A primary element determining the survival of a species is its ability to adapt to shifting environs. This natural law applies to nations as well. War forces abrupt changes that demand endurance and flexibility of disposition in order to rapidly accept new conditions. In Hitler’s time, nationalism was a compelling influence. It roused people to give for their country, but simultaneously maintained barriers between nations. On the threshold of World War II, Europe stood in the shadow of peripheral superpowers prepared to contest her leadership in world affairs. To assert her economic and political independence and preserve her cultural identity, her populations needed to evolve toward mutual cooperation and fellowship. Italy’s former treasurer Alberto De Stefani observed, “We're all persuaded that continuation of this intransigent nationalism, which has no understanding for the requirements of a continental policy, is finally turning Europe against herself."21
Europe settled into an uneasy peace in the summer of 1940, following a series of rapid campaigns Germany had conducted against neighboring states. German army garrisons held Western Poland, Denmark, Norway, Luxembourg, Holland, Belgium, and Northern France. Allied with Italy and favored by Spain, the Reich also enjoyed economic influence over the Balkans. Cooperation with Germany was necessary for a strong, unified continent.
The continuing war against Britain required the German armed forces to occupy the North Atlantic coast to guard against potential British landings. The German military presence was not popular with the populations affected. The English also supported Communist “resistance” movements in the occupied countries, encouraging sabotage. They trained and smuggled in agents, plus weapons and explosives, while the BBC broadcast anti-German wireless propaganda designed for Western Europe.
At the same time, many Europeans regarded the Reich’s victories as a demonstration of the authoritarian state form’s superiority. Democracy had not only failed to alleviate unemployment and depression for the past 20 years, but bungled national defense. Germany’s spirited, martial society aroused awe and to some extent, admiration among her neighbors. The parliamentary debates, scandals, lack of progress and uninspired leadership associated with democracy seemed vapid by comparison. Marxism had an equally unimpressive track record. Leon Degrelle, a Belgian who eventually served in the Waffen SS, wrote that Marxism “nowhere reached its promised goal of welfare for all. . . . The broad masses considered it a complete failure during the 1930s. They sought the remedy in other mass movements, those that tried to realize the desired social objectives within the framework of order, authority, firm leadership, and devotion to fatherland."22
One blight on the track record of Western European governments, as far as the people in their charge were concerned, was the dismal military performance against Germany in 1940. In Norway for example, the state had periodically slashed defense spending between the World Wars. The army could no longer afford to conduct field exercises, officers and men received inadequate training,23 and there were no anti-tank weapons for the infantry.
The Germans invaded Norway on April 9. The German navy had urged Hitler to take this step in order to thwart a planned British amphibious operation to come ashore to sever the Reich’s transit route importing strategic minerals from Sweden and Finland via Norway. The German armed forces landed 100,000 men from ships and planes. The indecisive reaction of the Norwegian government and conflicting military orders plunged Norway’s mobilization into chaos.
Retreating Norwegian army units failed to uniformly destroy tunnels, bridges, or lines of communication to delay the enemy’s advance. German motorized units refueled their vehicles at pumping stations the defenders had abandoned intact. Some Norwegian troops surrendered at first sight of the invaders.24 The capital fell without a shot fired. The German 324th Infantry Regiment landed at a nearby airfield and entered Oslo in marching order led by its brass band.
The German armed forces simultaneously occupied Denmark. This was to secure lines of communication and supply to the strategic Norwegian theater of operations. The previous January, Thorvald Stauning, head of the country’s social-liberal government, had more or less admitted publicly that Denmark would be unable to defend her neutrality.25 He did nothing to improve defense capabilities.
