Hitler's Vikings Read online

  This meant that by the summer of 1939 the Waffen-SS consisted of a handful of units, with no more than a small percentage of men who were not born within Germany’s existing frontiers. This only changed as a result of a direct clash between Himmler’s mounting ambition for his new force and traditional Wehrmacht manpower policy. From the perspective of the Scandinavians and the other Germanics, what changed was that cherished policeman’s phrase – motive and opportunity.

  Five years after the SA was crushed, Himmler presided over a military arm consisting of four élite regiments –a German regiment was usually of 2–3,000 men, roughly equivalent to a British brigade – of the Leibstandarte, Deutschland, Germania and Der Führer, along with a further four of Totenkopf (Oberbayern, Brandenburg, Thüringen and Ostmark), and another couple of thousand men in various training, depot and administrative roles. Impressive as this was, Himmler was hungry for more. While Hitler was still convinced the Waffen-SS should remain small, his loyal lieutenant was increasingly thinking of huge legions of racially defined supermen. To achieve this Himmler needed far more than the 25–28,000 men he already possessed. Standing in his way was official Wehrmacht policy.

  In 1940 the German Armed Forces High Command (the OberKommando der Wehrmacht – OKW for short) decreed a manpower ratio split of each year’s available draft at 66 per cent for the Army, 25 per cent for the Luftwaffe and just 9 per cent for the Kriegsmarine – Nazi Germany always saw itself as a land-based power. The Waffen-SS had no quota, and even if a recruit expressed the desire to join the black guards he was rarely allowed to, as the Wehrmacht usually just took the recruit’s wish ‘under advisement’. Begrudgingly, to accommodate Hitler’s wishes, a framework was put in place that allowed the Waffen-SS to take in men on a formation by formation basis only. Therefore Himmler could enlist men into the Germania Regiment for instance, but when it was full it was full, and no further volunteers could be put on the books.

  Under such a system the SS-Main Office (SS-Hauptamt responsible for recruitment) forecast that at best they would get two per cent of the available draft in any given year. That was 12,000 men per annum, when the existing units alone needed 3–4,000 men a year just to stay at full strength. At that rate of growth Himmler would need the Reich to last its vaunted ‘Thousand Years’ in order to achieve the size he saw as essential to fulfilling his dream of a Germanic empire.

  Ingenuity, administrative flair and a certain amount of deviousness were required given the situation, and as the Reichsführer-SS pondered his dilemma, the solution came from a 44-year-old ex-gymnastics instructor from Swabia with iron-grey hair and a bristling moustache – SS-Gruppenführer Gottlob Berger. Berger was a fanatic, whose life had been shaped by war. One of four brothers, he was the only one to have survived the horrors of the First World War. Two died in the trenches and the third was executed in the US as a spy. An early convert to Nazism, he joined the SS and rose through the ranks. Not one of Himmler’s favourites, he nevertheless headed up the SS main office. A practically-minded administrator, he had little time for Himmler’s more wild flights of racial fantasy, but regarding existing Waffen-SS recruitment he saw a large-scale solution to the manpower problem. For some time he had been investigating the enlistment potential of what the SS called, ‘similarly-related lands (artverwandten Ländern), such as Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Holland and Flanders, as well as the volksdeutsche communities. Berger had even gone as far as becoming the chairman of both the German-Croatian Society (die Deutsch-Kroatischen Gesellschaft), and the German-Flemish Studies Group (die Deutsch-Flämischen Studiengruppe) in order to build relationships with ethnic German groups and pro-Nazis abroad. So the plan he took to Himmler was a simple one; in essence it was to bypass the OKW rules and recruit from abroad. Himmler was delighted with the idea and backed it wholeheartedly; there would be thousands more like Johann Thorius in the future ranks of the Waffen-SS.

