6.ϟϟ-Gebirgs-Division „Nord“ withdrawn to Vosges mountains

SS-Obersturmführer Karl-Hans Scheu

Waffen-SS Volunteer in Karelia

The Nord veteran SS-Untersturmführer Wolf T. Zoepf wrote in his autobiography Seven Days in January: On the last night in Finland, many of us thought back to the three years we had spent fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with our Finnish allies. They had been true and reliable comrades-in-arms. It took us many years to understand their awful plight, and to forgive what we felt at the time was nothing less than treachery, a terrible breach of faith. To soldiers whose concept of honor was built above all else on loyalty, the Finns betrayal had seemed unconscionable. The SS-Division Nord fought 1,214 consecutive days in the sub-artic taiga against the Soviets from 1941-1944. The division finally arrived Denmark in December 1944 and were immediately transferred to western Germany. The Nord's manpower strength was at the time about 15,000 officers and men. It then fought in Operation Nordwind in Elsaß-Lothringen in January 1945. The offensive was to break through the lines of the U.S. and French Armys in the Upper Vosges mountains and the Alsatian Plain. Left image: SS-Obersturmführer Karl-Hans Scheu from SS-Reconnaissance Battalion 6, after a long period of combat, a veteran of many long range patrols behind Soviet lines in the wilderness of Karelia. Here Scheu enjoys a cigarette after just returning from one such operation. Karl-Hans Scheu survived the war and died aged 72 in 1991. Private Collection. Right image: a Norwegian volunteer soldier of the Waffen-SS during a lull in the fighting somewhere in the Karelia. The photo was taken by his fellow countryman SS-Kriegsberichter Ulf Tur. U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. Fair use.