Faces of War: Casualties and losses in the Battle of Kursk

The Forgotten Soldier

The Forgotten Soldier

The Forgotten Soldier

The Forgotten Soldier

The Forgotten Soldier

The Forgotten Soldier

The Forgotten Soldier

The Forgotten Soldier

The photographs shows eight unidentified men who fought in the greatest clash of armoured forces in history; The Battle of Kursk. They were all Waffen-SS volunteers of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Leibstandarte SS. All photos are taken on the Kursk salient in July 1943 by the war correspondents Max Büschel and Johan King who served with the Leibstandarte SS during the battle of Prokhorovka. The photographs is maintained by U.S. National Archives. The whole Battle of Kursk refers to the period of the German offensive Zitadelle and the subsequent massive Soviet counterstrikes, named Kutuzov and Polkovodets Rumyantsev, that followed the German offensive in July and August in 1943. It involved more than 3 million men, 10,000 tanks, 55,000 guns and mortars and 5,500 aircraft. According to Russian military historian Grigoriy Krivosheyev, who based his figures on the Soviet archives, Soviet casualties in the counter-offensives that followed Citadel were ~710,000 in combat, including 254,470 killed or missing. German historian Roman Töppel writes that Krivosheyev's figures on Soviet losses at Kursk are underestimated. According to German historian Karl-Heinz Frieser, Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS units suffered 111,132, including 34,448 killed and missing in these battles. A veteran of Kursk wrote: We fought man to man. All German superiority in communications, movement, and gunnery was lost in the chaos, noise, and smoke. The atmosphere was choking, I was gasping for breath, with perspiration running in streams down my face. The psychological stress was immense. We expected to be killed at any second. Those who were still alive and still fighting a couple of hours later were astonished. The concentrated area of the battlefield was filled with burned-out armoured vehicles, exuding columns of black, oily smoke. British Jewish historian Sir Martin Gilbert remarked: All wars end up being reduced to statistics, strategies, debates about their origins and results. These debates about war are important, but not more important than the human story of those who fought in them. Ordinary men conscripted into the Heer, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine or enlisted men of the Waffen-SS did not fight for [the Nazi Party]. Neither did the hundreds of thousands of European volunteers. There were certainly other values and beliefs involved. Perspectives that may be easily forgotten.

ϟϟ-Fallschirmjäger-Bataillon 500/600

SS-Fallschirmjägerbataillon 500 in the hills near Drvar in Yugoslavia

The SS-Fallschirmjägerbataillon 500 was a parachute unit of the Waffen-SS made up of an equal percentage of volunteers from both regular Waffen-SS troops, and more specifically, from officially disgraced Waffen-SS officers and enlisted men who wished to redeem themselves under fire. In other words, it was a unit where dishonored officers and men convicted by courts-martial of minor infractions and currently in disciplinary straits could redeem their soldierly honor by participation in hazardous duties and operations. The first gathering of recruits was at Chlum in Czechoslovakia in Oct. 1943. The SS paras wore standard Waffen-SS tunics and caps with Luftwaffe-issue jump smocks, trousers, boots and M38 helmets. Most of the volunteers appear to have removed the Luftwaffe breast eagles from their smocks. The training was completed at the beginning of 1944. The battalion often acted as a 'fire brigade' in the defense of the Baltic States. The brave paratroopers of the SS-Fallschirmjägerbataillon 500 who survived long enough to see the formation of the SS-Fallschirmjägerbataillon 600 were given back their previous ranks and the right to wear the SS sig rune on Nov. 9 1944. At least five Scandinavians are known to have served in this battalion. Two companies of the later battalion took part in the Ardennes offensive in Dec. 1944 as a part of the Austrian SS-Ostubaf. Otto Skorzeny's 150.SS-Panzer-Brigade wearing American uniforms and using American equipment. Only 180 out of 3,500 Waffen-SS paratroopers survived the war. Credit: Dr. Antonio J. Muñoz: Forgotten Legions: Obscure Combat Formations of the Waffen-SS and Russ Folsom and Jason Pipes (Feldgrau). Image: Paras of SS-Hstuf. Kurt Rybka's SS-Parachute Battalion 500 posing with trophies flags captured during its daring but unsuccessful parachute assault on Marshal Josip Broz Tito's communist partisan headquarters in Yugoslavia on May 25 1944. Over 700 of the 1,000 personnel who participated in this coup de main operation, known as Rösselsprung, were killed or wounded during the raid on Drvar. Tito and the Yugoslav Communist Partisans were financed and assisted primarily by the UK and USA. Credit: Ghermán Mihály. c. Bundesarchiv.

