As the foreign volunteers of the Waffen-SS were increasingly of non-Germanic origin, especially after the Battle of Stalingrad, among the organization's leadership (e.g. Felix Steiner) the proposition for a Greater Germanic Empire gave way to a concept of a European union of self-governing states, unified by German hegemony and the common enemy of Bolshevism.[citation needed] The Waffen-SS was to be the eventual nucleus of a common European army where each state would be represented by a national contingent.[citation needed] Himmler himself, however, gave no concession to these views, and held on to his Pan-Germanic vision in a speech given in April 1943 to the officers of SS divisions LSAH, Das Reich and Totenkopf: