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  The Scandinavian SS national legions

  As hundreds of Scandinavian Waffen-SS men underwent their baptism of fire with the Wiking in the opening days of Barbarossa, across Europe a wave of pent-up anti-communism swept the Continent. Among the Far-Right parties, and especially their already-radicalised youth wings, the invasion struck a real chord and from Oslo to Brussels to Paris there was a rising clamour to join in. But for Hitler the battle was still just between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, the concept of a ‘European crusade against bolshevism’ had little traction at this stage. This was not the case in the SS. Both Himmler and Berger saw another opportunity to tap into fresh blood. The issue for them was how best to appeal to this cohort of potential volunteers. The European Waffen-SS, as embodied by the Wiking, was not benefiting substantially from the upsurge in enthusiasm, so it was clear another approach was needed.

  The answer in every occupied country, and beyond, was the same – a national legion. It’s not clear who first came up with the ‘legion’ idea, but what does seem clear is that it was not part of a preconceived ‘master plan’, but was totally ad hoc. The evidence seems to point at different collaborationist leaders in different countries more or less simultaneously coming to the same conclusion. Many of these men were well networked anyway through pre-war umbrella organisations, such as the Italian fascist-sponsored CAUR, and these relationships would doubtless have helped ‘spread the word’. Whatever the circumstances, the net result was a rash of new units set up under SS and Army auspices (dependent on their perceived ‘Aryan’ credentials), with the intent of recruiting, training and sending into battle bodies of men representing their native countries.

  The Army was made responsible for the legions from France, Walloon Belgium (Léon Degrelle and his fellows), Anté Pavelic’s Croatia and Franco’s Spain. Berger and the SS got Norway, Denmark, Flemish Belgium and Holland.

  The Norwegian Legion – Den Norske Legion (DNL)

  On the very day that the Norwegians in Wiking were getting their first taste of combat on the new Eastern Front, back in Oslo the Reich’s Commissar, Josef Terboven, announced the formation of Den Norske Legion (DNL – in German Legion Norwegen). Quisling, despite his antipathy for Terboven, publicly supported the new formation and urged Norwegians to join. The initial impression given by the German authorities was that this new formation was not only destined to fight the Communists, but would probably do so in conjunction with the Finns, a very popular cause indeed. Quisling went further. Bjarne Dramstad:

  Quisling proclaimed that this was to be the base of the new Norwegian Army and was going to defend Finland. My brother Rolf thought this was a good idea, he did not join, he had done his share in the Winter War, now it was my turn.

  A recruiting rally was held in Oslo on 4 July with an appearance from the Finnish Consul, and the reaction was immediate. Some 400 of the army’s entire pre-war professional officer corps of 1,500 expressed an interest, along with contingents from the NS’s paramilitary Hird and a new organisation, the Norwegian branch of the SS.

  The Norwegian SS and Jonas Lie

  As elsewhere, in what the Nazis viewed as the racially-acceptable parts of occupied-Europe, Himmler sought to establish a parallel home-grown SS structure to mirror that of Germany. It would then act as the Nazi vanguard in its own land and, come the successful conclusion of the war, would act as the basis for a New European Order – with Himmler presiding over it all of course. In Norway the Reichsführer turned to Jonas Lie, a 42 year-old professional police officer, part-time detective novelist and grandson of a famous Norwegian author, to command the new force. From a well respected Norwegian family, Lie was friendly with Terboven, having previously met him when he was Essen’s Gauleiter (Nazi-appointed local governor), and had then fought against the invading Germans before joining the Waffen-SS and serving in the Balkans with the Leibstandarte as a war correspondent. Having won the Iron Cross 2nd Class during the campaign, Lie then returned to Norway as an SS favourite and was appointed to lead the new 130-strong Norwegian SS – the Norges SS – on 21 May 1941.