  The Far Right in Scandinavia

  In Italy, back in 1922, the march of the Right had swept Mussolini into power to become Europe’s first fascist dictator, and eleven years later the convulsions emanating from the Great Depression helped propel Hitler’s National Socialists into government in Germany. In the 1930s all four Nordic countries – Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland – were functioning multi-party democracies, and all except Finland were also constitutional monarchies. Politically, Social Democrats of various persuasions formed the mainstream of political life across them all, but they were not immune to the rise of the extreme Right. At first inspired by Italian fascists, and then increasingly by Hitler’s Nazis, a plethora of extremist parties mushroomed all over Scandinavia and the wider Continent. In Norway there were two such parties, in Sweden another two, but in Denmark there were no less than 21 separate Far Right parties. None commanded widespread popular support, or success, at the ballot box, but all were to play a prominent role in the future history of the Scandinavian Waffen-SS.

  Norway and Quisling

  Vidkun Abraham Lauritz Jonsson Quisling was born in 1887 in the small village of Fyresdal in southwest Norway, and into solid respectability as the son of a Lutheran pastor. He would go on to found and lead the largest pro-Nazi party in Norway and achieve immortality, his surname becoming synonymous with treachery and collaboration. His adult life started brightly. He joined the Norwegian Army and attained the highest ever marks achieved by an officer cadet, and he then went on to rise rapidly through the ranks doing various high profile jobs including stints as the Military Attaché in both Leningrad and Helsinki. Asked for by name by the famous Norwegian explorer and then League of Nations European Famine Relief Director, Fridtjof Nansen, Quisling helped save thousands of Ukrainians from starvation in the early 1920s by distributing food aid to the stricken populace. Returning to Norway in triumph, Quisling was next sent to Moscow as Secretary to the Norwegian Legation, where he also represented Great Britain’s interests and earned himself a CBE from His Majesty’s Government for his trouble. Well-known and respected, the 44 year-old Major Quisling was asked in May 1931 by Prime Minister Kolstad to join his Cabinet as Norway’s Defence Minister. Quisling looked destined for the role. A tall, powerful man, he was used to wearing a uniform and being obeyed, and was very much at home in the conservative upper echelons of Norwegian society. A future as a powerful politician beckoned. He then proceeded to make a total pig’s ear of the whole thing. Often haughty and arrogant before, becoming a minister hugely increased Quisling’s feelings of self-importance. Within months he was making enemies of everyone and friends of no-one. He alienated industrial workers and the Socialists by calling them ‘communist lackeys’ (this was based on documentary evidence of Moscow secretly funding the Socialists), while at the same time being incredibly thin-skinned and unable to take any criticism at all. Becoming increasingly rightwing, he was drawn towards Mussolini and, closer to home, the neo-fascist Norwegian Greyshirts under their leader, Terje Ballsrud. After two painful years, Kolstad’s government was voted out, and with it went Quisling with his reputation in tatters.

  The head of the SS (Heinrich Himmler fourth from left with raised right arm) and the Norwegian collaborationist leader Vidkun Quisling (bareheaded to the right of Himmler) at a recruiting rally in Oslo. Despite all the extravagant effort, recruiting among Norwegians was always a hard task and there was never huge popular support for either Quisling’s NS Party or the Norwegian SS. (Erik Wiborg)

  Recruiting rally for the NS and the Waffen-SS at the Oslo hippodrome. (Erik Wiborg)

  Desperate to salvage something from the wreckage of his career, and still insistent on his own brilliance, Quisling formed his own party, National Unity (Nasjonal Samling, the NS) on 17 May 1933, Norway’s National Day. Based on an appeal to nationalist, conservative Norwegians the NS deliberately tried to ape the recent success of the German Nazis by having its own SA-type paramilitary body the Hird (named after the ancient household troops of Viking kings), and even calling Quisling the ‘Leader’ (Fører). A youth wing was also estab
lished, designed partly to emulate the German Hitler Youth. The NS Youth Front (NS Ungdomsfylking – NSUF) would be a major source of future Waffen-SS volunteers and was under the leadership of the young Bjørn Østring.

