Legion Wallonie:
This was organized as a mountain-infantry battalion. It was formed by the SS
from the Frenchspeaking Belgians (Walloons) and
was taken over by the Wehrmacht in late 1941 so
as not to offend the "Germanic" Flemings already serving in the
Waffen-SS. It fought exceptionally
well in the campaign through the
Caucausus
Mountains alongside the SS Division "Wiking." It
contained many former Belgian Army Officers and the famous political leader
Leon Degrelle, who exhibited a flare for
death-defying heroics. It was finally re-transferred back into the
Waffen-SS in June 1943 at
Degrelle's request and was reformed as an
assault brigade.
Croatian Legion:
This was a regiment that fought on the southern part of the eastern front
with considerable valor and was totally annihilated in
Stalingrad. It was
later replaced by three full-scale divisions.
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As Hitler's armies advanced on Stalingrad they overran the Cossack
regions of the Don, Terek and Kuban. Hundreds of thousands of
Russians willingly enrolled in the German army to form a Cossack
Army under the Russian General Krasnoff. Hitler promised that they
would be settled in 'lands and everything necessary for their
livelihood in Western Europe'. Their new homeland was to be in
north-east Italy in the valley of Carnia on the plain of Undine
where they would live their national life free from the confines of
Bolshevism.
Italian families in the area were ejected from their homes which
were then used to house the Cossack soldiers and their families who
had arrived in fifty trains during July and August 1944. To the
Cossacks this was paradise far removed from their dreary life in the
Ukraine. Hitler had named this new independent state 'Kosakenland'.
Many atrocities were committed by these Russians against the Italian
civilians, particularly the women, causing one Archbishop to write
to Mussolini 'It is terrible to think that Friuli will be governed
by these illiterate savages'. Discipline was soon restored when
General Krasnoff himself arrived. Cossack officers were under no
delusions, they knew they were there to shed blood for the Nazi
cause. With the Allied armies approaching from the south and Tito's
IX Yugoslav Corps approaching from the east, the 'Free Republic of
Carnia' soon disintegrated and the Cossacks and their followers
forced to trundle north towards Austria and internment by the
British.
When
the SS announced on March 3, 1943 that an SS Division was to be
formed in Latvia to fight the Russians, around 32,000 Latvians
volunteered. They formed the 'Waffen Grenadier Division der SS (No.
1)' During the winter offensive they fought bravely against the
Soviets. Pulled out of the battle zone to avoid encirclement, they
were sent back into Prussia. Gradually pushed westward by the
advancing Red Army they eventually surrendered to the British.
Not so
lucky was the 2nd 'Waffen Grenadier Division der SS' formed soon
after the first. It failed to escape to the west and was overtaken
by the Red Army. As Latvia was annexed by the USSR, they were
classed as Soviet citizens and therefore guilty of treason and being
guilty of treason, they were all executed.
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Spanish Legion:
This was the independent 250th Infantry Division of the "Spanish Blue"
Division that fought with incredible heroism on the Lake
Ilmen Front. After it was withdrawn from the
eastern front in August 1943 by Franco, survivors carried on in a Spanish
SS Legion that fought until the end of the war.
Per Sorensen: Portrait of a Legionary
The 27 year old Danish Army
Lieutenant Per Sorensen (formerly Adjutant of the
Viborg Battalion) was the ideal model of what
the Germans were looking for when they launched the Legionary Movement. On 1
July 1941, Sorensen volunteered for service with the "Freikorps
Danmark" motivated by anti-communist feelings
and a vague sort of National Socialist attitude. In the autumn
nonths he attended the
Waffen-SS
Officer School at Bad Toelz and in the spring of
1942, rejoined the "Freikorps" as commander of
the 1st Company.
During the summer months he led his company in the tough back-and-forth
fighting that raged in the relief corridor to the
Demyansk Pocket. After several engagements, 1st Company had been
reduced from over 200 men to only 40. They had to hold a long stretch of
front against strong communist forces. On the afternoon of 16 July 1942,
Sorensen telephoned "Freikorp's" HQ that he
didn't know whether his troops could survive another strong attack but they
would stay in position no matter what. That night a Red Army infantry
battalion attacked with tank support. The communists were soon in 1st
Company's trenches. From sundown to
midnight
hand-to-hand fighting raged for possession of the positions.
Then suddenly it was all over with the Russians either dead or driven out.
Thanks to Sorensen's leadership, 1st Company held.
In the years to come, whether in White Russia or Estonia,
Lativia or
Pomerania,
the troops under Sorensen's command would always do the job. Before every
action, the tall, slender Dane would make a personal
reconnaisance of the terrain and during the fighting he was always as
the hottest spots with a machine-pistol dangling from his neck.
To his soldiers, Sorensen had the uncanny habit of attracting the enemy.
They passed around the phrase: "Wherever Sorensen is -the Russians will
come!" And they usually were right. For his endless solicitude and patience,
he received the nickname "På Sorensen" from his
men. Time and time again, Sorensen provided the special qualities so vital
in ji leader. In January 1944, he took over an
en-trapped
battalion near Vitino in northern Russia and
literally led it to safety by staying at the point of the column on a I
ourney through thick, snow shrouded forests.
After commanding battalions and battlegroups,
Sorensen received command of the 24th SS Regiment "Danmark"
just to the east of Berlin in April 1945. Finally, the Regiment was reduced
to trying to defend a street-car station in the heart of Berlin. While
climbing a telephone pole to try and survey the terrain,
Sturmbannführer (Major) Sorensen
was picked off by an enemy sniper. On the next day, in the midst of the
desperate, last battle for the German capital,
Sorensen was given a military funeral in the Plötzensee
cemetery by Germans and Danes from the "Nordland"
Division.
With shells detonating all around, the body of Sorensen was taken to the
cemetery in an armored troop carrier. Over the open grave,
Sturmscharführer (Sgt.) Hermann
gave a brief eulogy:
We are standing here by the graveside to take our last departure from
a courageous Danish comrade, the foremost officer and leader of the
Regiment "Danmark": Per Sorensen! I must, even
in this hour give the thanks of my people for you and your many Danish
comrades who have stood so loyally beside us. I would like to express from
my heart: may you find peace at last in our bleeding city!
As Hermann
spoke, the coffin (constructed from ammunition crates by "Nordland"
engineers) was lowered into the grave. Two of the Danish officers attending
struggled to contain their emotions. Hermann led a last salute and the eight
man honor guard fired three salvos over the grave. A woman flak helper
tossed flowers into the grave, and each of the Danish and German soldiers
attending passed by throwing in a handful of earth. As the great city shook
under rumbling artillery fire and great clouds of smoke obscured the sky,
the haunting strains of "I had a Comrade" echoed over Sorensen's grave as
the funeral reached its conclusion. The tragic symbolism was complete and
fitting: in the very heart of Europe, on its last battlefield, a
prototypical representative of the European Volunteer Movement had met his
end.
The
European Movement takes Shape
In 1943, the
European Volunteer Movement which had been individually developing in the
Legions and the Waffen-SS was
finally amalgamated and consecrated within the ranks of the
Waffen-SS. The spiritual citadel
of the "Movement" now became the SS Officers' School at Bad
Töllz in Bavaria, which in 1943 established its
first "class' (or "inspection") exclusively for West European Volunteers.
Previously the volunteers had received no specialized treatment but were
treated like Germans. Now all of that changed and a sense of European unity
with respect for all nationalities and cultures was openly fostered. Within
the next two years, SS-JS Töllz would
produce more than 1000 highly motivated European officers from 12 different
countries exclusive of Germany.
