German Financial compensations for foreign members of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS on the basis of the Federal War Victims’ Benefit Law: a European perspective

Research seminar with Assistant professor Christoph Brüll

During the Second World War, approximately one million foreign volunteers fought in the Wehrmacht or the Waffen-SS. Upon returning to their home countries, they were mostly met with criminal prosecution and prison sentences, and in some countries, social exclusion as well. In 2016, however, associations of resistance fighters and victims of National Socialism pointed out that these volunteers had been able to receive financial compensation from the Federal Republic of Germany for decades. In 2019, the Belgian Parliament called, in a resolution, for an end to these payments and for the establishment of a commission of historians to investigate their origins. Nothing came of either demand. The Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs responsible noted that recipients could be excluded from payments since 1998 if participation in war crimes could be proven. Otherwise, the response was limited to publishing figures on the now very small number of recipients abroad.

Through archival research in German and Belgian archives, Christoph Brüll has been able to trace how these payments came about. Alongside the governments involved, very different actors played a role, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and far-right veterans’ organisations. From the early 1960s onwards, a compensation practice developed that combined official with informal elements. Notably, the secrecy surrounding these arrangements did not originally come about at the behest of the — today so discreet — German federal governments, but rather originated with the governments of neighbouring countries in Western and Northern Europe.

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