Hitler's Vikings Page 19
Given the chance to sign up for another tour of duty in Finland, however, almost every volunteer did so. A number of other ex-DNL men did too, and they were joined by a crop of young volunteers eager to ‘do their bit’. So successful was the recruiting drive, the unit expanded to a battalion strength of more than 450 men and was rechristened the SS-Ski Battalion Norge. Added together with the SS-Police Companies, the net result was to deprive the Nordland of close on a thousand Norwegians.
Where are the panzers?
Back with the Nordland, after manpower, came the all-important issue of the armoured component of the division. The original plan called for near enough a full regiment of panzers, but there were never the men nor the tanks to fulfil this ambition. Without doubt, Speer had revolutionised Germany’s war industries (for example, he had reduced the total assembly time for a typical panzer down from 12 weeks to six days), but even so, supply could never keep up with demand. After all, Germany’s entire armoured might on the eve of Barbarossa of 3,332 panzers had been reduced to 140 serviceable vehicles in just seven months of fighting. The result for the Nordland of the Reich’s inability to provide the necessary hardware was the downgrading of its armoured punch to a solitary battalion, albeit equipped with the extraordinary Panther tank armed with its extreme high velocity 75mm gun and superb protective sloping armour. The separate self-propelled anti-tank and assault-gun battalions could not be equipped either, and were combined into a single unit, further reducing the division’s effectiveness.
Nordland Regiment officers at Staraja-Blismezy on the Donetz River in April 1943. The majority would leave to join the new Nordland Division in Croatia within a month. From left: Hauptsturmführer Bergfeld, Obersturmführer Schlager, Sturmbannführer Hans-Heinrich Lohmann (who would command the Norge’s 3rd Battalion), Obersturmbannführer Wolfgang Joerchel (who would command the Norge Regiment before going on to the Dutch General Seyffardt Regiment), Sturmbannführer Hans Collani (the Finnish SS battalion commander who would die at Narva), Hauptsturmführer Meyer, Obersturmbannführer Albrecht Krügel (who would command the Norge’s 2nd Battalion before being killed leading a counter-attack at the Altdamm bridgehead in 1945), Hauptsturmführer Haupt (half-hidden).
Despite all this, the Nordland still packed a big punch. The division had over 80 panzers, assault guns and tank destroyers, the artillery regiment had 18 self-propelled guns, the anti-aircraft battalion some 20-plus half-track mounted multiple guns, and the reconnaissance battalion more than 20 armoured cars with cannons. Plus the majority of the six battalions of infantry were in armoured half-tracks (about 15–17 per company, many armed with cannons and flamethrowers as well as machine-guns), and every battalion had companies of towed anti-tank guns, infantry cannons and light anti-aircraft guns. Its infantry numbers were low (the total establishment of just over 12,000 compared badly to the Wiking’s pre-Barbarossa strength of 19,377), but the majority of them, be they ex-Rumanian Army volksdeutsche, national Germans or Scandinavians, had been fighting the Soviets for two years or more,. They were battle-hardened veterans armed with the very best military hardware Nazi Germany could produce at that stage of the war. Gone were the days of inadequately trained foreign units equipped with second-rate kit, now the Scandinavians had a plethora of cannon, artillery, heavy mortars, heavy machine-guns, Panthers, assault guns and even the mighty 88mm anti-tank gun. Full strength it may not have been, but it was still a formidable threat, and the Red Army would have to take it seriously.
South to Croatia
Berlin decided that the best place for the new III SS-Germanic Armoured Corps, and its Dutch and Teutonic/Scandinavian units, to form up and prepare for the inferno of combat on the Russian Front, would be the puppet state of Croatia in the former Yugoslavia. There, it was reasoned, the Corps could be married up with its equipment, carry out work-up training and keep a lid on local Partisan activity at the same time. Entraining from Grafenwöhr from 20 August onwards, the Corps arrived in its Sisak assembly area south of Zagreb (called Agram by the Germans) as autumn arrived in the Balkans. Stretched across the Sava, Una and Glina rivers, the troops settled into their billets, began to receive their heavy equipment and were put through their paces under a new divisional commander – none other than their old friend and former Nordland Regimental boss, Fritz von Scholz.