In the early morning of April 9, the German icebreaker Stettin and the troop transport Hansestadt Danzig, ferrying 1,000 riflemen of 198th Infantry Division, steamed into Copenhagen harbor. Danish searchlights illuminated the ships' German war flag and the soldiers on deck. The coastal batteries however, never fired. As one Danish lieutenant told a parliamentary commission after the war, “The men on watch fumbled with the cannon but had no idea of what actually to do. The mechanism was out of order, so that the breach didn't work."26
A crewman of another shore battery testified, “We didn't have a single man who would have been able to operate the cannon.” The German troops landed unmolested and occupied the capital. The day before, the government had received a report that German forces were massing at Flensburg, a city near the Danish frontier. When the invasion began, the Stauning administration stated in a proclamation, “It is the people’s duty to offer no resistance against these troops."27 It ordered the Danish army to stand down. This evoked bitterness among soldier and civilian alike. The public suspected that the government had sabotaged national defense in collusion with the Germans. One Dane recalled, “Many young people had already been disappointed over political developments in Denmark for a long time.... The political system the government represented finally lost our confidence."28
Holland, another constitutional monarchy, Germany invaded the following month. The Dutch parliament underfunded the military; shortages of uniforms and small arms compelled recruits to wear a motley combination of army tunics and civilian caps and often to substitute wooden staffs for rifles when standing post. One Dutchman wrote, “Because of the general disinterest in the army, also manifest among politicians, not a single cadet enrolled in the Imperial Military Academy during 1935 and 1936."29 Dutch pacifists lobbied to have the army disbanded. The German armed forces required just five days to break its resistance.
France, a pioneer of democracy, displayed weaknesses that one might attribute to the influence of liberalism’s emphasis on the individual. Lieutenant Pierre Mendès-France observed this upon returning home from Syria only days before the Germans invaded his country on May 10, 1940: “Everyone, civilians as well as those in the military, had but one thing on their minds; to arrange their personal affairs as well as possible, to get through this seemingly endless period with little or no risk, loss or discomfort.” On May 18, with the French army already reeling before the German offensive, General Gamelin wrote this to France’s prime minister: “The German success is most of all the result of physical training and of the lofty moral attitude of the people. The French soldier, the private citizen of yesterday, never believed there would be war. Often his interests did not reach beyond his work bench, his office or his farm. Inclined to habitually criticize anyone in authority, and demanding on the pretext of civilization the right to live a comfortable existence from day to day, those capable of bearing arms never received the moral or patriotic upbringing between the two wars that would have prepared them for the drama that would decide the fate of their country."30
Inadequate defense preparations, craven leadership and moral deficiency were not the only factors causing Western Europeans to lose confidence in the parliamentary system or in democracy. English conduct during the fighting left a bad impression. Retreating across Belgium and Northern France toward Dunkirk, demolition parties of the British Expeditionary Force destroyed bridges, warehouses, refineries, fuel dumps, harbor installations, and anything else presumed potentially useful to the advancing German army. A Belgian sergeant described, for example, how on May 27 his men saw British troops destroying food stores: “Worst of all was that refugees were there also, who had not eaten for days. They watched English soldiers throw eggs against the walls of houses, stomp on biscuits, and split tinned preserves with axes."31
Germany and France concluded an armistice on June 22, 1940. The agreement stated that the “German government . . . does not intend to use the French battle fleet in wartime for its own purposes,” acknowledging that the French need the warships “to safeguard their interests in their colonial sphere."32 On July 3, a British Royal Navy squadron steamed from Gibraltar to the French Algerian anchorage at Mers-el-Kebir. The English demanded that the French battle fleet moored there join them, to continue fighting Germany, or scuttle the ships. When French Admiral Marcel Gensoul refused the ultimatum, the British bombarded his fleet.
The battleship Bretagne sank, the Provence and the Dunkerque suffered serious damage, and the barrage cost 1,147 French sailors their lives.33 Royal Navy torpedo planes raided the harbor again on July 6, killing another 150 seamen. Two days later, British naval forces attacked Dakar, damaging the French battleship Richelieu. All this evoked strong anti-English sentiment throughout France.
Britain extended her nautical blockade of foodstuffs to include European countries occupied by the German army, creating hardships for the populations. London established sham “governments in exile” for these states. They consisted of democratic politicians, officers, and aristocrats who had deserted their country and fled to Britain, in most cases when the fighting was still going on. Entirely dependent on England for their existence, these administrations supposedly represented the true interests of Europe.
The United States also sought to indirectly influence European affairs. On February 9, 1940, the U.S. State Department announced an economic plan for post-war Europe. According to Secretary of State Hull, America would support the principle European currencies through loans backed by gold. This would supposedly regenerate commerce once peace returned. It was apparent that Washington was intent on eradicating Germany’s burgeoning international barter system and restoring trade based on gold as the medium of exchange.
