Hitler's Vikings Read online

  A week later, on 8 July the Wiking was hit by a torrential downpour while driving towards the town of Kozmin, and as the roads turned to seas of mud the division’s pace reduced to a crawl. The Soviets took the opportunity to counter-attack and flung themselves at the strung-out unit. The Germania, Westland and Nordland were all pinned down in bitter fighting, while Steiner’s Divisional Headquarters at Toratscha was all but overrun. In constant combat, the division held on and counter-attacked, seeing off the Soviet assaults. The Danish Winter War veteran, Heinrich Husen, became the second ethnic Dane to die at the Front during this fighting as he led a Nordland patrol on 2 August.

  Change of plan

  With Galicia overrun and the Dniester River secured, much to the delight of the Wehrmacht’s Rumanian allies who had now liberated their previously lost lands, von Runstedt planned to swing north and seize Kiev as the Ukraine’s capital and probable centre of Soviet resistance.

  However, it had become clear over the last month to the elderly Prussian officer that in this huge land, with such an under-developed road network, railways were the key to all military movement. Kiev was indeed a rail hub, but it was not as important as the track junction at the city of Uman to the south on the far side of the River Bug. The Soviets confirmed von Runstedt’s view when his opponent, the flamboyant Semyon Budenny, Stalin’s handlebar-moustached crony from the Civil War, concentrated a big chunk of his forces there to defend it.

  So began the first of the huge encirclement battles of 1941. Panzer units streamed south and east, bypassing resistance and searching out space into which they could then drive at full speed. Budenny, a personally brave and previously dashing cavalry commander, was no tactical mastermind. He swiftly lost the initiative and was left grasping at shadows, reacting to German thrusts and unable to fully understand what was happening. But this encirclement was not an easy operation, the panzers could cut off the Red Army formations from their rear and form the ‘sack’, but a mass of infantry was then needed to secure the catch or it would simply slip out of the trap, or even worse, destroy the isolated panzers. The orders went out to von Runstedt’s foot-sore infantry – head for Uman as fast as possible. The Wiking was in the area and, being motorised, was able to react quickly to the situation. The Westland was detached and first sent to Talnoje to help close the pocket itself, while the rest of the division headed east and fought alongside the Luftwaffe’s élite Hermann Goering Regiment around Korsun and Shanderovka. In a twist of fate the Wiking’s volunteers would be fighting in exactly the same place three-and-a-half years later, but in far more dire circumstances, during the battle of the Cherkassy Pocket.

  The Wiking’s regiments successfully held the line against increasingly desperate attacks from the trapped Soviets, and by 10 August it was all over. 107,000 Red Army soldiers marched wearily into captivity. Von Runstedt’s victorious troops also captured 1,000 guns and 300 tanks.

  With the mass of Army Group South (all three Army Groups had now been officially re-titled) now grouped between Uman and the city of Nikolayev on the Black Sea to the south, Hitler took the momentous decision to halt Army Group Centre’s relentless drive on Moscow and instead aim it south at Kiev and Budenny’s remaining forces. After the disaster at Uman all of the Red Army’s southern forces were in disarray, and Hitler reckoned a cataclysm was imminent. The result was the gigantic encirclement battle of Kiev, the largest military victory of all time up to that point. A staggering 665,000 Soviet soldiers were captured, along with 884 tanks – to put that in context the entire population of Estonia was just 900,000 at the time, so winning at Kiev was almost like capturing an entire nation. Following this modern-day Cannae, the SS-Wiking was pushing ever-eastwards across the Ukraine, aiming to cross the great bend of the Dnieper River at the city of Dnepropetrovsk.

  Dnepropetrovsk and the crossing of the Dnieper

  August was slipping away as the men of the Wiking reached the mighty Dnieper. Still full of drive after two months of combat, a surprise thrust took the Nordland and its Scandinavians across the river to form a tenuous bridgehead on the eastern bank. It was a toehold the Red Army was determined to wipe out. A Nordland veteran wrote of the fighting:

  Every morning the Russians rushed the bridgehead and tried to crush it. A weight of artillery fire never before experienced rained down on the defenders’ positions. They fought bitterly, refusing to yield a metre of ground. In these days, the Germans, Danes, Norwegians and Finns grew together into an exemplary combat team. Morning after morning with great bravery, they fought off repeated Russian assaults. They were recognised by their Wehrmacht comrades as the bridgehead’s strong supporting pillar in the uneven battle.