A major blow was dealt to the Corps when the news came through that the Wiking could not be spared from the Eastern Front. It was fighting bitter defensive battles down south on the Donetz in the aftermath of the failed Kursk offensive and the ensuing Soviet counter-offensive. So Steiner’s Corps would be limited for the time being to the Nordland and Nederland. The Wiking was one of seven Waffen-SS panzer grenadier divisions officially re-designated a panzer division at the same time, so along with the establishment of the Nordland, the Waffen-SS now contributed seven of the Wehrmacht’s 30 panzer divisions and six of its 17 panzer grenadier divisions. Both sides, especially in the East, now realised that the keys to success on the ground were tanks, self-propelled artillery and armoured infantry. The race was on to upgrade existing forces; but it was a race the Wehrmacht was losing even as it was shipping the newest of its panzer grenadier divisions down south to the Balkans. As for the Wiking, the truth was that operational imperatives and the ever-worsening military picture meant it would not join the new corps during its lifetime. The two standard bearers of the Scandinavian Waffen-SS would never fight alongside each other.
Training, combat and the Italians
Officially assigned to the Second Panzer Army as part of Army Group F (von Weichs’s Heeresgruppe F – the Wiking had been under his overall command for the 1942 Caucasus offensive), the Nordland began work-up training at platoon and company level, and also took part in local actions against Tito’s increasingly effective Partisan army. This fighting, plus lack of equipment and fuel, prevented the Corps from training at the high level it really required to get itself up to speed. The situation worsened when the Italians surrendered and switched sides in September. The Nordland, like all other Wehrmacht units, was forced to move at great speed to disarm neighbouring Italian Army units and ensure their weapons and positions did not fall into Partisan hands. In a lightning-fast operation, von Scholz’s men surrounded the northern Italian 57th Infantry Division Lombardia, took over its equipment and disbanded the men. Without Italian forces to help, the Germans and their remaining allies were stretched thin and the Partisans stepped up their attacks. The 26-year-old Norwegian Eivind Ingebrigtsen was a victim of the increasing violence, killed in Jablanica on 8 November in a communist attack. More of his comrades were to follow. The fighting, as always in civil and insurgency wars, was brutal and unforgiving.
The Danmark especially was involved in some extremely hard combat around the towns of Petrinya and Hrastovica, in the Glina area, in late November. A glimpse of the intensity of the struggle can be gleaned from a Special Corps Order issued by Felix Steiner himself following one particular action:
SS-Unterscharführer N.O. Christensen [a Danish volunteer], 1st Battalion SS Armoured Grenadier Regiment Danmark, after heavy fighting with superior numbers of the enemy on the 22nd of November 1943, fell into the hands of the Bolsheviks. Before they could search him, he reached into his trouser pockets, in which he had two hand grenades, and set them both off. The explosion shattered SS-Unterscharführer Christensen, the four SS men standing around him, and all the Bolsheviks surrounding him.
SS-Unterscharführer Christensen demonstrated the highest heroic courage and deserves to live on in the ranks of the regiment as an example of the highest bravery, scorn of death, and proper Germanic attitude. In the units of the Germanic Corps, his death will be a symbol of the great Germanic ideal to all young soldiers, a sign of soldierly manliness to inspire emulation and live on in the history of the Corps.
Although it is more than likely that the Partisans would have shot Christensen and his fellow SS men out of hand, it is still incredibly difficult to imagine the level of commitment n
eeded to carry out this last act of self-destruction.
Christensen and Ingebrigtsen were not the Nordland’s only casualties. In the space of just 10 weeks, when the division was meant to be focusing on training and preparing for the cauldron of Russia, two officers and 41 men were killed in action, and a further two officers and 109 men were wounded. One of the dead was the Dane, Viggo Christophersen, whose brother Egon would go on to become a Knight’s Cross winner at Narva. A total of 48 Iron Crosses were awarded to divisional members during their time in the region. Croatia was no picnic for the Nordland.
