Date of Graduation

5-2026

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in History (MA)

Degree Level

Graduate

Department

History

Advisor/Mentor

Hare, Laurence

Committee Member

Brogi, Alessandro

Second Committee Member

Hammond, Kelly

Keywords

Waffen SS; Non-German; Recruitment; World War II

Abstract

During the Nazi regime, the armed bodyguard of the National Socialist Party the, the SS grew rapidly and eventually recruited foreign manpower. This thesis analyzes the rapid expansion of the SS as an armed military force and traces their forays into non-German states to recruit as the demands of World War II increased. The SS fielded thirty-eight divisions by the end of the war with hundreds of thousands of members not being from Germany. This rapid expansion, undertaken with soldiers from a variety of backgrounds, created a series of fractures between the ideological tenets of the SS and their practices. These fractures came from the recruitment of these foreign nationals which required promises, exceptions, and recruitment bonuses that in many cases the SS could not fully provide. These foreign volunteers, the promises made to them in recruitment, and their combat experiences serve as a representation of how the SS evolved into a fully-fledged fourth branch of Nazi armed forces. This crash expansion undertaken in the stress of war compromised the SS’s elite status and show that in their efforts to add men, the SS failed to become the idealized honor guard of the Third Reich.

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