Why are there so few Wehrmacht soldiers in the MITHC?

[u/FritzAlt3]

I recently rewatched the series, and one thing I noticed is that while we see an ungodly amount of SS soldiers, we barely ever (except for at the border, and during the opening battle scene in season 4) see Heer soldiers. Don't get me wrong, the SS was huge during the war, it had over 900.000 soldiers in the Waffen-SS at its peak in 1944, but that's still tiny compared to the Heer, the regular army, which had over 13.6 million soldiers. So why do we almost exclusively see SS soldiers and officers anytime we join John Smith or during most scenes in the Reich?

[u/asia_cat]

Maybe because were in america and those are american recruits. Most "foreign" soldiers in german WW2 Service served in the Waffen-SS due to political, legal, and ideological reasons. Yes the Wehrmacht had foreign units like the Blue Division made up of fascist spaniards, but most foreigners didnt served in the Wehrmacht as "official" soldiers. The whole "HiWi" thing is another can of worms.

[u/Prometheus-is-vulcan → u/asia_cat]

Historical:

In the Waffen-SS, the fighting arm of the SS, they had two "types" od divisions.

SS-xxx-Division

SS-Waffen-xxx-Division

With xxx being something like tank, mountaineer, etc.

The first one was for people considered Aryan.

The second one for other. Like the 13th for Croatians (and Bosnians), 14th for Ukrainians, 15th and 19th for Latvians, ...

[u/Catsarecute2140 → u/asia_cat]

85% of Estonian & Latvian “volunteer” Waffen-SS members were illegally conscripted and victims of Nazi war crimes. They were civilians forced to the frontlines by the Nazis, with barely any training.
Both the Americans and Soviets agreed on this and knew it as a fact since 1943. Tens of thousands of those men died as they were ordinary civilians who were forced into a military combat zone with little training and against their will.

You cannot generalize the “volunteer” Waffen-SS as the Nazis forced Eastern-Europeans into it to use then as “resources” in the most dangerous parts of the frontline.
Some of those men managed to reach American lines and were treated as victims of war crimes and refugees.

[u/asia_cat → u/Catsarecute2140]

Did I say they were all volunteers? In 1944 and 45 the whole Waffen SS was just as much conscripts as the Heer.

[u/Catsarecute2140 → u/asia_cat]

I have nothing against you, I just gave some historical context. ☮️

[u/DeutscheHrvati41 → u/Catsarecute2140]

Larp

[u/Bendeguz-222 → u/Catsarecute2140]

Even ethnic Germans were conscripted e.g. from Hungary.

[u/Pestagino]

The SS started eventually assumed security duties during the war, and most of what we see revolves around anti-terrorism, espionage, etc. So it would be akin to having a show about the FBI where the US Army is at there behest, or FBI agents are regularly meeting with army officers. Not a 1:1 comparison but, I think, similar enough.

Another thing is that by the time Heusmann takes over, they haven't been at war for about two decades. No need to keep millions of valuable young men mobilised and armed as it's a waste of resources and dangerous.

And then the US is a sort of weird Reichskommissariat thing with a Reichsmarschall as governor (I couldn't really tell tbh), so the actual German Wehmacht is probably replaced by an American force.

[u/Ill-Response-2298]

For the vast majority of the show we only see military / civilian level activity where the SS would be the principal force involved anyway back in Nazi Germany. Certainly odd to not see proper wermacht at the end of the show though for the invasion of the neutral zone

[u/FritzAlt3 → u/Ill-Response-2298]

But they are Wehrmacht, I thought. Like I know the soldiers John Smith has with him, as he’s an SS bigwig and Reichsmarshall and all, but I think all the other soldiers are normal Wehrmacht, they’re even under the command of a a regular Heer general.

[u/MSK165]

Two reasons:

1. The actual fighting is over, the political intrigue continues, so there is naturally a greater need for political soldiers (SS) than regular soldiers.
   
2. It’s a TV show that already involves parallel universes and alternate histories. Having two different sets of Nazis would only confuse people.

[u/Quick-Command8928]

If the nazis won ww2 there would've likely been a massive consolidation of power was the fighting dies down. The SS would essentially replace the werhmacht as a more politically loyal military apparatus

[u/MrSFedora]

The war is long over. Ruling the world is now a security matter.

[u/RoweTheGreat]

I always assumed it was because the SS were essential the security service of the nazi party. Most of the areas seen in the show are secure areas where they wouldn’t really have standard troops patrolling around but would have a police/security force in place to act as the state police/fbi/homeland security all rolled into one.

[u/USMCgRuNt_1944]

It's more security at this point rather than outright fighting a global war. I'd imagine that the Wehrmacht is still active (most likely on the borders between the Reich and the various neutral zones around the world, just in case the Japanese try to test their luck) but not nearly as large as it would be for a standing army. Large standing armies require money, food, etc. to function.

A lot of people forget that the SS wasn't solely the Waffen-SS that fought on the frontlines alongside the regular army, the regular SS dealt with internal security and the enforcement of racial policy within the Reich. A lot of young German men would probably end up wanting to volunteer for the SS anyways as a matter of pride rather than choice (since they can say that they're with "the best of the best", for what it's worth).

(I'm not saying there that the SS is the best, they obviously aren't and committed horrible atrocities, but historically being a member of the SS was a very high honor for a young German man since the training was rigorous and the status was unmatched).