The SS-Wiking in southern Russia
The Nordland had now become the mainstay of the Scandinavian Waffen-SS, but that did not mean the Wiking was now ‘free’ of its Nordic heritage. Well over 200 Danes, Norwegians, Swedes and Finns (and even one Icelander – Grettir ‘Egidir’ Odiussen) remained in the division along with Dutch, Flemish and Swiss volunteers. For these men 1943 had been a year of desperate defence. They started the year by escaping potential encirclement in the Caucasus and ended the year fending off further Red Army assaults. In between, the division did not take part in the titanic, and ultimately disastrous, Kursk offensive in July, but was subsequently caught up in the huge Red Army counter-punch that followed. With the cream of Nazi Germany’s panzer forces burnt out in the Kursk fighting, élite units like the Wiking were desperately needed to try and stem the tide. (Though ‘burnt out’ may be an exaggeration. For an analysis of the actual panzer losses at Kursk consult Zitadelle by Mark Healy.) From mid-July until just before Christmas, fighting every inch of the way, the Wiking was relentlessly pushed back from the Donets and Mius rivers to the great Dnieper bend. Two accounts from opposite ends of the year recall the intensity of the combat. Firstly the Germania’s Ornulf Bjornstadt:
I returned from leave in Norway to my unit on the Kalmyk steppe in the Ukraine, and it was bitter cold, [February 1943] and difficult for both sides because our weapons were frozen stiff. Our mortars were more or less alright, but our machine-guns were hopeless. Luckily we were well-served with warm clothes but nevertheless there were inevitable casualties from frostbite.
We were no longer in a defensive position, but were urged forward and ordered to attack constantly because of the threat from Popov’s forces [an armoured group comprising four tank corps, two independent armoured brigades, a ski brigade and three rifle divisions] who were trying to drive a wedge between us and some neighbouring Italian and Rumanian troops. When we reached the Donets we dug in at a point on the river bank with the Russians on the other side directly opposite us, but theirs was a partly-wooded area and we couldn’t see them properly. We sent out recce patrols, but the Germans weren’t natural hunters and seemed incapable of moving silently. We did take prisoners though, among them were four Tartar renegades who said they would be willing to work for us and so we set them to digging trenches. They shared the same bunker as an Army artillery group whose loaded machine-pistols were hung on a post. Overnight the Tartars seized the weapons and slaughtered everyone in the bunker. Then they melted back to the Russian lines. We were forbidden to have any more prisoners in the frontline after that.
We had to deal with a command post and billets in a nearby village, but as we advanced we were puzzled by what we thought was a half-hearted Russian defence. Their troops seemed content to hit us with a bit of light artillery but nothing else. When we got within attack distance – some 100–200 metres – we found out why. Around a dozen tanks came roaring out to hit 2nd Company on our left. Our comrades had no chance, the tanks simply drove over them and they were crushed to death. My company only survived because we happened to be in a hollow on the right. Soon though our 88s were in position and got many of those tanks through their turrets.
We peeled away from the tanks and made to attack an enemy machine-gun post, firing all the way from a small dry culvert before capturing it. I have two abiding memories of that fight. One was the sight of a junior officer of ours running like hell and shooting at the same time. Then he got a bullet through the head. He spun round 180 degrees before he fell, but he didn’t stop firing until he hit the ground. Then there was the gigantic haystack in our path. There would have been nothing unusual in it if the haystack hadn’t started to move, and from it emerged a T-34. The tank drew level with the village cemetery and it was from there that a young SS-Obersturmführer appeared, suddenly rushing forward and slapping a magnetic mine on it. A bit later I was crouching in a culvert with my mortar in position behind me and through my binoculars I could see the enemy bunched ahead. They made a fine target, particularly one cannon I had my eye on. I was just about to line up on the cannon when there were a number of loud ‘pings’ by the side of me and, thinking they were Russian, I rolled over to get out of the way as fast as I could. Then I saw the muzzle of this 75mm anti-tank gun, but not before I took the full force of the muzzle blast on my cheek. The gunner had concentrated solely on the target and hadn’t seen me. I was angry because he had shot up the gun I wanted and also because I was stone deaf for a long time after that.
