Did any non whites in Wehrmacht/Waffen SS get Knight's Cross

[Helmut Von Moltke]

Did any non white volunteers inthe Wehrmacht / Waffen SS like Arabs, SS Handschar Muslims, Turkestanis, Geogrgians, Armenians, Cossaks, Asiatics, etc get the Knight's Cross? thanks for any help

helmut

[Doktor Krollspell]

Nope!

And then there is the definition on the concept "white"... SS Hanschar Muslims, Georgians, Cossacks... etc. etc. Are these, and many others, not "white"? I have no interest whatsoever to start a race definition debate in this thread but one should be careful with words...


Regards,

Krollspell

[Helmut Von Moltke]

hmm, yep you have a point. Lets change definition to non Europeans?

helmut

[Doktor Krollspell]

OK...

But how do you define "Europeans"? The muslims of the Handschar Division were primarly men from Bosnia-Herzegovina, i e Yugoslavia. And then the Georgians, Armenians and so on. Today these nations in the Caucasus region are considered by some to be European and by some to be... what? I would say that Stalin was an european. In Sweden these countries are officially considered to be european countries. I'm quite sure that not everybody agrees about this but still...

I'm just saying that defining ehtnical/cultural/geographical belonging is not that easy since there are many variables to consider. For example, if you agree that the Ural mountain range is the "natural border" between european Russia and asiatic Russia, what to do of a blond Ivan in Vladivostok? Or the other way around?


It's not that easy,

Krollspell

[Helmut Von Moltke]

ummmm.... lets change it to..... non Europeans outside the Urals and Mediterranean boundry, and add mixed german - non European volksdeutsche?

helmut

[panzermahn]

It might interest you that 2 years ago, I heard about an upcoming book in India about the Indian Waffen SS Legion where some Indian SS officers received the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class

Other than that I had no info

Regards
Panzermahn

[Helmut Von Moltke]

It might interest you that 2 years ago, I heard about an upcoming book in India about the Indian Waffen SS Legion where some Indian SS officers received the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class

Other than that I had no info

Regards
Panzermahn

thanks kind of intresting. Did the Indians wear the SS runes or did they have some special insignia?

cheers

helmut

[panzermahn]

It might interest you that 2 years ago, I heard about an upcoming book in India about the Indian Waffen SS Legion where some Indian SS officers received the Iron Cross 1st and 2nd class

Other than that I had no info

Regards
Panzermahn

thanks kind of intresting. Did the Indians wear the SS runes or did they have some special insignia?

cheers

helmut

There is a widely-circulated picture of a Skih SS Legionnaire in the net (search for it in the AHF or Feldgrau) who wore the Bengal Tiger head kragenspiegeln which I believed is the only known photo in the world that shows the existence of the special collar tab for the Indian Waffen SS legion.

Bear in mind that the Legion Azad Hind (under the German army) was only transferred to the Waffen SS in 1944 when Himmler wanted to consolidate all the non-Germans in the service of the Wehrmacht under the banner of the SS. There is a RSHA Eurasian map of February 1945 that clearly depicts the Indian Bengal Tiger Head kragenspiegeln although at that time, it is clearly not in everyone mind. Most of the Indian SS men were known to wear a mixture of Heer and SS uniform.

Also, it might interest you that recently published Russian sources (2005 & 2006) mentioned that during the Battle of Berlin, some Indian SS men were captured by Red Army troops at the end of the battle.

I'm currently working on an article on foreign volunteers during the Battle of Berlin for a military history magazine.

Regards
Panzermahn

[Laurent Daniel]

Hi Everybody,
I am pretty sure that what Helmut is looking for is Asian members of the W-SS or other volunteers units who got a decoration, whatever it is.

