In late 1940, the first small groups of foreign volunteers who were of "Germanic" or Aryan descent were organized into Legions by the "Waffen-SS" (Armed SS). Most of these men came from Norway, Denmark, Holland and the Dutch speaking Flemish from Belgium; the motives for joining were for ideological reasons.
By spring 1943, all the Legions organized under the Waffen-SS were disbanded to form complete nationality Waffen-SS formations.

By late 1943, Germany's hope for a military victory on the Eastern Front was winding down. The Germans were now on the defensive and losing ground everywhere. As the fighting in Russia continued all efforts to maintain a purely Germanic SS organization was abandoned. Due to the shortage of Nordic manpower cause by the high combat casualties suffered on the Eastern Front, the Waffen-SS became more flexible in their racial standards of recruiting Eastern Europeans.
In addition there was a German recruiting competition between the Wehrmacht (Armed forces) and the Waffen-SS. The position of the Waffen-SS was not very favorable with the German Wehrmacht, which did it's best to discourage Waffen-SS recruiting.

The result was that the Waffen-SS ended up drafting more foreigners, becoming a multinational European force ever to fight under one flag.