Under a Foreign Flag: Integrating Foreign Units and Personnel in the British and German Armed Forces,1940–1945

Abstract

Under a Foreign Flag: Integrating Foreign Units and Personnel in the British and German Armed Forces, 1940-1945

Significant numbers of foreign personnel served in the British and German armed forces during the Second World. Yet there is no study that compares and situates these armed forces as multinational entities. This article examines Britain's and Germany's policies towards the recruitment, organisation and employment of non-nationals in their armed forces during this conflict. There were several forms of multinational participation but this study focuses on recruits who came from German-occupied or neutral countries. It was in these units that the exchanges and tensions of the multinational militaries were most profoundly felt. The article finds that though there was significant transnational military co-operation, this did not erode the primacy of the nation state. In both the British and German cases, the multinational forces served as a stage on which ethnic and national tensions played out and, at times, were amplified. Arguably the most important aspect of the multinational forces was their legacy. For Britain and her European allies, the experience created willing partners for closer multinational military cooperation in the post-war world.