Hiwi (volunteer)

A captured Hiwi told his NKVD interrogators: Fighting Hiwis comprised 50% of the 2nd Panzer Army's 134th Infantry Division in late 1942, while the 6th Army at the Battle of Stalingrad was composed of 25% Hiwis. The Hiwis may have constituted one quarter of 6th Army's front-line strength, amounting to over 50,000 Slavic auxiliaries serving with the German troops. In one instance, the German SS and police inducted, processed, and trained 5,082 Hiwi guards before the end of 1944 at the SS training camp division of the Trawniki concentration camp set up in the village of Trawniki southeast of Lublin. They were known as the "Trawniki men" () and were former Soviet citizens, mostly Ukrainians. Trawnikis were sent to all major killing sites of the "Final Solution", which was their training's primary purpose. They took an active role in the executions of Jews at Bełżec, Sobibor, Treblinka II, Warsaw (three times), Częstochowa, Lublin, Lvov, Radom, Kraków, Białystok (twice), Majdanek as well as Auschwitz, and Trawniki itself. ==Motivation==

German historian wrote that there were many different reasons why Soviet citizens volunteered. He argued that the issue had to be seen first and foremost with the German Vernichtungskrieg (war of annihilation) policy in mind. For example, volunteering allowed Soviet POWs to get out of the barbaric German POW camp system, giving them a much higher chance of survival. During World War II, Nazi Germany engaged in a policy of deliberate maltreatment of Soviet POWs, in contrast to their treatment of British and American POWs. This resulted in some 3.3 to 3.5 million deaths, or 57% of all Soviet POWs. Therefore it becomes very difficult to differentiate between a genuine desire to volunteer, and seeming to volunteer in the hope of a better chance of surviving the war. ==Perceptions==

By the Allies before the corpses of Jews in the doorway of the Warsaw Ghetto. Photo from Jürgen Stroop Report, May 1943. The term 'Hiwis' acquired a thoroughly negative meaning during World War II when it entered into several other languages in reference to Ostlegionen as well as volunteers enlisted from occupied territories for service in a number of roles including hands-on shooting actions and guard duties at extermination camps on top of regular military service, drivers, cooks, hospital attendants, ammunition carriers, messengers, sappers, etc. After the war, thousands attempted to return to their homes in the USSR. Hundreds were captured and prosecuted, charged with treason and therefore guilty of enlistment from the start of judicial proceedings. By the German authorities The reliance upon Hiwis exposed a gap between Nazi ideologues and pragmatic German Army commanders. Nazi leaders including Adolf Hitler regarded all Slavs as Untermenschen and therefore of limited value as volunteers also. On the other hand, the manpower was needed, and German Intelligence had recognised the need to divide the Soviet nationals. The contradiction was sometimes disguised by reclassification of Slavs as Cossacks. Colonel Helmuth Groscurth (XI Corps' Chief of Staff) wrote to General Beck: ==Contemporary use==

The term "Hiwi" is still found in academic vernacular in German-speaking countries, in the meanings of "volunteer", "research/student assistant" (in a university), or Hilfswissenschaftler (auxiliary scientist(s)). ==See also==