Wehrmachthelferin was the name for girls and young women who served during the Second World War with the German Wehrmacht as auxiliaries. [1] [2]
Wehrmachthelferin was the name for girls and young women who served during the Second World War with the German Wehrmacht as auxiliaries. [1] [2]
In the beginning, women in Nazi Germany were not involved in the Wehrmacht, as Adolf Hitler ideologically opposed conscription for women, [3] stating that Germany would "not form any section of women grenade throwers or any corps of women elite snipers." [4] However, with many men going to the front, women were placed in auxiliary positions within the Wehrmacht, called Wehrmachtshelferinnen (transl. Female Wehrmacht helpers), [5] participating in tasks such as:
They were placed under the same authority as Hiwis, auxiliary personnel of the army (German : Behelfspersonal) and they were assigned to duties within the Reich, and to a lesser extent, in the occupied territories, for example in the general government of occupied Poland, in France, and later in Yugoslavia, in Greece and in Romania. [6]
By 1945, 500,000 women were serving as Wehrmachtshelferinnen, half of whom were volunteers, while the other half performed obligatory services connected to the war effort (Kriegshilfsdienst). [5]
Organisation Todt was a civil and military engineering organisation in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, named for its founder, Fritz Todt, an engineer and senior member of the Nazi Party. The organisation was responsible for a huge range of engineering projects both in Nazi Germany and in occupied territories from France to the Soviet Union during the Second World War. The organisation became notorious for using forced labour. From 1943 until 1945 during the late phase of the Third Reich, OT administered all constructions of concentration camps to supply forced labour to industry.
The participation of Italy in the Second World War was characterized by a complex framework of ideology, politics, and diplomacy, while its military actions were often heavily influenced by external factors. Italy joined the war as one of the Axis Powers in 1940 with a plan to concentrate Italian forces on a major offensive against the British Empire in Africa and the Middle East, known as the "parallel war", while expecting the collapse of British forces in the European theatre. The Italians bombed Mandatory Palestine, invaded Egypt and occupied British Somaliland with initial success. However, the British counterattacked, eventually necessitating German support to prevent an Italian collapse in North Africa. As the war carried on and German and Japanese actions in 1941 led to the entry of the Soviet Union and United States, respectively, into the war, the Italian plan of forcing Britain to agree to a negotiated peace settlement was foiled.
Hiwi, the German abbreviation of the word Hilfswilliger or, in English, auxiliary volunteer, designated, during World War II, a member of different kinds of voluntary auxiliary forces made up of recruits indigenous to the territories of Eastern Europe occupied by Nazi Germany. Adolf Hitler reluctantly agreed to allow recruitment of Soviet citizens in the Rear Areas during Operation Barbarossa. In a short period of time, many of them were moved to combat units.
The Ordnungspolizei, abbreviated Orpo, meaning "Order Police", were the uniformed police force in Nazi Germany from 1936 to 1945. The Orpo organisation was absorbed into the Nazi monopoly on power after regional police jurisdiction was removed in favour of the central Nazi government. The Orpo was controlled nominally by the Interior Ministry, but its executive functions rested with the leadership of the SS until the end of World War II. Owing to their green uniforms, Orpo were also referred to as Grüne Polizei. The force was first established as a centralised organisation uniting the municipal, city, and rural uniformed police that had been organised on a state-by-state basis.
SS-Totenkopfverbände was the Schutzstaffel (SS) organization responsible for administering the Nazi concentration camps and extermination camps for Nazi Germany, among similar duties. While the Totenkopf was the universal cap badge of the SS, the SS-TV also wore this insignia on the right collar tab to distinguish itself from other SS formations.
Auxiliaries are support personnel that assist the military or police but are organised differently from regular forces. Auxiliary may be military volunteers undertaking support functions or performing certain duties such as garrison troops, usually on a part-time basis. Unlike a military reserve force, an auxiliary force does not necessarily have the same degree of training or ranking structure as regular soldiers, and it may or may not be integrated into a fighting force. Some auxiliaries, however, are militias composed of former active duty military personnel and actually have better training and combat experience than their regular counterparts.
Non-Germans in the German armed forces during World War II were volunteers, conscripts and those otherwise induced to join who served in Nazi Germany's armed forces during World War II. In German war-time propaganda those who volunteered for service were referred to as Freiwillige ("volunteers"). At the same time, many non-Germans in the German armed forces were conscripts or recruited from prisoner-of-war camps.
The Auxiliary Territorial Service was the women's branch of the British Army during the Second World War. It was formed on 9 September 1938, initially as a women's voluntary service, and existed until 1 February 1949, when it was merged into the Women's Royal Army Corps.
