19.Waffen-Grenadierdivision der ϟϟ and the Latvian Forest Brothers

SS man identified by some as Latvian Ādamsons
Latvian Forest Brothers
The man in the left photo is often identified as Waffen-Hauptsturmführer der SS Miervaldis Ādamsons. For various reasons, Stabswache de Euros doubt this is correct. However, Ādamsons, of Latvian origin, had been accepted in the SS on November 10 1941. He ended up fighting for an independent Latvia in the 19.Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS. Another highly combat experienced Latvian volunteer in that same division was the Knight's Cross and CCC in Silver holder Waffen-Obersturmführer der SS Roberts Ancāns. On numerous occasions Ādamsons dressed as a Soviet partizan to infiltrate their lines and brought back priceless information. His company repelled seven attacks by the Soviets in the Kurland or Courland Pocket in a single 24-hour period. For this remarkable defensive success Ādamsons was awarded the Knight's Cross on January 25 1945. He survived the war and entered Soviet captivity in May 1945. Ādamsons was sent to a forced-labor camp in the mines at Murmansk. After a second escape attempt he was executed by the Soviets in Riga on August 23 1946. Awards among others: Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, German Cross in Gold, Close Combat Clasp in Bronze, Infantry Assault Badge in Silver and Wound Badge in Gold. In 1993 Miervaldis Ādamsons was fully exonerated by Latvian supreme court. The photo was taken by former SS-Kriegsberichter Ernst Baumann in 1944, which suggests that the photography actually shows a member of the Wiking division. Credit: Benoit Vienne. Commons: Bundesarchiv. Right image: some of the several tens of thousand Latvians who had worn the uniform of the Waffen-SS continued fighting the Soviets as Forest Brothers in the countryside for years after the war. The conflict between the Soviets and the Forest Brothers lasted over a decade and cost at least 50,000 lives. Photo shows Latvian freedom fighters armed with the Soviet PPSh-41 submachine gun and the German Sturmgewehr 44. The photo was taken in the small town of Ērgļi in Latvia in 1951. Credit: Julius Jääskeläinen. PD.

ϟϟ-Obersturmführer d. R. Karl Nicolussi-Leck's Panther Leap to Kowel

South Tyroler Pz Commander SS-Ostuf. Karl Nicolussi-Leck
Original SS-Division Wiking Cuff Title
The Soviet Red Army threw ten rifle divisions, a tank corps, and two tank brigades into the Battle of Kovel. They were checked in bloody defensive fighting, in which the then SS-Obersturmbannführer Johannes Rudolf Mühlenkamp, Oberst Fromberger and Lieutenant General Heinrich Nickel particularly distinguished themselves. Soon after beginning the attack, the 27-year-old SS-Obersturmführer d.R Karl Nicolussi-Leck, Commander of the 8th Company of SS-Panzer-Regiment 5 Wiking, received a radio message from the besieged commander to halt his attack and withdraw. He ordered his radio operator to ignore the call, and continued the attack. Risking court-martial, Nicolussi-Leck proceeded to fight his way though the Red Army encirclement, destroying several tanks in the process. They rolled over the Russian trenches, crushing gun positions and machine-gun nests, and then German steel helmets appeared before them. They were inside the pocket. It was exactly 07:30 on March 30 1944 when the tanks under Nicolussi-Leck reached the Kowel railway loop and established contact with the German strongpoint. At 08:10 they stopped in front of Wiking Commander SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS Herbert Otto Gille's command post. Out of the initial force of 17 Panthers and a Bergepanther only seven tanks reached the Kowel defenders. Nicolussi-Leck's Panther tank was the first panzer to break the encirclement, for his actions he was awarded the Knight's Cross. After World War II, Nicolussi-Leck like many of his Waffen-SS comrades left Europe for South America, but returned in the early 1950's. He became the founder of the South Tyrolean Center for Education, the University Claudiana and the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bozen. The holder of the Knight's Cross and the German Cross in Gold Karl Nicolussi-Leck died aged 91 on August 30 2008 in Bozen in South Tyrol. Top image: SS-Ostuf. d. R. Karl Nicolussi-Leck’s actions during the liberation of Kowel were judged to be worthy of the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, which is visible in this photo. Private Collection. Bottom image: the 'Wiking' cuff title was introduced in September of 1942. This machine-woven cuff title is in the style known as Bevo-like. Fair use.

