought for his own perspective on Nordic life and culture, which were to become the bedrock on which he would construct his "new church".
Darré was born in the German colony around Belgrano, Argentina. He attended the colonial school in Witzenhausen, went to school in Wimbledon, England, and afterwards to several universities, including Heidelberg. Darré served during World War I in the artillery, and afterwards led the young farmers in Insterburg. He decided to become an agriculturist, and became interested in stock-rearing problems. In 1929, he wrote his first book, which theorized his views of agriculture and society. In 1930, he joined the Nazi Party and met Himmler at a meeting of the Artaman League (a nationalist organization founded in the 1920s which was preoccupied with a general distaste of urban life, Jews and capitalists).
The SS order
Himmler, greatly influenced by the theories of Darré and Rosenberg, imposed his values on the SS: anti-Christian and an overriding belief in the nobility of the Nordic race. To these were added the general Teutonic values of racial solidarity, Prussian discipline and the glorification of conflict. In his view, his SS thus became an order to rival that of the Catholic priesthood. In 1930, he restored the ancient celebration of the winter solstice and instituted the feast of Yuletide in place of the Christian Christmas, and in the following year he issued the ordinances concerning the marriage of men belonging to the SS. RUSHA (Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt - Race and Resettlement Office) was now the SS marriage bureau. It also was concerned with research on racial Germans living abroad and safeguarding the racial "purity" of the SS.
The RUSHA
Darré became the first head of RUSHA in 1932. He wrote another book on blood and soil (later published in 1935) in which he distilled all his previous thoughts; he became minister of agriculture in June 1933 with the resignation of Dr Hugenberg. Made an honourary SS general by Himmler, Darré's philosophy was that the Germans were both farmers and warriors. He recognized no clear division between nobility and peasantry. Darré came into conflict with Himmler in 1936 over ideology, and in 1938 these differences forced him to resign the leadership of RUSHA. He was followed by a series of ruthless leaders: SS-Obergruppenführer Günther Pancke, SS-Obergruppenführer Otto Hoffmann and SS-Obergruppenführer Richard Hildebrant, who gave the researches of RUSHA a different orientation. For example, in the name of racial selection and the detection of Nordic blood, RUSHA kidnapped children to be brought up as Germans, decided who should be deported from desirable resettlement areas, who should be conscripted for slave labour in the Reich, and who should lose their property or be executed for miscegenation with Germans. In all of these matters, RUSHA was under the jurisdiction of the executive police of the SS.
The RSHA
On 22 September 1939, the Sicherheitsdienst (SD - Security Service) and Sicherheitspolizei (Sipo - Security Police) - the latter included the Gestapo and Kriminalpolizei (Kripo - Criminal Police) - were merged to form the Reich Security Main Office (Reichssicherheitshauptamt - RSHA), the central office through which the Nazis conducted their war against "enemies of the state". The RSHA was commissioned with the task of setting up the Einsatzgruppen (Special Action Groups) which were first employed in three areas during the invasion of Poland. Their back-up was provided by the local communities, but during the invasion of Poland they were greatly expanded to form Einsatzgruppe I, II, III, IV, V and VI, in which units of local militia, self-defence volunteers, police and disgruntled locals played an important role.
The Austrian SS
Returning to the raising of the first foreign legions, Austria provided a fertile potential recruiting ground. The early 1930s picturesque Austria of the holidaymaker's photographs disguised a period of extreme political violence that was taking place in the country. Nazis, communists and monarchists beat up each other's newspaper sellers, staged provocative marches and fought pitched battles in which "India rubbers", better known as coshes, and "match boxes" (pistols) were frequently used. It was in this supercharged atmosphere of violence that so many men, embittered by military defeat and economic depression, decided to join the Austrian SS. Indeed, an emphasis on physical toughness and swagger came to characterize the SS. On 1 July 1932, all Austrian SA and SS units assembled in Linz in upper Austria for an inspection by Adolf Hitler, SA Chief Hermann Göring, General Franz Ritter von Epp and Graf du Moulin Eckardt (the Nazis in both Germany and Austria were pressing for political union at this time).