Bad Tölz was considered the premier officers'
training school in World War II
and in addition
to a thorough training program that featured live ammunition in most field
exercises, it offered well-rounded athletic,
cultural and educational opportunities. The great opera, musical and
theatrical troops of central Europe made frequent visits while the athletic
facilities were unsurpassed in Europe. Twelve different coaches, each one
either an Olympic or world class champion in his field, supervised a vast
sports program that even included golf and tennis. In the academic arena,
freedom of speech was not only permitted but encouraged and the writings of
such disparate souls as Marx, Hitler, Jefferson and Churchill were openly
discussed and debated.
What Bad
Tölz produced was literally a "Renaissance man"
who was also a top-notch military officer, In early 1945, the staff and
students were mobilized into the newly authorized 38th SS Division "Nibelungen,"
and one of the great ironies of the war took place: a mostly German division
was officered by non-German Europeans (the officer cadets) instead of the
other way around. Once in action against the Americans in southern Bavaria,
the Scandinavians, Lowlanders and Frenchmen found themselves opposing an
enemy whom they thought could only have existed on the Eastern Front. Like
all of the Waffen-SS units to
serve in the west in 1945, "Nibelungen" was soon
victimized by numerous "war crimes." Entire companies and battalions were
bludgeoned and shot to death after going into U.S. captivity. To date this
grisly story has only been revealed in bits and pieces and has-naturally
enough-been largely suppressed by the Allied side. However, it is
interesting to note that some former members of the
Waffen-SS consider it likely that more of their comrades
were killed in American captivity than on the battlefield itself!
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After the Italian armistice on September 3, 1943, around 100,000
Italians volunteered to help the Allied cause.
On October 13, 1943, Italy declared war on Germany.
About
600,000 disbanded Italian soldiers from the German occupied north of
Italy were crammed into cattle cars and transported to Germany for
forced slave labour.
The
Italian soldiers transported to Germany after the armistice, were
treated abominably and had to survive on starvation rations. Hundreds
died of hunger and overwork, tuberculosis and pneumonia. Their living
quarters were primitive, 250 men in barracks designed for 100. Those
still loyal to the Fascist government of Mussolini were treated far
better in the camps.
Volunteers were asked for to form an SS Division and thousands
volunteered encouraged by the promise of better food and clothing.
When the Italian SS Division finished its training it was sent to
Italy to try and stem the Allied advance. Once in Italy, the volunteer
soldiers deserted in their thousands and joined the partisans.
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A recruitment
poster for the Black Brigades,
urging Italians to "fight for the honour of Italy" |
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Black Brigades
(Italian: Brigate Nere) were one of the fascist paramilitary
groups operating in
Italian Social
Republic (in northern Italy), during the final years of World
War II, and after the signing of the Italian Armistice in 1943.
Benito Mussolini had been arrested after the Grand Fascist
Council, with the support of King Vittorio Emanuele III,
overthrew him and began negotiations with the Allies for Italy's
withdrawal from the war. Mussolini was rescued by German
paratroopers led by Otto Skorzeny and installed as the President
of the Italian Social Republic, a regime nominally administering
the German-occupied northern Italy.
As
the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (MVSN, also
known as "Black Shirts") was disbanded by the terms of the
armistice, the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana was formed on 24
November 1943 out of carabinieri, ex-army, and others still
loyal to the fascist cause.
The
Black Brigades were formed out the members of the Fascist
Republican Party, with a law dated 30 June 1944. They not only
fought the Allies, and Italian partisans, but also fought
against and murdered their political opponents and others whose
support of "the cause" was less than exuberant. Many were killed
in the fighting.
The
Black Brigades were not actually brigade sized units, they were
in reality only weak battalions or strong companies with 200 to
300 personnel each. There were 41 territorial brigades numbered
one through 41, and there were eight mobile brigades, these were
numbered one through seven plus the Second Arditi Brigade.
Although they wore the standard Italian army uniform they tended
to only wear a black sweater with the grey-green uniform pants
and their badge or insignia was the jawless death's head.
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British Free Corps
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Irish
Volunteers in German Service
There were no Irish units in the Waffen-SS or Wehrmacht,
although there were Irish volunteers.
Contrary to popular supposition, no Irishmen served in the
'British Free Corps'.
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Also
known as The Legion of St. George. The idea that British POWs be
recruited to form an infantry SS unit was first put forward by the
self-styled fascist, John Emery, son of a minister in Churchill's war
cabinet. In 1943 the SS expressed interest in the idea and the Legion
of St. George was created to fight only against communists on the
German-Finish front. Despite promises of an easy life of luxury, only
about thirty prisoners responded. Lieutenant William Shearer was the
only officer to volunteer but was soon diagnosed as a schizophrenic
and repatriated to England on medical grounds. The unit included three
Canadians, three South Africans, three Australians and one New
Zealander. Many changed their minds and were returned to their POW
camps. By March, 1943, only six remained as part of the 11 SS
Panzergrenadier Division 'Nordland'. After the war, John Emery was
tried for treason and received the death penalty. He was hanged on
December 19, 1945. The remaining members received periods of
imprisonment .
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1944-45: A European Army at War
The year 1944 opened with the
Flemish SS Storm Brigade "Langemarck" fighting a
savage retrograde action near
Zhitomir
in southern Ukraine. Simultaneously the Scandinavian "Nordland"
Division and Dutch "Nederland" Brigade were desperately trying to stem a
massive Red Army offensive in the Leningrad sector, and the European "Wiking"
Division and Belgian Brigade "Wallonien" were
going into the "sack" west of
Cherkassy.
The breakout from the Cherkassy Pocket on the
southern Eastern Front was a true epic of heroism: a sacrificial struggle
that bound troops of different nationalities firmly together. In the
post-war years the survivors have held annual
rememberence meetings so that to this day "Cherkassy"
remains a living symbol of the European Voluntary Movement.
The spring of 1944 saw the
three Baltic SS Divisions fighting with steadfast courage on the eastern
boundaries of their countries. In Lithuania, the nucleus for a new SS
Division began taking shape under the guidance of former Lithuanian Army
generals, but the country was overrun by the communists before the project
could be brought to fruition. Against the
Anzio
beachhead in Italy, the first combat ready Italian SS battalion grimly held
its ground against all American breakout attempts. All over Europe, manpower
was being voluntarily mobilized into the Waffen-SS
to participate in what many people saw as the forthcoming, decisive struggle
for the freedom of the continent.
The summer of 1944 saw the
"battle of the European SS" on the Narva Front
in Estonia. Here, nationals from Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Flanders, Holland
and Estonia shared the trenches and fought shoulder-to-shoulder to throw the
Bolsheviks back off "Orphanage Hill" and "Grenadier Hill." Leon
Degrelle personally led a battalion from his "Wallonien"
Division in a brilliant defensive action near
Tartu
on the west shore of Lake Peipus. Near Brody in
Ukraine, the 14th Ukranian SS Division fought a
life-or-death battle to escape from a Soviet encirclement; only about
one-fourth of the Division survived the fighting, but they had acquitted
themselves well.
As the year
went on, more and more foreign volunteer divisions were formed. This meant
that flexible leadership was needed to handle the different cultural
distinctions and surprisingly, the Waffen-SS
was equal to the task. Although organized religion was kept separate from
the Waffen-SS, volunteers from
devout Catholic, Moslem, Greek Catholic and
Orthodox countries were given total freedom to practice their religions with
their own clergy. For morale purposes, ethnic cultural activities were
actively encouraged. It was quite a contrast to the way some minority groups
were treated in the Allied armies at the time.