  The ex-Leibstandarte war correspondent and Norwegian Minister for Police Jonas Lie (left), and the head of the entire SS machine, the Reichsführer-SS Heinrich Himmler. (Erik Wiborg)

  The DNL recruiting office in Oslo. (Erik Wiborg)

  Early recruiting poster for the Norwegian DNL; the uniform is Norwegian Army and there is no reference either to the Germans or the Waffen-SS. (Erik Wiborg)

  One of the leading Norwegian volunteers, Olaf Lindvig, in his NS political uniform before he joined the DNL. (James Macleod)

  Joint membership of the NS and the Norwegian SS (rechristened the next year as the Germanic SS Norway – Germanske SS Norge – GSSN) was common, but that did not mean the two organisations got on well, in fact quite the contrary. Never a member of the NS, Lie shared Terboven’s dislike of Quisling, and was determined to undermine him and usurp his authority. A famous story about the antipathy between the two men describes how Lie was called to an initial meeting with Quisling and was kept waiting for a full five hours before being ushered in to see him. On entering his office Lie said: ‘I have come to pay my respects.’ Quisling’s only response was ‘Good.’ Lie then about turned and left.

  Early recruits to the DNL parade in Ulleval Stadium in Oslo in 1941; they are wearing Norwegian Army uniforms and are armed with Norwegian Army-issue rifles. (Erik Wiborg)

  The SS-DNL – recruits and training

  The SS hoped to recruit enough men to form a German-style infantry regiment of three full battalions, each with historic Norse names. The first was to be mainly recruited from the Oslo area and called Viken (its title was meant to be a nod of respect to the Oslo-based Hird Regiment of the same name but ended up just being a little confusing), the second would be Gula and the third Frosta. As it turned out the two latter battalions were never formed through lack of volunteers, but at least initially there was a certain amount of enthusiasm, especially among the Norwegian SS. Led by Lie himself, over a hundred of its members signed up immediately including the former Norwegian army officers Olaf Lindvig and Ragnar Berg. (The latter was also a founding member of the NS and very close to Quisling.) Leading NS luminaries, who were not in the Norwegian SS, signed up too, among them the leader of the NS Youth Front – Bjørn Østring, the Hird’s Chief of Staff – Orvar Saether, and the ex-army officers Charles Westberg and Artur Qvist (Østring was ex-army too of course). Indeed, so many men with command experience signed up that unlike other volunteer units, such as the Flemish SS-Legion Flandern, the DNL was from the start a very Norwegian unit with only a handful of Germans involved as liaison staff. According to Bjørn Østring:

  One of the DNL’s few German liaison officers, Dieter Radbruch. Radbruch was hugely popular with the Norwegians and eventually became a company commander, before being killed in action towards the end of the war. (Erik Wiborg)

  The DNL’s second boss and ex-NS Viken Battalion commander, Jörgen Bakke, (on the left). He lasted just two weeks before resigning in disgust at what he saw as undue German interference. (Erik Wiborg)

  The Norwegian ex-Cavalry officer, Artur Qvist, who brought much-needed stability to the DNL after initial problems over its leadership. (Erik Wiborg)

  Bjørn Østring, a leading member of the Norwegian Nasjonal Samling Party and close friend of its leader, Vidkun Quisling. Østring would go on to serve with distinction on the Russian Front before returning home when the DNL was disbanded. (Bjørn Østring)

  Our officers and NCOs were all Norwegians, but German advisors were detailed to our units. They had no command authority, but some of them tried to acquire some. Most of them were unpopular with us, the one brilliant exception being Dieter Radbruch, who then became an instructor for the Hird in Norway. He was also a guest at my wedding in Oslo. He later served in the Baltic States and was killed in action there.

  The Legion received its basic training as a unit at Fallingbostel [Lower Saxony]. Those destined
to some sort of technical service received their specialist training in other military establishments. As an officer cadet I got my special training as a pioneer in Celle [now a British Army barrack].

