In the eyes of the Nazis, to die for the Third Reich was a privilege, a privilege reserved for 'Aryans'. In 1943 that perception began to change, however. With Allied armies pressing in on Germany from several fronts, the Nazi leadership recruited 'subhuman' Slavs for military service, and by the war's end hundreds of thousands of them had fought for Germany, among them Slovak, Croatian and Ukrainian SS units. Slavic workers supposedly constituted a threat to racial purity, but by 1945 labour shortages were so dire that millions were brought into the heart of Germany, where they worked and mixed with locals.

LRB 7 July 2005 | PDF Download