Polish troups of the Wehrmacht in Marseille, France

[NicolasEll]

Hi folks,

Does anyone have information about Polish soldiers in the 244. ID occupying Marseille just before it's liberation? I used to live in a part of town where there was a stronghold around a 88 Flak battery with underground bunker-tunnel for troups. Local inhabitant remember that some of them were Polish and eagerly deserted hiding in French homes (who welcomed them) when the North-African/French units arrived.

Thanks for any information/books or also any contact with Polish Veterans of the Wehrmacht.

Nicolas

[Pirx]

Hi.
In Germany 1919-1939 Poles were largest minority (about 400 000). Most of them lived in Silesia (Schlesien), Pomerania and i Ruhr valley. Very possible that those soldiers were Poles with German citisienship. Most "polish" units in German army were from VIII wehrkreis.

[NicolasEll]

Thanks for your reply Pirx, I didn't know of possible soldiers of Polish origin from places like the Ruhr gebiet, interesting. But then once Poland was occupied, didn't the Wehrmacht recruit (rather forcedly) quite a lot of Polish men which could pass for 'Volksdeutsche'? But in these cases I guess they were not counted as Osttruppen? Do you or anyone else know what the different situations of Polish soliders in the Wehrmacht were?

Nicolas

[Landserstudent]

Volksdeutsche classification from places like Breslau, perhaps.

Many Poles as forced-labor, some 'volunteers', in the Reich during the war.
Maybe some militarized, but foreigners generally served in the Waffen SS; don't see any Polish WSS in the OBfor WSS, but you never know. History
is full of odd flukes.

[crolick]

Nicolas - http://www.wehrmacht-polacy.pl/
Use google translate to browse trough the webpage which in my opinion is very interesting.
You can also of course use - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poles_in_the_Wehrmacht


Hope it helps!
Andrzej

[NicolasEll]

An interesting parallel from a personal case in Greece: Jan Bobrowski, from Gdansk and who was in the same unit as my grandfather, was forced into the Wehrmacht and posted on the islands of Scarpanto and Lemnos.
See my post here:
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=25387&p=241496#p241496