5.ϟϟ-Panzerdivision „Wiking“ after Breaking the Kowel Encirclement

5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking west of the Polish city of Kowel
SS-Pz.Gren.Reg. 9 Germania of 5.SS-Pz.Div. Wiking
SS-Panzer-Regiment 5 Wiking and 151.Infanteriedivision
Panzer commander SS-Obersturmführer Karl Nicolussi-Leck of SS-Panzer-Regiment 5 Wiking succeded in making a break through to the encircled town of Kowel on his own initiative and under severe conditions. Nicolussi-Leck's Panthers along with the III.Battalion/SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 9 Germania greatly contributed to the occupying troops holding out. The Soviet Red Army lost 295 tanks in the battle of Kowel. After 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking had established a corridor to the trapped forces, the withdrawal began on April 10 1944. On May 8 1944, SS-Panzer-Regiment 5 was withdrawn from "Fortress Kovel" and moved to Maciejow. Wiking's panzer regiment had become the Wehrmacht General Friedrich Hoßbach's LVI.Panzerkorps fire-brigade. The Soviet offensive Bagration began early on the morning of June 22 1944. Soviet armies with approximately 2,500,000 men were attacking on a 700-kilometer front. According to military historian Karl-Heinz Frieser this huge army was spearheaded by 6,000 tanks and self-propelled guns. At that point none of the men of the Wiking were aware of the catastrophe that was taking place to the north of them. All remained quiet in the Kowel area. Top image: with their mission complete, company commander SS-Hauptsturmführer Hans-Georg Jessen of SS-Panzer-Regiment 5, has time to confer with company commander SS-Hauptsturmführer Friedrich Hannes of 12th Company of Regiment Germania 9. Hans-Georg Jessen was one of the first officers assigned to the Wiking's tank battalion in 1942 and was hand-picked by commander Johannes Mühlenkamp in 1943. He was well know in the division as a steady hand in battle. Photo by SS-Unterscharführer Ernst Baumann of the Germania. Credit: Doug Banks. c. Bundesarchiv. Middle image: SS-Hauptsturmführer Friedrich Hannes place a stick grenade in the tube 76mm of the Russian SU-76M to neutralize it. To the left is the Commander of the 11th Company of the Germania SS-Untersturmführer Gerhard Mahn. Photo by Ernst Baumann. Credit: Ghermán Mihály. c. Bundesarchiv. Bottom image: men of the liberated Wehrmacht Gruppe Ritter of the 151.Infanteriedivision are pictured as they pass by SS-Standartenführer Johannes Mühlenkamp's Panther R02 near Brześć Litewski. Credit: Régis Klimenko. c. Bundesarchiv.

ϟϟ-Standartenführer der Waffen-SS Mühlenkamp

Wiking commanders Johannes Mühlenkamp and Herbert Gille
SS-Standartenführer Mühlenkamp with tankers of SS-Panzer-Regiment 5 Wiking
SS-Obersturmführers Willi Hein and Kurt Schumacher
The 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking's Panzer Commander Johannes Rudolf Mühlenkamp was promoted SS-Standartenführer on April 20 1944. On August the same year, he was given the command of the division. He always led from the front and commanded Wiking until Oct. 1944. Then, Mühlenkamp was promoted Inspector of Waffen-SS Panzer troops in the SS-Führungshauptamt. Mühlenkamp held the Knight's Cross with Oakleaves that reflected not only his achievements but also those of his men. To the European volunteers under his command he was a figurehead who was often to be found standing over his panzer, his face covered in dust, leading them into battle. The Wiking Division had already earned a reputation for combat elan, even winning the grudging respect of the Soviets. The break out of Cherkassy and the battle of Kowel had only furthered that reputation. Johannes Mühlenkamp died aged 76 on Sept. 23 1986 in Bredelem in Niedersachsen. Top image: SS-Standartenführer Johannes Mühlenkamp and SS-Gruppenführer Herbert Otto Gille, both highly-decorated officers, had served in combat since the Polish Campaign of Sept. 1939. Photo taken on April 27 1944 south-west of Kowel by former Waffen-SS war correspondent SS-Unterscharführer Ernst Baumann, staff member of Germania. Middle image from left to right: SS-Sturmbannführer Paul Kümmel, Johannes Mühlenkamp, SS-Obersturmführer Kurt Schumacher, SS-Untersturmführer d. R. Paul Senghas credited with 49 tank kills, and an unidentified SS-Oberscharführer. Photo taken on May 19 1944 at Cholm from an awards ceremony for SS-Panzer-Regiment 5. Bottom image: SS-Obersturmführers Willi Hein and Kurt Schumacher in the summer of 1944 during training in Debica in eastern Poland, at the time the SS-Panzer-Regiment 5 was still undergoing reconstitution following its near-destruction in the Cherkassy Pocket. Both tankers were awarded the Knight's Cross for their actions during the fierce fighting at Cherkassy back in Feb. 1944. Willi Hein was severely wounded in the fighting for Budapest in early Jan. 1945 and spent the rest of the war in hospital at Bad Aussee in Austria. Hein, promoted to SS-Hstuf on Jan. 30 1945, died aged 83 on Oct. 25 2000 in Lauenburg an der Elbe in Schleswig-Holstein. Schumacher who was credited with more than 32 tank kills was KIA aged 22 during a night attack on March 20 1945 in a forest near Stuhlweisenburg in Hungary. Commons: Bundesarchiv.

