The Waffen-SS

A European History

Edited by Jochen Bohler and Robert Gerwarth

The first systematic pan-European study of the hundreds of thousands of non-Germans who fought - either voluntarily or under pressure - for the Waffen-SS
The transnational perspective allows readers to see what patterns emerged across different European regions
Shows how representatives of other nations participated in the Holocaust and major war crimes which were initiated and conducted by the Germans
Emphasises that the deployment of non-Germans in the Waffen-SS and German police units has a pre- and post-history
Deals with current events / developments such as the increasing Waffen-SS memory cult in e.g. the Baltic States and Ukraine

The Waffen-SS

A European History

Edited by Jochen Bohler and Robert Gerwarth

Description

This is the first systematic pan-European study of the hundreds of thousands of non-Germans who fought - either voluntarily or under different kinds of pressures - for the Waffen-SS (or auxiliary police formations operating in the occupied East). Building on the findings of regional studies by other scholars - many of them included in this volume - The Waffen-SS aims to arrive at a fuller picture of those non-German citizens (from Eastern as well as Western Europe) who served under the SS flag. Where did the non-Germans in the SS come from (socially, geographically, and culturally)? What motivated them? What do we know about the practicalities of international collaboration in war and genocide, in terms of everyday life, language, and ideological training? Did a common transnational identity emerge as a result of shared ideological convictions or experiences of extreme violence? In order to address these questions (and others), The Waffen-SS adopts an approach that does justice to the complexity of the subject, adding a more nuanced, empirically sound understanding of collaboration in Europe during World War II, while also seeking to push the methodological boundaries of the historiographical genre of perpetrator studies by adopting a transnational approach.

The Waffen-SS

A European History

Edited by Jochen Bohler and Robert Gerwarth

1. Non-Germans in the Waffen-SS: An Introduction, Jochen Bohler and Robert Gerwarth
2. Racial Theory and Realities of Conquest in the Occupied East: The Nazi Leadership and Non-German Nationals in the SS and Police, Peter Black and Martin Gutmann
3. Germanic Volunteers from Northern Europe, Claus Bundgard Christensen, Niels Bo Poulsen, and Peter Scharff Smith
4. Western and Southern Europe: The Cases of Spain, France, Italy, and Greece, Georgios Antoniou, Philippe Carrard, Stratos Dordanas, Carlo Gentile, Christopher Hale, and Xose M. Nunez Seixas
5. The Baltic States: Auxiliaries and Waffen-SS soldiers from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, Matthew Kott, Arunas Bubnys, and Ulle Kraft
6. The Special Cases of Eastern Europe: The Polish Blue Police, Auxiliaries, and SS Formations, Jacek Andrzej Mlynarczyk, Leonid Rein, Andrii Bolianovskyi, and Oleg Romanko
7. The "Volksdeutsche": A Case Study from South-Eastern Europe, Thomas Casagrande, Michal Schvarc, Norbert Spannenberger, and Otmar Trasca
8. Muslim SS Units in the Balkans and the Soviet Union, Xavier Bougarel, Alexander Korb, Stefan Petke, and Franziska Zaugg
9. Prosecution and Trajectories after 1945, Immo Rebitschek, Gerald Steinacher, Mats Deland, Sabina Ferhadbegovic, and Frank Seberechts
10. Waffen-SS Veterans and their Sites of Memory Today, Steffen Werther and Madeleine Hurd

The Waffen-SS

A European History

Edited by Jochen Bohler and Robert Gerwarth

Author Information

Jochen Bohler is a Research Associate at the Imre Kertesz Kolleg in Jena, where he teaches courses on the history of early twentieth-century Central and Eastern Europe. His recent major publications include: War, Pacification, and Mass Murder, 1939: The Einsatzgruppen in Poland (2014, with Jurgen Matthaus and Klaus-Michael Mallmann); SS-Oberscharfuhrer Hermann Baltruschat's Career 1939-1943 (2014, with Jacek Sawicki); and Legacies of Violence: Eastern Europe's First World War (2014, with Joachim von Puttkamer and W?odzimierz Borodziej). He is also currently preparing a monograph on Embattled Poland 1918-1921 for Oxford University Press.

Robert Gerwarth is Professor of Modern History at University College Dublin and Director of the Centre for War Studies. He is the author of The Bismarck Myth (2005) and a biography of Reinhard Heydrich (2011). His third monograph, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End will be published in late 2016. He has also published ten edited collections, including, most recently, War in Peace: Paramilitary Violence in Europe after the Great War (2012, with John Horne) and Empires at War, 1911-1923 (2014, with Erez Manela).

Contributors:

Georgios Antoniou, Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Jochen Böhler, Imre Kertesz Kolleg, Jena
Andrii Bolianovskyi, Institute of Ukrainian Studies, National Academy of Sciences, Lviv
Xavier Bougarel, Centre d'études turques, ottomanes, balkaniques et centrasiatiques, Paris, and Centre Marc Bloch, Berlin
Peter Black, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Arunas Bubnys, Lithuanian Research Centre for Genocide and Resistance Studies, Vilnius
Claus Bundgård Christensen, Roskilde University
Philippe Carrard, Emeritus, University of Vermont
Thomas Casagrande, Goethe University Frankfurt
Mats Deland, Hugo Valentin Centre, Uppsala
Stratos Dordanas, University of Macedonia (Thessaloniki)
Sabina Ferhadbegovic, Imre Kertész Kolleg, Jena
Robert Gerwarth, Centre for War Studies, University College Dublin
Carlo Gentile, Martin-Buber-Institut for Jewish Studies, University of Cologne
Martin Gutmann, Albert-Ludwigs University
Christopher Hale, independent scholar
Madeleine Hurd, Södertörn University
Alexander Korb, Stanley Burton Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies at Leicester University
Matthew Kott, Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University
Ülle Kraft, Estonian War Museum
Jacek Andrzej Mlynarczyk, Gerda-Henkel-Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow, UCD-Jena
Xosé M. Núñez Seixas, University of Santiago de Compostela
Stefan Petke, Technische Universität Berlin
Niels Bo Poulsen, Royal Danish Defence College, Copenhagen
Immo Rebitschek, PhD student, Imre Kertész Kolleg
Leonid Rein, International Institute for Holocaust Research
Oleg Romanko, Crimean Federal University
Peter Scharff Smith, Danish Institute for Human Rights
Michal Schvarc, Slovak Academy of Sciences
Frank Seberechts, ADVN Archief en Onderzoekscentrum in Antwerp
Norbert Spannenberger, University of Leipzig
Gerald Steinacher, University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Ottmar Trasca, Romanian Academy, Cluj-Napoca
Steffen Werther, Södertörn University
Franziska Zaugg, University College Dublin's Centre for War Studies

The Waffen-SS

A European History

Edited by Jochen Bohler and Robert Gerwarth

Reviews and Awards

"[an] important contribution to the history of Nazi Germany, the Holocaust and the social and cultural history of the Second World War." -- Ángel Alcalde, Contemporary European History

"the authors unpack a complex and multivarious set of motives for joining the Waffen-SS ... The result is a much more complete yet nuanced view of the Waffen-SS than has been typical. The volume editors deserve commendation for this important addition to the literature." -- Robert M. Citino, Holocaust and Genocide Studies

"[O]utstanding....[P]rovides a comprehensive examination of the SS's mobilization of Europe's manpower for the German war effort."--Jeff Rutherford, H-German

"Mandatory reading on Nazi collaborators....Essential."--CHOICE