The Austrian Legion
In the summer of 1933, the Austrian Chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss, banned the Austrian National Socialist Party and its SS wing. His ban, however, inadvertently opened a door for Himmler and the SS. As thousands of Austrian Nazis fled across the border into Bavaria, Himmler was waiting with open arms to receive them. Many chose to join the SS in preference to the less disciplined SA. With Hitler's approval, the SS armed the émigrés and organized them into the Austrian Legion under SS-Brigadeführer Alfred Rodenbucher. This "army in exile" trained at a camp near the border, ready to return home when an opportunity arose. At the same time, Himmler's henchmen secretly enrolled hundreds of SS members within Austria itself. Supplied with arms and explosives, the recruits energetically pursued a campaign of sabotage and terror, blowing up power stations and murdering supporters of Dollfuss's regime.
Fridolin Glass
By the beginning of 1934, the SS could count on 5000 clandestine members in Austria. But they were an unruly crew, eager but not always willing to follow the lead of their nominal German superiors. One such volunteer was an ambitious and headstrong ex-sergeant-major called Fridolin Glass. He was the leader of a group of men who had been drummed out of the Austrian Army for activities in the Nazi SA, which included the creation of his own little Brownshirt force of six companies. Glass gained the confidence of SS-Gruppenführer Kurt Wittje, who supported the Austrian's idea of forming a new SS standarte (regiment) under his personal command. Glass visited Himmler in Berlin and offered the services of his private force to the SS. Himmler approved, and the troop was incorporated into the SS as Standarte 89 in the spring of 1934 under the leadership of SS-Sturmbannführer Glass. The new leader of the SS-Standarte 89 had more than sabotage in mind, though, and was plotting with others to bring about Dollfuss's downfall and the overthrow of the Austrian regime itself. Himmler, carried along by the Austrian's enthusiasm, gave his approval for the coup attempt, which was to be codenamed Operation Summer Festival.
Operation Summer Festival
The plot was to capture Dollfuss, together with his ministerial council, then proclaim a Nazi government over the main Vienna radio station after they had seized it. Shortly before 13:00 hours on 25 July 1934, a number of Austrian Army lorries carrying 150 men of the SS-Standarte 89 arrived at the Federal Chancellery. Some were wearing army uniforms, and others were disguised as police officers. Members of the assault party quickly overwhelmed the guards, took the building and then stormed upstairs to where Chancellor Dollfuss was supposed to be meeting with his ministers. A group of 10 SS men encountered Dollfuss, but his cabinet was not present (an hour earlier, a Nazi conspirator had betrayed the plotters to the government). Having learnt of the impending attack, Dollfuss had ordered all but two of his colleagues to their offices. Not realizing the precariousness of his situation, the Chancellor made an impatient gesture and was shot by an SS soldier named Otto Planetta at close range. The shot hit the Chancellor in the neck and mortally wounded him. Dollfuss was laid on a sofa, and with only moments to live he began to discuss the situation with his captors. Even as he was dying, Dollfuss attempted to dissuade them from their course of action. However, in response and while he was slowly bleeding to death, the putschists harangued him with insults and political bombast, denying his request for a doctor and a priest.
The coup collapses
Elsewhere in the city, fellow Nazis who had seized the radio station were broadcasting news that Dollfuss had resigned. Unsupported by the SA, the putsch soon faltered as hundreds of armed men in Vienna reneged on their pledge to join the revolt. The Austrian SA members were evidently still resentful of the part played by the SS in the "Night of the Long Knives", in which Ernst Röhm and the SA leadership had been purged in Germany little more than a month earlier. More than 1000 SA leaders were executed in all, including Röhm. In addition, some old scores were settled. Thus Gregor Strasser, who was anti-Hitler and a former Nazi Party leader, was killed, as was Gustav Kahr, who was loathed by the Nazis for suppressing the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. The SA looked on impassively as police and government troops surrounded the Chancellery. The coup had failed and the putschists were quickly arrested. Planetta and several others were executed, the remaining participants receiving long prison sentences (though they were released when Austria and Germany were united).
