How the SS Became Nazi Germany's Most Ruthless Killers

Very true. The units mentioned were excellent by military standards. But by 1945, there were some pretty shabby outfits, mostly foreigners, wearing Waffen SS uniforms.

SPC John Parmenter - For propaganda reasons the foreign Divisions of the SS" were created:
Image: European SS Insignia Map
1st Cossack Cavalry Division
5th SS Panzer Division Wiking recruited from foreign volunteers in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Estonia, the Netherlands and Belgium under the command of German officers. During the course of World War II, the division served on the Eastern Front. It surrendered in May 1945 to the American forces in Austria.
11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland
13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Handschar (1st Croatian)
14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Galician)
XV SS Cossack Cavalry Corps
21st Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Skanderbeg
23rd SS Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division Nederland
23rd Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Kama (2nd Croatian)
24th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS Karstjäger
25th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Hunyadi (1st Hungarian)
26th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (2nd Hungarian)
27th SS Volunteer Division Langemarck
29th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Italian)
30th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS
33rd Waffen Cavalry Division of the SS (3rd Hungarian)
33rd Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS Charlemagne (1st French)
34th SS Volunteer Grenadier Division Landstorm Nederland
Aserbaidschanische Legion
Azeri SS Volunteer Formations
British Free Corps
Schalburg Corps
Estonian Legion
Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS
Indian Legion
SS Ski Jäger Battalion "Norwegen"
SS-Sturmjager Regiment (1st Hungarian)
Tatar Legions
Waffen Grenadier Regiment of the SS (1st Bulgarian)
Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts
Walloon Legion

"The Waffen-SS had originally been made up of four divisions of ethnic Germans. However, it grew into a mass unit of 900,000 men who fought in 41 divisions and in time over one-third of its force was made up of foreign volunteers. Many of these men fought against the Red Army. By the time the war ended it is thought that as many as 750,000 members of the Waffen-SS had been killed or wounded in combat with another 70,000 missing in action. However, many Waffen-SS records were destroyed before the war ended so accurate figures are hard to attain."

Figures for European recruits to the Waffen-SS:
Albanian: 3,000
Belgian: Flemish 23,000
Belgium: Walloon 15,000
British Commonwealth: (English) 50 The head of the British Freikorps, John Amery, was tried for treason and hanged. Bulgaria: 1,000
Croatia: 30,000
Denmark: 10,000
Estonia: 20,000
Finland: 1,000
Hungarians: 15,000
Latvia: 39,000
Netherlands: 50,000
Norway: 6,000
France: 8,000
Italy: 20,000
Russian: 60,000 [Cossack] The 60,000 Russians who had joined the Waffen-SS knew what they could expect. It was a choice of fighting to the death or being captured and executed as traitors – a fate that befell thousands of Cossacks.
Rumania: 3,000
Serbia: 15,000 Surviving Serbians who had joined the Serbian Volunteer Corps were executed on Marshal Tito’s orders. To many they had little to lose if they carried on fighting.

"Men in the SS Foreign Legions were treated differently to national German Waffen-SS soldiers. They wore a different uniform in terms of the insignia on it. Their commanding officers were national German Waffen-SS and Heinrich Himmler ordered that their units could not be called SS Divisions but Divisions of the SS. Most of the Foreign Legions did not wear the SS insignia on their collars as they wore a symbol of their national origin instead. Though a German national commanded them, many men in the SS Foreign Legions only spoke their own language. Thus communication was a major problem. Their ranks were also different to those held by German Waffen-SS.
The bulk of the Foreign Legions fought on the Eastern Front. The Battle of Stalingrad had been a disaster forHitler with the loss of a complete army. Despite the obvious signs that Red Army was in a position to take advantage of this major military defeat, Hitler continued to believe that his war against the Bolshevik horde was winnable. It was against this background that the Foreign Legions had to fight. Some units gained a good reputation as fighters – the Walloon Division led by Lèon Degrelles, for example. Others were less successful on the front line and were used to fight partisan groups."
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/world-war-two/nazi-foreign-legions/
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