  One of the reasons for the power of the Soviet resistance was that the area was a pre-war training area for the Red Army’s excellent artillery arm, and they knew every inch of it. The result was sheets of deadly accurate high explosive and razor sharp shrapnel. The defenders had even blown up the enormous hydro-electric dam on the river, a showpiece of Stalin’s peacetime central planning, and flooded surrounding low-lying land. As ever, the Soviets were not going to give up easily, but neither was the Wiking. On 6 September the Westland and Germania stormed across the river to reinforce their beleaguered Nordland comrades. Passing through them, they then seized the nearby heights at Kamenka and smashed Red Army resistance. Eight entire Russian divisions were shattered in the fighting, and more than 5,000 Russians surrendered. The bridgehead was now secure and the advance could continue. Von Scholz was awarded the German Cross in Gold for the Nordland’s achievements during the battle, and Felix Steiner wrote an Order of the Day that smacked as much of relief as of victory:

  The division has become a symbol for the firm bonds uniting all the volunteers within its ranks, whether of German, Dutch, Danish, Norwegian or Finnish nationality. Division Wiking is for us all an expression of our unity and common fate, and we are worthy to take our place in the history of German soldiery.

  More than a little flowery, but you get the idea.

  East to the Don

  With the Dnieper breached, it was another leap of almost 300 miles to the Donets and its junction with the Don east of Rostov. Mobility was now all, and on 10 October the Wiking was transferred to the IV Panzer Corps to help lead its surge eastwards. Moving northeast, the weary volunteers advanced along the Melitopol to Stalino railway line towards the town of Wolnowacha to try and cut-off fleeing Red Army units. Nature again played a hand, with torrential rain slowing the advance as it did in early July. This went on for a fortnight as the SS men slogged their way forward through the sheeting rain and vast seas of glutinous mud – the infamous rasputitsa. Engines broke down, vehicles sank up to their axles in the mud and horses’ hearts gave out pulling wagons, but somehow by early November the city of Rostov-on-Don was in sight. The Danes, Norwegians and Finns now found themselves in the ancient land of the Cossacks, the rolling plains of the legendary freebooting steppe warriors. A totem for the Tsars for centuries, the strangely anarchic Cossack communities, living hundreds of miles away from Moscow, had chosen the losing side in the Civil War and been massively persecuted following the White defeat. Since then they had periodically risen in rebellion, the last one being in the spring of 1941 in the Schachty area north of Rostov. The Wehrmacht invasion would split their loyalties again with many joining the Germans, but at this time tens of thousands were also doing their duty in the Red Army. The first time the Nordland came across them the consequences were horrific, as recounted by one veteran:

  I happened quite by chance to look towards the range of hills two to three kilometres north of our position. At first I couldn’t believe my eyes. In the name of heaven what is that? A closed front of horsemen burst out of the hills and stormed towards us. I nudged SS-Untersturmführer Lindner who yelled: ‘Alarm, Cossacks!’ For a few seconds everyone was paralysed. Seconds seemed like an eternity. But then the spell was broken. Untersturmführer Lindner and I each ran to a gun and finally the first shots roa
red out in direct fire. Meanwhile both of the anti-aircraft vehicles’ machine-guns began to hammer. The range decreased – 700, 600, 500 metres. Now all guns were firing. A terrible sight. Horses and riders plunged to the ground, yet the cavalcade continues to storm ceaselessly towards us. By the time they are 100 metres away, the attack has been so decimated that it no longer poses a serious danger. Still some 70–80 Cossacks reach our firing positions swinging their saschkas [Cossack sabres] above their heads. The majority break through and disappear beyond the next hill, the rest have fallen in battle.

  We are still quite numbed when the apparition has passed. Of approximately 600 Cossacks, more than 300 lay dead on the battlefield. Interrogation of the survivors revealed that the Russian commander thought that the troops in front of him were his own. By the time he recognised them as Germans it was too late to turn round, so he decided to try and ride over us.