  The DNL parade through Oslo before heading off to Russia. (Erik Wiborg)

  A would-be Norwegian volunteer has his particulars taken down – would he prove to be every inch an Aryan? (Erik Wiborg)

  A Norwegian officer candidate from the DNL at Bad Tölz (he wears the Bad Tölz cuff title alongside his ‘Legion Norwegen’ one) shows it’s not all work and no play as he stands arm-in-arm with a Norwegian Red Cross nurse volunteer sporting typically ‘non-standard issue’ woolly mittens.

  An early DNL volunteer with ‘Legion Norwegen’ cuff title and field cap.

  The DNL’s rosy beginnings were soon brought up short by a series of German decisions that were to dominate its existence for the next two years. Firstly, it soon became clear to the volunteers, all enlisted on a three-month trial basis, that the Legion was to be a formal part of the Waffen-SS and not a Norwegian Army formation as hoped, and so German uniform was to be worn, albeit with a Norwegian flag shoulder shield, cuff title and lion collar tab. But far worse than this in Norwegian eyes was the OKW decision not to ship the Legion north to fight alongside their erstwhile Finnish Army brethren, but instead to place them under German command to fight on the Leningrad front. Bjarne Dramstad remembers the volunteers’ reactions on hearing the news:

  We were transferred to the Front in Ju-52s, and it was just before the planes took off we were told that the destination was Leningrad and not Finland. I remember we were furious, but it was accepted. We were soldiers and soldiers followed orders, but many of us felt betrayed by the Germans.

  To top it all, the Germans thought the war in the East would be over by Christmas, and therefore saw the value of the Legion more in propaganda terms than as a military asset. This meant training was not as thorough as it could have been and equipment was often second-hand from captured stocks rather than first-rate German arms. The result was inevitable; enthusiasm from the volunteers evaporated rapidly, especially among the ex-Norwegian Army officer cohort, and the grand plan for an entire regiment came to nothing. Hundreds of men left as soon as their initial three-month term was up, including their first commander, the Norwegian Army Colonel Finn Hannibal Kjelstrup (his son Sverre though remained). Kjelstrup’s place was taken by the Viken battalion commander, Jørgen Bakke, but within two weeks he too resigned in disgust. Leaderless, poorly-equipped and lacking thorough training, the DNL was in trouble. Exasperated, the SS authorities cast around for a leader able to take the job on, and settled on the ex-Norwegian Army cavalry captain, Arthur Qvist. A tall, taciturn man in early middle-age, Qvist was a pretty unlikely appointee to head the Norwegian contribution to the Waffen-SS ‘crusade in the East’. Like a good many of his conservative fellow-officers Qvist supported the traditional nationalism espoused by Quisling, and the two men were pretty close. Overall though, his politics were more of the old-fashioned patrician variety rather than anything more radical. After the brief reigns of Kjelstrup and Bakke, the Legion now enjoyed a period of stability under Qvist’s command and began to remedy some of its training deficiencies at least. But by early 1942 it was clear that the 1,218 men still in the unit were trained and equipped as second-line infantry – the vanguard of a new European élite they were not.

  But they were ready to be deployed at last, so a full eight months after Terboven announced its formation, the DNL flew out from Fallingbostel in February 1942, headed northeast through the occupied Baltic States and finally took up positions at the front in the concentric trench lines snaking around most of Russia’s second city, Leningrad.

  The Danish Free Corps – Frikorps Danmark

  Back in Denmark a very different scenario was playing out as the Wehrmacht rolled eastwards. The apparatus of the State was still very much intact and so while the idea of Denmark becoming a ‘co-belligerent’ alongside Nazi Germany (as Finland did) was never seriously considered, the Germans were happy to work differently with the Danes than with any other country they occupied. A number of Danes, men like Erik Brörup, were already signing up to join the Waffen-SS, but as everywhere else in Europe the advent of Barbarossa acted like a shot of adrenalin to the system. Naturally enough, the members of the multitudinous Danish neo-Nazi parties were at the forefront, however the Germans were keen that support came not only from Clausen and his compatriots but from the political mainstream as well. A certain amount of diplomatic arm-twisting was employed behind closed doors and in no time at all, at the beginning of July 1941, the sitting Danish government announced the establishment of a national legion to fight in the East – the Frikorps Danmark (Danish Free Corps or Freikorps Danmark in German). The unit was entitled ‘Free’ rather than a Legion as the Germans were still projecting an image of Denmark as a sovereign state rather than an occupied country.