Belorussian Offensive Operation Bagration: Casualties and losses

Deployments during Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation Bagration
Soviet assault gun SU-152 somewhere in Eastern Europe during Bagration
Bandit-fighting Legion of French Volunteers Against Bolshevism in Belarus
3.SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf in east-central Poland
5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking in east-central Poland
The Belorussian Strategic Offensive Operation Bagration was a massive Soviet attack which cleared German forces from the Belorussian and eastern Poland between June 22 and August 19 1944, consisting of four Soviet army groups totaling over 120 divisions that smashed into a thinly-held German line. More than 2,3 million Soviet troopers went into action against the German Army Group Centre, which boasted a strength of fewer than 800,000 men. The Germans had transferred some units to France to counter the invasion of Normandy two weeks before. At the points of attack, the numerical advantages of the Soviets were overwhelming: the Red Army achieved a ratio of ten to one in tanks and seven to one in aircraft over the Wehrmacht. Bagration was by any measure one of the largest single operations of World War II. According to official Soviet sources Soviet casualties in Operation Bagration were 770,888 including 180,040 killed and missing. According to German historian Karl-Heinz Frieser, Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS units suffered 399,102 overall casualties, including 158,480 captured. The offensive at Estonia claimed another 480,000 Soviet troopers. On June 30 1944, the IV.SS-Panzerkorps consisting of both the 3.SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf and the 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking was placed under the control of former Wiking commander SS-Obergruppenführer Herbert Gille. The corps was one of the few functioning formations on the central section of the Eastern Front. It was placed into the line around Warszawa. As the Red Army approached, the Polish Home Army launched Operation Tempest. During the Warsaw Uprisingthe Soviet Army halted at the Vistula River, unwilling to come to the aid of the Polish resistance. An attempt by the communist controlled 1st Polish Army to relieve the city was unsupported by the Red Army and was thrown back in September with heavy losses. The IV.SS-Panzerkorps itself was not involved in the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising. After holding the line near Warszawa, the corps was pushed back to the area near Modlin, where it saw heavy fighting until December 1944. Top image: Soviet heavy assault gun SU-152 crossing a river in Eastern Europe during Bagration in 1944. Credit: Olga Shirnina. SU stock photo. Second image: during the opening days of Bagration, the French LVF had cut the Moscow-Minsk road in front of Barysaw in Belarus were they fought a successful small-scale delaying action. The French volunteers of the LVF were otherwise known for their indiscipline and low morale and used only in anti-partisan warfare behind the front-line of Army Group Centre, but here amid the chaos at the front, they stood their ground and only retreated after running out of ammunition. The losses on the enemy side were heavy with at least 40 Soviet tanks destroyed. Die Deutsche Wochenschau. Third image: SS-Sturmbannführer Hubert-Erwin Meierdress of the Totenkopf filmed in defensive position during the fierce battles east of Warszawa in August 1944. Credit: Bekors. Die Deutsche Wochenschau. Bottom image: caught on camera in the thick of battle is Wiking Panzergrenadieres in a Sd.Kfz. 251 armoured half-tracks storming an unidentified village between Białystok and Brześć Litewski in July 1944. At this time the Wiking was engaged in counter-attacks against Soviet armored and cavalry forces following their crushing defeat of Army Group Center in Belarus during the Red Army's Bagration summer offensive. Photo by former war correspondent SS-Unterscharführer Ernst Baumann, staff member of Germania. Credit: Wlocho. U.S. NARA.

5.ϟϟ-Panzerdivision „Wiking“ (the Wet Triangle)

