Interbranch Transfers

[Bonn]

I have seen a few comments about German service members with the wrong type of awards on their tunics (i.e. a comment about a Waffen SS soldier with a General Assault badge). My question is, how easy or difficult was it to get interbranch transfers? Like going from Wermacht infantry to the Luftwaffe paratroops or becoming a pilot or maybe transferring to the Kriegsmarine. It’s very easy in today’s US Army to go from Army Warrant Officer pilot to Air-Force pilot. Just curious. Thanks.

[Graeme L]

Hi Bonn,

Certainly in the latter stages of the war personnel were transferred from almost any unit or branch to a combat role. I have seen wehrpass entries for some soldiers who have served in at least three separate branches.

One man started out in a Kriegsmarine Artillery unit was transferred to an SS Panzer grenadier unit and finally to an SS Pionier Battalion.

There were numerous LW ground servicemen who were also transfer to ground units including who had no previous combat experience.

I don't think many Wehrmacht soldiers would have become pilots, however, as mentioned above lots of LW were transferred to the Heer as frontline soldiers.

Graeme

[Bonn]

I know the Waffen SS selection criteria was strict in the beginning, being relaxed later in the war. Would it be unthinkable due to the attrition rate later in the war, for a Wehrmacht infantry solder, whom earlier in the war was unexceptable to the SS, but later, due to relaxed standards transfer to the SS?

[Graeme L]

Easily, by the latter stages of the war the Waffen SS had suffered extremely heavy casualties. The SS were just as eager to replace the wounded as other branches.

During the early stages of the war when commanders could be choosy Sepp Dietrich would not allow men with fillings to become members of his SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler! or men who were under 5' 11".

This kind of selection could not continue as matters got worse of Germany. A number of the foreign legions formed were also of men and religions which didn't sit well with nazi indoctrination. The 13th Waffen SS Kroatische was made up of Moslems, not exactly what some SS officers and men thought made a good Aryan soldier.

Graeme

[Dave Danner]

It wasn't just whether someone might have been unacceptable to the SS. At least initially, Reichsdeutsch, Germans who were citizens of the Reich, couldn't enlist in the Waffen-SS until they had finished their Wehrmacht draft service. So you would have to do your time in the Heer, Luftwaffe or Kregsmarine before you could join the SS. That's one reason why the SS heavily recruited Volksdeutsch, ethnic Germans living outside the Reich, in Hungary, Romania, Yugoslavia, the Baltic States, etc.

Dave