  Danish citizens, including serving soldiers, were allowed to enlist and keep their state pension rights and Royal Danish Army seniority if applicable. The result was an initial draft of 480 men, many still in Danish Army uniforms. A few Swedes also found their way into the Frikorps having travelled south to join up. One such volunteer was Hans-Gösta Pehrsson. Like his fellow Swede, and SS-Westland volunteer Gösta Borg, the short and wiry Pehrsson was a member of Sven-Olov Lindholm’s far-Right Swedish Socialist Union. Pehrsson would, over time, effectively come to lead the Swedish Waffen-SS. Most of the Danish Nazis coming forward had no military experience, so the Germans decided to shuffle the pack and transfer over to the new unit a number of volunteers already in the system, especially those with backgrounds as officers or NCOs. This was not to everyone’s liking. Erik Brörup had already signed on the dotted line and was on his way to Bad Tölz when his orders were changed:

  The Danish SS Knight’s Cross winner Obersturmführer Johannes Hellmers. He won his award while serving with the Dutch Waffen-SS De Ruyter Regiment during the Fourth Battle of Courland.

  When Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, started, all the Danish Nazis wanted to join the glory trail, and they started up the Frikorps Danmark. I had already received my marching orders for Bad Tölz, but at the last minute they were changed and I found myself in the Frikorps Danmark. I didn’t mind that so much, but these Danish Nazis really pissed me off. I have never liked politicians – together with pimps and preachers I thought they were the lowest form of life. Whenever I voted, I went for the party which supported the military, otherwise I had no use for them.

  Brörup’s opinion of the new entrants was shared by a number of the volunteers and led to problems for the Frikorps from the start. Influenced by the Government and the King, a number of conservative Danish Army officers joined the Frikorps; this included well-regarded professional officers and NCOs such as Tage Petersen, Thor Jörgensen, Johannes Hellmers (who would go on to win the German Cross in Gold and the coveted Knight’s Cross as an SS-Obersturmführer in March 1945), and the Frikorp’s first commander – the aristocratic artillery officer Lieutenant-Colonel Christian Peder Kryssing. The tall, moustached Kryssing was no Nazi. Rather, this reserved, reticent man was a deeply conservative Danish nationalist. He had watched the Soviet invasion of Finland with horror, ever mindful of his own country’s military weakness. Close to the Royal Family, he was keen to establish the Frikorps as an official Danish military force and not a Nazi tool. He made a public appeal for support on 5 July, a mere two days after taking up command:

  Men of Denmark, with the approval of the government, I have been placed in command of the Frikorps Danmark. This corps will fight against the bolshevik world enemy who has several times endangered the security of the north and thereby the freedom and way of life of our homeland. Men of Denmark, I call upon you to join the ranks of the Frikorps Danmark so that we may make a combined contribution against bolshevism. For the honour of Denmark, for the liberty of our people and for the future of our native land, we are united in
the brotherhood of arms with those nations that have already entered the fight against the enemy of Europe and consequently of our homeland.

  The Frikorps Danmark’s four commanders: the aristocratic Danish artillery officer Christian Peder Kryssing, the totemic Christian von Schalburg, the exceedingly short-lived Hans Albert von Lettow-Vorbeck, and Knud Börge Martinsen, who would actually command the Frikorps twice. All were Danish bar von Lettow-Vorbeck.

  The Frikorps Danmark commander and ex-Wiking officer, Count Christian Fredrik von Schalburg (left) with his son Alex; von Schalburg is shaking hands with one of his protégés, Sören Kam, who would go on to win the Knight’s Cross.

  Frikorps Danmark grenadiers advance during fighting in Russia, 1942.