Hiwi (volunteer)

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Hiwi is a German abbreviation. It has two meanings, Hilfswilliger and Hilfswissenschaftler.

[edit] Hilfswilliger ("voluntary assistant")

The word entered into several languages during World War II, when German troops enlisted volunteers from the occupied territories for supplementary service (drivers, cooks, hospital attendants, ammunition carriers, messengers, sappers, etc.).

This term from World War II times is often associated with collaborationism, and, in the case of the occupied Soviet territories, with anti-Bolshevism (and widely presented by Germans as such). Some Soviet hiwis were pressed into combat in the ranks of the Wehrmacht in desperate situations, such as with the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, where they added up to about 25% (50,000) of the front-line strength. Some German divisions had a higher ratio(eg, 71st and 76th Infantry had parity between German and "Hiwi" manpower).

In Poland, "Hiwis" were given the task of sorting Jews for concentration camps and shooting the rest. In some cases, they were trusted by the Germans they worked with for their loyalty, but in many cases (e.g., when enlisted from concentration camps) joining the hiwi forces was a matter of survival. The Hiwis performed most of the shootings during Nazi Germany's Eastern Front Jewish "Cleansing". Once the police battalion entered a village, the Jews were rounded up and taken to the forests or pre-dug mass graves. The Hiwis would then assist the police battalion in executing the Jews at point-blank range. The task was so vile that most of the Hiwis were drinking straight vodka and shooting in a drunken stupor. As their drinking increased, so did their wild aim; it became so off-target that the police battalion officers had to take cover while the Hiwis performed their executions.

A captured "Hiwi" told his NKVD interrogators: "Russians in the German Army can be put into three groups:

• First: soldiers mobilised by German troops, so-called Cossack sections, attached to German divisions.
• Second: Hilfswillige - local civilians or Russian prisoners who volunteer or Red Army soldiers who desert to join the Germans. These wear full German uniform with their own ranks and badges. They eat like German soldiers and they are attached to German regiments.
• Third: Russian prisoners doing the dirty jobs, kitchens, stables and so on. The categories are treated differently, volunteers treated best."

[edit] Hilfswissenschaftler ("assistant scientist")

This is today's common usage in the German language. It is used for college students working part-time as Teaching assistants or Research assistants.

See also: Freiwillige

[edit] Further reading

• Ordinary men : Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland, New York : HarperCollins, 1992.
• Stalingrad, Antony Beevor, 1998: Penguin edition, pages 184 to 186.