The Baltic States: auxiliaries and Waffen-SS soldiers from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania

ENEver since the days of the original medieval Drang nach Osten, the Baltikum had exerted a strong pull on the imagination of those representatives of Germandom who saw it as a part of east-central Europe ripe for colonization and annexing to the German cultural, economic, and political sphere. The Nazis developed ambitious settlement plans for ethnic Germans. But what was to become of those living in the Baltic States who were not German? For those deemed to be ‘Germanizable’ (i.e. of sufficient ‘racial quality’), there was the possibility of fighting alongside the Germans, notably in the final phase of the war. Combat for the Germanic cause was one way for individuals—and, by extension, peoples—to become racially Germanized. Service in the militarized auxiliary police units, and later, in the Waffen-SS, was viewed as a way of bringing out the best racial elements and encouraging their Germanization as explained above.