5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking
SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 9 Germania
SS-Panzer-Regiment 5 and SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Germania
The key, or so Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler believed, in achieving victory at this late stage of the war, was the use of his elite panzer divisions of the Waffen-SS. Hitler had lost faith in the German Wehrmacht long ago, but he still clung to the belief that his picked Waffen-SS troops would bring victory. This belief was to be shattered in the months to come. During this time the 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking was engaged in counterattacks against Soviet armored and cavalry forces following their rapid advance during the Red Army's Operation Bagration summer offensive. Top image: SS-Panzergrenadiers belonging to SS-Kampfgruppe Mühlenkamp of the Wiking in Eastern Poland in July 1944. As the massed forces of the Red Army steamrollered their way across Poland, the German war machine began to break down. The Waffen-SS and the Wiking continued to fight on even when overrun and abandoned in isolated pockets. Credit: Sylerius. Middle image: Company commander SS-Untersturmführer Gerhard Mahn of SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Germania signals to his Panzergrenadieres in armoured half-tracks while a plume of smoke rises in the background as they are about to mount an attack against the Soviets. Credit: Mike Gepp. Bottom image: Commander of 5.Komapanie of SS-Panzer-Regiment 5 Wiking SS-Obersturmführer Norbert Neven du Mont's Panther Tanks sweeping all before them in the vicinity of Maciejow in Poland in July 1944. Panther n°534 moves ahead into a farmyard while SS-Untersturmführer Gerhard Mahn's Panzergrenadiers keep their heads down in their SPW in case Soviet infantry are encountered. Hanging inside the vehicle to the right of the Grenadier are three essential pieces of field equipment familiar to every German soldier; a Brotbeutel, Essgeschirr and Feldflasche. Neven du Mont was killed in action on July 26 1944. Credit: Authors Douglas E. Nash and Remy Spezzano: Kampfgruppe Mühlenkamp. All photos taken by acclaimed lensman SS-Unterscharführer Ernst Baumann. Commons: Bundesarchiv.

IV.ϟϟ-Panzerkorps (the Wet Triangle)

Fellow officers of SS-Panzer-Regiment 5 Wiking - east of Warszawa
Knight's Cross with Oakleaves holder Erwin Meierdress - east of Warszawa
3.SS-Panzerdivision Totenkopf - east of Warszawa
3.SS-Panzerdivision Totenkopf - east of Warszawa
3.SS-Panzerdivision Totenkopf - east of Warszawa
In June 1944. the 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking's manpower strength was 17,368 officers and men and the 3.SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf's manpower strength was 21,115 officers and men. In August 1944, the Wiking was ordered to Modlin on the Vistula River, east of Warszawa. Paired with the Totenkopf as IV.SS-Panzerkorps and the Fallschirm-Panzer-Division 1 Hermann Göring, the Wiking played an important part in reforming the line and holding the Red Army in Poland and virtually annihilated the Soviet 3rd Tank Corps, which included a division of communist Poles. Fighting was especially fierce in the so-called Wet Triangle, an area bounded by the Narew-Bug and the Vistula. Armoured spearheads of the Soviet 2nd Tank Army had been poised to severe the main road leading from the Narew bridge at Zegrze to Warszawa. A violent clash with elements of five panzer divisions put paid to this Soviet venture. It was thanks to the unbroken will of the Wiking, along with that of the comrades from the Totenkopf, that the enemy's operational intentions were thwarted. The Soviets failed to break through to the northwest and outflank the remnants of both Heeresgruppe Mitte and Heeresgruppe Nord. However, the Battle of Radzymin was the first of several battles that left the Wiking division's infantry regiments in tatters. Attrition was less of an issue for the Red Army, which was able to pump fresh reserves into the Triangle. The battles within the Wet Triangle had reduced Westland's infantry battalions to little more than rifle companies. These losses were compounded by the fact that few veteran Dutchmen or Flemings remained in what had once been a model contingent of Waffen-SS volunteers from the Low Countries. Its ranks largely replaced by Volksdeutsche conscripts and former Luftwaffe ground crew. The advent of the Warsaw Uprising brought the Soviet offensive to a halt, and relative peace fell on the front line. The Wiking and the Totenkopf remained in the Modlin area for the rest of the year. Credit: Sitrep. Top image: Wiking officers in front of the commander of the SS-Panzer-Regiment 5’s 2nd Battalion SS-Obersturmbannführer Otto Paetsch's Panther. The photo is most likely taken in connection with Paetsch's transfer to the 10.SS-Panzer-Division Frundsberg in June 1944. Paetsch is standing in center holding a bouquet of flowers. To the right of him stands SS-Obersturmführer Karl Nicolussi-Leck dressed in shorts and SS-Untersturmführer Dr. Manfred Renz dressed in the black panzer uniform. Nine month later, on March 16 1945, Paetsch was fatally wounded aged 35 in Pommern. Note that Nicolussi-Leck is not wearing the Knight's Cross awarded to him on April 9 1944. Credit: Alif Rafik Khan. FU. Top clip: the Commander of 1./SS-Panzer-Regiment 3 of the Totenkopf SS-Sturmbannführer Hubert-Erwin Meierdress filmed in defensive position east of Warszawa in Aug. 1944. Meierdress had performed many fire brigade missions since the Demyansk Pocket in 1942 but was KIA aged 28 on Jan. 4 1945 during Op. Konrad in Hungary. Bottom clips and screenshot: SS-Panzergrenadiers of the Totenkopf in a counterthrust east of Warszawa in Aug. 1944. Accredited to SS-KB Hermann Grönert. Die Deutsche Wochenschau.

The Brutal Suppression of the Warsaw Uprising (Powstanie Warszawskie)

SS- und Polizeiführer Reinefarth with Cossacks of Oberst Bondarenko in Warszawa 1944
Russian collaborationist Waffen-Sturm-Brigade der SS RONA in Warszawa 1944
Members of the infamous penal unit Dirlewanger in central Warszawa 1944
Members of the ill-fated Armia Krajowa in central Warszawa 1944
Captured German Sd.Kfz.251 by Grupa Bojowa Krybar in central Warszawa 1944
Grupa Konrad of Lieutenant Juliusz Szawdyn in the bombed-out ruins of Warszawa 1944
The Polish government in exile was beating the drum for Soviet recognition of their legitimacy, and their demands grew louder the closer the Soviets got to Warszawa. The Warsaw Uprising began on Aug. 1 1944. The Poles feared that if they failed to take the city the Soviet conquerors would forcibly set up a pro-Soviet communist regime in Poland. The Soviets had reached a point a few kilometers from the Polish positions, but made no further headway. Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had ordered the Red Army to stop on the eastern shore of the Vistula. Because the Polish Armia Krajowa (Home Army) was loyal to the Polish Government-in-Exile and not to the communists from the Soviet-backed Polish Committee of National Liberation, the Soviet Union saw the uprising as an obstacle to a Soviet takeover of Poland. Stalin wanted the insurrection to fail so that the Soviet occupation of Poland would be uncontested. It is estimated that some 150,000-200,000 Polish civilians died during the Warsaw Uprising. The failure of the uprising of 1944 resulted in the Poles being subjected to the Soviet communist yoke for four decades. During the Soviet occupation of Poland thousands of former Armia Krajowa operatives were deported to Gulags and Soviet prisons, while others - including senior commanders like Leopold Okulicki and Emil August Fieldorf - were executed. Credit: James Bjorkman. Top image: SS- und Polizeiführer in Reichsgau Wartheland Heinz Reinefarth in a Don Cossack Papakha among Cossacks of esaul Jakub Bondarenko around ulica Wolska. The former Red Army officer Oberst Bondarenko was the commander of the Kosaken-Regiment 3 composed of both Don and Kuban Cossacks. Cossack units constituted the largest ethnic group among foreigners fighting against the insurgents. During the uprising, units of Reinefarth took part in mass murders in the Wola suburb of Warszawa were tens of thousands civilians and fighters were slaughtered alike without distinction. The main perpetrators of the many atrocities during the uprising were the notorious war criminal SS-Oberführer Oskar Dirlewanger and the Belarus Waffen-Brigadeführer der SS Bronislav Kaminski. Among the volunteer units who participated in the Wola massacre were also the east Muslim Ostmuselmanisches SS-Regiment 1, the Azeri Aserbeidschanisches Feld-Bataillon 111 and the Caucasian Sonderverband Bergmann. After the war, Reinefarth was elected mayor of Westerland and elected to the parliament of Schleswig-Holstein. He died aged 75 on May 7 1979 in his mansion on the island of Sylt. FU. Second image: this photo is supposed to show the Georgian officer Major Yuri Frolov of the Russian Waffen-Sturm-Brigade der SS RONA and Siberian officers of the auxiliary police unit Kosaken-Schutzmannschaft-Bataillon 209. Frolov was killed just north of the Ochota suburb on Aug. 21 1944. The RONA brigade was made up of Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Azerbaijani collaborators. It became involved in committing numerous atrocities and were infamous and disliked even within the Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA). PD. Third image: volunteers and conscripts of the SS-Regiment Dirlewanger seen in a townhouse at ulica Focha 9 on Aug. 8 1944. The Dirlewanger consisted of Russian and Ukrainian volunteers and of convicted German criminals who were not expected by Nazi Germany to survive their service with the unit. It participated in the mass murder of civilians and in other war crimes in German-occupied Eastern Europe and gained a reputation for its brutality. Several Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht commanders attempted to dissolve the unit. According to various scholars the victims of this penal unit numbered about 70,000. Photo by SS-KB Hans Schremmer. c. Bundesarchiv. Fourth image: Polish Captain Cyprian Odorkiewicz and Lieutenant Wacław Jastrzębowski of the Krybar combat group of the AK inspect war trophies including a Wiking cuff title in Okólnik gardens on Aug. 14 1944. Photo by AK photographer Sylwester Braun. After the uprising, Braun was sent to a German displaced persons’ camp but managed to escape near the Dutch border and returned to Warszawa in Jan. 1945 (now under Soviet occupation) to retrieve his hidden negatives. He evaded capture by the Soviets and soon fled to Sweden. Braun died in 1996 in Warszawa. PD. Fifth Image: insurgents of the Krybar with a captured German half-track at ulica Tamka on Aug. 14 1944. The vehicle was later nicknamed Szary Wilk after its commander Cadet Sergeant Adam Dewicz seen here holding a German MP40. Dewicz was KIA on Aug. 23 1944. Photo by Sylwester Braun. Bottom image: insurgents of the Konrad group at ulica Szpitalna in Sept. 1944. Note the ruins of the Prudential skyscraper in the background. Photo by AK documentary filmmaker Antoni Bohdziewicz who died in 1970 in Warszawa. Credit: Mikołaj Kaczmarek. Biuro Informacji i Propagandy (BIP). PD.

ϟϟ-Obersturmführer der Waffen-SS Kam

Danish Kam brothers; Poul, Søren and Erik
SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 9 Germania
SS-Obersturmführer Søren Kam from København in Denmark volunteered with the Waffen-SS in June 1940. He served with SS-Standarte Nordland before Operation Barbarossa. Søren Kam was shot in the lung while serving in SS-Division Wiking during the battles of Dnipropetrovsk in September 1941. After recovering, he attended SS-Junkerschule Bad Tölz in May 1942, from which he graduated in December the same year. SS-Untersturmführer Kam flew into the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket in February 1944 and took part in the bloody breakout. Eight month later, in October 1944 when battalion commander SS-Hauptsturmführer Martin Kruse was wounded near Wieliszew in East-central Poland, Kam took over the command and shattered the enemy's attack in aggressively led counterattacks at Hill 86 and covered the retreat of SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Germania of the elite 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking. Following this action Kam was awarded the Knight's Cross on February 7 1945. The statement mention that he had been wounded in battle several times and for battlefield bravery been awarded the Iron Cross First and Second Classes, Close Combat Clasp Silver, Infantry Assault Badge Silver and the Wound Badge Silver and that he had seen combat in the battles of Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkov, Cherkassy, Kowel and Warszawa. After the end of the war, Kam avoided being extradited to Denmark by becoming a German citizen. SS-Obersturmführer Søren Kam is still alive in 2011 (90 years of age) and regularly attends Waffen-SS veterans meetings. Top image: a formal studio portrait of the Kam brothers while serving in the Waffen-SS. They all fought in the ranks of the Wiking Division. PD. Bottom image: Søren Kam's SS-Regiment Germania counterattacking in Eastern Poland during the Soviet Operation Bagration in 1944. Credit: Julius Jääskeläinen. Commons: Bundesarchiv.

Scandinavian Waffen-SS Front Nurses in the Baltic States

SS-Frontschwester Elsa Stendal
Scandinavian SS Front Sisters






















The Scandinavian SS Front Nurses were deployed in pairs, and those older than 21 years mostly served in Finland, the Baltic States and in the Soviet Union. As the war ended, the front nurses returned home to countries liberated from the German yoke. Many of them were arrested by the home-front. With the exception of Denmark, all other 'germanic' countries sentenced their front nurses to varying degrees of jail-time, fines and loss of civil rights. Left image: Norwegian SS Front Nurse Elsa Stendal; she survived World War II and moved to Paris. Right image: three of the around 350-400 Norwegian women who served as Waffen-SS Nurses. The nurse on the left wears a black leather belt with the standard SS-pattern buckle clasp featuring the motto Meine Ehre heißt Treue, and a machine-embroidered Edelweiss insignia of SS mountain units. Both photos were probably taken by Max Ehlert, a German press photographer who had matured in the Weimar-era movie industry and later joined the Nazi party just after the Nazi take-over. He exercised his well-honed talent as a cinema and fashion photographer, and was capable of producing hard party propaganda and the soft lowbrow kitsch that provided a pleasant distraction from the period's tumultuous events and increasing repression. Credit: Andres Mario Zervigon. Fair use.

