The Armies of Germany's East European Allies are not Documented

Feb 12, 2012
Michael Manning

German MG34 Team, Baltic Coast, 1944 - The German Infantryman at War, 1939-45

Details of the smaller World War Two East European Armies' divisional orders of battle are not readily available, yet, they provided 800,000 men for Germany

East European nations were threatened by the growing power of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia in the 1930s. Russia wanted to recover Finland, the Baltic States, Eastern Poland and Rumanian Bessarabia which were Tsarist provinces in 1914. East European states were divided, the Hungarians wanted the areas they had lost to their neighbours in 1919. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia and Rumania formed an alliance against Hungarian expansion. Rumania feared the Russians more than Germany. The 1938 Munich crisis rendered the smaller East European states clients of Germany.

World War Two Eastern Front Sources are Scant

German Army units marched into Red Army captivity May 1945, with battle reports, divisional dispositions and Army Corps details confiscated and suppressed by Stalin. There are very few reports of German POWs experiences of ten years in Soviet captivity. Ivan's War by Catherine Merridale recorded individual Red Army experiences during the Great Patriotic War fully disregarding company, battalion, regimental, divisional and Army Corps dispositions which would verifty locations. A proficiency in German and Russian are vital for deciphering extremely rare sources on the OstFront.

The Russo-German pact of 1939 divided up Eastern Europe into their respective spheres of influence. The Russians occupied Bessarabia, East Poland, the Baltic States and only Finland fought to preserve its independence. The Hungarians recovered half their territory claimed from Rumanian Transylvania and participated in the attack on Yugoslavia April 1941 to secure their territorial claims there. These countries had an overwhelming collective fear of communist Russia.

Operation Barbarossa, the Invasion of Russia

Significant Finnish and Rumanian forces advanced alongside the three German Army Groups with smaller contingents from Hungary, Italy and Slovakia in June 1941. Germany needed more troops for Operation Blau, the invasion of southern Russia. Two Rumanian Armies, an Italian and a Hungarian Army guarded the Don River Front and were destroyed during the November 1942 encirclement of Stalingrad. These armies returned home to anti-partisan duties with their governments seeking peace with the Allies.

The Axis dissolves, 1944

In 1944 the Slovaks and Hungarians prepared to defend the Carpathians against the advancing Russians. In August 1944, the Rumanian Army was destroyed by the Red Army and changed sides. The Slovak National Uprising in 1944 failed because it was launched too early and they were not in contact with Russian troops. This writer visited the Slovenske Raj (Slovak Paradise) Park in the Lower Tatras Mountains, an area of cliffs, ravines and wild forestry which commemorates this costly revolt. The final year of the war saw the Rumanians and Finns fighting the Germans and Slovakia as an occupied country. Only Hungary remained a German ally.

Satellite Armies Provided 25% of Axis Divisions on the OstFront in 1942

The Finns stayed firmly on their own territory. Germany's satellite armies were concentrated in Army Group South on the Don River Front. Relations with the Germans were traditionally good. Hungarians and Slovaks fought beside the Germans in the Austro-Hungarian Army, during the First World War, often against the Russians. Many Finns served in the German army in a volunteer Jaegar Battalion. Volksdeutsche or racial Germans, in other European countries, demanded entry into Waffen SS formations in the German forces. Unfortunately, satellite armies' equipment was of poor standard which gravely affected their combat effectiveness. Germany lacked the industrial output to supply their allies.

Foreign Waffen-SS Divisions

The German parallel army, the Waffen-SS, attracted committed Europeans from German occupied countries who joined to fight the threat to Europe from Russian bolshevism, particularly in autumn 1941 with successive German victories. 0ne million men joined the Waffen SS between 1939 and 1945, the first European Army. Western democracies are uncomfortable with this fact. The Waffen SS - Schulz Staffeln (Weapons - Protection Squads) was set up in 1929 under Heinrich Himmler. By 1939 the Waffen-SS with distinctive rank designations, were trained for combat. SS-Panzer-Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler set the standard.

Most foreign formations fought to oblivion on the eastern front rendering source material highly elusive. Few surviving veterans admitted membership of the Waffen-SS.