SS units in Austria
When Austria was annexed in 1938, it handed to the Reich an additional 6.5 million German-speaking people, encouraging the dreams of both Hitler and Himmler for a racially pure Europe. The Anschluss also provided a large pool of prospective manpower that would swell the ranks of the Wehrmacht. These recruits were not perceived as foreign volunteers, and they became eligible for call-up in the same manner as other German citizens. The quotas that were given to the three arms of the Wehrmacht (Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine - Army, Air Force and Navy) meant that the SS could not increase in size as Himmler had hoped as a result of this expansion of German territory. However, this did not deter the Reichsführer-SS from his expansionist ideas, or indeed from quickly selecting a site for a new concentration camp in Austria. The site was a massive quarry close by the picturesque village of Mauthausen, near Linz. Franz Ziereis was appointed as its first commander. Himmler ordered the establishment of the SS-Totenkopfstandarte 4 Ostmark (SS Death's Head Regiment 4 Ostmark), which was formed on 1 April 1938 at Linz, to be garrisoned at the camp. Under the pro-German Nazi Minister of the Interior Arthur Seyss-Inquart, the Austrian police worked in conjunction with the SS security police and Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei - Secret State Police) agents, who immediately carried out actions against dissenters, subversives and prominent anti-German Austrians. Himmler now had the first opportunity to exercise his power in a foreign land.
The infamous Death's Head formations were an important part of the SS organization. The so-called SS-Totenkopfverbände (SS Death's Head Detachments) were armed SS personnel formed in late 1933 at Dachau (the first concentration camp in Nazi Germany). Their task was to guard inmates, and they were commanded by SS-Standartenführer Theodor Eicke. The latter became Inspector of Concentration Camps and Commander of the SS Death's Head Detachments after the "Night of the Long Knives".
Czech Nazis
Czechoslovakia, like Austria, also offered rich pickings to the German Army and SS with regard to recruits. In Vienna a pan-Austrian workers' party had been formed in 1910, which had been renamed the German National Socialist Workers' Party (Deutsche Nationalsozialistische Arbeiterpartei - DNSAP) by the end of World War I. November 1918 saw the creation of a Czech section of the party, which had some 200,000 supporters among German-specking Czech citizens by 1929. The German Gymnastic Association, or Deutsche Turnverband, was an innocent-sounding organization which had been founded in the early 1860s, but from its very inception it had been chauvinistic, aggressive, anti-Semitic, anti-Slav and was as much a political and nationalistic body as a physical training organization. It acted as a conduit for the promulgation of Hitlerite ideas among the German community. This influence was particularly effective along the border region known as the Sudetenland. However, the overtly Nazi parties and political sports clubs were suppressed due to the increase in tension between the Czech Government and its German subjects. In October 1933, one day before the official decree ordering the DNSAP's closure, it went into voluntary disbandment. Following this, the Deutsche Turnverband in the Sudetenland, under the leadership of Konrad Henlein, formed a Sudetendeutsche Heimatfront (Sudeten German Home Front). The following year, to conform to ordinances pertaining to the organization of political bodies in Czechoslovakia, the front changed its name. It became the Sudeten German Party (Sudeten deutsche Partei - SdP). Throughout the mid-1930s, financed and encouraged by various Nazi agencies in the Third Reich, the SdP stepped up its activities.
Meanwhile, the Czechs found themselves in an even more precarious position after Hitler's occupation of Austria in March 1938, being surrounded on three sides by Greater Germany. The government was well aware of the type of subversion that had preceded the invasion of Austria, activities that were now being practised by Hitler's henchmen within its own state.
The Sudeten German Legion
For the German invasion of Czechoslovakia, specially formed Einsatzstäbe (Action Staffs) were organized to coordinate SD, Security Police and Order Police personnel and units in their special tasks. Two staffs were set up: "K" under SS-Oberführer Jost for Prague, and "L" under SS-Standartenführer Dr Stahlecker for Brno. Each staff consisted of an SD and Gestapo expert, Czech-speaking interpreters, specialists and technical personnel, and five Action Commandos (Einsatzkommandos - EK). Western Czechoslovakia was now enclosed on both flanks by the jaws of Nazi-controlled territory. The clandestine Austrian Legion's organizational structure in Germany had remained intact after the Anschluss. This unit now became the basis for a Sudeten German Legion, which was raised along similar lines. Like the Austrian Legion, the Sudeten Legion was not actually a single entity, but the generic term for a variety of units, some SA, some Allgemeine-SS (the main branch of the SS, which served as a political and administrative body) and a few SS-Verfügungstruppen. The SA units were grouped under the SS Hilfswerk Nord-Ost (SS Help Organization North-East) which had a nominal strength of around 8000. Some 1500 of its members who were of proven political dedication and who met high physical standards were accepted into the Allgemeine-SS. Subsequently, about 500 of these were considered fit enough to be admitted into the SS-Verfügungstruppen Standarte Sudetenland, which had recently been formed at Dachau. The regiment was incorporated into the SS-Standarte 2 Deutschland, which later was to become part of the famed Das Reich Division.