Surrendering of XIII.ϟϟ-Armeekorps in the Austrian Village of Schwendt

XIII.SS-Armeekorps pre-surrender in Austrian Schwendt

U.S. General Maxwell D. Taylor and SS-Gruppenführer Max Simon

Elements of the 101st Cavalry Regiment of the U.S. 6th Army Group were halted by an Waffen-SS officer on the main highway a little south of Marquartstein on May 8 1945. He bore a flag of truce but insisted that the SS was not under the command of Heeresgruppe G that had recently surrendered to the 6th Army Group and was therefore not bound by the terms of surrender. He said that the Commander of the XIII.SS-Armeekorps wished to negotiate for the capitulation of his forces. The American officer that snapped these great shots in the Austrian village of Schwendt wrote that they found a few hundred heavily armoured Waffen-SS men from different units under the command of SS-Gruppenführer Max Simon in Schwendt. Simon refused to surrender to them and requested an American General be present for surrender. They called it in and were told that General Maxwell D. Taylor from the 101st Airborne Division would be there the next day. Simon ordered a complete hotel in the small town to be cleared of resting Waffen-SS troops and the American GIs were to stay there over night guarded and protected by SS officers. Simon's XIII.SS-Armeekorps comprising of remnants of the 17.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Götz von Berlichingen, 38.SS-Grenadier-Division Nibelungen, Wehrmacht's elite 2.Gebirgs-Division and other units surrendered to American General Maxwell D. Taylor on May 9 1945. After the war, Simon was sentenced to death by a British court for his part in reprisals against civilians and partisans in Italian Monte Sole in October 1944. At the time he was commanding the 16.SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Reichsführer SS comprised of Hungarian and Romanian so-called Volksdeutsche. One possible reason for the division's involvement in war crimes has been identified in the fact that much of its leadership originally came from the SS-Totenkopfverbände. Simon's sentence was later changed to life imprisonment. He was pardoned in 1954 and released from prison. Credit: Wehrmacht-Awards and Report of Operations US 7th Army. Top image: photo taken from inside the hotel in Schwendt showing an SS-Obersturmführer standing guard outside of the building. Bottom image: General Maxwell D. Taylor and SS-Gruppenführer Max Simon complete the surrender of remaining SS troops in Schwendt area on May 9 1945. The SS officer standing on Taylor's right side is Simon's Chief of Staff SS-Obersturmbannführer Ekkehard Albert. Credit: this collection of photos comes from historian and publisher Ian Spring's outstanding collection of World War II colour slides called Pixpast. FU.

Multinational „Wiking“ Division Ehrenfriedhof in Ukrainian Donbás

Wiking divisional insignia at a war cemetery in the Donbas region

European Wikingers cemetery in the Donbas region

The Wiking Divisions military Ehrenfriedhof in Uspenka in the Ukrainian Luhansk Oblast was well-known for the men of the multinational Waffen-SS division. Aerial photographs shows a massive graveyard with graves in rows grouped into larger sections. The great cemetery was surrounded by white walls and with an open entrance. Photos can be seen in the book European Volunteers by Peter Straßner. The volunteers cited the importance, and even comfort, of the idea that the fallen were never forgotten and such care might be taken over their own loss and recovery. The division cemeteries were the final resting place for thousands of volunteers who met their end in the war against communist Soviet Union. Although they came from all over Europe, most of them were from countries that were occupied by Nazi Germany. The war cemeteries of the Wiking at Uspenka, Amvrosiivka and Modlin and many more were all completely levelled by advancing Soviet troops. They destroyed all German war graves as they recaptured ground. Some 40,000 German war dead are located and reburied in properly maintained German war cemeteries each year across Eastern Europe and Russia according to the spokesman of The German War Graves Commission Fritz Kirchmeier (2012). German Military cemeteries in Kharkov in Ukraine, in Frauenburg (Saldus) in Latvia, in Tallinn and Wesenberg (Rakvere) in Estonia, and in Krasnodar in the North Caucasus region and elsewhere have been set up for bringing thousands of Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS war graves of their regions together. Images: private wartime photographs showing a minor Wiking cemetery in eastern Ukraine and is most likely taken during the construction of the cemetery. Later this cemetery was expanded and acquired a well-known appearance with the graveyard full of typical SS grave markers. Note the SS motto Meine Ehre heißt Treue under the ancient Germanic Sonnenrad. Credit: Pixpast. Fair use.