  The Nordland pushed on, ironically heading for the centre of the last Cossack rebellion at Schachty. By now Barbarossa was coming inexorably to a halt. Every mile the advance went east, meant another mile in the Wehrmacht’s ridiculously long supply lines, while the Soviets’ grew correspondingly shorter. Every bullet, every shell, every gallon of fuel and loaf of bread was now having to travel thousands of miles to reach the Front. Tens of thousands of vehicles had either been destroyed or had broken down and were littering the steppes. Those still going had been mended a dozen times already and were held together by bits of string more often than not. The panzers were in the same condition, with tracks and guns worn thin with use. The horses, which still provided the mainstay of Wehrmacht transport, were in even worse condition with tens of thousands dead (and supplementing the soldiers’ rations) while those that lived were in a pitiable state. All the men had lost weight and their faces were gaunt, eyes sunken. Boots were paper-thin, rifles and machine-guns were worn out with use. The advance was literally exhausted. All along the Eastern Front the temperature gauge was now plummeting, and the troops were also beginning to feel the effects of what would become Russia’s worst winter in a century. While the volunteers were struggling to stay warm, at least the cold had hardened the roads so the Wiking’s vehicles could move again.

  Like a drunk man staggering on and refusing to sleep, the Germans pushed forward into Russia’s never-ending space. The Wiking arrived at yet another river, this time the Mius, which it crossed to reach the road to Astoahowo – another milestone on the way to Schachty. A sudden thaw then turned the roads to mud all over again. Along with the 14th and 16th Panzer Divisions, the Wiking somehow drove on, but all the units were worn down, and the Russians threw in counter-attack after counter-attack at the dangerously overstretched SS and Army men. The volunteers were amazed, how could the Red Army still be resisting after experiencing such catastrophic defeats? Perhaps they would have been wise to read Casanova’s words regarding the Russian Army written during his first visit to Russia in 1764:

  All were struck by the brutality in the Russian army. This rested on an assumption that words have no power to inspire, and that leading by example is impossible; only a beating has the perverse effect of persuading wives, girlfriends, peasants and soldiers that they were truly loved.

  Stalin and his Communist Party had taken this doctrine to an altogether different level, but it was not enough to save the city of Rostov from falling to the Leibstandarte and its Army comrades, along with another 10,000 Red Army prisoners. The Scandinavians of the Nordland had simultaneously headed for Alexandrovka and reached the River Tuslow, it was their last gasp and they could not hold it, they just were not strong enough anymore. With frostbite now adding to the mounting casualty list and the men at the end of their tether, Steiner bowed to the inevitable and led his weary division in retreat back west to the Mius, at Amurosjewka, to dig in for the winter. Some indication of the severity of the fighting the division endured can be read in Artur Phelps’s citation for the German Cross in Gold, awarded for his leadership during the battles around the Mius:

  The Mius River line, spring 1942; a very heavily armed Finnish SS shock troop. The section has two machine-guns, lots of extra ammo and stick grenades tucked into belts. (Olli Wikberg)

  From November 17–20 1941, SS-Oberführer Phleps … conducted the defensive battle of his combat group, reinforced by III./SS-Germania, in Darjewka. He managed to repulse the massive Russian attack. Through the mobile engagement of the weak reserves at his disposal, he held for two days with his regiment against three infantry brigades, one cavalry division and one tank brigade reinforced by a large artillery unit. Under the most difficult conditions he led an orderly withdrawal to Tuslow.

  Phleps was not the only Wiking commander to be commended for his men’s actions during the fighting from 17–20 November. Von Scholz’s Scandinavians had again fought well and the regiment’s conduct was recognised by the award of the coveted Knight’s Cross to the 46-year-old Nordland leader, to accompany the German Cross in Gold won on the Dnieper back in August. His citation, personally written by Felix Steiner, read:

  SS-Oberführer von Scholz again has deeply influenced, through his personal ruthless action, the development of the action in the multiple assignments given to his combat group. In the battles north of Rostov from November 17–20 1941 Battlegroup von Scholz had to cover the flanks of the First Panzer Army in decisive positions and to resist heavy enemy attacks.

