Poles in The Wehrmacht

Poles In The Wehrmacht

The history of Poles in the Wehrmacht, the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany, began with the German invasion of Poland in 1939. More than 225,000 citizens of the Polish Second Republic served in the Wehrmacht, and some in the Kriegsmarine and Waffen SS. The majority of these Polish citizens were of German extraction, the so-called "Volksdeutsche", or members of ethnic minorities, such as Silesians, Kashubians, and Masurians whom the Nazis considered to be almost Germans. The Waffen SS on the Eastern Front contained a sizable number of non-Germans, but no Polish-based unit was ever formed, partly due to Adolf Hitler's refusal to create such units until the later stages of the war; though there were some Polish citizens of Ukrainian, Belarusian, Russian, and Lithuanian origin, both in the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS.