Good quotes, Bravo. But are we really citing Wikipedia as a source? Wikipedia is like the Snopes of Fact-checking. Hitler did grow up Catholic that is true. And don't be so quick to say they wouldn't let me be a nazi, that hurts my feelings: https://rense.com/general88/divers.htm ..."The Waffen SS was largely composed of non-Germanic volunteers. Most historians continue to neglect the motivations of these men and women who fought for Hitler as opposed to the Allies. I felt that this was historically unacceptable given that every side feels that it alone is justified. Historians have generally described this interracial phenomenon as "inexplicable" when there is more than sufficient evidence to the contrary. Many Nazis became great friends with non-Germans. Hitler and Himmler both went out of their way to accommodate their Arab-Semitic volunteers. Hitler met with the Grand Mufti, but failed to meet with the "Aryan" leader of the United States, Franklin Roosevelt. From this example, we may conclude that Hitler was willing to contradict his own Weltanschauung in order to achieve what he needed to achieve politically and militarily. Interestingly, this general attitude of ambivalence was not limited to the military sphere. It extended into the realm of Third Reich society both before and during the war. One excellent study on the SS, entitled Hitler's Foreign Divisions (edited by Chris Bishop), offered the following explanation for the international character of the SS. Few people realize just how international were the German forces of World War II. **It is estimated that nearly two million foreign nationals served under the Swastika.** Although towards the end of the war many were transferred to the SS, large numbers served with the Army, particularly on the Eastern Front. The most committed of the foreign volunteers found a home in the SS, until parts of it were more like a German equivalent of the French Foreign Legion than the elite of the German race. Although the SS did not welcome non-German volunteers until midway through the conflict in Russia, the idea of recruiting such men dated back to before the war. In his quest for a pan-Germanic Europe, Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler had decreed in 1938 that non-Germans of suitable 'Nordic' origin could enlist in the Allgemeine SS [emphasis added].1 One finds it nearly impossible to disagree with this general assessment of the character of the Waffen SS. One of the more striking features of Bishop's analysis is his conclusion as to the character of the future German elite as Himmler envisioned it. Bishop's conclusion is nearly identical to my own in that we both agree that the future German elite was not to be strictly race-based, but rather, based on a combination of "physiognomy, mental and physical tests, character, and spirit." Bishop rightly concluded that Himmler envisioned an "aristocratic" class that would combine "charismatic authority with bureaucratic discipline." This, then, would typify "a new human type- warrior, administrator, scholar and leader, all in one-whose messianic mission was to repopulate Europe."