Any information about foreign born Kriegsmarine volunteers

[BH]

Does anyone have any information about foreign born volunteers in the kriegsmarine. I have checked uboat.net and have found that there was several commanders that were foreign born from London, one from New York, South Africa ect. Interested in the reasons that the joined. Was it because of nationalistic pride? Political reasons? Were they in German territories and forced to join?

[U49]

There are even some more reported sailors from occupied countries...

I remember to have read about a later POW, who was from poland and had faced the choice: join the navy or get shot....
He joined up and was later captured by the US Navy.
They were smart enough to seperate him from his comrades, but as soon as he was turned over to the army, which ran his POW camp, he was treated as anybody else....

Needless to say, he didn't survive the war ???

[Einzelganger]

Specific information about this i do not have, but from history lessons i've had i know that once the war in Europe started Germany sent out the call for Germans abroad to come home and ''defend'' their homeland as they then put it. Not just the 1st generation, born in germany, followed that call but also the 2nd and sometimes 3rd generations of families. The bond with the homeland was much stronger back then.

With that in mind i could easily see some in the navy or army having a different nationalty but obviously there would be some German roots.

Indeed the other possibility as brought up by U49 was true. Many, for the Wehrmacht, were conscripted against their will. The alternatives given often being less desirable, such as forced labour, death camps or summary execution.

Offcourse, as many of the occupied countries in Europe had, there also were volunteers who believed in much the same ideals as Nazi Germany had declared them. This led to units within the German army made up specifially of 1 foreign nationalty.

Coming back to the subject, the foreign nationalities in the Kriegsmarine would for the largest part be willing participants as i would assume people with questionable loyalties would not be let in so easily on say for example, a U-Boat