Ostlegionen or Ostgruppen (literally "Eastern Legion") were conscripts and volunteers from occupied territories who fought in the German Army (Wehrmacht Heer) of the Third Reich during the Second World War. They were poorly paid, clothed, fed, armed and treated. Many Ostgruppen divisions were guarding the inland region of Normandy during Operation Overlord (specifically Utah and Juno and Sword.) The staff of the disbanded 162d Infantry Division in Poland was charged with the raising and training of the six Eastern Legions. It eventually raised and trained 82 battalions. A total of 98 battalions were raised with 80 serving on the Eastern Front and in the Balkans. 12 were later transferred to France and Italy in 1943. Image File history File links This is a lossless scalable vector image. ... The straight-armed Balkenkreuz, a stylized version of the Iron Cross, the emblem of the Wehrmacht. ... Nazi Germany, or the Third Reich, commonly refers to Germany in the years 1933–1945, when it was under the firm control of the totalitarian and fascist ideology of the Nazi Party, with the Führer Adolf Hitler as dictator. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... For other uses, see Normandy (disambiguation). ... Belligerents Western Allies Nazi Germany Commanders Dwight Eisenhower (Supreme Allied Commander) Arthur Tedder (Deputy Supreme Allied Commander) Bernard Montgomery (Ground Forces Commander in Chief) Trafford Leigh-Mallory (Air Commander in Chief) Bertram Ramsay (Naval Commander in Chief) Gerd von Rundstedt (OB WEST) Erwin Rommel (Heeresgruppe B) Strength 1,452,000... Combatants Soviet Union,[1] Poland, Tannu Tuva (until 1944 incorporation with USSR), Mongolia Germany,[2] Italy (to 1943), Romania (to 1944), Finland (to 1944), Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, Spain (to 1943, unofficial) Commanders Joseph Stalin, Aleksei Antonov, Ivan Konev, Rodion Malinovsky, Ivan Bagramyan, Kirill Meretskov, Ivan Petrov, Alexander Rodimtsev, Konstantin Rokossovsky... Balkan redirects here. ...
Georgian Legion on parade displaying flag of Independent Georgia, Germany 1943. ... The Turkestan Legion, also spelled Turkistan legion, was the general name for the military units of exiles and POWs from Central Asia that fought in the German Army during World War II. Notable members of the legion include Baymirza Hayit, who after the war settled in Germany and became a...
The majority of them, composed of volunteers of Russian nationality, were later incorporated into the Russian Army of Liberation- ROA- which was not an army in the organizational meaning of the word, but a name given to all Russian voluntary formations which recognized General Vlasov as their leader.
In a better condition were the Eastern Legions, the so-called "Ostlegionen" which, according to Rosenberg's conception, contained only non-Russian volunteers.
Hitler limited them to nationalities living far from the frontiers of the "Great Reich." On December 30th, 1941 a top secret memorandum ordered that the Supreme Command was to create, first the Turkestani Legion from volunteers of the following nationalities: Turkomans, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Karakalpaks, and Tadjiks.
This title examines the foreign volunteers who fought for the Wehrmacht, taking a close look at their uniforms, organisation and distinctive insignia.
Among those covered are the Legion Wallanie, LVF, Ostlegionen, Balkan volunteers, Hiwis, Kalmucks, Cossacks, Baltic, Russian and Ukranian volunteers.
Germany's Spanish Volunteers 1941-45 (Men-at-Arms 103) by John Scurr -- The Spanish Civil War had been a conflict between the nationalists and conservatives on one side, and what they saw as the opposing anarchic atheistic Marxism which was eroding the traditional Catholic values of Spain.
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