  Born in Gjøvik in 1917, the young Bjørn went to live with his grandparents after his father died and his mother remarried. There, like many of his friends, he became interested in nationalist politics and the NS. He joined the new party, met Quisling himself and formed an attachment to him that would last his entire adult life. The two men became close friends, and Østring would go on to become one of the leading NS figures. He cut an imposing figure, being of a slim but muscular build and just under six feet tall with dark blond hair and piercing blue eyes. Like many of Quisling’s most fervent supporters, Østring was a serving soldier, carrying out his national service as a private in The King’s Guard Regiment in 1940. He was, and is, strongly nationalist and anti-communist rather than pro-German, and along with many other NS members he would end up fighting against the Germans during their subsequent invasion.

  Bjørn and Bergljot Østring’s wedding in Oslo. Quisling is sitting on the far right. (Erik Wiborg)

  Finnish War veteran and Danish Waffen-SS officer, the aristocratic Christian von Schalburg, surrounded by local peasant women while serving in the Ukraine with the Wiking in 1941.

  Back in 1933 initial support for the NS was small but vociferous, and it was clear that although not possessing a common touch, Quisling did inspire total devotion in his 15,000 or so party members. He drew up a 30-point political programme outlining his plans for an authoritarian government, and took it to the country in the October General Election. After only being in existence for six months, the NS polled a low but respectable 27,847 votes (about 2% of the votes cast), not enough for a seat in parliament. Quisling was at least consoled by knowing he resoundingly beat the only other neo-fascist Norwegian party, the Norwegian National Socialist Workers Party (the Norges Nasjonal-Socialistiske Arbeiderparti – NNSAP). But three years later at the next General Election, after masses of work and propaganda and with high hopes, the NS’s vote actually fell slightly to 26,577 and the party was consigned to electoral obscurity.

  Undeterred, Quisling sought to build alliances abroad, and the NS joined the Italian-sponsored, pan-European Action Committees for Rome Universality (Comitati d’azione per l’Univeralita di Roma – CAUR). Here he met and mingled with other fascist leaders such as France’s Marcel Bucard, the Irish General Eoin O’Duffy and Frits Clausen, leader of Denmark’s own National-Socialist Workers Party (Danmarks National-Socialistiske Arbejder Parti – DNSAP).

  Denmark and Clausen

  Clausen himself was actually born a German citizen in disputed Schleswig-Holstein. He served in the Imperial German Army in World War One, went to Heidelberg University and qualified as a doctor before turning to Danish Far-Right politics. Joining the DNSAP in 1931, he became its leader in 1933, adopting the same title as his Norwegian counterpart, Fører, and founding a Hird-type militia, the Storm Troopers (Storm Afdelinger – SA), as well as a youth wing, the National-Socialist Youth (National-Socialistiske Ungdom – NSU) led by the aristocratic Count Christian Fredrik von Schalburg. The DNSAP and its youth wing were strongest in Clausen’s home province of Schleswig-Holstein, and they would prove fertile ground for future Waffen-SS recruitment. In many ways the polar opposite of his fellow Scandinavian fascist leader, Clausen was a loud-mouthed heavy drinker running to fat; Quisling was a fastidious intellectual who neither drank nor smoked. But Clausen made a far better fist of democracy than Quisling did, increasing his party’s polling from a tiny 757 votes in 1932, to 16,257 in 1935 and a very respectable 31,032 in 1939, a total which gave his party three seats in the Danish parliament. While succeeding in making the DNSAP acceptable to at least a proportion of the electorate, he signally failed to unite all of Denmark’s neo-Nazis under his leadership. Among the almost two dozen fascist parties were large outfits such as Wilfred Petersen’s Danish Socialist Party (Dansk Socialistisk Parti – DSP) and tiny ones like K. Wendelin’s National Cooperation (Nationalt Samvirke). Hosts of groups formed, splintered, disbanded and then reappeared under another guise, many of them with a membership that would fit into a room.