Ritterkreuzträgers der 5.ϟϟ-Panzerdivision „Wiking“

MG 34 Gunner on a Sturmgeschütz III Ausf G of 5.SS-Panzerdivision Wiking
Waffen-SS Volunteers (DF) wearing various camo smocks of the SS
SS-Sturmbannführer Franz Hack, Commander of III./SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt. Germania
A few short words about two of the 54 Knight's Cross Holders of 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking, a figure surpassed only by 69 for the Das Reich. The bottom photo shows battalion commander of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Germania 9 SS-Sturmbannführer Franz Hack receiving first aid in east-central Poland on April 17 1944. Hack was wounded by hand grenade splinters in the face and right hand while personally participating in the fighting in the forward line with his own Sturmgewehr 44 and hand grenades. Hiprudent leadership and personal daring was of great importance for the relief of ‘Fortress’ KovelOut of the millions who fought for the German Reich in World War II, only 98 received both the Knight's Cross and the Close-Combat Clasp in Gold. Hack was one of them. He was the first person whose awarding of the Oakleaves did not occur with a number. The award was made by SS-Obergruppenführer Herbert Gille and SS-Oberführer Karl Ullrich in April 1945. According the countings it would have been the 844th award. Franz Hack wrote in the preface to the classic photo album Panzergrenadiere Der Panzerdivision Wiking im BildVolunteers of almost every European nation, fought in the companies of the regiment, and – here it shall not be forgotten – as loyal comrades in arms, they thereby gave for the first time practical embodiment to the European ideal. The brave men of Wiking need no additional glorification. Franz Hack ended the war as an SS-Obersturmbannführer and died aged 82 on June 9 1997 in Schleswig-Holstein. SourceThe Face of Courage. Former SS-Sturmbannführer Eberhard Heder is born on June 30 1918 in Neustettin in Pommern. He joined the SS-Pionier-Bataillon in Dresden in 1937 and took part in the Anschluß of Austria and the annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938. Heder was later selected to become an officer and posted to the SS-Junkerschule in Braunschweig in 1939. He served with the Wiking Division in Operation Barbarossa and was awarded the German Cross in Gold when in command of the Estonian SS-Freiwilligen-Panzer-Grenadier-Bataillon Narwa after the breakout through the Korsun-Cherkassy pocketHe was then given command of the SS-Pionier-Bataillon 5 Wiking and was awarded the Knight's Cross in Nov. 1944 for his actions in the fighting for Warszawa. Due to his effort, the breakthrough of the Soviets to the Vistula was to be prevented. Heder who is also a recipient of the Close Combat Clasp in Silver joined the West German Bundeswehr in 1955, where he finally reached the rank of Oberst. Eberhard Heder is still alive as of 2017 at age 99. Top photo by SS-Kriegsberichter Alois Jarolim, bottom by SS-Unterscharführer Ernst Baumann. Credit: Karl Mensburg. c. Bundesarchiv.

6.ϟϟ-Panzerarmee: Operation Frühlingserwachen (Spring Awakening)

Commander of the 6th Panzer Army SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer Sepp Dietrich
Wehrmacht troops during the offensives in Hungary
Die Deutsche Wochenschau
On March 6 1945, after the fall of Budapest, the remainder of SS-Oberstgruppenführer Josef Sepp Dietrich's 6.SS-Panzerarmee (I.SS and II.SS-Panzerkorps), launched one of the final German offensives of World War II, the Operation Spring Awakening around Lake Balaton in Hungary. A last desperate attempt in terrible conditions to halt the Soviet advance into Europe. The operation involved many German Wehrmacht units withdrawn from the failed Ardennes Offensive on the Western Front, including the 6th Panzer Army and its subordinate Waffen-SS divisions. After the failure of the offensive, the I.SS and the II.SS-Panzerkorps was involved in defensive battles alongside SS-Obergruppenführer Herbert Gille's IV.SS-Panzerkorps, consisted of 3.SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf and 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking, executing a fighting withdrawal towards Wien in Austria. The I.SS-Panzerkorps consisted of 1.SS-Panzer-Division Leibstandarte SS, 12.SS-Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend and schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 501. The II.SS-Panzerkorps consisted of 2.SS-Panzer-Division Das Reich and 9.SS-Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen. Top image: Waffen-SS General Sepp Dietrich in early 1945. In the background, Knight's Cross holder SS-Hauptsturmführer and adjutant of the I.SS-Panzerkorps Hermann Weiser. Dietrich is quoted to have said: We call ourselves the "6th Panzer Army", because we've only got 6 Panzers left. Photo by Kriegsberichter Roeder. Commons: Bundesarchiv. Bottom clips: shots from Die Deutsche Wochenschau: German troops aboard a Sd.Kfz. 250 during the German offensives in Hungary in 1945. A variety of weapons are seen in the film including a Karabiner 98, an MP40 submachine gun and a Sturmgewehr 44. The StG 44 used the lower-powered Kurz cartridge which allowed a fully automatic fire capability within a lightweight weapon. The StG 44 fulfilled its role effectively on the front line but it came too late to have much effect on the war. Making use of steel pressings in its manufacture the StG 44 was a highly influential rifle, much copied after World War II in such designs as the Soviet AK-47 and the U.S. M16 and its variants. FU.

