Danish SS units
Danish SS units were part of the Foreign Volunteer Associations of the Waffen SS . During the Second World War , around 6,000 Danes volunteered in the Waffen-SS to fight with the Germans on the Eastern Front against the Soviet Union . This was preceded by the support of the Finns by Danish volunteers in the winter war against the Soviet Union. The first leader of the Danes was Lieutenant Colonel Christian Peter Kryssing . He was followed in February 1942 by the life guard officer Christian Frederik von Schalburg . The Danish officers had temporarily resigned from the Danish military with the approval of the government and were accepted into the Waffen SS with the appropriate rank . Nevertheless, at the end of the war, high sentences were imposed on them for treason (see also: Nazi trials in Denmark ).
Standard Nordland - Division Wiking
Shortly after the German occupation of Denmark on April 9, 1940 , Danish citizens were recruited for the “Nordland” SS standard . In May 1940 about 200 Danes traveled to Klagenfurt in Austria , where a battalion - consisting mainly of Danes and Norwegians - was to be trained. However, some of the Danes believed that they had been recruited under the wrong conditions and were soon traveling home. The rest of the group and those who were gradually added were incorporated into the newly established SS division “Wiking” as the “Nordland” regiment in November 1940 .
In May 1943 two battalions of the regiment - consisting mainly of Danish and Norwegian volunteers - were transferred to the 11th SS Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division "Nordland" . Several hundreds of Danish volunteers fought in the "Wiking" division until the end of the war.
Frikorps Danmark
A few days after the start of the German attack on the Soviet Union , the Danish National Socialists began to promote a purely Danish unit called "Frikorps Danmark" personnel. The artillery officer Christian Peter Kryssing - who was not a National Socialist - had been persuaded to join the Freikorps as commander. The Danish government wanted to avoid that Danish conscripts were forcibly drafted into military service on the Eastern Front due to German demands . It was therefore accepted that volunteers were recruited for service in the "Frikorps Danmark" and that officers and non-commissioned officers temporarily resigned from the Danish army - knowing full well that the resignation occurred with a view to serving in this corps.
On July 19, 1941, the first 800 Danish volunteers left Copenhagen for Hamburg . In the SS barracks in Hamburg-Langenhorn , the Freikorps was formed, the oath of Adolf Hitler was taken and training began. Little by little, new volunteers were added. In September 1941 the corps moved to the Treskau ( Owińska ) barracks at the Warthelager military training area north of Poznan , where the training conditions were better.
In March 1942, Lieutenant Colonel Kryssing, who as an artillery officer had proven to be unsuitable as commander of an infantry battalion, and who had increasingly messed with the National Socialists among the officers, was replaced by the Danish National Socialist former life guard officer SS-Hauptsturmführer Christian Frederik von Schalburg replaced. In May 1942, "Frikorps Danmark" was used in the Demyansk Kettle Battle . Here, under difficult conditions and with significant losses, the corps defended the corridor to the boiler that had just been won. Of the original 1,100 men, 73 fell and 274 were wounded. In addition, many in the swampy area were infected with disease. The commander, von Schalburg, fell on June 2, and a few days later his successor, the German SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans Albert von Lettow-Vorbeck, also fell .
At the beginning of August the Freikorps was withdrawn from the front and went on vacation in Denmark. In the meantime, the mood in the home country had clearly changed in a hostile direction. The volunteer corps was not welcomed and there was serious unrest, especially on arrival in Copenhagen.
After a refreshment period, having returned to the Eastern Front and now led by the Danish SS Hauptsturmführer Knud Børge Martinsen , the Freikorps was subordinated to the 1st SS Infantry Brigade (motorized) and deployed in the area around Newel and Velikije Luki . The Freikorps was located here until the end of March 1943 . Here, too, there was heavy fighting, but with fewer losses than in the previous summer.
On March 24, 1943, "Frikorps Danmark" was detached from the front and relocated to Grafenwoehr in Bavaria by rail . Here the Freikorps was officially dissolved on June 6, 1943, and the volunteers who had committed themselves to the duration of the war were transferred to Regiment 24 “Danmark” in the newly established 11th SS Volunteer Panzer Grenadier Division “Nordland” .