  Sweden and Lindholm

  In its pre-war, neo-Nazi politics, Sweden resembled Denmark more than Norway, with no overarching movement like Quisling’s NS. Instead there were many minor parties that enjoyed moderate, small-scale, electoral success. The tall, blond ex-Swedish Army Sergeant, Sven-Olov Lindholm, was the most influential neo-fascist leader in the country, first establishing the Swedish Fascist People’s Party (Sveriges Fascistiska Folkparti – SFF) with Konrad Hallgren, before moving on to form his own movement, the Swedish Socialist Union (Svensk Socialistisk Samling – SSS) in 1938. Membership peaked at about 5,000, and the high water mark was the 6% of voters who plumped for Lindholm in the 1932 Gothenburg municipal poll. Thereafter, as with Quisling’s NS, support bumped around at the 2% mark. The SSS party-faithful would prove the mainstay of the Swedish contribution to the Scandinavian Waffen-SS.

  Finland

  The Finns are racially distinct from their Nordic cousins and had been part of the Russian Tsarist Empire for over a century, only achieving independence (with German help) after the collapse of the Romanov dynasty in 1917. Unlike so many other breakaway parts of the former Russian Empire, such as the Ukraine, Georgia, Kazakhstan and so on, the Finns managed to hold on to their freedom after Russia’s Civil War, and by the 1930s were an accepted member of the international community. Finland had emerged from its War of Independence from Russia with a functioning democracy solidly embedded in the mainstream, but as one might expect some quite powerful extremes on both the political Left and Right. The Finnish Communist Party was an active force, supported by Moscow, but banned by the state. At the other end of the scale was the Patriotic People’s Party (the IKL), which, although not neo-Nazi was still in the fascist camp. Much to the chagrin of the Finnish Communists, the IKL was legal, and it held 14 seats out of the 200 in the national parliament giving it a fairly influential voice in the political life of the country. Having said that, the IKL did not become a major recruiting source for the Waffen-SS.

  The Far-Right parties supplied many clues to what a future Scandinavian Waffen-SS would look like, and the biggest clue was about numbers. It was clear that neo-Nazism and fascist ideology was very much a minority interest in Scandinavia.

  The Winter War

  As the storm clouds gathered over the Continent in the 1930s and the international League of Nations faltered, all four Nordic countries sought to remain aloof from the looming conflict. The United States’ President Roosevelt urged them all to come to terms with Nazi Germany to safeguard their freedom, but in the end only Denmark did so, signing a Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler on 31 May 1939. In the end it was not Nazi Germany that struck the first blow but that other brutal dictatorship, Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union.

  The 1917 Bolshevik Revolution was the signal for many of Tsarist Russia’s minorities to break away and claim independence. True to Russian tradition, the revolutionary Communist government that seized power did not accept these erstwhile cries of freedom and set out to crush the infant states and reincorporate them into the new Soviet empire by force. This determination meant the 1920s were to be some of the bloodiest years in Russian history as the Civil War raged and Red armies brutally snuffed out all opposition.

  Finland was one of those nations that reached for its independence in the chaos of 1917. Led by a six-foot-two aristocrat and former Tsarist general, Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, the Finns fought for their freedom and won it. A civil war swiftly followed as home-grown Finnish communists sought to take over the country, but after several horrendous years the fighting finally ended and an independent, democratic Finland began to rebuild. What followed was almost two decades of extraordinary national effort, so by the summer of 1939 the country had somehow managed to repay most of its cripp
ling foreign debt, broken up and redistributed the giant, old landed estates to 300,000 small holding farmers and was preparing to host the 1940 Olympic Games in Helsinki – the stadium was almost finished! Unfortunately, down in the Kremlin the decision had been taken to invade Finland and make it part of the Russian empire once again.

  After the usual propaganda assault, diplomatic strong-arming and political double-dealing so characteristic of both Stalin and Hitler’s approach to foreign affairs, the Red Army’s tanks rolled across the border on 30 November 1939 – the Winter War had begun. Expecting little resistance (and even the support of a pro-Soviet workers uprising) the Red Army drove into Finnish Karelia. Simultaneously more Soviet troops attempted to cut the country in two by invading much farther north along the incredibly long 800-mile border between the two states. What followed has become military legend, a series of events reminiscent of the Spartans at Thermopylae, as the massively outnumbered, poorly-equipped but superbly led and motivated Finnish Army not only stopped the Soviet behemoth, but came within an ace of defeating it outright.