why pepole join invaders side?

[sid guttridge]

Hi Ferret,

While it is true that a regiment worth of Indian troops were raised for the Wehrmacht from POWs, they did not not prove reliable and did no fighting. What little damage they inflicted seems to have been to French civilians and their own German liaison officers in July-August 1944, not to the British.

While Indians were politically shifting strongly towards independence, ironically only the British ever got good service out of Indian troops in WWII. Indeed, over 1939-45 Indians provided Britain with the largest volunteer army the world had ever known.

In another irony, the bulk of the 1943-44 Free French Army was made up of colonial subject soldiers who had formerly served Vichy. I have not heard of French colonials (presumably you mean colonial subjects?) fighting against the Free French during WWII. Have you more details?

Cheers,

Sid.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Hans,

Did I really post that "no one has the right to invade another land"? Have you details of which post, so that I can check the context?

As a Cornishman, if colonial repatriation was carried to its logical extreme, I would benefit more than most. Not only would some 100+ million people of British descent have to come back to the UK, but most of those would then have to get on their longships with the rest of the English back to Denmark and northern Germany. Then, instead of being confined to a cold, wet peninsula at the bottom left of the UK, we Cornish could reclaim the whole south coast of England up to the Straits of Dover.

But, as you say, life ain't that simple. Which is why I, for one, don't advocate such an impracticable policy.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Hans]

Hi Sid,

Very much earlier under this topic. It sort of stuck in my mind and I wonder what sort of a world we would live in if we didn't ALL look for "Lebensraum".

Those looking for Lebensraum in Australia lately tend to be incarcerated in concentration camps and vilified.

But enough of that.

- Hans

[Mad Volksdeutscher]

Ferret:

Skorzeny was Ethnic Hungarian. A Magyar from Vienna. Technically that's Uralic or Ural-Altaic. Since the modern term for what folks considered "Aryan" ethnolinguistically/ethnologically is an Indo-European...

Seriously, JP Slovjanski (A Ukie and thusly a Slav) is a heck of a lot more "Aryan" than Skorzeny was if one goes on that sort of thing...

(Ever hear about the dealy with the 18th WSS versus the 25th WSS? I'll re-iterate it for one and all if anyone's interested--unless Sid there beats me to it!)

Zdravo!

[TheFerret]

In another irony, the bulk of the 1943-44 Free French Army was made up of colonial subject soldiers who had formerly served Vichy. I have not heard of French colonials (presumably you mean colonial subjects?) fighting against the Free French during WWII. Have you more details?

Cheers,

Sid.

I would have to go back to a book I read years ago titled "The Patriotic Traitors" by David Littlejohn, which devoted an entire chapter to French West Africa. There was, in fact a war between the forces loyal to Vichy France and those loyal to DeGaul. There was a large group of North African Arabs who were in service to Patain's regeim. They were eventually defeated and many were shot for treason.

These troops were mainly conscripted or volunteered for the money. They were not really ideological Fascists. But they did have the misfortune of serving on the loosing side.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Ferret,

I know that there was some conflict between Vichy and Free French Forces, both containing colonial subject troops, but as both the Vichy and Free French were imperialists I don't see such fighting as being anti-colonial.

Cheers,

Sid.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Hans,

I reread my posts on this thread to find where I had supposedly written that, but couldn't. That is why I asked for a more specific reference.

Cheers,

Sid.

[sid guttridge]

Hi Mad V.,

I don't know that one.

However, I do know that when Nazi "geneticists" tried to measure the degree of Aryan versus Slav characteristics in what is now the Czech Republic, they made the embarrassing discovery that ethnic Czechs showed stronger supposedly Aryan characteristics than Sudeten Germans!

Cheers,

Sid.

[Mad Volksdeutscher]

Sid old bean:

I take it you're referring to my 18th WSS versus 25th WSS cryptic reference.

