These were organized into independent legions and had the designation Waffen attached to their names for formal identification.[22] In addition, the German SS Division Wiking included recruits from Denmark, Norway, Finland, Sweden, and Estonia throughout its history.[23] The number of SS recruits from Sweden and Switzerland was only several hundred men.[24] Despite manpower shortages, the Waffen-SS was still based on the racist ideology of Nazism, thereby ethnic Poles were specifically barred from the formations due to them being looked upon as "subhumans", despite other Slavic groups being allowed service such as Ukrainians and Byelorussians in the 39. and 40.