Next we could see the Russians retreating at speed up the slope of a hill, so we moved into the now-abandoned village and had a brief rest. Then one of our SS-Obersturmführer’s appeared asking to see me. After congratulating me warmly he told me that I had been granted a place on a special officers training course at Bad Tölz. But I told him that I had had enough, having originally volunteered for one year and having stayed on for two and a half. He protested that I would be leaving some good comrades behind and maybe we could discuss the whole thing over a bottle of cognac. When we finished the bottle, he gave me a broad grin and, confessing his joke, produced a sheaf of documents from his pocket. They were my discharge papers.
As soon as I was able, I made the difficult journey home via Germany and on to Norway, but not before I learnt that we had helped to stop General Popov’s advance.
Bjornstadt was right about Popov, not only was he stopped but his entire force, including 251 tanks and 198 guns, was destroyed in Erich von Manstein’s masterly operation that saved the southern wing of the Ostheer, and became known as ‘the miracle on the Donets’. It was the end of the road for Bjornstadt, but not for Jan Munk, who was still with the division in November:
Our positions were still in the Dnieper area but were rather exposed. There were lots of bushes and undergrowth, but only a few trees. The Russians tried several attacks in what was, for them, very favourable terrain, but we managed to stop them every time. During their night attacks for example it was almost impossible for them to move without making a noise, so we had no problems in that respect.
On 2nd November 1943, we knew something was up because we heard the enemy singing and making a lot of noise. In other words they had had their ration of vodka to boost their courage prior to an attack. Sure enough, at about 1800hrs we received information that an attack was imminent. At that time I commanded a squad, and I sent them all out of the bunker we were in to take their positions in the trenches. They all went except for one, a Rumanian volksdeutsche, who told me that someone had taken his steel helmet and the one left behind was too small for him. He wanted to stay behind and guard the bunker. I told him what I thought of that and gave him my own helmet. It fitted. I went out wearing my camouflaged field cap. Then I joined my number two on the machine-gun.
The attack came, a bit fiercer than usual, but we managed to beat it off again. As always, that was the time when our own artillery started shelling, in front of the retreating enemy, catching them in between our shells and machine-gun fire. This time the barrage was very close by. I heard one gun in particular, the rounds from which landed short and to our left, then the next one was again to our left but nearer still. The one following was a bull’s-eye. It landed right in front of us and destroyed our machine-gun. We had been a split-second too late in taking cover. It felt as if an enormous weight had pushed me down violently. My number two started to splutter that the bastards had blown his nose off. It
wasn’t quite that bad though. A tiny splinter had pierced his nose from one side right through to the other, and he was bleeding like a stuck-pig. We decided to go back to the bunker so that I could bandage him properly. To my surprise I found that I couldn’t move. I thought I had merely cut off the blood supply to my legs by squatting on my haunches. When the next shell came I was pushed, or so I thought, through the trench so fast that I could not keep upright, and I scraped my face on the ground. I shouted to my comrade not to be so bloody stupid and to calm down. He helped me to the bunker. Once inside, however, he told me that he hadn’t touched me, let alone pushed me. It dawned on me that something wasn’t quite right. My legs were still useless, so I undid my belt and the lower buttons of my tunic and felt along my back, but found nothing. I loosened my trousers and inspected that area too, still nothing. I dressed again and went back to bandaging my friend. We both had a smoke and then I began to feel hot and sweaty. I took my cap off and blood poured down over my face. With my fingers I could feel where the blood was coming from, a small cut right on the top of my head. Now I knew why my legs wouldn’t work. After a while I was carried through the trenches to an area where it was wide enough to use a stretcher. I was then brought to a collection point to wait for proper transport. Quite a few men were there, some on stretchers, some badly injured and others not quite so bad.