[fons]

They were transferred late into 1944.
The transfer can be called a mere formality.
Its a waffen-ss unit because of the transfer but technically speaking it remained a wehrmacht outfit.
Waffen-ss uniforms arrived very late, a lot actually refused to wear the stuff.
A few ss-men got transferred to it, the new commander being liked so much he left for Berlin a bit later...its as much of a ss-unit as the last-ditch volksgrenadier divisions on the end...

to panzermahn, whats the source for this 'indians caught in berlin' story? what unit caught them and who wrote it down? (not that i believe it happened, but i want to check myself)

Cheerios,
fons

[panzermahn]

They were transferred late into 1944.
The transfer can be called a mere formality.
Its a waffen-ss unit because of the transfer but technically speaking it remained a wehrmacht outfit.
Waffen-ss uniforms arrived very late, a lot actually refused to wear the stuff.
A few ss-men got transferred to it, the new commander being liked so much he left for Berlin a bit later...its as much of a ss-unit as the last-ditch volksgrenadier divisions on the end...

to panzermahn, whats the source for this 'indians caught in berlin' story? what unit caught them and who wrote it down? (not that i believe it happened, but i want to check myself)

Cheerios,
fons

Dear fons,

The source for this assertion is from two separate Russian memoirs of two Red Army soldiers who fought in Berlin recently published (2005 & 2006). It was translated by a comrade of mine after he used those books for his research. I'll get you the name of the book later...

I cross-checked and found a Bolshevik record (in english, suprisingly) of the number of European and non-European POWs they had in their Gulags and found it stated there is an Indian POW. It is interesting because both of the memoirs mentioned that a single Indian legionnaire from the stabskompanie of Indische Freiwillige Legion der SS (that were based at Berlin) was captured. However there is no mentioned of what has happen to him although the Bolshevik record I mentioned just now stated that he was repatriated in 1947

Regards
Panzermahn

[fons]

Dear fons,

The source for this assertion is from two separate Russian memoirs of two Red Army soldiers who fought in Berlin recently published (2005 & 2006). It was translated by a comrade of mine after he used those books for his research. I'll get you the name of the book later...

I cross-checked and found a Bolshevik record (in english, suprisingly) of the number of European and non-European POWs they had in their Gulags and found it stated there is an Indian POW. It is interesting because both of the memoirs mentioned that a single Indian legionnaire from the stabskompanie of Indische Freiwillige Legion der SS (that were based at Berlin) was captured. However there is no mentioned of what has happen to him although the Bolshevik record I mentioned just now stated that he was repatriated in 1947

Regards
Panzermahn

Hey there,

thanks for clearing this up a bit.
I hope to hear the titles of the books.
You mention "a single Indian legionnaire from the stabskompanie of Indische Freiwillige Legion der SS (that were based at Berlin)"
Was this the regimental staff? i know the Stabskompanie was nowhere near Berlin when the curtain fell...
The ersatz-batallion & the sonderkompanie came closest to the Russians (marching from Dresden down to Bavaria) but eventually did surrender to the Americans so it can't be from them as well...
Could have been one who was on Bose's staff in Berlin perhaps?
Knowing what the Russians had on paper on the dutch volunteers it might as well be a mistake too...

Cheerios,
fons

[Handzar]

What are you talking about???

Himmler had already pronounced Bosnian Muslims as Aryans.

read the wikipedia page on Handschar!



See???
Read the info before insulting someone!

In the fall of 1942, SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler and SS-General Gottlob Berger approached Hitler with the proposal to raise a Bosnian Moslem SS division. Himmler thought that Moslem men would make perfect SS soldiers, as Islam "promises them Heaven if they fight and are killed in action." According to Chris Bishop, "Himmler convinced himself that Balkan Muslims were neither Slavs nor Turks, but were really Aryans who had adopted Islam." (Source: "SS: Hell on the Western Front. The Waffen SS in Europe 1940-1945", 2003. p.70). He believed the Muslims of Bosnia to be the same, racially, as the Croatians, and saw the Croatians as descended of Gothic and Persian stock.

[Gramford]

I have to ask...WAS there any BLACK ore any Negro in Wehrmacht/Waffen SS at all.any one who got any Badges, fore this ore that...
THIS is not to do whit Rasism at all..But im white, and my best friend is black, from Hahiti, and he only wonder so I ask..I guess he is the only one on this Island who is Interested in WW2, at all.

Leif Gramford.

[Alex Dekker]

According to the book French volunteers in the Waffen-SS, yhere was a negro woh joined the Wehrmacht. After all French WM-soldiers where drafted into the Waffen-SS, this man was also drafted into the Waffen-SS. He was soon transferrerd to a KZ-Lager (for stealing or something else). He received, while being a prisoner, a KVK.

(Sorry, haven't got the book near me, it was published by Helion)