Page 458 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

458 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

– he was not sincere. Himmler thought it was useful to let his subalterns develop the idea
of a European union, but he and Hitler never abandoned the idea of a ‘Great Germanic Re-
ich’ governed from Berlin . Moreover, the aims of Riedweg and the GL themselves, when
84
they propagated a ‘supranational racial community’, were not merely ideological. With the
increasing importance of the non-German ‘Germanics’ in the Waffen-SS, it was necessary to
give them and the ‘Germanic civilians’ prospects of a bright future to continue a successful
recruitment .
85
Finally, it is hard to believe that Riedweg was fooled by Himmler. He certainly was
aware that the enforcement of the non-German ‘Germanic civilians’ served the ultimate goal
to prepare the Nazi, if not the SS, takeover of a ‘Germanic Europe’ directed from Berlin.
Moreover, as head of the GL, he must have been aware that a large amount of the ‘Germanic
propaganda’ served mainly to win new recruits for the bleeding Waffen-SS. it seems obvious
that he tried to justify himself by partially referring to a Pan-European logic he had adhered
to when he was a student. Nonetheless, he was not only a useful tool but also a driving force
for the SS in the enforcement of its standards on non-German ‘Germanic civilians’.

84 Stein, op. cit., p. 131.
85 Wegner, op. cit., pp. 299-300.