Wehrmacht foreign volunteers and conscripts


Among the approximately one million foreign volunteers and conscripts who served in the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS during World War II were ethnic Germans, Belgians, Czechs, Dutch, Finns, Danes, French, Hungarians, Norwegians, Poles, Portuguese, Swedes, and British, along with people from the Baltic states and the Balkans. At least 47,000 Spaniards served in the Blue Division.
Some estimates state anywhere between 600,000 and 1,400,000 Soviets joined the Wehrmacht forces as Hiwis. The Ukrainian collaborationist forces were composed of an estimated number of 180,000 volunteers serving with units scattered all over Europe. Russian émigrés and defectors from the Soviet Union formed the Russian Liberation Army or fought as Hilfswillige within German units of the Wehrmacht primarily on the Eastern Front. Non-Russians from the Soviet Union formed the Ostlegionen. The East Battalions comprized a total of 175,000 personnel. These units were all commanded by General Ernst August Köstring. A lower estimate for the total number of foreign volunteers that served in the entire German armed forces is 350,000.

List of units

Soviet Union

Croatia

Other