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I MARCH 1945came necessary to recall many of these men andeventually to reach increasingly into both theolder and the younger age groups.After Germany changed from the offensive tothe defensive in 1943, it became both possible andnecessary to transfer an increasing number ofAir Force and naval personnel to the Army, toenforce "voluntary" enlistment in the Waffen-SS,and to commit line-of-communication units toregular combat not only against partisans butagainst regular enemy forces.The increasingly heavy losses of the Russiancampaign forced Hitler to :ancel his order exempting"last sons" of derimated families andfathers of large families frcm front-line combatduty. Prisons and concen ration camps werecombed out for men who coild be used in penalcombat units with the inducenent of possible laterreinstatement of their civic rijhts.Although a "total mobilizaton" was carried outin the spring of 1943, after Stalingrad, it becamenecessary by the end of tha year to lower thephysical classification standads drastically andto register men up to 60 yers of age for militaryservice. Even men wh severe stomachailments were drafted into spcial-diet battalions.During the summer of 1944, ivilian occupationswere reduced to an absolutely Ecessary minimum.Finally, the remaining male c/ilians from 16 to60 were made liable for hote defense combatservice in the "Volkssturm" and even HitlerYouth boys and girls were calld up as auxiliaries.Along with these measures here went a continuousreorganization of comat as well as administrativeunits for the purose of increasingefficiency and saving personnel.The strength of divisions us lowered whiletheir firepower was increased (d their componentswere made more flexible, evere comb-outswere made among rear-area peonnel and technicalspecialists. The strongest fssible measureswere introduced against waste c manpower, inefficiency,and desertions, partidarly after theArmy was brought under therver increasingcontrol of the SS, in the sumnr and autumnof 1944.After the Allied breakthrough iFrance, Himmlerwas appointed Commander f the ReplacementArmy and as such made ihWaffen-SS thebackbone of German national ifense. Wholeunits of the Air Force and Navyere taken overand trained by the Waffen-S&nd then distributedamong depleted field uni The organi-UNCLASSIFIEDTM-E 30-451zation and employment of the Volksstur~ti isunder Himmler's direct control.The complicated record system of the ArmedForces was maintained in principle but streamlinedfor the sake of saving manpower.c : FOREIGN ELEMENTS. (1) Original policy.In their attempts to solve their ever acute manpowerproblems, the Germans have not neglectedto make the fullest possible use of foreign elementsfor almost every conceivable purpose andby almost every conceivable method. Originally,great stress was laid on keeping the ArmedForces nationally "pure". Jews and Gypsies weraexcluded from military service. Foreign volunteerswere not welcomed. Germans residingabroad and possessing either German or dualcitizenship were rounded up through the Germanconsulates from 1937 on. When Germany setout to invade other countries, beginning with Austria,only the inhabitants of these countries whowere held to be of German or related blood becameliable to German military service; the Czechminority in Austria, for example, was exempted.(2) Recruiting of foreigners. With the invasionof Russia in June 1941, German propagandistsset themselves to the task of changing thewhole aspect of the war from a national Germanaffair to a "European war of liberation .fromCommunism". In this way the Nazis were ableto obtain a considerable number of volunteersfrom occupied and even neutral countries, whowere organized in combat units of their own inGerman uniforms and under German training.The original policy was to incorporate raciallyrelated "Germanic" people, such as the Dutch andScandinavians, into the Wafen-S’S and non-Germanicpeople such as the Croats into the Army.When the failures in Russia and other increasingdifficulties began’ to affect the morale of thkforeigners, their "voluntary recruitment" becamemore and more a matter of compulsion and theirservice in separate national units had to bebrought under more rigid supervision. The organizationof such units, therefore, was turnedover in increasing measure to the Waflen-SS,even in the case of racially non-Germanic elements.At the same time, it became necessary for theArmy to fill its own depleted German units byadding a certain percentage of foreign recruits.This was done partly by declaring the inhabitantsof annexed territories, such as the Polish Corridor,to be "racial Germans" (Volksdeutscke),1—3