foreign volunteers fought under the banner of the swastika from areas outside Europe and wanted to stave off Soviet domination or be free from British imperialism. Placing the volunteers from Eastern Europe who fought alongside the Germans into context, German historians Rolf-Dieter Müller and Gerd Ueberschär comment that people in countries from Finland to Romania "suddenly found themselves caught between the 'red' hammer and the 'brown' anvil", leaving them little in terms of options; their subsequent collective "shock over German ruthlessness was surpassed only by their dislike for and even hatred of the Soviet Union". The non-German troops thus comprised a wide range of ethnicities, ranging from the mainly Turkic peoples in the Ostlegionen to the Muslim Slavs in the 13th SS Division of SS Handschar and the Indians of the Indische Legion (the Indian National Army fought against the British on the Japanese side). For the majority of volunteers from Muslim communities, their animosity against the Soviets stemmed from their anti-Russian feelings, religious impulses (their disdain for Soviet atheism for example), coupled by the negative experience of Stalin's policies on nationality, and by the corresponding disruption to their way of life. Ultimately, the European collaborators remained subordinated to German oversight and were "kept on a short leash." Rolf-Dieter Müller puts the figures for the European Wehrmacht allies and volunteers who fought in the eastern campaign at approximately one-million men in total, which he claims gives substantial reason to "re-evaluate" the "military dimensions" of the overall collaboration. In Müller's estimation, the Wehrmacht would not have been capable of making it to Moscow in 1941 were it not for the Finnish, Hungarian, and Romanian conscripts; operations in the Volga and Caucasus in 1942 would have ground to a halt without the additional forces; and following the disaster at Stalingrad, it was foreign conscripts and volunteers (60,000 troops) fighting partisans in the Balkans which enabled the Germans to stabilize the Eastern Front in Finland and Ukraine. Müller also carefully reminds readers that on top of the co-opted aide of collaborators, millions of foreign laborers were forced to help provide the Nazis with the needed material resources to carry on the war far longer than otherwise possible without their toils. See also Wehrmacht foreign volunteers and conscripts Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts Pursuit of Nazi collaborators References Citations Bibliography Further reading Grasmeder, Elizabeth M.F. "Leaning on Legionnaires: Why Modern States Recruit Foreign Soldiers,"