In World War II, although the German army quickly defeated the Polish and British and French allies, and occupied a large area of western Europe, the size of the German army was also rising, but if you want to attack the Soviet Union, the German army has a certain shortage in terms of strength, but the French population is not as good as Germany, but the population of the Soviet Union is much higher than that of Germany, so the German army needs "little brothers" to provide a certain number of servants.
In World War II, how many "minions" did the German army bring, and which country sent the most "sponsorship"?
Although Germany mobilized a total of about 18 million troops in the era of World War II, and most of them were invested in the Eastern Front, in the face of the Soviet army with a higher total mobilization strength, the German army still had obvious deficiencies in strength, and when the war suddenly started against the Soviet Union, although the total strength of the German army was 5.5 million, there were actually about 1 million servants.
1. In 1941, the German army attacked the Soviet Union, with 1.17 million servants
Beginning with the German launch of the Barbarossa program on 22 June 1941, there were 1.117 million German minions entering the Soviet Union, including 476,000 in Finland, 325,000 in Romania, 230,000 in Italy, 45,000 in Hungary and 41,000 in Slovakia.
2. Due to insufficient troops, Germany "recruited" nearly 3 million troops throughout Europe
In 1942, because a large number of troops were fighting in the Soviet Union, and it was necessary to constantly replenish troops to supplement losses in large-scale battles, for the maintenance of the rule of the occupied areas of Europe, as well as auxiliary personnel and other tasks, the German army began to absorb volunteers and other personnel in the occupied areas and other countries to further expand the strength, and actually obtained about 3 million troops, equivalent to about one-third of the German army strength increased at that time.
Among them, there were more than 1 million servants who fought with the German army in the Soviet Union, more than 530,000 Germans recruited more than 530,000 prisoners and Soviet occupation areas as auxiliary personnel in the rear, and 346,300 "volunteer corps", in addition, in the D Guard, there were as many as 600,000 foreign personnel, of which 300,000 were of overseas German descent, and the others were volunteers and conscripts from various countries.
In other occupied areas of Europe, the German army did not have enough troops to maintain its rule, so a large number of militias were recruited in the local area to form a "security force", numbering up to 598,200 people, many of whom were nationalists and other radicals, on the one hand, used against the active guerrillas, on the other hand, it was important to carry out local ethnic cleansing, especially for the Jews, very fierce, they just needed this opportunity and a "big tree", so they were more willing to cooperate with Germany.
3. The "servant army" that suffered a severe blow soon dispersed
Finland with its own ideas: when the German army first attacked the Soviet Union, it was Finland that sent more troops, mainly Finland and the Soviet Union had a "vendetta" in World War II, and wanted to recover the territory, there are data that Finland with the German army attacking the Soviet Union, the cumulative number of troops sent reached 700,000, but unlike the situation of "beating" the Soviet army in their own homes, the Finnish army fighting in the Soviet Union suffered great casualties, of which 63,000 were killed and missing, the wounded reached 158,000, and the total casualties exceeded 220,000.
However, by the end of World War II, Finland had a premonition of the defeat of the German army, so it began negotiations with the Soviet Union privately, and by September 1944, Finland and the Soviet Army reached an agreement and truce, and began to expel the German army on the territory, but the German army hoarded a large amount of materials in Finland, so the retreat speed was very slow, and by September 15, under the pressure of the Soviet Union, the Finnish army began to attack the German army, and the Battle of Lapland began, the Finnish army suffered about 2,000 German casualties at the cost of 1,000 casualties.
Romania of the "Nerve Knife": The Romanian army was numerous, the morale at the beginning of the war was high, it had won battles against the Soviets, but the combat effectiveness was not maintained for long, and in the Battle of Stalingrad, 400,000 Romanian troops, as many as 370,000 casualties and captives, the Romanian army killed 71,000 people on the entire Soviet battlefield, the wounded reached 243,000, and another 309,000 were missing (more than 200,000 were captured by the Soviets), with a total loss of up to 600,000 people.