Flag and badge of the Frikorps Danmark
The troop flag of the Frikorps Danmarks consisted of the Danish national flag ( Dannebrog ), to which the words "Frikorps Danmark" were added in white letters in the upper left corner.
At the beginning, the members of the Frikorps Danmark carried the Dannebrog instead of the usual SS victory rune on the left collar tab, which was replaced by a triskele during the stay in Langenhorn. (The replacement company of the Freikorps may have used the national flag a little longer.)
Regiment 24 "Danmark"
The division "Nordland" was the III. (Germanic) SS Panzer Corps under SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner . Of the three battalions of the “Danmark” regiment, only one consisted of Danes, the rest were mostly manned by Romanian “ ethnic Germans ”.
In connection with the Italian surrender on September 3, 1943, the Panzer Corps and with it the "Danmark" regiment was transferred to Croatia during its training period to help disarm Italian units. In addition, they had taken part in the fight against Yugoslav partisans with no small losses .
After three months the corps was transferred to the northern eastern front, where it took part in the defensive battles against the breakout of the Red Army from the Oranienbaum bridgehead in January and February 1944 . In the course of the fighting, the corps was forced to retreat into the Narva area . The battle for the Narwa bridgehead was particularly heavy for the “Danmark” regiment. In the course of the Soviet operation Bagration in June / July 1944, however, the corps had to withdraw further until it was encircled in Courland in January 1945 .
In February 1945 the Panzer Corps was transferred by ship to Pomerania to be deployed in the " Company Sonnenwende ". After the failure of this company, the remains of the III. SS Panzer Corps in the Steiner Army Group , which was to relieve Berlin from the north . Parts of the 11th SS Panzer Grenadier Division "Nordland" with the regiment "Danmark" were deployed in the center of Berlin, and some Danes fought here until the end of the war.
Division Totenkopf
Around 600 Danish nationals - almost all of them belonging to the German minority in North Schleswig - served in the SS Totenkopf Division and its successor units.
Team strength
The exact number of Danes who served in Waffen SS units is unknown. According to estimates, a good 12,000 have registered, of which only half, just under 6,000, were accepted. Of those accepted, around 1400 belonged to the German minority in North Schleswig.
The number of those killed is also unknown. By the end of 1944, 1,165 Danes had fallen or gone missing. The number of casualties in the final months of the war was very high and the total number of Danish dead and missing is therefore estimated at 1750.
Judicial processing
After the war, the volunteers who returned to Denmark were brought to justice and punished for treason with imprisonment from 2 years (men) to 8 years (officers).
The punishment took place after an addendum to the Danish penal code , which was already heavily criticized at the time , and which came into force retroactively from April 9, 1940. (see: National Socialist Trials Denmark).
The courts assumed that the volunteers should have realized that the Danish government was under German pressure to accept SS advertising in Denmark. Service in SS units after August 29, 1943, when the Danish government resigned and the army and fleet were disbanded, the courts saw as an aggravating circumstance.
About 3,300 Danes were fined for service in the Waffen SS. Some managed to evade legal prosecution, some remained in Germany (see: Sören Kam ) and some hundreds who returned from Soviet captivity in the period up to 1956 were not punished as late returners .
literature
- Ditlev Tamm: Retsopgøret efter besættelsen (habilitation thesis), Copenhagen 1986, ISBN 87-574-4260-6 (Danish).
- Claus Bundgård Christensen et al .: Under Hagekors og Dannebrog. Copenhagen 1999, ISBN 978-87-11-11843-6 (Danish).
- Oluf Krabbe: Danske soldater i kamp på Østfronten 1941-1945., Odense 1976 (Danish).
- David Littlejohn: Foreign Legions of the Third Reich. Norway, Denmark, France. Vol. 1, San Jose 1979, ISBN 0-912138-56-4 (English).
- Andreas M. Pedersen: Schalburgkorpset., Odense 2000 ISBN 87-7838-565-2 (Danish).
- Steffen Werther: Danish volunteers in the Waffen SS. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Berlin, Berlin 2004, ISBN 3-86573-036-1 .