Konrad Henlein
Ostensibly to furnish voluntary aid in the case of accidents or natural disasters and provide physical training, Henlein formed within the Sudetenland itself the Freiwilliger Schutzdienst (Volunteer Protection Unit) from physically fit members of the SdP. In reality, it was a strong-arm unit engaged in paramilitary training. From July 1938, the German Army held weekly five-day courses at Neuhammer, near Breslau, for these men, who under the guise of holidaymakers or travelling businessmen secretly slipped in and out of Czechoslovakia. Each course comprised some 50 trainees who were furnished with makeshift uniforms and instructed in the arts of rifle shooting and the demolition of static defences - clearly in preparation for the sabotage of the Czech frontier installations. At the conclusion of each course, the volunteers took an oath of loyalty to Hitler. Unfortunately for Henlein, this thinly veiled secret was compromised when the local SdP leader at Eger referred to it as "a body of soldiers on duty at all times".
Sudetendeutsches Freikorps
In September 1938, the Sudeten Legion had its name changed to Sudetendeutsches Freikorps, its headquarters being in Bayreuth in the castle at Donndorf. The SD organized the Sudetendeutsches Freikorps on the Czechoslovak border, and on 19 September 1938 it secretly penetrated Czechoslovakia in commando squads, each numbering 12 men. The Freikorps was to carry out more than 300 sorties and take more than 1500 prisoners during raids against Czech forces.
The Munich Conference opened on 29 September, which caused hostilities to cease before they had properly started. The following day it was decided that the Sudetenland would be officially handed over to Germany, eventually being incorporated into the Reich as Gau (a Nazi administrative region) Sudetenland with its headquarters at Reichenberg. The new Gauleiter (district leader) was Konrad Henlein, his reward from a grateful Führer for his part in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. After the absorption of the Sudetenland into Germany, the SdP no longer had a function to fulfil, and was thus dissolved. The Sudetendeutsches Freikorps officially passed to SS control and was allocated to police functions.
Bohemia and Moravia
Bohemia and Moravia were declared to be a German protectorate in March 1939 (annexed in September of the same year) and assimilated into the greater Reich, whereupon the Czech Army was disbanded. The remnants of the Czech Republic now became the notionally independent state of Slovakia. In October 1939, President Emil Hacha of Bohemia and Moravia petitioned Nazi Germany for permission to raise an armed force to assist the gendarmerie in the maintenance of security and internal order. The Germans happily agreed to this proposition, with the caveat that the new Regierungstruppe (the name of the army raised in the protectorate; used mainly for ceremonial duties and guarding important installations) could not exceed 8000 personnel (in fact, it never exceeded 7000).
The Regierungstruppe
The Regierungstruppe comprised three inspectorates - Prague, Brno and Hradec Krolové - each made up of four battalions, and each subdivided into four companies. Those who volunteered were usually former officers or noncommissioned officers (NCOs) of the Czech Army, with the additional support of some 350 uniformed civilian administrators. The officer corps comprised 280 men, of whom 40 were generals and 15 were civilian administrators who held a rank equivalent to army general. It was only in the latter stages of World War II that this unit saw anything approaching active service, when in May 1944 11 of the 12 battalions were deployed to northern Italy, leaving the first battalion for guard duty in Prague. The unreliability of the Regierungstruppe was illustrated by large-scale desertions, and so in the autumn of 1944 the force was returned to the protectorate. Few of the members wished to continue their service, as by this time their four-year engagement contracts had lapsed, and it was becoming obvious that the Germans might not win the war. Before the end of the year, the formation had disintegrated.