Some of the
foreign SS divisions composed of Russian and Moslem volunteers had to be
disbanded, since the time and personnel needed to develop these units were
lacking. By the autumn of 1944 the Waffen-SS
European volunteer tally sheet contained the following elements: 2 Dutch
brigades, 2 Belgian brigades, 1 French brigade and 1 Italian brigade, (all
being transformed into divisions), 2 Croat Moslem divisions, 1 Albanian
Moslem division, 2 Hungarian divisions with 2 more in the works that never
panned out, 2 Scandinavian/German divisions, 2 Latvian divisions, 1 Estonian
division, 2 Russian divisions (both of which would later be transferred to
the Vlasov Liberation Army), 1
Ukranian division, 1 Italian/German division, 1
Hungarian/German division, 1 Balkan/German division, 1 Serbian division,
numerous ethnic brigades from the Soviet Union, and small detachments of
Spaniards, Britons, Greeks, Romanians, Bulgarians, Arabs and Indians. The
foreign SS units were all suitably supplied with national badges, insignia
and unit distinctions. And while there were many volunteers from such
neutral countries as Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland they could not be
openly designated as such so as not to offend their respective governments.
On the Eastern Front, the war
raged with unending intensity. In White Russia, part of the French SS Storm
Brigade fighting with the 18th Hungarian/German SS Division "Horst
Wessel," sacrificed itself completely in hard
defensive action, losing two-thirds of its personnel in the process. In
Estonia, a regiment of Estonian soldiers who had been serving in the Finnish
Army returned home to fight for their country. They were reformed into a
battalion of the 20th Estonian SS Division and in desperate combat on the
Latvian frontier, were virtually annihilated. With grim determination the
Latvian 15th and 19th SS Divisions fought the communists for every square
foot of their homeland, while in the Carpathian
Mountains,
the Ukranian Volunteer Division was reassembled.
In Slovenia and
Hungary, the brave Moslems of the 13th SS Division "Handschar"
performed well against both Tito's partisans and the Red Army, but in France
the 30th White Russian SS Division had virtually collapsed while in action
against the Americans and French Maquis. These
soldiers had only wished to fight the communists and saw no point in what
they were doing in the west.
This was not the case in
regard to both the 29th Italian SS Division and the 34th Dutch SS Division "Landstorm
Nederland." The Italian SS troops fought both the Americans and the rear
area communist partisans, and they distinguished themselves as perhaps the
best troops that Italy produced during the war. "Landstorm
Nederland" first battled the British at
Arnhem
as part of a hurriedly organized self-defense brigade, but during the winter
of 1944-45 it was enlarged into a full-scale 12 000 man infantry division.
In the spring of 1945, the almost exclusively Dutch "LN" SS Division gave
the British and Canadians fits as they tried with little success to advance
into northwest Holland. None of the Allies could figure out why so many
Dutchmen chose to join the "Landstorm" Division,
so to avoid embarrassment, the story of this unit has
been largely suppressed ever since. For the Dutch volunteers, there was no
motivation problem. The Allies had joined with the Bolsheviks against not
only their homeland but what they perceived to be European civilization as
well. Like their fellow countrymen on the Eastern Front, the men of "Landstorm
Nederland" fought with a dedicated resolve.
During
the Second World War, 74% of the 140,000 Dutch Jews were murdered, a
higher percentage than in any other Western European country. Due to
the Anne Frank paradigm, the myth of the good Dutchman has
persevered in giving the impression that large parts of the Dutch
population resisted the Nazis and helped the Jews. Much attention is
given to the remarkable Dutchmen who hid her and none to those who
betrayed and arrested her.
The truth about Dutch collaboration with the Nazis is very different
from what is commonly known outside the country. The
Dutch authorities sent the Jews on their first steps to their
extermination on German orders; the Germans required very few of
their own people for this. Dutch policemen arrested the Jews. The
policemen were well aware of the criminal character of their acts;
it is the role of the police to arrest suspected criminals, not
innocent citizens or babies.
Dutch railway employees transported the Jews to the transit camps.
Dutch policemen guarded them there. There was a small minority of
Dutchmen who helped hide the Jews and they deserve great respect.
The numbers of Dutch Nazi collaborators during the war, however,
exceeded those active in the resistance. Relative to the size of its
population, the Netherlands had the most Waffen SS volunteers in
Western Europe. Furthermore, out of the 24,000 Jews who were hidden,
8,000 were betrayed by Dutchmen for a reward which in today's money
amounts to perhaps 30 Euro per victim. Almost all of them were
murdered in the death camps.
The Dutch government-in-exile in London cared little about the fate
of the Jews who were deported to Poland. It did not instruct the
Dutch under occupation not to collaborate with the Nazis. After the
war, the Dutch transport minister praised the Dutch railways for not
striking when they transported the Jews because that would have been
bad for the Dutch economy. In more than four years of radio speeches
from London, the Dutch queen, Wilhelmina, devoted a total of five
sentences to the Dutch Jews and their fate.
After the war, the surviving Jews were discriminated against in many
ways by successive Dutch democratic governments. Though substantial
evidence exists to the contrary, the Dutch government denies until
today that many cases of this discrimination were intentional.
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The Belgian and French SS Divisions were
brought up to strength in the fall of 1944 from among the many refugees that
had fled to Germany plus veterans of the war with Russia. In Holland,
volunteers flocked to the Waffen-SS
recruiting offices like never before and not because they had to. It didn't
take a clairvoyant to see that Germany was virtually finished, but still the
European volunteers rushed to join the battle.
The establishment historians have never been able to understand this
phenomenon, perhaps because it involved an abstract concept alien to most of
them: conscience. There was a great desire for many people, who had until
this point sat out the war, to finally be "true to
themselves"; to make the ultimate sacrifice out of loyalty to their
beliefs, their homelands and their fellow countrymen who had already done so
much. This was Europe's moment of crisis and many young men made the
decision to leap into the crucible. It was a manifestation of spiritual
honesty.
The Waffen-SS also managed to
project a certain natural attractiveness. Littlejohn, in his book The
Patriotic Traitors , described the pull of the
Waffen-SS as follows: "The Runic Flag evoked a heroic
pagan spirit, a swaggering defiant attitude to life equally contemptuous of
bourgeois timidity and of communist anarchy." The far-sighted Leon
Degrelle, who had almost obtained political
power in prewar
Belgium
also saw a powerful attraction and purpose in the
Waffen-SS. In his words: "True elites are formed at the
front ... the young leaders are born there ... the emblem of the SS shows
Europe where political and social truth is to be found ... We are preparing
the political cadres of the post-war world in the Great Seminary of the
Front Line." A good many volunteers agreed with him.
The end
of 1944 saw Leon Degrelle's 28th SS Division "Wallonien"
moving into that part of Belgium that had been retaken in the Ardennes
offensive, where it received a hearty welcome and new
recruits! But the curtain was rising on the last act on the Eastern
Front, and in the weeks ahead most of the European volunteer forces would be
in action there. In Kurland, Western Latvia
three SS divisions-lith "Nordland,"
23rd "Nederland" and 19th Letvian-were caught up
in an unequal life-or-death struggle in January 1945. A few extracts from
the history of the 49th Dutch SS Regiment "De Ruyter"
gave the flavor of the action: (From the series of articles titled "Soldiers
of Europe: The III. SS Panzer Korps" in
Siegrunen Magazine):
After a
surging, back-and-forth struggle, the south bastion of
Ozoli Hill fell irretrievably to the Russians.
The over-powered First Co./SS
Rgt. "De Ruyter"
fell back to the west. Untersturmführer
Schluifelder, the commander, was badly wounded
and shot himself rather than fall into enemy hands.
The Red Army infantry was storming forward. Guided entirely by radio
reports, Obersturmführer
Behler directed the heavy weapons fire of his Dutch gunners at the
center of the enemy onslaught. But by mid-day,
Behler's positions were entirely surrounded by the enemy. In
bloody, close combat, Obersturmführer
Behler and a few of his men managed to break
out to the west.
In the same battle area, Danish Obersturmführer
Johannes Hellmer's company from Second
Battahon/"De Ruyter,"
was fighting for its life ... Using his own initiative,
Kanonier Jenschke,
a private, led a small battle group to a successful breakout.
Jenschke's rank insignia had been obscured by
his camouflage jacket so the men that he had been ordering about were
unaware that they outranked him!
During these two days of heavy fighting all of the companies in the main
battle line were fully extended. There was nothing to fall back on ...
only 7 men could be spared to defend the whole town of
Kaleti ... This, the defensive struggle of SS
Division "Nederland" was the most heroic battle that I have ever lived
through. Everyone, stayed in position to the
finish. The attack came right up to the barrels of our artillery pieces.
The firing pits were the main battle line. But although we were weakened
and dispersed, we had acquitted ourselves with honor.
~This
extract from the war diary of Untersturmführer
Horstmann
By the
end of the fighting, the SS Regiment "De Ruyter"
with a nominal strength of 2000 men had been reduced to 80 combatants! The
Regiment was rebuilt on the run and thrown into action again on the
Pomeranian Front less than two weeks later. For the first time "De
Ruyter" received a Third Battalion, this being
composed of Dutch and German war reporters whose jobs had become rather
superfluous given recent military reversals.
Remaining in Latvia was the 19th Latvian SS Division, which time and again
had proved itself the mainstay of bitter
defensive fighting and had received several mentions in the
Wehrmacht war bulletins. The
Latvian volunteers received more decorations than any other non-German group
in the Waffen-SS, including the
award of 13 Knight's Crosses; a good indication of their contributions on
the battlefield. In Poland and Silesia, the Hungarian and Estonian SS
Divisions were temporarily able to stop the enemy onslaught, even though the
commander of the 26th SS Division, "Hungaria,"
Oberführer
Zoltan von Pisky had been killed in
action at Jarotschin.
As the Eastern Front was pushed slowly westwards, bits and pieces of the
27th Flemish SS Division "Langemarck" were
rushed to the Oder River line from various
training camps. Here they served alongside their co-national rivals, the
Walloons, in a spirit of unbridled comradeship. First Battalion of the 66th
SS Regiment/Division "Langemarck" picked up the
nickname "leaping tiger" for the way its soldiers threw themselves into
battle. But even more amazing was the fact that the battalion was composed
mostly of teenagers from the Flemish Hitler Youth who had volunteered for
service in the Waffen-SS after
their country had been overrun by the Allies. If there was one drawback to
service in this battalion it was that the regimental quartermaster
stubbornly saw that the young troopers received a special ration of
Schokolade and Bonbons
instead of the Schnapps and cigarettes passed out to the older soldiers!
With a good sense of historical irony, the Eastern Front slowly bent and
folded itself around the German capital city of Berlin, throwing a good many
of the foreign volunteers into the battle for the city. Regiments of the
15th Latvian SS Division, battered beyond belief, had naively decided to
throw in their lot with the western allies against the communists (which
proved to be an unfortunate decision for many of the officers who were
forcibly repatriated to the death camps), and made a complete circuit of
Berlin travelling in no-man's land all the time,
until they saw a chance to make it to the American lines. The Division's
reconnaissance battalion went out a little too far on a scout mission and
wound up being impressed into the defense of the city.
To the north of Berlin, 500 survivors of the 33rd French SS Division
"Charlemagne" which had been decimated in the defense of
Pomerania,
actually volunteered to go to the defense of the German capital, even though
the Divisional commander had absolved them from any more service
obligations. In the week of the epic battle that followed, these Frenchmen
constituted the core of defense in the city center, displaying courage and
fortitude on a scale seldom seen. When the fighting was over, only a few
dozen would still be alive and four of their number would be decorated with
Knight's Cross. One could call their mission a "beau
geste," but the French soldiers saw it as a moral obligation-another
abstract concept the establishment scholars choke on. The following is a
description of these soldiers from the aritlce
"Defeat in the Ruins: France's Last Battle for Europe," by Gustav
Juergens (Siegrunen,
June 1980):
By this time, the warriors of the "Charlemagne" Division didn't even
look like human beings any more. Their eyes were burning and their faces
skull-like and covered in dirt and mortar dust. Supplies only came in
negligible amounts, the most telling being the lack of water. The young SS
men moved like robots through the hell of Berlin. The future was the
farthest thing from anyone's mind. The only motivating idea that burned in
their consciousness and kept them from collapsing was their flaming desire
to come to grips with the Bolsheviks! They had to throw hand grenades,
destroy tanks, and hold out against the Reds. That was their only reason
for living and for dying.
The SS
Divisions "Wallonien," "Nederland" and "Nordland
after spearheading the last successful offensive on the
Vistula sector to relieve the trapped garrisons at
Arneswalde, had been driven inexorably westward.
"Nederland" was split into two segments, one being trapped and
destroyed in the Halbe Pocket to the south of
Berlin and the other retreating to the north of Berlin. Much of the "Nordland"
Division, including the staff elements, wound up in Berlin itself.
At Prenzlau, due north of Berlin, the Flemish "Langemarck"
Division led by the "leaping tigers" of its Hitler Youth battalion, made the
last relief attack against the communist encirclement on 25 April 1945. In
violent, savage fighting "Langmarck" was burnt
to a cinder along with the "Wallonien" Division
and parts of "Charlemagne" and "Nordland"; the
survivors were forced to fall back towards the Elbe River. In Silesia, the
20th Estonian SS Division was surrounded and forced to surrender to the
Soviets; beginning what for most, would be a long, final journey to the
Gulags. One the Austrian frontier, the Ukrainian, Moslem and Cossack SS
formations fought with skill and valor before retreating to the west. Most
of the Moslems and Cossacks would later be forcibly repatriated to their
deaths at the hands of the Yugoslav and Soviet communists; the Ukrainians
escaped this real "holocaust" by posing as pre-war Polish citizens.
Going with the Cossacks of 15th SS Army Corps to the Gulags, was their
beloved commander, Gen. Lt. Helmuth von
Pannwitz, the first foreign national ever to be
freely elected Ataman of the Cossack tribes. He chose to share the fate of
his men although he could have gone into comfortable Allied internment. In
1947, von Pannwitz, along with the Cossack
leaders of the 15th SS Corps, was hanged in Moscow as a "war criminal"; the
Cossack soldiers and about one-balf million
others of their nationality were physically exterminated with the assistance
of the United States and Great Britain.
In Italy, after putting up a brave fight, the 29th Italian SS Division
surrendered either to the Americans or to the Red partisans and almost to a
man, the Italian SS men were put to death. Between 20 000-30 000 of these
volunteers were therefore killed outright in captivity. In Yugoslavia
another great nightmare unfolded. 10 000 Moslem volunteers from the 13th SS
Division "Handschar" were exterminated in a mass
execution and their bodies stuffed in an abandoned mine shaft. Many of the
soldiers of the 7th SS Mountain Division "Prinz
Eugen," recruited from Yugoslav Germans, met a
similar fate. In Kurland, Latvia, where a small
German Army Group had courageously held out against vastly superior enemy
forces until the end of the war, 14 000 members of the 19th Latvian SS
Division marched into captivity and oblivion-they were never heard from
again.
In Berlin,
members of the Spanish SS Legion attempted to breakout of the city wearing
pilfered Red Army uniforms; none made it. Those caught by the communists
were shot as spies and those intercepted by the Germans were shot as
turncoats. When General Krebs went to surrender the Berlin garrison early on
the morning of 1 May 1945, he took with him the Latvian
Waffen-Obersturmführer (1st Lt.)
Nielands as an interpreter. After performing his duty,
Nielands returned to the command of his 80 man
company from the 15th SS Recce Battalion. For
the Latvians there would be no surrender-they asked for no quarter from the
Soviets and they gave none themselves. In the ruins of the Air Ministry
building the Latvian SS troops made their last stand. In hand-to-hand combat
they fought to the death.
A few of the volunteers trapped in Berlin actually escaped. The Danish
Obersturmführer
Birkedahl-Hansen, suffering from jaundice, led
some men from Regiment "Danmark" successfully
out of the city through Spandau to the
northwest. They made their way to the seaport of
WarnemiInde and took a row boat back to Denmark, thus escaping a long
trek to Siberia.
The end of the war saw most of the European
volunteers frantically trying to make it to the western Allied lines.
Surrender, though, only marked the beginning of their problems. The
"democratic" governments of the "liberated" countries were determined to
inact a painful vengeance. In each country some
of the more prominent volunteers were run through quick "judicial"
proceedings and executed, with the others being stripped of their civil
rights and sentenced to prison terms of varying lengths. Those that wound up
in Soviet hands were either: 1) extradited to their home countries for
criminal proceedings or 2) simply shipped to forced labor camps with the
Germans. Those that survived up to a decade or so of this treatment were
eventually sent home.
FOREIGEN
VOLUNTEERS IN WAFFEN-SS
Numbers of the
volunteers and main Waffen-SS units from each country in Europe:
THE
NETHERLANDS:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
50 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
23.
Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier-Division "Nederland",
34.
Waffen-Grenadier-Division Der SS "Landstorm Nederland"
The
Netherlands provided more recruits for the Waffen-SS then any
other European country.
BELGIUM:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
40 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
27. SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier-
Division "Langemarck",
28.
SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier- Division "Wallonien"
Initially
considered to be non-Germanic, French-speaking volunteers from
France and Wallonia
were recruited by the German Army in 1941. They were
incorporated into Waffen-SS late in 1943.
FRANCE:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
20 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
33. Waffen-Kavallreie-Division Der
SS "Charlemagne"
ITALY:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
15 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
29. Waffen-Grenadier-Division Der
SS Italienische Nr.1
DENMARK:
Number of
VOLUNTEERS:
10 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
5.
SS-Panzer-Division "Wiking",
11.
SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier- Division "Nordland"
The Danes raised the only volunteer
legion that had the full backing of the government of their
country.
NORWAY:
Number of
VOLUNTEERS:
6 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
5.
SS-Panzer-Division "Wiking",
11.
SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier- Division "Nordland"
(Den Norske Legion)
(23. Regiment "Norge")
(Regiment Nordland)
(SS-Skijeger-Bataljon "Norge")
FINLAND:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
3 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
11. SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier-
Division "Nordland"
LUXEMBOURG:
Number of
VOLUNTEERS:
2 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
SPAIN:
Number of
VOLUNTEERS:
1 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
Spanische
Freiwilligen Kompanie der SS 101,
28.
SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier- Division "Wallonien"
SWEDEN:
Number of
VOLUNTEERS:
300
Main Waffen-SS
units:
5.
SS-Panzer-Division "Wiking",
11.
SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier- Division "Nordland"
SWITZERLAND:
Number of
VOLUNTEERS:
300
Main Waffen-SS
units:
5.
SS-Panzer-Division "Wiking"
RUSSIA:
Number of
VOLUNTEERS:
Over 60 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
29. Waffen-Grenadier-Division Der
SS Russische Nr.1
LATVIA:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
80 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
15. Waffen-Grenadier-Division
Der SS Lettische Nr. 1
19.
Waffen-Gernadier-Division Der SS Lettische Nr. 2
ROMANIA:
Number of
VOLUNTEERS:
50 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
7. SS-Freiwilligen-Gebirgs-Division
"Prinz Eugen",
8.
SS-Kavallerie-Division "Florian Geyer"
ESTONIA:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
25 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
20. Waffen-Gernadier-Division Der
SS Estnische Nr. 1
HUNGARY:
Number of
VOLUNTEERS:
20 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
25. Waffen-Grenadier-Division
Der SS "Hunyadi",
26.
Waffen-Grenadier-Division Der SS "Hungaria"
CROATIA:
Number of
VOLUNTEERS:
20 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
13.
Waffen-Gebirges-Division Der SS "Handschar",
23.
Waffen-Gebirgs-Division Der SS "Kama"
SERBIA:
Number of
VOLUNTEERS:
10 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
Sebisches Freiwilligen Korps.
Fought in the Royal Yugosalv Army uniforms.
ALBANIA:
Number of
VOLUNTEERS:
7 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
21. Waffen-Gebirges-Division Der SS
"Skanderberg"
BULGARIA:
Number of
VOLUNTEERS:
600
Main Waffen-SS
units:
Waffen-Grenadier Regiment der SS
(Nr. 1), SS-Panzer Zerstörer Regiment
LITHUANIA:
Number of
VOLUNTEERS:
50 000
Main Waffen-SS
units:
None, mainly Non-SS Police units.
It
was non Lithianian SS formations, but 38 Police Battalions were
formed.
|
|
The final tally sheet for the European
Volunteer Movement ran roughly as follows: (Waffen-SS
only)
Western Europe:
162 000 volunteers, ranging from about 55 000 in Holland to 80 from
Liechtenstein. Out of this total about 50 000 were killed or missing.
Included in this figure would be 16 000 Dutchmen and 11 500 Belgians.
Baltic States and Soviet
Nationalities: About
250 000 soldiers. Casualties and post-war losses through forced repatriation
and execution were enormous.
Balkan and
Slavics:
About 100 000. Considerable losses. Ethnic
Germans not from Germany: About 300 000.
Germans from the Reich:
400 000. For the Germans and ethnic Germans, losses in killed and missing
were about one-third.
In some
countries like Holland, the "volunteer" problem was so great, that
censorship was imposed, that in most cases
remains in place to this day. The Dutch were particularly brutal in treating
their military "collaborators"; incarcerating many for long terms in
concentration camps that followed the German models faithfully. Many
volunteers in the Netherlands subsequently rose to prominence in the
political and business fields, but because of their "background" remained
vulnerable to a form of blackmail that has seen some of them (including
parliamentary leaders) sent into distant oblivion.
Treatment of
returning volunteers was equally harsh in other countries. Belgium executed
many both legally and illegally while keeping a majority of their "military
collaborators" locked up in concentration camps run in the German style. In
France, some of the more prominent officers were executed, while the
rank-and-file of the "Charlemagne" Division was given the option of doing
time in Indo-China with the Foreign Legion. Joining them were numerous
Hungarian and German SS men who had wound up in French captivity.
Norway locked
up its volunteers in stone fortresses and kept them on near starvation
rations for between 4 and 8 years. The Norwegian volunteers had sealed their
fate when they had offended a "hanging judge" who had offered them modified
clemency for admissions of guilt. The judge was spat upon and pelted with
rubbish by the incarcerated soldiers so he threw the book at them. Denmark,
which produced a multitude of volunteers (nearly 15 000 including the cream
of the Danish officer corps), was relatively lenient to most of their
soldiers-only the more prominent ones had to suffer for long. One
ex-commander of the "Freikorps
Danmark" was executed (a decision officially
condemned by the Danish Parliament 30 years later), and the Danish
Major-General Kryssing, who had
comanded a multi-national ad hoc division on the
Eastern Front, was kept in prison 5 years and deprived of his civil rights.
