This is the first systematic pan-European study of the hundreds of thousands of non-Germans who fought -- either voluntarily or under different kinds of pressures -- for the Waffen-SS (or auxiliary police formations operating in the occupied East). Building on the findings of regional studies by other scholars -- many of them included in this volume -- The Waffen-SS aims to arrive at a fuller picture of those non-German citizens (from Eastern as well as Western Europe) who served under the SS flag. Where did the non-Germans in the SS come from (socially, geographically, and culturally)? What motivated them? What do we know about the practicalities of international collaboration in war and genocide, in terms of everyday life, language, and ideological training? Did a common transnational identity emerge as a result of shared ideological convictions or experiences of extreme violence? In order to address these questions (and others), The Waffen-SS adopts an approach that does justice to the complexity of the subject, adding a more nuanced, empirically sound understanding of collaboration in Europe during World War II, while also seeking to push the methodological boundaries of the historiographical genre of perpetrator studies by adopting a transnational approach.

About the Author
Jochen Boehler is a Research Associate at the Imre Kertesz Kolleg in Jena, where he teaches courses on the history of early twentieth-century Central and Eastern Europe. His recent major publications include: War, Pacification, and Mass Murder, 1939: The Einsatzgruppen in Poland (2014, with Jurgen Matthaus and Klaus-Michael Mallmann) SS-Oberscharfuhrer Hermann Baltruschat's Career 1939-1943 (2014, with Jacek Sawicki) and Legacies of Violence: Eastern Europe's First World War (2014, with Joachim von Puttkamer and W?odzimierz Borodziej). He is also currently preparing a monograph on Embattled Poland 1918-1921 for Oxford University Press. Robert Gerwarth is Professor of Modern History at University College Dublin and Director of the Centre for War Studies. He is the author of The Bismarck Myth (2005) and a biography of Reinhard Heydrich (2011). His third monograph, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End will be published in late 2016. He has also published ten edited collections, including, most recently, War in Peace: Paramilitary Violence in Europe after the Great War (2012, with John Horne) and Empires at War, 1911-1923 (2014, with Erez Manela).

Reviews
[an] important contribution to the history of Nazi Germany, the Holocaust and the social and cultural history of the Second World War. * Angel Alcalde, Contemporary European History *
the authors unpack a complex and multivarious set of motives for joining the Waffen-SS ... The result is a much more complete yet nuanced view of the Waffen-SS than has been typical. The volume editors deserve commendation for this important addition to the literature. * Robert M. Citino, Holocaust and Genocide Studies *
[O]utstanding.[P]rovides a comprehensive examination of the SS's mobilization of Europe's manpower for the German war effort * Jeff Rutherford, H-German *
Mandatory reading on Nazi collaborators... Essential. * CHOICE *
it will be essential reading to better understand this military and political institution in all its strange and malevolent detail. * Adrian Gilbert, War Books Review *



Book Information
ISBN 9780198790556
Author Jochen Boehler
Format Hardback
Page Count 408
Imprint Oxford University Press
Publisher Oxford University Press
Weight(grams) 1g
Dimensions(mm) 240mm * 161mm * 28mm