British Free Corps

[Foxbat]

I’ve been reading a book on the history of the SS and came across a chapter on the British Free Corps. It was formed from British POWs persuaded to join the SS. It appears the membership never got above 27. This is significant because it needed at least 30 members to become an activated platoon and be sent into action. Although some members were fervent believers, it seems that others joined simply to get a better quality of life than was found in prison camps, but worked to keep the recruitment below the magic number (some were attached to other units and did see action in 1945). It’s something I’d never heard of before so I’ve hunted down a wiki piece for any that are interested.

British Free Corps - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[.matthew.]

It's weird how treason adds an extra stink

 

[CupofJoe]

Well... that sent me down a wiki rabbit hole....

 

[HareBrain]

The SS also recruited quite heavily from several occupied countries to feed the Russian Front, pitching it as an anti-communist crusade.

 

[Foxbat]

The SS also recruited quite heavily from several occupied countries to feed the Russian Front, pitching it as an anti-communist crusade.

Yes. I knew about organisations like the Wiking Division and such but I’d never heard of the British Free Corps. We had traitors like William Joyce (Lord Haw Haw) so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me but it did. There was even the Spanish Blue Division on the Eastern Front, made up from volunteer spanish fascists even though Spain never entered the war.

Another snippet that I learned: Wallis Simpson had an affair with von Ribbentrop when he visited the UK pre-war. What was really interesting was the time period because this affair overlapped her affair with Edward VIII.

 

[Toby Frost]

George Orwell had this to say in an essay about the political writer James Burnham:

The question of morale, and its relation to national solidarity, is a nebulous one, and the evidence can be so manipulated as to prove almost anything. But if one goes by the proportion of prisoners to other casualties, and the amount of quislingism, the totalitarian states come out of the comparison worse than the democracies. Hundreds of thousands of Russians appear to have gone over to the Germans during the course of the war, while comparable numbers of Germans and Italians had gone over to the Allies before the war started: the corresponding number of American or British renegades would have amounted to a few scores.

To be honest, recruiting 50 traitors out of thousands of prisoners seems like a pretty low number. It doesn't surprise me that they got some because (a) recruiting traitors was Nazi policy, and (b) you will always find people in a population who will take the opportunity to oppress and persecute others (especially if sold under some more virtuous pretext). There certainly were a few figures among the British "elite" who would have sold out their country for personal advancement... and I'll stop there.

 

[Foxbat]

I think Orwell’s statement is misleading when it comes to Russian numbers when comparing it to others. The German and Italian defectors moved from totalitarianism to democracy. The Russian defectors moved from one totalitarian regime to another. Many ethnic groups in Russia went over to the German side, not because of totalitarianism or even political reasons but because of simple hatred born of years of persecution. The Cossacks being only one example. Thousands of them fought against the Soviets at Stalingrad, not because they saw the Nazi totalitarian regime was anything better but because their true enemy was always Soviet Russia. It was seen as an opportunity to free themselves from Stalin. They would have sided with whomever had taken on the Soviets. Some of that anti-soviet feeling had originated from the civil war and some of it was of Stalin’s own making.

It’s also why many in the Ukraine saw the Germans as liberators, until the raping and killings started.

 

[Danny McG]

I can't find it online but I got a really obscure memory of an article about Britain doing something similar.
They recruited amongst German P.O.Ws and started training them, I can't remember if they saw combat

 

[CupofJoe]

There is this from The Grauniad.

The German heroes who helped Allies against Hitler

A new book reveals the bravery of the men who joined the British forces to liberate Europe.

www.theguardian.com

Not quite the same... but still...

 

[BigBadBob141]

As a Brit this is something to be proud of in a way, some nationalities probably joined up in their hundreds.
P.S. Interesting photo in history of WW2 book, there is a young solider in a German uniform standing in front of a desk, at the desk sits an American soldier with paperwork while behind the young soldier guarding him stands another American.
It is obvious the the soldier in the German uniform has been taken prisoner and is being processed, but the very odd thing is the German soldier has Asian features.
It turns out he was a Korean peasant, one day Japanese soldiers showed up at his village, rounded up all the young men and say, congratulations you've just joined the Imperial Japanese Army.
He was sent to fight the Russians and was captured, in the Russian P.O.W camp recruiters came around for the army, so he joined the Soviet Russian Army because I suppose conditions in the camp would not have been good.
So he's sent the fight the Germans and was captured again, rinse and repeat, in the German P.O.W. camp recruiters come around and he joins up again to get away from the bad conditions only to be finally captured by the Americans in Normandy!!!I
P.P.S. I think there were even Italian soldiers at the Russian Front, poor devils!

 

[Brian G Turner]

Didn't Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 feature an American unit recruited by the Nazi's? Not sure whether that was a fiction or not, but would be interesting to know if there was any truth to that.

 

[mosaix]

As an aside, if The Nazis had invaded and conquered the UK I wonder how many British people would have ‘gone over’.

Thousands did in every Nazi occupied country and my personal opinion is that the UK would have been no different - let’s not forget Oswald Moseley and the Brown Shirts.

 

[Vladd67]

Didn't Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 feature an American unit recruited by the Nazi's? Not sure whether that was a fiction or not, but would be interesting to know if there was any truth to that.

