Austrians into German Soldiers: The Integrative Impact of Wehrmacht Service on Austrian Soldiers during World War II

2007 ◽  
Vol 38 ◽  
pp. 160-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas R. Grischany
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
World War ◽  
German Armed Forces ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Army Service ◽  
German Reich

In March 1983, germany annexed the Republic of Austria, incorporating it into the Greater German Reich. Thereafter, about 1.2 million Austrians eligible for military service were draft ed into the German armed forces: the Wehrmacht. Although we know where largely Austrian contingents fought in World War II, little is known about what, if anything, set them apart from their Reich German comrades. Nor do we know much about their attitudes, their “mindset,” or their subjective experience of military service and war.1 Because we know so little about the attitudes of Austrian soldiers in the Wehrmacht, and since army service—in contrast to membership in the SS or NSDAP—was largely mandatory, it is still possible to argue that Austrians were unwilling soldiers, sacrificed in a war that was not theirs, and that discrimination by foreign rulers fostered an Austrian national consciousness.

scholarly journals The Serbs in Croatia before and after the break-up of Yugoslavia

2006 ◽  
pp. 253-270
Author(s):  
Jovan Ilic
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Balkan Peninsula ◽  
World War ◽  
Independent State ◽  
North West ◽  
West Part ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Republic ◽  
Ethnic War

The Serbs are first mentioned in the west part of the Balkan peninsula in 822. They populated the regions east of the river Cetina, mountain Pljesevica and the area between the rivers Una and Kupa. It means that the significant part of the present Republic of Croatia had been populated by the Serbs since the settlement of the Slavs. The main regions mostly populated by the Serbs were north-west Dalmatia, the larger part of Lika and Kordun, Banija, west Slavonia and smaller sections in east Slavonia, west Srem and Baranya. Social-political circumstances for the life of the Serbs in Croatia were mostly very unfavorable. Extremely unfavourable circumstances were during World War II in The Independent State of Croatia, when the Croatian ustasha fighters carried out an extensive, systematic, comprehensive and bestial genocide, that is ethnocide over the Serbs. The second genocide, that is ethnocide over the Serbs in Croatia was carried out in the civil ethnic-religious war 1991-1995, specially in 1995. In these years, the nationalist- chauvinist, antiserbian movement and war suddenly flared up in Croatia. The Serbs living there were forced to defend, so on December 19 1991 they proclaimed The Republic of Srpska Krajina. However, the Croatian armed forces were military stronger. The Serbs were defeated and punished by the total destruction of their property and mass expulsion. In that cruel civil-ethnic war, about 276.000 Serbs were expelled from Croatia, several thousand of them were killed. About 40.000 Serbian houses were destroyed and 380 Serbian villages were burnt. Hundreds of Serbian-Orthodox religious edifices were burnt or destroyed. The value of the destroyed or plundered Serbian property in Croatia was estimated at about 30 billion euros. According to the official Croatian data, in the last several years about 60.000 Serbs-refugees returned from Serbia to their native land, mostly older persons or those who returned to sell their property and leave Croatia again. About 40.000 of them went to live abroad. However, the Serbs-returnees still live in very difficult conditions, discriminated in all segments of life primarily when it comes to employment.

scholarly journals The Jews in Finland and World War II

2000 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 157-166
Author(s):  
Tapani Harviainen
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Jewish Population ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
World War ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Winter War

In the years 1989–1944 two different wars against the Soviet Union were imposed upon Finland. During the Winter War of 1989–1940 Germany remained strictly neutral on the basis of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact&&Great Britain and France planned intervention in favour of Finland. When the second, so-called Continuation War broke out in the summer of 1041, Finland was co-belligerent of Germany, and Great Britain declared war on Finland in December 1941. De jure, however, Finland was never an ally of Germany, and at the end of the war, in the winter 1944–1945, the Finnish armed forces expelled the German troops from Lapland, which was devastated by the Germans during their retreat to Norway. Military service was compulsory for each male citizen of Finland. In 1939 the Jewish population of Finland numbered 1 700. Of these, 260 men were called up and approximately 200 were sent to serve at the front during the Winter War.

scholarly journals RECRUITING GERMAN MIGRANTS FROM THE USSR TO THE GERMAN ARMED FORCES AT THE END OF WORLD WAR II

2020 ◽  
pp. 89-99
Author(s):  
V. L. Martynenko ◽  
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
German Immigrants ◽  
German Army ◽  
German Armed Forces ◽  
General Government ◽  
Red Army ◽  
Ethnic Germans ◽  
The Military

