>nazis come up with brilliant idea
>“gorals aren’t real poles, they're racially distinct mountain men”
>plan: turn them into elite SS highlander division
>set up recruitment in Zakopane
>get 200 young Gorals drunk out of their minds on unlimited booze
>convince the drunks to enlist
>put them on a train to SS training camp in Trawniki
>sober up halfway, realize they signed up for Nazi army
>get off train at and vanish
>only 12 make it to the actual camp
>immediately get into massive brawl with ukrainian recruits
>slavs doing what slavs do: drunk, violent, and hating each other on sight
>nazis shockedpikachuface.jpg
>SS command writes it off as hopeless, cancels the whole thing
>commander who pushed the idea gets sacked
>turns out the “racially distinct” gorals were just regular poles:
>belligerent, alcoholic, and ready to brawl with hohols at the drop of a hat
>>17855639 (OP)They had more luck with Silesian and Prussian Poles, who must have actually had some German admixture.
>Some Polish citizens of diverse ethnicities served in the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS, in particular in parts of Poland annexed by Germany such as Upper Silesia. Service in the German military was universal in nature in these areas, however, assessing the number of ethnic Poles involved is difficult due to the fluidity of national identity. At the low end, Polish estimates often place the number of native Poles who served at 250,000. Ryszard Kaczmarek of the University of Silesia in Katowice produced a conservative estimate of at least 295,000 based on documentary evidence; however, he considers this very low and is inclined to assume category III Volksliste were mobilized as much as males in the Old Reich, which leads to a maximum estimate of 500,000.[6] Early 1944 estimates by the Polish underground are similar, at 400,000-450,000 Poles from Reichsgau Danzig-West Prussia and Silesia.[6]>German authorities assumed those classified as category III Volksliste were in fact mostly ethnically Polish, and marked their military documents with "Pole".https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_enrolment_in_German-occupied_Poland
>>17857716Interesting. It is very difficult to get accurate information regarding Polish collaboration.
>>17855639 (OP)They live on the Polish-Slovak border so it probably wasn't clear what to categorize them as
>>17858204there were some poles who served in DAK and then after becoming PoWs joined Polish army in the west
some then fought germans after D-Day in france, italy, belgium and germany
>>17858204Almost all collaborators and volunteers for Germany were ethnic Germans, had some German ancestry, or Silesians, Kashubians and Masurians who were not considered Poles per se. An even among those groups they were forced to fight for Germany even if they didn’t want to because if they didn’t they would be punished. Normal ethnic Poles were not wanted and didn’t want to help Germany anyway. Non Poles who think it was anything more than that do not understand the situation and usually try to bring up Polish collaboration as proof Nazis really loved Poles because they are Nazis themselves.
>>17857716Many people signed the Volksliste because they feared for their lives or were forced to by the Germans. Or they thought they would get better treatment.
>>17855639 (OP)Why are mamsers like this?
>>17857716>>17859746fun fact: this included Zaolzie region, the czechoslovak part annexed by poland in 1938. my ancestors declared silesian nationality, hoping to avoid czech-polish-german national autisms. but then krauts came and declared that silesians are actually le lost germans, and issued volkslisten for them and my grandfather and uncle were conscripted to wehrmacht (one chilled in la Rochelle most of the war and the other died in ukraine). such is life I guess.
