Talk:Non-Germans in the German armed forces during World War II

message: Although this article is just a stub, I am concerned to see an article about volunteers who served in the Nazi military that gives as references four books, that are as far as I can tell (and please correct me if I am wrong) all sympathetic to the Nazi cause. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:31, Apr 1, 2005 (UTC)
:Porat and Browning removed from bibliography, as they more properly related to the topic of "other units...", and not to the main article topic, i.e. "europäische Freiwillige", per se. Estes added instead. Zalktis 14:21, 1 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tone of this article 

message: In (German) WWII usage, the term "europäische Freiwillige" generally only refers—as the article originally formulated it—to non-German units of Nazi Germany's armed forces, i.e. the Waffen-SS and (to a more limited degree) the Wehrmacht. The term really only gains circulation after 1943, and in particularly in 1944. Thus, references to other groups, especially those local SS auxiliaries created to specifically murder Jews in the Holocaust, only clouds the issue for the reader. I've therefore decided to make this a separate topic heading. In the future, I suggest removing some of the books that are only specifically related to the Einsatzgruppen from the list of references for this article. Zalktis 08:38, 14 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Arājs, etc. 

message: I've read very widely on the Second World War, and I can't recall ever seeing the term 'Europäische Freiwillige' used to describe these people. As this is not the term used in English-language sources, I'd suggest that the article be moved to something like Non-Germans in the Germany military during World War II. The use of the term 'volunteers' should be avoided as many of these men were either directly or in-effect conscripted. Nick-D (talk) 23:41, 12 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I think Non-Germans in the Germany armed forces during World War II would be more appropirate. Military can often mean the land army.--Patton123 (talk) 10:05, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Another term that I've seen a lot in the literature on these units is European Volunteer Movement, which might be another possible title, although a little ambiguous for my tastes unless we add the WWII dates in parentheses. But I could live with either name. Sturmvogel 66 (talk) 05:36, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem with that is that a lot of these men weren't 'volunteers' in any meaningful sense. Nick-D (talk) 07:26, 14 September 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: As there were no objections, I've moved the article to Non-Germans in the German armed forces during World War II Nick-D (talk) 08:12, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

text: I wasn't aware of the other article, and the rationale for changing this article's name from Europäische Freiwillige is explained above. Nick-D (talk) 21:45, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article name 

message: Hi
I created the article Freiwilligen and after an AFD nomination it was decided I should merge it into this article.
I will try and do that in next week or two, but can anyone tell me how to leave the freiwilligen article as a redirect ??
thanks Chaosdruid (talk) 01:31, 12 December 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Merger 

message: An image used in this article, , has been nominated for deletion at Wikimedia Commons in the following category: Media without a source as of 19 July 2011 
;What should I do?
	A discussion will now take place over on Commons about whether to remove the file. If you feel the deletion can be contested then please do so (commons:COM:SPEEDY has further information). Otherwise consider finding a replacement image before deletion occurs.
This notification is provided by a Bot --CommonsNotificationBot (talk) 15:23, 20 July 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: File:BergmanArmenian.jpg Nominated for Deletion

message: Is the SS navbox needed? The article covers those who served in the Wehrmacht frontline units, Hiwis, etc, not just Waffen-SS. It appears only tangentially related. Should it be removed? K.e.coffman (talk) 03:16, 29 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Navbox 

