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European non-Germans in the German armed forces during World War II

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The term was mainly used to describe non-German Europeans (neither Reichsdeutsche or Volksdeutsche) who volunteered to fight for the Third Reich during World War II. Though largely recruited from occupied countries, they also came from co-belligerent, neutral, and even active enemy nations. They fought in the Waffen-SS as well as in the Wehrmacht.

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The term was mainly used to describe non-German Europeans (neither Reichsdeutsche or Volksdeutsche) who volunteered to fight for the Third Reich during World War II. Though largely recruited from occupied countries, they also came from co-belligerent, neutral, and even active enemy nations. They fought in the Waffen-SS as well as in the Wehrmacht. One Azerbaijani POW who volunteered to fight against the Soviets told his German captors that he was anti-Nazi, anti-Bolshevik, and only wanted an opportunity to free his homeland.[not representative?] On the Eastern Front the volunteers and conscripts in the Ostlegionen came to comprise a fighting force equivalent to 30 German divisions by the end of 1943. Large numbers of Freiwillige also came from areas outside Europe, mainly motivated by a desire to fight for the freedom of their nations against Soviet or British domination. The non-German troops thus comprised a wide range of ethnicities, for example from the mainly Turkic peoples in the Ostlegionen to the Muslim Slavs in 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar and the Indians of the Indische Legion (the Indian National Army fought against the British on the Japanese side).