United States Coast Guard (USCG) Women's Reserve, known as the SPARS, was the women's branch of the United States Coast Guard Reserve. It was established by the United States Congress and signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt on 23 November 1942. This law authorized the acceptance of women into the reserve as commissioned officers and at the enlisted level for the duration of World War II plus six months. Its purpose was to release officers and men for sea duty and to replace them with women at shore stations. Dorothy C. Stratton was appointed director of the SPARS with the rank of lieutenant commander and later promoted to captain.
A Luftwaffenhelfer, also commonly known as a Flakhelfer, was any member of the auxiliary staff of the German Luftwaffe during World War II. Such terms often implied students conscripted as child soldiers.
The Schutzmannschaft, or Auxiliary Police was the collaborationist auxiliary police of native policemen serving in those areas of the Soviet Union and the Baltic states occupied by Nazi Germany during World War II. Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, established the Schutzmannschaft on 25 July 1941, and subordinated it to the Order Police. By the end of 1941, some 45,000 men served in Schutzmannschaft units, about half of them in the battalions. During 1942, Schutzmannschaften expanded to an estimated 300,000 men, with battalions accounting for about a third, or less than one half of the local force. Everywhere, local police far outnumbered the equivalent German personnel several times; in most places, the ratio of Germans to natives was about 1-to-10.
In World War II, many governments, organizations and individuals collaborated with the Axis powers, "out of conviction, desperation, or under coercion." Nationalists sometimes welcomed German or Italian troops they believed would liberate their countries from colonization. The Danish, Belgian and Vichy French governments attempted to appease and bargain with the invaders in hopes of mitigating harm to their citizens and economies.
Soviet prisoners of war (POWs) held by Nazi Germany and primarily in the custody of the German Army, were starved and subjected to deadly conditions. Of nearly six million that were captured, around 3 million died during their imprisonment.
The Geheime Feldpolizei, shortened to GFP, was the secret military police of the German Wehrmacht until the end of the Second World War (1945). Its units carried out plainclothes and undercover security work in the field. Their operations included clandestine operations, counterpropaganda, counterinsurgency, counterintelligence, creation of a counterinsurgency intelligence network, detection of treasonable activities, infiltration of resistance movements, gathering intelligence and destroying targets, protecting military installations, assisting the German Army (Heer) in courts-martial investigations, tracking and raiding targets to capture or kill, and setting-up security checkpoints in high-risk areas. GFP personnel, who were also classed as Abwehrpolizei, operated as an executive branch of the Abwehr, detecting resistance activity in Germany and in occupied France. They were also known to carry out torture and executions of prisoners.
The Wehrmacht were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe. The designation "Wehrmacht" replaced the previously used term Reichswehr and was the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to rearm Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles permitted.
Women in Nazi Germany were subject to doctrines of Nazism by the Nazi Party (NSDAP), which promoted exclusion of women from the political and academic life of Germany as well as its executive body and executive committees. On the other hand, whether through sheer numbers, lack of local organization, or both, many German women did indeed become Nazi Party members. In spite of this, the Nazi regime officially encouraged and pressured women to fill the roles of mother and wife only. Women were excluded from all other positions of responsibility, including political and academic spheres.
Women took on many different roles during World War II, including as combatants and workers on the home front. “More than six million women took wartime jobs in factories, three million volunteered with the Red Cross, and over 200,000 served in the military.” The war involved global conflict on an unprecedented scale; the absolute urgency of mobilizing the entire population made the expansion of the role of women inevitable, although the particular roles varied from country to country. Millions of women of various ages were injured or died as a result of the war. “When the war ended, a majority of women wanted to keep their jobs and their new-found economic and social independence, but nearly all were laid off, as orders for war materials decreased and millions of men returned home from military service seeking jobs.” Because the war took such a toll on the nation, many women were left trying to work even when the men returned home.
The Police Battalion 316 was a formation of the Order Police during the Nazi era. During Operation Barbarossa, it was subordinated to the SS and deployed in German-occupied areas, specifically the Army Group Centre Rear Area, of the Soviet Union, as part of Police Regiment Centre. Alongside detachments from the Einsatzgruppen and the SS Cavalry Brigade, it perpetrated mass murder in the Holocaust and was responsible for large-scale crimes against humanity targeting civilian populations under the guise of "anti-partisan" warfare. In mid-1942, the battalion was reassigned to the 4th Police Regiment and operated in Slovenia.
Transportkorps Speer was created in 1944 from Legion Speer and the units of the National Socialist Motor Corps that was serving the Organisation Todt. Shortly after its creation it became subordinated to the Wehrmacht. Yet, its major mission remained in support of OT, which at this time was mainly engaged in rebuilding and repair of bomb damaged industrial facilities and housing complexes. Transportkorps Speer was organized in motor transportation battalions and regiments, supported by depot, repair, engineering, signal, and medical units.
The ranks and insignia of the German Women's Auxiliary Services were the ranks given to women who served in the German military and paramilitary forces during World War II.