message: To 's point above, I had previously thought that this article was redundant. But Obernritter did a nice job rescuing the article. It now discusses what motivated these people and what the historical context was. 
On the other two articles, Wehrmacht foreign volunteers and conscripts and Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, they are mostly lists of units. Another difference is that they both include ethnic Germans in their discussions, while this article does not. On the other hand, Wehrmacht units, formed from foreign conscripts, were later transferred to the Waffen-SS, so there are some synergies there.
So one option may be to merge all three into one comprehensive article Foreign volunteers and conscripts in the German armed forces during World War II. The other option would be to keep three separate articles. There's some overlap but it's not significant, IMO, so a merge would be fairly easy. Opinions? K.e.coffman (talk) 17:02, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: To be clear, it is not this article which needs to be merged with the other, it is the other way around; the meager "list" of the other one, I thought was redundant and not really needed. I don't believe all three should be merged together.  Kierzek (talk) 17:15, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: If I understand correctly, this article would serve as an "umbrella article". What would happen with the other two, Waffen-SS volunteers/conscripts and Wehrmacht ones? Could you clarify? I'm all for simplicity, so if something is redundant, then I would support letting it go. K.e.coffman (talk) 17:23, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts should be left alone; we have that in good shape now. I thought the list Wehrmacht foreign volunteers and conscripts could be merged with this article. Kierzek (talk) 17:30, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: This makes sense. Actually, my earlier suggestion about combining with the Waffen-SS article was incorrect, as technically Waffen-SS was not part of the "Armed Forces" (the Wehrmacht). K.e.coffman (talk) 17:41, 2 July 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Relationship to other articles

message: "For the majority of volunteers from Muslim communities, their animosity against the Soviets stemmed from their anti-Russian feelings, religious impulses (their disdain for Soviet atheism for example), coupled by the negative experience of Stalin's policies on nationality, and by the corresponding disruption to their way of life."
Interesting how this passage does not even imply the most clear reason any nation hated soviets, and that is that it was a totalitarian communist country that suffered huge poverty and provided no civic liberties to it's citizenry.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.254.128.6 (talk) 17:59, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  why did muslims hate soviets 

message: Should Wehrmacht foreign volunteers and conscripts be merged with this article? —Brigade Piron (talk) 10:41, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
replies: text: Right. Also I've proposed spinning detail (unit mergers and renamings) about foreign volunteers in German armed forces from Collaboration with the Axis powers since the scope of that article is huge. I am not adamant about doing this (there are other proposals) but it's one fairly easily recognized topic. The bright line in my mind is that if you voluntarily signed up you're a collaborator (vs. a conscript) Another reason for doing the split though is that it would allow some length to talk about POWs who said they joined to escape or because they didn't think they would survive internment. The Flemish Legion apparently was told that they would not be sent to the front lines, also, and I've encountered several stories like that. Anyway -- LMK? I don't have strong feelings about how to do this: I'm just trying to make the article I'm working on better.Elinruby (talk) 10:42, 21 February 2023 (UTC)
replies: text:  – Good point. Besides the overview difference (which includes Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS), what I also did not consider when I agreed initially is the fact that Russian POWs, who were surely volun-told or joined up so as not to starve to death also shows up in the Non-Germans article. Deconflicting the problems will require plenty of sub-sections and a careful eye, should a merger take place.--Obenritter (talk) 15:53, 21 February 2023 (UTC)

text: I changed my vote to "oppose", as I think we still need this umbrella article. --K.e.coffman (talk) 08:22, 6 March 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: It still can be done, just with a careful eye, using discernment, as Obenritter and others suggest. As for "Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts", it can continue as a separate sub-article. I still believe the best merger is how Brigade Piron suggests. Which, to be clear, would be merging parts of the Wehrmacht article into this one. So, this “umbrella article” would survive (with certain inclusion as needed from the former article mentioned). Kierzek (talk) 14:46, 6 March 2023 (UTC)

text: Yes. Wehrmacht = the German armed forces. I would suggest that for better and clearer divisions, there should be articles about foreign volunteers in each branch of the Wehrmacht: German Army (1935–1945), Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. There's also material in the Wehrmacht foreign volunteers and conscripts that is certainly not within that article's scope (e.g. Waffen-SS, governments, ministeries, committees), which must be moved elsewhere. Cukrakalnis (talk) 20:40, 13 March 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposed merge of [[Wehrmacht foreign volunteers and conscripts]] with [[Non-Germans in the German armed forces during World War II]]