IV.ϟϟ-Panzerkorps executed a fighting withdrawal into Austria

Waffen-SS Panzergrenadiers of IV.SS-Pz.Korps in Hungary
Soviet soldiers of the 3rd Ukrainian Front in Austria
Platoon commander Alfred Großrock of SS-Panzer-Regiment 5 ‘Wiking’
On March 24 1945, a Soviet offensive tore a gap between SS-Obergruppenführer Herbert Gille's elite IV.SS-Panzerkorps and the neighboring Hungarian Third Army. The panzer corps was born in battle and had spent the last 10 month of the war in combat. It was renowned for its tenacity, high morale, and, above all, its lethality, whether conducting a hard-hitting counterattack or a stubborn defense in situations where its divisions were hopelessly outnumbered. By this time the 3.SS-Panzer-Division Totenkopf, together with 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking, was fighting increasingly defensive operations and had to be mobile to fill the breeches. The Soviet encirclement of the corps was almost complete. The highly capable Austrian SS-Oberführer Sylvester Stadler's 9.SS-Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen played a decisive role in the successful breakthrough. It held open a route which could be used to withdraw. The Hohenstaufen bled itself white holding the corridor open while the corps escaped the encirclement by executing a fighting withdrawal, even though some elements were forced to surrender to the Soviets in Czechoslovakia. Remnants of the Totenkopf and Wiking then retreated towards Wien, where they, alongside the I.SS and II.SS-Panzerkorps, fought to the bitter end to defend the Austrian capital until mid-April 1945. The exhausted survivors of the Totenkopf then marched westwards to the demarcation line between the Soviets and the Americans. Only after U.S. troops had refused to accept them, they forced themselves into the American zone and surrendered to American forces on May 9 1945, only to be handed over forthwith to the Soviets north of Linz. The Wiking continued their march to Mauterndorf, where the first American advance guards were encountered the night of May 8-9 1945. What was left of the division surrendered to American forces near Fürstenfeld on May 9 1945. Top image: SS-Panzergrenadiers of IV.SS-Panzerkorps engage in conversation during a break in late-war Hungary 1945. Credit: Karl Mensburg. FU. Middle image: Soviets of the 3rd Ukrainian Front under the cover of an American lend-lease M3 Scout Car in Wien in April 1945. Note the German Schützenpanzer Sd.Kfz.251 in the right foreground. Photo by Jewish Russian war photographer Olga Lander. Credit: Olga Shirnina. SU stock photo. PD. Bottom image: Knight's Cross holder SS-Obersturmführer Alfred Großrock in the cupola of his late-war Panther. It was coated in Zimmerit and had received one of the wide array of different three colour camouflage patterns adopted by the Wiking. The 27-year-old Wiking veteran Alfred Großrock never made it out of Hungary alive. He was taken POW by the Soviets in the beginning of April 1945 and is reported to have been executed in custody in Kecskemet either during the period of interrogation or shortly thereafter. Credit: M.G. Commons: Bundesarchiv.

Withdrawal and surrender of 5.ϟϟ-Panzerdivision „Wiking“

5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking retreat westwards
SS-Division Wiking's march route through East Europe and Soviet Union
On the night of May 12 – 13 1945, the 5.SS-Panzer-Division Wiking's command section reached the American barricades to whom the division officially surrendered near Radstadt and Wagrain. Those responsible had two aims in mind in their dealings with the Americans: First, not being handed over to the Soviets (instead, passage directly into Germany); and second, movement only in their own vehicles. The Americans agreed to these terms. In a large convoy – in an almost peaceful fashion and with a minimum of guards – the Wiking headed out from Wagrain on June 1 1945. The march moved via Markt Pongau, Bischofshofen, Golling, Hallein, Salzburg, Freilassing, Traunstein, Rosenheim, Bad Aibling and Bad Tölz to Eberfing. Here and there, the march was like one in triumph, where people lined the streets and showered the column of vehicles with cigarettes, flowers and food, even though American soldiers were posted at the street corners. On the open road on the Autobahn, the column was overtaken by a high-ranking American officer in a jeep, who stood up in his vehicle, saluted while yelling incessantly: Bravo, Wiking Division! All illusions were to be shattered within days. The conditions in Allied POW camps were appalling, and starvation, epidemics and ill-treatment took a heavy toll on the lives of the Waffen-SS veterans. The numbers of Knight's Cross holders of the division are particularly impressive. Over the course of the war, the men of the Wiking received 67 Knight's Crosses, included three unconfirmed, eight with Oakleaves, three with Swords and one with Diamonds. Credit: European Volunteers. Top image: Panther n°823 of the Wiking cover withdrawing units. Photo taken on an earlier date. Credit: Julius Jääskeläinen. Commons: Bundesarchiv.

bsw▹