  From midday 17 November until the evening of 20 November, five Russian divisions supported by a tank brigade, tried to overrun Battlegroup von Scholz. They had to face these systematically prepared and operatively significant assaults in focal points along a 24 km-wide front, absorbing uninterrupted massive attacks in consecutive waves. The enemy had the constant support of heavy artillery and this increased daily with rocket-firing bombers and low-level attack aircraft. This sole Battlegroup halted massive attacks by forces of the 37th Russian Army Corps, which attempted to destroy the advance towards Rostov by attacking in depth against the flank of First Panzer Army.

  The feat of the Battlegroup of SS-Oberführer von Scholz to resist the attacks of such a hugely superior force for four days would have been unthinkable without the personal intervention of von Scholz. He stayed day and night in the most dangerous positions. On November 18 he led the combat in Dobropolje, with his own weapon in hand, against massive attacks while enemy tanks broke through the infantry positions to his rear.

  He was standing in the front line when his III Battalion met the furious attacks of the Caucasian 99th and 235th Divisions in the village of Tuslow. The tanks could not be stopped and they drove into the village, but the Russian infantry could not overcome the men of SS-Regiment Nordland.

  Through his personal intervention he cleared up every crisis during those days. Every night he could report to the division that in his front all the tank attacks had been thrown back, and all the opposing infantry attacks had been repelled, with the enemy suffering heavy casualties.

  Also on the evening of November 20, in spite of the repeated actions of the rocket launchers and the uninterrupted tank and infantry attacks lasting several days, the Front was restored. The disengagement from the enemy, as per higher orders, could be carried out according to plan and without disturbance from the enemy facing them.

  On November 21 the Division, in an intermediate position, could repel new enemy attacks carried out during the night. He took advantage of the assault on Balabanow, by the Army’s Panzer Regiment 2, to capture 400 prisoners in a surprise thrust that he personally led with weak elements from his Battlegroup.

  Gratifying though it was to have the division’s courage and skill acknowledged, there was no getting away from the fact that this was the first time the SS-Wiking had had to retreat in the war. For the surviving Danes, Norwegians, Swedes and Finns it was a salutary lesson. The war would not be won in 1941, and come 1942 they would have to fight again. Some uncertainty about the future began to creep into the minds of the volunteers as they sat on the Mius in their snow-cove
red bunkers and waited for spring.

  Hundreds of miles north, the Germans were making one last belated lunge at Moscow to try and end the war before the year was out, Operation Typhoon.

  Roll call of the Scandinavian Waffen-SS

  By the launch of Typhoon, some 11% of the total original Barbarossa invasion force had become casualties – that’s 410,000 men with only 217,000 replacements sent forward, and almost a third of the 3,332 panzers that had rolled over the border back in June had been lost. To try and keep the three Army Groups up to strength, a full 21 of the total OKW Strategic Reserve of 24 divisions had already been committed to battle. The onset of a horrendous winter, the bloody failure of Typhoon, and the Red Army’s subsequent counter-offensives, sent the casualty figures soaring towards the one million mark as 1941 ended. The Wiking had shouldered its fair share of those casualties, with hundreds of men buried along the way from Lvov to the Dnieper to the Mius. The division’s Scandinavians, concentrated as they were in the frontline infantry companies, had suffered badly. Of their invasion complement of 932, several hundred were dead, wounded or missing (including the first Swedish fatality – the 17-year-old SS-Sturmmann Hans Linden killed in action on 27 December). The Danes had lost 65 of their original contingent of 216 troopers. It was true that the attack on the Soviet Union had presaged a surge in volunteers back home as young men with anti-communist views had streamed through the doors of the recruitment centres in Oslo and Copenhagen, but most signed up for new national legions and not the Wiking, so overall numbers stayed relatively low. By the end of September there were still only 291 Norwegians, 251 Danes and eight Swedes in the division, almost exactly the same number as six months previously. There were concerns raised about the standard of the new boys and the inadequate training they had received back in Germany. Fritz von Scholz told his divisional staff in December that the 275 Danish and Norwegian replacements he had received had initially created a good impression but were ‘much too soft; and ‘cry like babies’ when compared to the earlier volunteers. He demanded far better basic training and a strict ratio of 2:1 for Germans to non-Germans in the regiment to maintain combat efficiency.