German immigrants who were evacuated by the German authorities in 1943–1944 from the USSR to the territory of Warthegau, Silesia, General Government and Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, became part of the human resources actively used not only in the economy, but also in defensive measures of the Reich. Contrary to the fact that the mobilization of that potential contingent was relatively low, tens of thousands of men were in the ranks of the armed forces of Germany. A significant number of Soviet Germans were replenishment for the SS troops. The initial process of attracting German settlers to military service was not easy and required adherence to a number of formalities related to their naturalization. One of the key factors that also had an effect on solving the issue of ethnic Germans in the internal service was the long-standing contradiction between the Wehrmacht and the SS. The article notes that, in the last months of the war, immigrants from the USSR found themselves in practically no alternative situation, since the military and political leadership of Germany decided to mobilize all men appropriate for military service, regardless of the naturalization. By the end of hostilities in Europe, many Soviet Germans serving in the German army had been captured by the Western allies or the Red Army.

Wettertrupp Haudegen: the last German Arctic weather station of World War II. Part 1

Polar Record ◽  
1986 ◽  
Vol 23 (143) ◽  
pp. 143-158 ◽  
Author(s):  
William Barr
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Meteorological Data ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Weather Data ◽  
North Coast ◽  
World War ◽  
The North ◽  
German Armed Forces ◽  
Weather Stations ◽  
German Navy

ABSTRACTDuring World War II the German Navy, trying to compensate for the loss of meteorological data from stations in Greenland, Iceland and other areas of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean, established automatic weather stations, weather ships and manned weather stations in a zone stretching from Labrador to Zemlya Frantsa-Iosifa. In summer 1944 one of the last of the manned stations (code-named Haudegen) was established on Svalbard at Wordiebukta, Rijpfjorden, Nordaustlandet. A party of 11, led by geographer Dr Wilhelm Dege, collected and transmitted weather data from 14 September 1944 to 5 September 1945; the party also explored and mapped the ice-free corridor extending south across Nordaustlandet to the head of Wahlenbergfjorden and much of the north coast from Kapp Loven east to Finn Malmgrenfjorden. After the German surrender in May 1945 the men of Haudegen found themselves apparently forgotten by Allied authorities in Norway, and began preparing for a second winter. They surrendered ultimately to the captain of the Norwegian sealer Blaasel on 4 September 1945, and were thus the last members of the German armed forces to surrender at the end of World War II.

scholarly journals MEMOIRS OF MEMBERS OF UKRAINIAN MILITARY FORMATIONS IN THE GERMAN ARMED FORCES AS A SOURCE FOR STUDYING THE DAILY LIVES OF SOLDIERS OF WORLD WAR II

2021 ◽  
pp. 35-47
Author(s):  
O. V. Vovk
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Military Training ◽  
Local Population ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
World War ◽  
Secondary Importance ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
German Armed Forces

The article deals with how the memoirs highlight the peculiarities of everyday life of Ukrainian servicemen who were members of Ukrainian military formations in the German armed forces during the Second World War. Ukrainian combatants published a large number of memoirs, which highlighted the reasons that led them to combine their own destiny with service to a foreign country, described the social and construction conditions in which they found themselves, relations between soldiers, the attitude of Germans to Ukrainians, hopes for future Ukrainian revival. . These memoirs are an important source for studying the daily lives of soldiers during World War II. Although the issue of everyday life of Ukrainian soldiers was considered in the works of researchers, it is of secondary importance. Because of this, there is a problem of a more detailed study of the daily life of soldiers who found themselves in various formations of the German armed forces during World War II, and whose activities were not criminalized by the international community. Significant factual material on this issue provides an analysis of the memories of Ukrainian combatants. The publication provides a critical analysis of the memoirs of P. Hrytsak, M. Kalba, V. Ketsun, R. Kolisnyk, T. Krochak, R. Lazurko, K. Malyi, I. Nahaievskyi, E. Pobihushchyi and others. It was found that the memoirs cover in detail the domestic aspects of the service (military training, leisure, material support, cultural life, morale and mood of the soldiers), relations with the German personnel of the units. The authors’ memoirs contain numerous descriptions of the daily life of soldiers during military training, redeployment and participation in hostilities. Eyewitnesses described the soldiers’ equipment, the content of the instructors’ lectures and talks, the arrangement and plan of the camp, the relations between the Ukrainians and the relations with the Germans, and the peculiarities of the soldiers’ leisure. It is important to describe the transformation of the mood of the Ukrainian soldiers of the Division “Galicia”. These sentiments transformed from optimistic to a complete loss of confidence and growing dislike for German uniforms. Studies of this historical issue indicate that the authors of the memoirs describe the predominantly superior attitude of German personnel towards Ukrainians. It is investigated how the memoirs provide information about relations with the local population in the areas where the Ukrainian units were located. The publication highlights how the memoirs characterize the role of the church and priests in the life of Ukrainian units, which consisted not only in the religious and spiritual care of soldiers, but also in everyday life.

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