US volunteers in the Waffen-SS

www.axishistory.com

 

[Mad Alice]

If anyone remembers that old prisoner of war show from the sixties, Hogan's Heroes, there were several episodes upon "flipping" soldiers from other armies and there were a few about the German attempts to conscript P.O.W. aid for the German forces. Very interesting reasons were given as to why a prisoner would work or labour for the enemy. Added food or access to medical care or improvements in living conditions were often given. Sometimes work or Labour was forced, the men were assigned and were not given a choice, excepting death, or torture or death by execution or death by exposure and so on and of course for the real trouble makers who wouldn't cooperate they would be sent to the death camps along with other undesirables.
Remember that the two maxims given upon capture were to stay alive and escape, and to confound and confuse all enemy efforts if escape was not possible.
A seeming acquiescence could in fact be an elaborate escape attempt or attempt to infiltrate and confound enemy efforts.

 

[The Ace]

Didn't Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 feature an American unit recruited by the Nazi's? Not sure whether that was a fiction or not, but would be interesting to know if there was any truth to that.

No, they were Prisoners of War used as labourers (perfectly legal) we did the same with German POWs - mainly, but not exclusively, on farms (POW's often don't have a choice about such duties). The title of the story comes from their billet (Schlachthof 5) and that they were taught the phrase if they were separated - it was the only German many of them knew. Vonnegut drew on his own experience for this - taken prisoner at, "The Battle of the Bulge," he survived the bombing by hiding in a meat-locker.

Ironically, the prisoners were caught in the bombing of Dresden, the first, "Combat," experience for the BFC - they were brought in as extra hands for rescue/recovery.

In the last, desperate days, the BFC were sent to the Eastern Front (at that time, just outside Berlin) where their commander ordered them to escort refugees West

 

[Foxbat]

No, they were Prisoners of War used as labourers (perfectly legal) we did the same with German POWs - mainly, but not exclusively, on farms (POW's often don't have a choice about such duties).

There’s a wonderful legacy on Orkney left by Italian POWs that were sent to work there on the Churchill Barriers.

The Italian Chapel | Orkney.com

The Italian Chapel consists of two Nissen huts transformed into a beautiful chapel by Domenico Chiocchetti and his colleagues, Italian prisoners of war captured in North Africa and transported to the Island of Lamb Holm in Orkney.

www.orkney.com

 

[CupofJoe]

As a Brit this is something to be proud of in a way, some nationalities probably joined up in their hundreds.
P.S. Interesting photo in history of WW2 book, there is a young solider in a German uniform standing in front of a desk, at the desk sits an American soldier with paperwork while behind the young soldier guarding him stands another American.
It is obvious the the soldier in the German uniform has been taken prisoner and is being processed, but the very odd thing is the German soldier has Asian features.
It turns out he was a Korean peasant, one day Japanese soldiers showed up at his village, rounded up all the young men and say, congratulations you've just joined the Imperial Japanese Army.
He was sent to fight the Russians and was captured, in the Russian P.O.W camp recruiters came around for the army, so he joined the Soviet Russian Army because I suppose conditions in the camp would not have been good.
So he's sent the fight the Germans and was captured again, rinse and repeat, in the German P.O.W. camp recruiters come around and he joins up again to get away from the bad conditions only to be finally captured by the Americans in Normandy!!!I
P.P.S. I think there were even Italian soldiers at the Russian Front, poor devils!

I haven't seen it but there is this film...

My Way (2011 film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This film is based on the story of a Korean named Yang Kyoungjong who was allegedly captured by the Americans on D-Day. Yang Kyoungjong was conscripted into the Japanese Imperial Army, the Red Army, and the Wehrmacht.[

 

[paranoid marvin]

There's a difference between accepting the ideology of the Nazi Party and putting on an enemy uniform and killing your own. side. They could at least pretend to agree with what the Nazis were telling them, even if they didn't agree with it, just to get an easier life; as I'm sure did some Germans. When you go into battle against your own side then there is no doubt you have 'gone over'.

But there was never any need for British soldiers to do so unless they were willing. Unlike POWs from some countries, the Germans treated captured British troops relatively well (although the Commando Order went completely against this). And Britain never really looked like losing. With either America, Russia or both in their corner, and with an air force, air defence, navy and an Empire that spanned the continents there was never really any danger that we would lose, certainly after 1941.

We may not win , but - regardless of Hitler's bluster - there was never any realistic prospect of a successful invasion of Britain. I guess this is in part due to the fact that we have been almost permanently at war for the last 1000 years and so were used to changing from a peace to war footing in an instant. It took until Germany looked like losing for them to get anywhere near a similar state in relation to manufacturing and mobilisation of the entire population.

 

[Ambrose]

In one of his books Albert Speer wrote that the UK Defence of the Realm Regulations allowed the country to adapt itself to war needs far better than he was able to in Germany when he took over as production minster. Even so, Speer's organisational abilities may have prolonged the war by some months.

 

[Ambrose]

By the way the UK executed John Amery, a leader of the British Free Corps. Johno was the brother of Julian, later a Conservative minister, and who served in the UK army while John was supporting the other side.