When the
volunteers were mentioned at all after the war, it was always in a very
derogatory manner; they were usually referred to as criminals and
mercenaries. The Dutch went so far as to hire a psychiatrist to buttress
this theory. He interviewed 400 volunteers and later propounded the thesis
that these men had not served out of any moral
committment but had "sold their souls" for material inducements and
adventure. This has been pretty much the establishment line ever since
although it is never mentioned that the volunteers interviewed (constituting
one-half of one percent of the total number of Danish military
collaborators), were. quite willing to say
anything to secure release from their concentration camp.
If one looks at the rigorous
screening process that the Germans applied to their foreign volunteers the
myth of their being "criminals" and "mercenaries" is pretty
well exploded. The basic criteria for acceptance in the
Waffen-SS revolved around the applicant's physical
fitness, mental attitude and past record. Anyone with a criminal record
was
simply not accepted, although some did slip through. Utilizing these
standards, the Waffen-SS accepted
only 3000 recruits out of about 12 000 who flooded the recruiting offices of
the original Dutch Legion. And out of this 3000 another 400 would be culled
out during training for either harboring a criminal past or an incompatible
political attitude. Similarly we can look at the
Ukranian volunteers and see that out of 81 999 initial applicants
only 29 124 were finally accepted after screening!
If there is any
judgment that can be made from this it is that the men who got into the
Waffen-SS usually represented the
best human material that their respective countries had to offer. There is
no way to categorize them individually since they came from all different
classes and backgrounds sharing only one common denominator: a love of their
country and continent.
It is fair to
say that the European volunteers left a mark on the battlefields of the
Eastern Front far out of proportion to their actual numbers, and this paper
would not be complete if it did not include a sampling of their
achievements.
In the Linden
Hills east of the Oder River,
Obersturmführer
Capelle's company of Walloon volunteers was in
its death struggle. Enemy tanks were swarming all over -- many had been
knocked out but all of the Panzerfäuste were now
exhausted. At this point, Capelle radioed to "Wallonien"
Division headquarters that he was going to try and breakout and link-up with
the Division. But escape for the company was no longer possible. Walloon
volunteers were crushed to death by tanks running over their foxholes. The
badly wounded fired their weapons until their last breath.
Finally all
that was left was the company command post. In a heroic stand, the Belgian
SS men fought it out until the end. The severely wounded were humanely put
out of their misery. The survivors fought on with rifle butts and service
revolvers. Incredibly, the command post resisted for the whole day. As it
was finally overwhelmed in the early evening,
Obersturmführer Capelle went
down firing his pistol. Two wounded Walloons reached the German lines during
the night to tell of this last battle.
On the next
day, 27 February 1945, a supplement to the daily
Wehrmacht war bulletin was read over the German radio: "In
Pomerania a battle-group from the SS Volunteers
Grenadier Division 'Wallonien' under the
leadership of SS-Obersturmführer
Capelle was deployed for flank for flank
protection. Displaying exemplary steadfastness and fanatical battle spirit,
it was destroyed (in action)." Capelle was
recommended for the posthumous award of the Knight's Cross but documentation
for the decoration was lost in the chaos of the war's end.
* * *
On the morning
of 26 January 1944 a Soviet tank force broke into the town of
Gubanizy. The Dutch volunteer
Caspar Sporck drove
his self-propelled gun right into their midst and began shooting them up
right and left, eventually claiming 11 kills. Later, during the last hours
of the German retreat to the Narva bridgehead on
31 January 1944, Sporck stayed back alone with
his armored vehicle and patrolled far to the east of the main battle lines,
seeking out enemy tanks and vehicles and providing protection for
stragglers. At dusk, with the enemy close behind,
Sporck's assault gun was the last vehicle to cross into the German
lines. For his initiative and valor, Casper Sporck
was later awarded the Knight's Cross.
* * *
On 12 June 1944
at the "Sunshine" outpost to the southeast of the Narva
bridgehead, the Danish NCO Egon
Christophersen literally saved the main front,
when with a small assault troop he counterattacked German trenches that had
been seized by the Russians and regained them in hand-to-hand combat.
Christophersen and his men then defended the
positions against all attackers, enabling the broken German lines to
reconsolidate and hold. Christophersen was
awarded the Knight's Cross.
* * *
At the
Vepskula bridgehead on the
wast bank of the
Narva River in February 1944, the bedraggled German forces were
unable to eliminate a dangerous Soviet inroad. Fresh Estonian assault troops
were brought in. For a time they too were pinned down. Then the young
Estonian Sergeant Haralt
Nugiseks led a leap-frog attack that broke through the communist
lines. In vicious close combat the enemy trenches were cleared all the way
to the river's edge. Nugiseks was awarded the
Knight's Cross.
* * *
In August 1943
on the Wolchov Front, the Latvian Sergeant
Zanis Butkus led a
storm troop into the enemy lines and proceeded to capture a string of
communist bunkers without loss. He returned to the German lines with many
prisoners and much booty. Butkus was given an
officer's commission on the spot. Later, after taking part in 59 close
combat engagements, Butkus was awarded the
Knight's Cross.
* * *
In July 1944,
on the north side of "Orphanage Hill" on the Narva
Front, the Flemish NCO Remi
Schyrnen singlehandedly knocked out more
than a dozen enemy tanks while wounded and cutoff from his unit. In a 48
hour period he turned back -- all by himself -- several Soviet tank attacks
that would have encircled the Flemish and Estonian volunteer battalions
fighting nearby. He even scored a lucky "double kill" when one shot from his
anti-tank gun penetrated through two tanks advancing side-by-side.
Incredibly, in January 1944, Schyrnen had pulled
off a similar feat to save the "Langemarck"
Brigade near Zhitomir.
Schyrnen was awarded the Knight's Cross.
* * *
Strong Soviet
tank forces were attacking along the road south of
Dorpat in eastern Estonia in August 1944 with the intention of
severing the entire Estonian Front. The only things blocking their way were
three anti-tank guns from the "Wallonien"
Division under the direct command of the Walloon Lieutenant Leon Gillis.
Gillis positioned his guns directly in the road and flung back attack after
attack. In furious fighting that raged all day, the anti-tank guns were
destroyed and most of the Walloons wounded. The whole front hinged on
Gillis' next move. He chose to attack. The Walloon volunteers knocked out
three more tanks with hand grenades and drove back the rest. The enemy was
unable to advance. Leon Gillis was awarded the Knight's Cross.
* * *
In February
1945, the communists were closing in on the military training camp at
Neuhammer in Silesia. The Hungarian Captain,
Georg Hermandy in
command of the emergency battalion of the 26th SS Division "Hungaria"
led his unit in a valiant counterattack to prevent a breakthrough. Even
after being badly wounded, Hermandy insisted
upon staying in the front lines and directed a successful defensive battle
that saved the Neuhammer sector. After the
fighting, the Wehrmacht Colonel in charge
of the area visited the Hungarian SS positions, took off his own Knight's
Cross and draped it around the neck of Hermandy.
Waffen-Haupsturmführer George
Hermandy was subsequently killed on 23 March
1945 leading his men in yet another counterattack.
* * *
The last bridgehead on the
east bank of the
Oder
River in March 1945 was held by the 1. Battalion/SS Regiment Division "Wallonien,"
led by the Walloon Major Henri Derriks.
Derriks, or "Der
Boss" as he was known to his men, deployed his two tanks and his companies
of infantrymen with cool decisiveness, enabling the last German soldiers and
refugees to make their way to safety. Finally, with the communists closing
in from three sides, Derriks calmly pulled back
his forces step-by-step and got them safely across the river, destroying the
last bridge behind them. It was nothing new for "Der
Boss," he had earlier commanded the last group of "Wallonien"
soldiers to fight their way out of the Cherkassy
encirclement in south Ukraine. Later, Derriks
led the last assault of the "Wallonien" Division
on the Eastern Front. Among his many decorations for bravery,
Sturmbannführer Henri Derricks
received the German Cross in Gold.