Militia units
World War II began on 1 September 1939 with the invasion of Poland. For this campaign, six Special Action Groups had been formed and attached to each of the five armies taking part in the conflict, plus one for the province of Posen. When the German troops entered western Poland, small groups of ethnic Germans (Volksdeutsche) immediately formed themselves into a militia. The advance was so rapid that newly occupied territories were often left devoid of German troops; the vacuum was filled by the militia. In fact, the army found the militia so useful that it undertook the arming and training of this irregular force. During meetings held between 8 and 10 September 1939 at Hitler's headquarters, the Führer suggested that the militia in Poland should be recognized and formed into self-protection units with the aim of defending German property and families in Poland.
Gottlob Berger
Himmler undertook the task and instructed Gottlob Berger to place them under SS jurisdiction. Berger was a Swabian with numerous relatives in southeast Europe. He was probably the originator of the Waffen-SS as an international army, as well as bringing together the scattered Volksdeutsche of Europe. He would later become Himmler's chief of staff for the Waffen-SS. Subsequently, a self-protection force was organized in three regions. Each region was divided into a Kreise (district) under a Kreisführer des Selbstschutzes, and each district was divided into an Ort (locality) under an Ortichen Selbstschutzenführer. The southern and middle regions came under the overall command of the SS Main Office headed by SS-Obergruppenführer Heissmeyer, while the northern region of Poland came under Reinhard Heydrich's RSHA.
The Selbstschutz
At the end of September, the so-called Selbstschutz (Self-Protection Force) was reorganized on stricter lines. It was under the overall operational jurisdiction of the Chief of the Order Police, technically making it a police organization, but SS leaders who were ultimately responsible to the HSSPF (Höhere SS und Polizeiführer - Higher SS and Police Leader) in their military region commanded the Selbstschutz. Service was voluntary in the Selbstschutz, being open to all racial Germans who were capable of carrying arms and were aged between 17 and 45. It was tasked with the guarding of important installations, stocks of war booty, the custody of prisoners of war and the escorting of refugees. The Selbstschutz earned itself a very unsavoury reputation among Germans with its indiscriminate treatment of Poles and close cooperation with the Special Action Squads, so much so that Gauleiter Albert Forster succeeded in getting Hitler to agree to its disbandment. Himmler ordered this on 8 November 1939 to take effect from 30 November 1939, with the exception that the Selbstschutz detachment in Lublin continued as the General Government Special Service (the General Government was the Nazi administrative title of the central and southern areas of Poland under German occupation; the northern and western border areas of Poland were annexed outright). In fact, it was not until April 1940 that the Selbstschutz was finally disbanded. Most of its personnel joined the SS, SA or NSKK (Nationalsozialisches Kraftfahrkorps - National Socialist Motor Corps), and it was estimated that between September 1939 and January 1940 45,000 men of all ages had served in the Selbstschutz.
Troops and an armoured vehicle of the SS-Heimwehr Danzig in action in the port in early September 1939. Shortly afterwards, and following the swift German victory, the unit was disbanded and its personnel distributed as cadres for Death’s Head units.
Hitler’s entry into Danzig on 19 September 1939. Ever since 1934, when the Nazis took control of the city’s administration, Hitler had demanded that Danzig should be formally transferred to Germany, a demand that was welcomed by the city’s German population.
The city of Danzig
The "Free City of Danzig" and its surrounding territory encompassed some 1166 square kilometres (729 square miles). The city contained just over 400,000 citizens, 96.7 percent of them being of German heritage, culture and language. The German nationals and Nazi movement inside the region gradually gained strength until by June 1933 Danzig had a Nazi-dominated government. From then until its reincorporation into Germany in September 1939, the "Free City" modelled itself on Nazi Germany. From the time it had been placed under the tutelage of the League of Nations as a "Free City", it had continued to cultivate close ties with Germany. Many of Danzig's officials, for example, came from the Reich, served a tour of duty in the city and then returned to their homeland. Danzig law followed German law in granting citizenship automatically with an official appointment. Special arrangements completed in 1921 allowed officials to transfer from the German or Prussian civil service to the Danzig civil service and back without any loss in seniority or other privileges. In this way, Danzig was able to maintain an administration similar in most respects to that found in any German town.