The State Department relied on the counsel of American bankers when preparing the plan, not consulting representatives of the continent it was intended for. Other resolutions and proposals for post-war reconstruction followed, such as the Atlantic Charter, the Keynes Plan, the Morgenthau Plan, and economic conferences in Hot Springs in 1943 and in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, in July 1944. The Bretton Woods session established the International Monetary Fund in order to influence and if possible regulate foreign economies after the war, bringing the world one step closer to Roosevelt’s vision of a global government. In a speech in Königsberg on July 7, Walter Funk, the Reich’s minister of economics, told European economists, “Today the Americans are propagating a return to the gold standard. What this means, especially considering this country’s dominant hoard of gold, is nothing but an elevation of the dollar to the basis for currencies worldwide and a claim to absolute control of the world’s economy."34 A German diplomat pointed out, “The prerequisite for practical implementation of such plans is the conquest of Europe by the other side."35
German propaganda capitalized on the subjective character of these programs. Germanisches Leitheft, a periodical targeting a broad-based European readership, asked in its January 1941 issue, “Will foreign powers and racially alien forces determine Europe’s fate for all time to come, or will Europe form her own future, through her own vitality and on her own responsibility?"36 Another German publication stated, “One of the main deficiencies in the mentality of the American is that he has no clear comprehension of other peoples. For this reason, he shrugs off their rights and natural requirements for life with a wave of the hand. He claims the prerogative to dictate his boundless wishes to the rest of the world, thanks to an unrivaled sense of superiority."37
German leaders realized that to win European support, they would have to offer a viable alternative to the Anglo-American agenda. The most immediate requirement was to regulate the continental economy to become as self-sufficient and cooperative as possible. The British endeavored to starve or make destitute the populations of states under German occupation, in order to lend impetus to resistance cells. Werner Daitz, economic advisor in the NSDAP Foreign Policy Branch, submitted a memorandum in May 1940 urging establishment of a trade commission to explore Germany’s options: “The present blockade has unavoidably made necessary the formation of a continental European economy under German leadership, as an economic self-help measure. . . . If we expect to direct Europe’s commerce, which is absolutely essential to economically strengthen the continent that is the mainstay of the white race, then we must naturally not publicly declare this to be a German economic sphere. We must always speak only of Europe."38
As the ranking industrial power, only Germany could organize a prosperous and independent continental economy. The September 1940 edition of Nationalsozialistische Monatshefte (National Socialist Monthly) stated, “Without the Reich, a European community of nations can never be established. . . . The Reich is the great political mission of the German people. It represents the concept of a European order. It eliminates foreign influences and guards against powers hostile to Europe. It strives for European cooperation on the principle of ethnic kinship, and of productive labor as the substance and foundation of all life."39
One of Germany’s more astute propagandists was Major Walther Gehl, who served in the infantry in both world wars. He recognized that securing his country’s influence depended not on military conquest, but on gaining the popular support of neighboring peoples. In Die Sendung des Reiches (The Mission of the Reich), he wrote that in order for Germany to succeed, she would have to devote herself to the welfare of the continent and not vice versa: “With a sacred sense of responsibility for the future of Europe, Germany will incorporate the natural rights of the other peoples into her own political ambitions, and hold a protective, not ruling hand over them. And her military protection is a better guarantee for perpetuating their sovereign culture than are anti-German alliances with nations beyond our continent."40
Germanisches Leitheft maintained that the “Reich does not mean domination, but responsibility and a sense of mission; not hegemony, but a unifying inspiration of our clans, particular nations and ethnically-related families."41 Thus far-sighted Germans advocated the need for the transition from the German Reich into a European Reich. Franz Six, director of ideological research in the SS, wrote that “Common racial ancestry, despite political and ideological differences, is the binding element of the European nations."42
One Dane recalled, “Young people receptive to this biologically-based perception correspondingly adjusted their attitude toward foreign peoples. This led to a genuine broadening of the national sense of belonging. It was the starting point for renewing the 1,100 year-old idea of a unified Europe.” Many such Western Europeans sought an opportunity to “help build a better, stronger, and wealthier Europe."43
With Hitler’s approval, the SS established recruiting offices in Oslo, The Hague and Copenhagen in April and May 1940. Several hundred Norwegian, Danish, and Dutch volunteers signed on for a pre-military training course. Lasting months, the course included weapons firing, sports, German language instruction, and ideological lectures. Conducted in Kärnten, Germany, it also acquainted participants with the indigenous population. Upon conclusion of the course, officers invited the young Europeans to enlist in the SS as Germanic volunteers.
Beyond the allure of a unified continent and disenchantment with previous democratic administrations, economic factors contributed to a gradual rapprochement with Germany. Many unemployed Scandinavians and Western Europeans sought work in the Reich. The Germans registered 100,000 Hollanders who migrated and found jobs in Germany.44 Denmark recorded 147,000 men out of work in the summer of 1940.45 The unemployment rate was 18 percent.
Germany helped revive industry in Belgium and in the Netherlands by awarding armaments contracts to manufacturing companies there. The cooperative attitude of the workers, many of whose plant managers had fled to Britain, led the Germans to implement measures to improve labor’s social conditions.46 Unemployment in France, the largest foreign producer for the German war industry, dropped to practically nil by 1943. Having grappled with Communist trade unions before the war, French industrialists favored collaboration with the Germans. They also recognized that France and her colonies were too small a market for the country’s modern, expansive industry, and sought to cultivate European clientele.47
The NSDAP’s foreign policy chief, Alfred Rosenberg, argued in a speech that Europeans should acquiesce to German leadership in continental affairs: “A smaller nation does not relinquish its honor by subordinating itself to a more numerous people and a larger realm. We must acknowledge the laws of life to survive. The facts of life show that there are numerically, geographically and politically powerful nations and there are smaller ones. To accept the influence of a realm like that of the Germans, demonstrating its former strength after years of hard trials, is not a sign of weak character or of questionable honor, but a recognition of the laws of life."48
The German army instructed its soldiers garrisoning conquered countries to assume a firm but cordial posture. Guidelines for soldiers stationed in Denmark stated, “Every German in Denmark must always be conscious that he represents the German Reich, and that Germany will be judged by his conduct. When meeting Danes, avoid anything that could insult the Danish national honor. The Danish woman is to be treated respectfully. Avoid political arguments."49 These circumstances reaped benefits for the Germans. According to a 1947 Gallup poll, 40 percent of Danes canvassed had been outspokenly sympathetic toward Germany. Just 32 percent had felt hostile.50
Late in 1940, the Waffen SS established its first division incorporating Germanic volunteers. Flemish and Dutch enrolled in the Westland regiment, while Nordland recruited Norwegians and Danes. Joined by the seasoned VT regiment Germania, these formations merged into the 5th Waffen SS division Wiking (Viking). The roster included 400 Finns, plus smaller contingents from Switzerland and Sweden.51 Hausser later observed, “They thought beyond the boundaries of their national states toward something greater, a common purpose."52 A post-war poll of surviving Dutch SS men summarized that “the better educated were fascinated by the Reich concept, with its prospect of the consolidation of all Germanic peoples."53 The Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell saw their commitment as proof that “there could be a civilization based not on birth or on the privilege of wealth, but on community spirit.... They sought new values which could guarantee the state’s cohesion, and this disavowal of materialism excited, fulfilled and influenced the spirit of many Europeans—and not just the least prominent among them.” 54
The German cause, groping for acceptance among European populations, gained favor when war broke out with the Soviet Union in June 1941. Hitler authorized a Waffen SS proposal to establish national legions of volunteers from neighboring states to fight in the East. Opening on June 27, recruiting offices counted 40,000 applicants the first day. The German security police, the SD, circulated a confidential analysis to leading representatives of the Reich’s government and the NSDAP on the reaction in the occupied countries. It reported “a direct reversal in attitudes in Germany’s favor” in Denmark: “Prominent people in Danish business life and in the clergy, who had up till now been reserved or even hostile toward Germany, are changing their position on Germany now that she has begun the battle for European civilization against Soviet Russia. . . . Applications to join the Waffen SS have markedly increased."55
One recruit, among the 6,000 Danes to serve in the Waffen SS, recalled how many of his countrymen feared that were Germany defeated, “Denmark could suffer the same fate as the small Baltic states; degraded to a Russian military district, politically neutralized, forcible implementation of the Communist bureaucratic economic system, gradual Russianization, and deportation of the political and cultural elite, with ruinous consequences for the biological substance of the Danish people."56 The Danish government founded the Freikorps Danmark (Denmark Volunteer Corps) on July 3, 1941, which granted authorized absence, without forfeiture of seniority or pension, to members of the Danish army who transferred to the new formation.57 Its first commanding officer, Christian Kryssing, stated in a national radio speech in July, “Regardless of our political affiliations, we all feel that Bolshevism and its threat to the northern states must be destroyed....I call upon all Danish men capable of bearing arms to take part in this crusade... to secure a rightful place for our fatherland in the reformation of Europe."58