* * *
And there were
many, many more European heroes, most of whom
would not have their deeds recorded at all but would instead find a final
resting place in an unmarked grave somewhere in the "East." We cannot begin
to do justice to them in this paper, but we can hopefully, lift part of the
veil that has hidden their exploits for so long a time.
The Reckoning
We are now at the point where
it can be asked, what does this discussion of the European Volunteer
Movement prove? I think that it has at least validated the following
statement by Beadle and Hartmann in their book, The
Waffen-SS: Its Divisional Insignia:
By 1945, the
Waffen-SS had proved by its combat success
that European people could exist together, but as long as they recognized
and accepted the national differences between one another. It had been in
the Waffen-SS that, for the first time, Dutch
had been commanded by Germans and Germans by Belgians. It was this
idealism, dearly bought on the roads of Russia and later in its slave
labor camps, that created an outstanding spirit
of comradeship and combatant ability among all members, regardless of
nationality or rank.
Beadle and
Hartmann also made one other trenchant statement that I hope is born out in
this essay:
The
greatest triumph of the Waffen-SS though, was
not on the field of battle. It was in its policy of recruiting non-German
volunteers, not as hired mercenaries, but as
co-fighters for a European ideal.
After a
generation of slander, vilification and falsehood concerning the European
volunteers, the first rays of light are beginning to shine through. Slowly,
but surely, their story is being told. As for the soldiers themselves, many
are of the belief that they were ahead of their time, both militarily and
philosophically, and that their legacy is yet to be fulfilled.
For myself, perhaps the most incisive observation was made by the former
Waffen-SS Colonel
Jochen Peiper in a
letter to his comrades while he was being held in American confinement under
sentence of death:
Don't forget that it was in the ranks of the SS that the first European
died ...
Bibliography
Beadle, C. and Hartmann, T., The
Waffen-SS, Its Divisional Insignia, Key
Publications, 1971.
Bender, R. and Taylor, H.P., Uniforms, Organization and History of
the Waffen-SS, Bender Publishing, 4
Volumes, 1969-75.
Buss, P. and Mollo, A.,
Hitler's Germanic Legions, Macdonalds
and Janes, 1978.
Cerff, Karl, Die
Waffen-SS im
Wehrmachtbericht, Munin
Verlag, 1971.
Degrelle,
Leon, Die verlorene Legion,
Verlag K.W. Schuetz,
new printing, 1972.
De la Maziere, Christian, The Captive
Dreamer, Saturday Review Press,1974.
Haaest, Erik,
Frontsvin, Frostknuder,
Forraedere, Bogans
Forlag, 3 Volumes, 1975.
Hausser, Paul,
Soldaten wie
andere auch,
Munin Verlag,
1966.
Hausser, Paul,
Waffen-SS im
Einsatz, Verlag
K.W. Schuetz, 9th printing, 1976.
Heike, Wolf-Dietrich, Sie
wollten die Freiheit,
Podzun Verlag,
new printing, 1978.
Historia #32:
L'Internationale SS, Paris, 1973.
Huxley-Blythe, Peter, The East Came West,
Caxton Press, 2nd printing, 1968.
Kern, Erich, The Dance of Death,
Collins, 1951.
Littlejohn, David, The Patriotic
Traitors, Doubleday, 1972.
Littlejohn, David, Foreign Legions of the Third Reich Volume One,
Bender Publishing, 1979.
Landemar, Henri, Les
Waffen-SS, Balliard, 1972.
Mabire,
Jean,
Berlin
im Todeskampf
1945,
Verlag K.W. Schuetz,
1977.
Reider,
Frederic, La Waffen-SS,
Pensee Moderne,
1975.
Schneider, Jost W., Their Honor Was
Loyalty, Bender Publishing, 1978.
Stein, George, The
Waffen-SS: Hitler's Elite Guard at War,
Cornell University Press, 1966.
Steiner, Felix, Die Armee
der Geächteten,
Verlag K.W. Schuetz,
4th printing, 1971.
Steiner, Felix, Die Freiwilligen,
Verlag K.W. Schuetz,
5th printing 1973.
Strassner, Peter,
Europäische
Freiwillige: Die 5.
Panzer-Division Wiking,
Munin-Verlag, 1968.
Taylor, H.P.,
Germanische SS, 1940-45,
Historical Research Unit/ Uniforms of the SS series, 1969.
Tieke,
Wilhelm, Das
Finnische Freiwilligen
Bataillon der
Waffen-SS,
Munin-Verlag, 1979.
Tieke,
Wilhelm, Im
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Munin-Verlag, 1971.
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Tragödie um die Treue,
Munin-Verlag, 3rd printing, 1978.
Wenn alle
Brüder schweigen,
Munin-Verlag, 1973 & 1975 editions.
Periodicals
Berkenkruis,
Birch Cross/Belgium: Publication of the Flemish
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|
INDIAN
NATIONAL ARMY
 |
|
Legionnaires were recruited from German POW camps |
|
Subhas Chandra Bose, the controversial
Indian nationalist leader, arrived in
Germany in March, 1941. In Berlin he
formed the nucleus of an Indian legion from Indian prisoners of war
captured in North Africa and now in German hands. Within months
recruits numbered some 3,500 men whose sole aim was the liberation of
India from British imperialist rule. After the fall of Singapore on
February 15, 1942, Bose and his Indian National Army, as it was now
called, declared war on Britain. As the military situation in Europe
began to deteriorate, Bose now sought help from the Japanese and in
June, 1943, he made his way to Japan by submarine and from a Tokyo
radio station he appealed to India for an uprising to oust the
British. In doing so was able to enlist thousands more to the cause
from British Indian troops held prisoner by Japan. The Japanese Army
promised all-out support and together they fought in the disastrous
campaign in Burma, the INA casualties being over fifty percent. With
the re-occupation of Burma by the British, the surviving members of
the INA once again became prisoners of war, this time of the British.
As events
turned out, Bose’s dream of his victorious march to Delhi at the head
of his Indian National Army never materialised. Subhas Chandra Bose
was killed in an air crash in Formosa (Taiwan) when the plane carrying
him to Tokyo crashed on take-off from the small Taioku airfield at
Taipai on August 18, 1945. He was 48 years old.
It is acknowledged today by historians
that Bose did more for the liberation of India than did any other
national leader, including Gandhi.
Hitler's secret Indian army
By
Mike Thomson
BBC
News
Thursday, September 23, 2004
In
the closing stages of World War II, as Allied and French
resistance forces were driving Hitler's now demoralized forces
from France, three senior German officers defected.
The
information they gave British intelligence was considered so
sensitive that in 1945 it was locked away, not due to be
released until the year 2021.
Now, 17 years early, the BBC's Document programme has been given
special access to this secret file.
It
reveals how thousands of Indian soldiers who had joined Britain
in the fight against fascism swapped their oaths to the British
king for others to Adolf Hitler - an astonishing tale of
loyalty, despair and betrayal that threatened to rock British
rule in India, known as the Raj.
The
story the German officers told their interrogators began in
Berlin on 3 April 1941. This was the date that the left-wing
Indian revolutionary leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, arrived in the
German capital.
Bose, who had been arrested 11 times by the British in India,
had fled the Raj with one mission in mind. That was to seek
Hitler's help in pushing the British out of India.
Six
months later, with the help of the German foreign ministry, he
had set up what he called "The Free India Centre", from where he
published leaflets, wrote speeches and organised broadcasts in
support of his cause.