Here goes:

(Main Source: Volume 3, Foreign volunteers of the German Army in WW2. One of Slovjanski's books, I forgot the Author & Publisher. Sorry)

The intended "membership demographic" of 18th WSS Horst Wessel was ethnic "Aryan" Germans living in Greater Hungary. 25th WSS Hungaria, also 26th WSS for that matter were to be ethnic Magyars who weren't exactly considered Aryan. (I can see their point, after a fashion, Magyars are ethnologically/ethnolinguistically a Uralic people)

Now, this is how seriously the local reps for the RSSHA were taking things once they had gotten down to the nitty-gritty of raising a couple of divisions: Hungarians, regardless of their having fair hair and/or blue eyes --or their being warmer-complected brunettes and resembling Ernie Kovacs more than Reinhardt Heydrich-- who spoke semi-fluent German went in the 18th WSS. Any other volunteers who spoke little to NO German, regardless of ethnotype -- went into the 25th and the 26th WSS.

Even in the earliest stages before the Otto Skorzeny-ish looking Hungarians were being shunted to "Horst Wessel" those who were in the unit enjoyed being "neither fish nor fowl", as the old saying goes. To other Hungarians, they were "damned Germans." To the German "Aryans" (however the heck you want to define THAT!) they were "dirty Hungarians."

Not too long after that, the only criterion being used for who went where was linguistic ability.

(The following should be taken into consideration by all those out there into NS: The rhetoric penned in Mein Kampf was no longer being taken that seriously well before the end of the war by the most politicized of all the branches of the German armed forces. Food for thought! )

[sid guttridge]

Hi Mad V.

Your Hungarian example and my Czech example seem to indicate that Nazi racial definitions were complete B@££@;#s!

Cheers,

Sid.

[tazorii]

A French man from Toulouse joined the SS, just because the English bombed his house.

While on retreat from Normandy he sat in a town square smoking a cig' whilst waiting for his fellow SS solider to come back and told of this to another French Man who had suffered from the occupation and bombing raids.

People do what they believe in and if you believe in a cause then why not fight for it?

Its just the same as us Brits and the Yanks in Iraq. When you see Brits fighting on the side of Al Quida (sp).

Who's to say that we are right?

Graham

[Mad Volksdeutscher]

You make a valid point, Graham...

Sometimes it takes DECADES after all is said & done to sort things out.

(And in some instances "unanticipated" conclusions get drawn. As in various discussions held here & elsewhere about Andrej Hlinka & Slovakia and Jure Francetic, Gde. Pavelic & Independent Croatia...)

Regards...

[sid guttridge]

Hi Mad,

I wasn't aware of any discussions on Andrej Hlinka. Where were they? In any event, he died in mid-1938 and so never served another power.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hi Tazorii,

It may interest you to know that as recently as last year the Duke of Edinburgh attended a memorial to the French civilians killed by British raids on Toulouse.

I am not sure I believe the specifics of your story. I cannot find reference to British raids on Toulouse before April 1944, which leaves very little time for your French W-SS volunteer to enlist, get trained and join a W-SS unit in time for the Normandy fighting. Were there earlier raids? If so, do you have dates?

I can also find no reference to any French W-SS units serving in the West.

Do you have any more concrete details?

Cheers,

Sid.

[Mad Volksdeutscher]

Sid:

Might have been a sidebar note in some discussion Pawel 202 & THE YASA & I had going about Slavs on the Axis side...might also have been a thread the 3 of us East-Central European guys had on another Forum entirely w/r.t. Hlinka & then Tiso and whither Slovakia...sometimes it is REALLY hard to keep track of "which one of us said what WHERE"

(Especially when JPS does his trick of drag-cursor-click on Copy-&-post-exact-same-postulation...on SEVERAL Forums, to see how different groups respond to a given politico-philosophical-historical concept.)

OBTW--In case you were wondering where Slovjanski's been lately, I can tell you:

VERY busy with his studies (including at long last reading Hasek's Good Soldier Svejik!), also getting a nest egg saved up for tuition. He will in all likelihood be studying in Prague within the next year or so, majoring in Education I do believe...

(And yes, I told him he HAS TO stop in at U Kalicha restaurant while he's there...)

[sid guttridge]

Hi Mad,

I keep things simple by only posting on Feldgrau. If I posted elsewhere as well, I would have no social life at all.

Cheers,

Sid.