Units raised in Danzig
The first Danzig SA unit was formed on 28 March 1926 with 45 members. Even before the formation of the SA, the commander of the irregular citizens' militia, the Einwohnerwehr, which was the closest thing to an army in the demilitarized city, was disturbed by a distorted report that its Nazi members had been instructed not to extend their duty to defend law and order to protecting the existing government system. In reality, the local Nazis were no great threat at this time, as the party in Germany appeared to be stuck in the political wilderness. This produced despondency among the rank and file, a sentiment that affected the SA men in Danzig even more than those in the Reich itself. The Danzig SA was isolated, cooperation with the militia was poor, and the way to power appeared blocked.
The increase in political street violence in Germany during 1931 and 1932 had its parallel in Danzig. The SA clashed repeatedly with the communists and with the social democratic Arschufo, the Workers' Defence Formations. Gun battles were rare, but knives and improvised weapons were frequently used. Remarkably, there was only one fatality: 16-year-old Horst Hoffmann, who had been fighting alongside his SA and SS companions with the Arschufo in bloody riots in the village of Kahlbude on Sunday 12 November 1931. With what was perceived as a hero's death, he was immediately elevated to the status of a martyr by the NSDAP, and the day passed into Danzig Nazi legend as "Totensonntag" or "Death Sunday". In the early summer of 1939, the Danzig Senate decided to form a home defence force, and with its closure on 3 June 1939 the responsibility for raising the unit was taken over by the Reichsführer-SS. In October 1938, the third battalion of the 4th SS Death's Head Regiment was formed in Berlin-Adlershof under the command of SS-Obersturmbannführer Hans Freidemann Götze. Himmler decided that this unit would be the cadre of the home defence force. It was joined by the Totenkopf Anti-Tank Training Company, also from Germany. In July 1939 the SS-Heimwehr Danzig (SS-Home Defence Force Danzig) was raised. Its full complement consisted of 42 officers and approximately 1500 men. Its demographic composition was two-thirds German nationals while the remainder were from Danzig. Gauleiter Forster presented the unit with its company standard at a special parade held on 18 August 1939, when SS-Obersturmbannführer Götze received it on behalf of the SS-Heimwehr Danzig.
The SS-Heimwehr Danzig
Earlier, in June 1939, the SS-Wachsturmbann Eimann (a reserve unit that saw minor action in the Danzig region between July and September 1939, carried out "police duties" after the invasion of Poland and which was dissolved in 1940) was formed on the orders of SS-Brigadeführer Schafer with the cooperation of SS District Northeast. It was a police reinforcement battalion that consisted of four companies and a motor transport echelon. Commanded by SS-Sturmbannführer Kurt Eimman, it also found time to shoot handicapped German civilians who were sent to Poland from the Reich. In addition, a number of Action Commandos were formed from members of the Political Police of the Danzig Criminal Police, Protection Police and General SS, all of which were exclusively at the disposal of the Danzig Police.
The SS-Heimwehr Danzig in action
With the start of the war against Poland in September 1939, SS-Heimwehr Danzig saw action in and around Danzig, Gdingen and Westerplatte. Reichsführer-SS Himmler was particularly incensed at the treatment of one of its battalions which on 8 September had taken part in the storming of the spit of coastline known as the Oxhöfter Kämpe. But because this battalion had been attached to a Pomeranian local defence division under Colonel Graf Rittberg, it had been mentioned in orders as the Rittberg battalion. As insignificant as this may sound, Himmler was seeking as much glory and recognition for his SS units from the army as he could at the beginning of the war.
Shortly after the Polish surrender on 27 September, the unit was withdrawn to Germany and its personnel distributed as cadres for the new Totenkopf Infantry Regiment 3 of the Totenkopf Division. The regiment's formation was made official on 1 November 1939 in a ceremony that took place at the training depot at Dachau.
During Hitler's visit to Danzig, the SS-Wachsturmbann Eimann carried out security duties in Oliva and Danzig, while two companies guarded Hitler's headquarters in Zoppot. Following the fighting in Danzig, large numbers of civilians were taken prisoner and put in camps at Neufahrwasser, Stuthof and Grenzdorf, where two companies of the battalion acted as camp guards.
The first "foreign" volunteer units had, more or less, been a success. These Germanic units were relatively easy to raise and maintain since their main loyalty was to the government in Berlin. Nevertheless, they provided a useful blueprint for the raising of non-Volksdeutsche volunteer units for Germany's armed forces and the SS. The effectiveness of this blueprint would now be tested in those states conquered by Germany in Western Europe.