By
the end of 1941, Hitler's regime officially recognised his
provisional "Free India Government" in exile, and even agreed to
help Chandra Bose raise an army to fight for his cause. It was
to be called "The Free India Legion".
Bose hoped to raise a force of about 100,000 men which, when
armed and kitted out by the Germans, could be used to invade
British India.
He
decided to raise them by going on recruiting visits to
Prisoner-of-War camps in Germany which, at that time, were home
to tens of thousands of Indian soldiers captured by Rommel in
North Africa.
Volunteers
Finally, by August 1942, Bose's recruitment drive got fully into
swing. Mass ceremonies were held in which dozens of Indian POWs
joined in mass oaths of allegiance to Adolf Hitler.
These are the words that were used by men that had formally
sworn an oath to the British king:
"I swear by God this holy oath that I will obey the leader of
the German race and state, Adolf Hitler, as the commander of the
German armed forces in the fight for India, whose leader is
Subhas Chandra Bose."
I
managed to track down one of Bose's former recruits, Lieutenant
Barwant Singh, who can still remember the Indian revolutionary
arriving at his prisoner of war camp.
"He
was introduced to us as a leader from our country who wanted to
talk to us," he said.
"He
wanted 500 volunteers who would be trained in Germany and then
parachuted into India. Everyone raised their hands. Thousands of
us volunteered."
Demoralized
In
all 3,000 Indian prisoners of war signed up for the Free India
Legion.
But
instead of being delighted, Bose was worried. A left-wing
admirer of Russia, he was devastated when Hitler's tanks rolled
across the Soviet border.
Matters were made even worse by the fact that after Stalingrad
it became clear that the now-retreating German army would be in
no position to offer Bose help in driving the British from
faraway India.
When the Indian revolutionary met Hitler in May 1942 his
suspicions were confirmed, and he came to believe that the Nazi
leader was more interested in using his men to win propaganda
victories than military ones.
So,
in February 1943, Bose turned his back on his legionnaires and
slipped secretly away aboard a submarine bound for Japan.
There, with Japanese help, he was to raise a force of 60,000 men
to march on India.
Back in Germany the men he had recruited were left leaderless
and demoralized. After mush dissent and even a mutiny, the
German High Command dispatched them first to Holland and then
south-west France, where they were told to help fortify the
coast for an expected allied landing.
After D-Day, the Free India Legion, which had now been drafted
into Himmler's Waffen SS, were in headlong retreat through
France, along with regular German units.
It
was during this time that they gained a wild and loathsome
reputation amongst the civilian population.
The
former French Resistance fighter, Henri Gendreaux, remembers the
Legion passing through his home town of Ruffec:
"I do remember several cases of rape. A lady and her two
daughters were raped and in another case they even shot dead a
little two-year-old girl."
Finally, instead of driving the British from India, the Free
India Legion were themselves driven from France and then
Germany.
Their German military translator at the time was Private Rudolf
Hartog, who is now 80.
"The last day we were together an armoured tank appeared. I
thought, my goodness, what can I do? I'm finished," he said.
"But he only wanted to collect the Indians. We embraced each
other and cried. You see that was the end."
Mutinies
A
year later the Indian legionnaires were sent back to India,
where all were released after short jail sentences.
But
when the British put three of their senior officers on trial
near Delhi there were mutinies in the army and protests on the
streets.
With the British now aware that the Indian army could no longer
be relied upon by the Raj to do its bidding, independence
followed soon after.
Not
that Subhas Chandra Bose was to see the day he had fought so
hard for. He died in 1945.
Since then little has been heard of Lieutenant Barwant Singh and
his fellow legionnaires.
At
the end of the war the BBC was forbidden from broadcasting their
story and this remarkable saga was locked away in the archives,
until now. Not that Lieutenant Singh has ever forgotten those
dramatic days.
"In
front of my eyes I can see how we all looked, how we would all
sing and how we all talked about what eventually would happen to
us all," he said.
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Fate of Indian War Leader Thrown
Into Doubt By New Report
The Guardian, 5/17/2006
To
the British he was a traitor who joined hands with Hitler. To
Indians he was a patriot who took a heroic stance against
imperialism.
But
the fate of Subhas Chandra Bose, leader of the Indian National
Army which collaborated with the Japanese and Germans against
the British in the Second World War, remains a mystery after a
six-year investigation into his disappearance contradicted the
official version of events.
Bose, known in India as Netaji or respected leader, was presumed
to have died of burns in a plane crash in Taiwan shortly after
the Japanese surrender in August 1945. However a commission led
by Supreme Court Judge M.K. Mukherjee said yesterday Bose did
not die in the crash and his supposed ashes, kept at Renkoji
Temple near Tokyo, were those of a Japanese soldier not those of
the Indian hero.
"The Taiwanese have no records of the cremation of Netaji or his
three companions. These included an important Japanese general
Shidei which would have definitely been recorded," Justice
Mukherjee told the Guardian. "As he would be 108 today, I
have no doubt Bose is dead but he did not die in a plane crash."
The
Mukherjee report instead contends the ashes, which are visited
by modern-day Indian leaders on visits to Tokyo, are those of
Ichiro Okura, a Japanese officer in the Taiwanese puppet army
who died of "heart failure".
All
this, the report concludes, was a "smokescreen" by the Japanese
authorities to ensure "Netaji's safe passage". The Indian
government issued a terse rebuttal saying that it had "examined
the report ... and has not agreed with the findings".
Many in India believe that Justice Mukherjee has finally
unearthed the truth about Bose. "There have been recurrent
accounts of his being seen in the Soviet Union a year after the
end of the war," said Anuj Dhar, author of Back from the Dead,
a recent book about Bose. Mr Dhar said there were claims he
later ended up in Mao's China; another report says the
Vietnamese had files relating to his post-war friendship with
the country's venerated leader Ho Chi Minh. A persistent theme
is that Bose returned to India to live his last days as a holy
man.
"But nobody could investigate while the plane crash theory was
accepted," says Mr Dhar. "We need now to probe further."
Relatives of the Subhas Chandra Bose say that none of the
theories can be easily discounted. Pradip Bose, a nephew of
Indian wartime leader, said there were too many holes in the
accepted version of his death.
"There are documents showing Stalin talking about my uncle and
what to do with him in 1946. His plan was to get to Russia and
regroup there. I still keep an open mind on what actually
happened to him."
Bose remains an iconic figure especially in his home state of
West Bengal.His statue, in military uniform, stands in the
Indian parliament with those of India's two most revered
leaders: Mohandas K. Gandhi, and the country's first prime
minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Part of Bose's legend and enduring mystique stems from his
remarkable wartime escapades. The Cambridge-educated freedom
fighter rejected Gandhi's pacifism in favour of violent
revolution.
Bose escaped from house arrest in Calcutta in 1941 travelling
via Kabul to Berlin where he met Hitler. The Führer advised Bose
to seek help from the advancing Japanese troops in Asia and
offered him passage to Tokyo aboard a German U-boat.
Bose finally arrived in Burma at the head of an 80,000-strong
"Indian national army" and advanced to British India's north
eastern states. He had set up a government-in-exile and inspired
revolts in the British Indian army. A biopic last year showed
him planting the Indian tricolour on Indian soil for the first
time.
Academics have argued that Bose disagreed with the arguments of
racial superiority espoused by Japan and the Nazis. Most paint
Bose as a pragmatist who considered an enemy's enemy a friend.
"He
was a very clever man and a good bloke. I had a lot of time for
him,” Hugh Toye, the former British intelligence officer whose
job it was to track down Bose, told the Guardian. "If we
had caught him he would have been sentenced to death though. I
still think he died in the plane crash."
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