In Amsterdam, 50,000 people attended an anti-Communist rally in support of the German war effort. Regarding Scandinavia, the SD reported, “The German-Russian conflict has turned attitudes in Norway more favorably toward Germany. . . . There are countless volunteers for the SS Nordland regiment.” In Belgium, “Flemish nationalist circles are unconditionally on Germany’s side in the struggle against Bolshevism."59 Eventually over 20,000 Flemish served in the Waffen SS, many joining to combat “the arch-enemy of Christian Europe” in the East.60 The Swiss journalist Armin Mohler wrote, “They came because they hoped for the German Reich to forge a unified Europe of free nations. They wanted neither a commissar state nor a society of everyone competing against one another. There was much idealism then, such as is really only possible among the young."61
In Paris, French politicians met on July 7 to discuss formation of the Legion des Volontaires Francais (Legion of French Volunteers), or LVF. The resulting fighting force left to deploy against the Soviets in August 1941. Within months a sponsorship program, “Friends of the Legion,” gained 1.5 million supporters.62 The rector of the Catholic University of Paris, Alfred Cardinal Baudrillart, called the volunteers “among the best sons of France.” They defended not only the honor of their country, he stated, but “fight also for the Christian civilization of the continent. . . . This legion is in fact in its own way a new knighthood. These legionnaires are the crusaders of the 20th Century."63
Jacques Benoist-Mechin, a cabinet minister in the government of unoccupied France, regarded a pan-European war effort against the USSR as “the platform upon which provincial patriotisms can bond together, free from antagonism and traditional rivalries. It is the vehicle to break nationalism’s inner conflicts, to develop into a European super-nationalism."64
The threat of Soviet expansion was a genuine concern to Europeans, who were more familiar with the consequences of earlier Communist revolutions in Russia, Germany, Hungary, and Spain than were the people of Britain and the United States. German correspondents covering the advance of the fighting forces into Russian territory filled the news media with reports about destitute living conditions among populations under the hammer and sickle as well as the merciless treatment of political dissidents there.
An article published in the Volkischer Beobachter in August 1941 expressed more or less popular views about the Soviet menace: “Today all Europe knows that the war against Bolshevism is Europe’s own decisive struggle, the consolidated war of European civilized nations against the powers of destruction and formless chaos. A new, revitalized Europe has learned to grasp what an enormous danger the specter of Bolshevism represents. It is of symbolic significance that the unity of Europe has begun to take place and prove itself in this struggle.
“We know only too well what this war is about. But only when one sees the reality of the Bolshevik regime face to face, the influence of this system on the individual person and on his life, only then can one comprehend the cruelty, the overall horror of this system. It is a system that combines every element of devastation and absolute ruin of human values and ruin of humanity itself. Bolshevism is not even a political system one can intellectually debate with, but the organized murder of all life, the degradation of the earth and its people, destruction for the sake of destroying!"65 Regardless of their personal attitude toward Germany, the war against the Soviet Union was in part a unifying factor out of necessity for Europeans.
French, Walloon, and Spanish volunteers served in the Germany army, in ethnic regiments commanded by officers of their own nationality. French and Walloon troops eventually transferred to the Waffen SS. Berger arranged for German drill instructors conducting recruit training to attend special courses to acquaint themselves with the national and religious customs of the inductees in their charge. SS Colonel Richard Schulze recalled, “The instructors needed to summon sympathy and understanding, and a well-balanced acceptance of the mentality of the various nations."66 In a September 1941 article, an SS combat correspondent described the Odyssey of foreign volunteers serving in the Wiking division: “They came to us, misunderstood by their countrymen, not in proud columns but individually, resolute and clear-minded, often against father, mother, and family. They are not strangers here, but through their blood and their deeds have found in their regiments honor, a rightful place, and a home."67