Black Dog

The Nazis' racial categories were half baked. German ethnicity is very complex, as one would expect in a country with so many neighbours. Whilst the Nazis usually thought of the German people as Nordic, in fact, there was a strong element of "alpine" peoples in there. Germany also had a Celtic past, and was part of the great "La Tene" culture of the iron age.

Since then, several Germanic tribes, as well as, logically, some Slavic and Roman peoples.

The Nazis tended to consider themselves as blood brothers to the Nordic peoples of Scandinavia. They regarded the British as degenerate Germans, despite the fact that Britain and the British isles has 3 Celtic nations, and English ethnicity is as complex as the German.

It is true that the Norwegians and Danes were better treated, but only so long as they behaved, which they didn't. Then, they were treated just as brutally as anyone else.

An important factor was the Waffen SS recruiting units. The Waffen SS came to rely heavily on non Germanic units, since the army had complained about the SS taking the best recruits. Most German SS men of lower rank had already served with the Wehrmacht, but as the war went on, plainly, fewer made it to the SS.

The SS recruiting office in Czechoslovakia was doing fairly well- until the assassination of Reinhardt Heydrich. Himmler's foolish and savage reprisals, including the razing and total destruction of the village of Lidice, put an end to SS recruitment there: no-one came forward. Similar things happened elsewhere.

Just think if the Nazis had treated the conquered peoples better: in the Ukraine and Baltic states as well as Belarus, the Wehrmacht was welcomed as liberators initially. Had Hitler got those men on his side, by treating them well, he would have swelled his army by millions: few Ukrainians had any reason to love Stalin.

I believe Germany could have won the war if this happened.

Black Dog

Siberian Man- wonderful photos! I didn't know that Siberians had blonde hair? We get told that Slavonic peoples are dark haired.

Then again, I'm English but had (until it went grey ) black hair.

The woman in the far left photo with the medals, what uniform is she wearing? Are they her medals? (In Britain, war widows often wear their husband's medals on special occasions).

clement

Dark hair are a majority n about 70 % of Europe I would say. In germany, only the northernmost part of the country has a majority of light hair. And in the British Isles, dark hair are a vast majority in Wales, Ireland and the southern half of England. Elsewhere, this feature is less dominant, but still is a majority. If you also remove the light chestnut hair, this leaves a minority of blond people. In almost all of France, blond people are less than 20 % of the population (exceptions being the northeast corner and Brittany ).

Black Dog

Dark hair is indeed common in Britain, but actual black isn't. In my area (North Yorkshire) a very high percentage of children have light blonde hair, but by the time they reach their teens, it mostly becomes darker.

clement

Yeah, in northern europe "dark" means brown or dark chestnut. Jet black hair are quite uncommon in Europe outside of the mediterranean zone.

Edward

My father was one of these “slave” workers. Initially he was enslaved in Germany proper. He had a very bad memory from this period.
From the end of 1943 he was transferred to Austria and he enjoyed excellent relation with his “Employer” family. He kept contact with this Austrian family after the war until the death of this family grandfather-he did not know the younger population as they were in Whermacht fighting on the Eastern front.
By the way most of his “slave” co-workers from his village has been killed in last months of the war as they had a misfortune to be bombed by American bombers during the earthwork construction of the defence system around Vienna. Due to intervention of my father’s “employer”, he was not included into this construction group and stayed in his previous “job” until the end of the war.

irishcrusader95

really?, well i have jet black hair so what do you suppose that says about my ethnicity. my family's been in ireland for many generations and its certain one side of my family is english who could have been among the first Normans to arrive. perhaps one of those normans was a veteran of the campaigns in sicily

Edward

This table is a good example of treatment of local population by Germany


Distribution of food in General Government (occupied part of Poland excluded areas annexed to III Reich) as of December, 1941
Nationality------ ---Daily calorie intake
Germans-------------2310
Neutral Foreigners--1790
Ukrainians------------930
Poles-------------------654
654---------------------184

Siberian Man

The woman on the left photo has wear the Polish uniform. Since 1943 my great-grandmother was the sergeant of Polish Peoples Army (Army Ludowa).

Nemowork

Well either that or theres a very waterlogged Spaniard in the mix who doggy paddled off the Armada

If you want the best way to view nazi race policy think of it like mining for Gold. Some ore has lots of gold, some has a little and some is useless. The Nazis tried to acquire anybody they saw as racially aryan regardless of their national heritage, thats why they kidnapped Polish children and gave them for adoption to German families through the Lebensborn centres, it was thought the German families would raise them in their new culture and they would become good Germans.

The Nazis reckoned themseves as mostly pure but with a few impurities to be burned out (jews, gypsys etc)

The Ukrainians and Balkan nations might be rough ore but there were certainly bits of the population they could recognise and use, in the Ukraine its the part of the population who tend to see themselves with a Europeean view of the world and are anti-Russian.

It gets complicated because you have to remember that some of the people who served with the SS werent actually SS members, they were in the service OF the SS. Himmler was banned from recruiting inside Germany and could only take volunteers, however he was allowed to conscript or recruit freely from Germanic/Aryan men in captured territories.

When you get to later in the war the German manpower is going down, the need anybody with a pulse who can hold a rifle and theyre being less picky about who they'll employ as long as he'll obey orders and shoot Russians. That includes Indians, Ukrainians, Cossacks, Russians, Laotians, French, Argentinians, you name it theres somebody in there.

Himmler had a choice, as an ambitious Empire builder he could claim these foreign units as they were not Germans but recruits from conquered territories and therefore available to the SS or he could keep to Nazi racial theory.
His ambition won, he took them on.