Similar to Finland, by August 1944, Romania had switched to the Allies, and in the number of European Allied troops, second only to the Soviet Union, the United States, and britain, from the "right hand" of the German army, it suddenly became an important force of the Allied forces.
Famous "job-hopping player" Italy: the Italian army that fought with the German army to the eastern front was mainly the Italian 8th Army and other units, although there were also highlights, but the Italian army and Italy in World War II, the mobilization was very insufficient, and did not want to fight, most of the time the combat effectiveness of the Italian army could not be complimented, for the Soviet army, only the Italian 8th Army was killed and missing 85,000 people, and there were 30,000 wounded, although it was An early ally of Germany, but Italy was still an early "job hopping" in 1943. To the Allied camp.
"Hardcore" Hungary: As early as World War I, the former Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany were on the same front, after World War I, austria-Hungary was split, Hungary lost 72% of its territory and more than 28 million people, and lost its access to the sea to become a landlocked country, so Hungary, which followed the German army in World War II, wanted to retake the territory, the Hungarian army followed the German army to North Africa to "fish" Italy, and when fighting in the Soviet Union, Hungary not only had a large number of volunteers to fight with the German army. At the border, 27 infantry divisions, 2 mechanized divisions, 2 cavalry divisions, 1 armored division and 1 mountain division were also assembled to "wait for an opportunity".
However, the course of the battle in the Soviet Union obviously exceeded the expectations of the Axis Powers, not only failed to quickly take Moscow, the Hungarian army was also severely damaged in the battles of Kharkov and Rostov, the Second Army was almost destroyed, and the second army (one said there were 230,000 people, the other said more than 100,000 people), and went with the German army to participate in the Battle of Stalingrad. In the end, only 64,000 people surrendered to the Soviets or broke through, and throughout World War II, Hungary lost 340,000-360,000 troops and a large number of civilians.
In fact, Hungary has not always been the "hardcore" of Germany, very early on to maintain a certain degree of vigilance against Germany, and once tried to break away from Germany to withdraw from the war, but soon found by Germany, in 1944 when the Soviet army with the Romanian army and Bulgarian army counterattack into Hungary, until 1945 after the capture of Budapest, Hungary completely withdrew from World War II, began to rebuild.
Slovakia by "hand": In fact, Slovakia is a new country after the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I, but as the industrial center of gravity of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, such as Skoda and other factories are here, the strength is not bad, before World War II, it tried to counter the ambition of German annexation, but was betrayed by the "appeasement policy" of Britain and France, and then it was quickly annexed by Germany, and could only choose to fight with the German army, but at the beginning of World War II, the total regular strength of Czechoslovakia was only 300,000 people, and the help that could be brought to Germany in terms of army size was not large. In total, about 20,000 people were lost in World War II.
"My own way" Spain: Throughout World War II, in the face of artillery-filled Europe, Spain seems to be "invisible", almost no sense of existence, and did not directly participate in the war, safely survived World War II, when the German army attacked the Soviet Union, Spain did not form a structure to send troops, but volunteers from Spain joined the German army, received German equipment and training and had the German army's nickname "Infantry 250th Division" (Spanish Volunteer Division), generally known as Spain's "Blue Division" (referred to as the Blue Division) , named mainly for its blue top.
The Blue Division began with a strength of more than 18,000 men (15,492 soldiers and 2,612 officers), with a cumulative number of 47,000 participants, and in march 1943, the Blue Division was severely damaged in the last offensive of the Soviet reaction to the Blue Division, with a casualty rate of 75%, and from 1941 to October 29, 1943, the whole division returned to China, during the 2-year Eastern Front operation. The Blue Division lost 12,700 men, of whom 3,334 were killed, 326 were missing, 8,466 were wounded and 321 were captured (230 finally returned to Spain alive).