Volunteer Units in the German Armed Forces 1941-1945

Freiwillige Einheiten der Wehrmacht

Last modified: 2002-11-30 by santiago dotor
Keywords: third reich | freiwillige einheiten der wehrmacht | volunteer units in the german armed forces | turkistan legion | bow (white) | arrow (white) |
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• Introduction
• Turkistan Legion 1942 Flag
• Turkistan Legion 1943 Flag
• Russian Anti-Soviet Units in the German Armed Forces
• Free Indian Legion (Azad Hind Fauj)

See also:

• Blue Division (División Azul)
• Flags of the Armed Forces (Wehrmacht, Germany)
• German-Occupied Territories 1939-1945
• Third Reich 1933-1945
• Germany

Other sites:

• Foreign Volunteers in the German Wehrmacht in WWII in the Feldgrau.com German Armed Forces 1919-1945 website

Seeing the German divisions emblems, it appears that several European nations had organizations that fought at side of Germans ie. Flemish, Dutch, Albanians, French, Czechs, Hungarians, Walloons, Italians, Russians, Poles, Ucranians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Spaniards and surely others. Some of these organizations had well-known flags i.e. [Walloon] Rexists, Spanish Blue Division, Russian Liberation Army etc. but what about the others? Are any fascist party flags known?

Jaume Ollé, 26 January 2001

The Uniforms, Organization and History of the Foreign Legions of the Third Reich series published by Roger Bender Publishing (website here) has plenty of both fascist party flags and foreign units in Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS service, including even Cossack, Turkestan, and many more nationalities' flags.

Santiago Dotor, 26 January 2001

However, very few of the flags of the Third Reich's foreign legions appear in FOTW. The only related flags are those of (para-) nationalsocialist or fascist parties and/or regimes. For instance, the flag of the Vlaamsch Nationaal Verbond had nothing to do with the flag of the Flemish volunteer units in the Wehrmacht and/or Waffen-SS.

Santiago Dotor, 30 January 2001

1:1
by Santiago Dotor

The first version (May 1942) of the Turkistan Legion flag showed a white bow and arrow upon a red over blue field. On the canton a shield with German army eagle.

Marcello Ravaioli, 20 April 2001

This is described and illustrated in Littlejohn 1987, p. 267. Littlejohn adds that the German (Wehrmacht model) eagle was disliked by the Turkistan volunteers, who therefore had a second colour issued (I seem to recall in 1943) which had the eagle removed.

Santiago Dotor, 28 May 2002

~2:3
by Santiago Dotor

Littlejohn 1987, p. 267, shows a photograph of the second model colour, and this shows a slightly different bow (more detailed ends) and arrow (longer and with a sharper point), the flag proportions are almost exactly 2:3 and it has no fringe.

Santiago Dotor, 28 May 2002