Women of the Reich: Reichsschule-ϟϟ für ϟϟ-Helferinnen Oberenheim

Leader of the Reich

Women of the Reich

German women played a vital role in the Nazi movement, some thirteen million were active in Nazi Party organizations that furthered the regime's goals of racial purity and imperial conquest. The number of female auxiliaries in the German armed forces approached 500,000 by 1945. The SS-Helferinnenkorps, the women who volunteered to support the Waffen-SS, and who formed a female Nazi trained elite, have to date been the subject of minimal research. The plans for the founding of the SS-Helferinnen school in Oberenheim in Alsace began in early 1942. These women would replace men, who would then be free to fight at the front. They had to be recommended by either an SS-man, a Bund Deutsche Mädel leader, or by a leader in the NS-Frauenschaft, the National Socialist Women's Organisation. The applicants’ reasons for applying varied from professional to familial to personal to political. The selection procedure involved the completion of a detailed application form which required 15 different documents, an extensive written examination, a racial examination and a medical examination. The written exam took place at the local SS Office, and tested spelling, dictation, general knowledge and ideological knowledge. If the applicants passed these initial tests, they would receive a call-up. The average age of applicants was 20 years old. The youngest applicant was 16 years old, the oldest 42 – and her application was received favourably, probably because she was Princess Ingeborg Alix von Schaumburg-Lippe, and was recommended for the position by her brother-in-law Prince Josias Georg Wilhelm Adolf zu Waldeck und Pyrmont, who was held in high esteem by the SS. The SS-Helferinnen were expected to behave impeccably. If the girls did not maintain the good reputation expected of them, it was grounds for dismissal. As members of the Waffen-SS they wore the SS runes and sleeve eagle on their uniforms. After the war, its members were mistakenly often regarded as members of the SS-Gefolges, female SS guards. These female guards were not members of the Waffen-SS, but were members of the so-called female civilian employees of the SS. Credit: authors Jutta Mühlenberg and Rachel Century. Left image: Austrian-born pan-German dictator Adolf Hitler. Photo taken by Hitler's private cameraman OLt. Walter Frentz at the Berghof in 1941. Walter Frentz Coll. FU. Right image: excited German girls are cheering for Hitler during the annual Nürnberg Rally. Photo by photog. Hugo Jäger on Sept. 6 1938. LIFE photo archive.

The Nordic and Continental European Neutrals of World War II

Swedish railroad police guarded Nazi trains through neutral Sweden

German and Swiss border guards doing joint guard at Les Verrieres

The neutral Nordic and continental European states of World War II, among them Portugal, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland composed their neutrality day after day. The Portuguese were worried about their territories in Africa. The Spaniards avoided the Allies in favor of the Axis. The Swedes supplied Germany with valuable iron ore and on the outbreak of the First Soviet-Finnish War Sweden declared itself to be "non-belligerent" in regard to this particular conflict, actively siding with Finland. The Swiss maintained their neutrality to protect their own banking interests and were dependent on German coal. Such equations, involving geography, economic interest, historical ties, strategic aims and emotional sympathies, defined policy. The image of Sweden and Switzerland, comforting because neutral, has taken on a darker hue. Their governments' apparent lack of interest in the source of the Nazi gold they received in exchange for sales to Germany has been widely criticized. Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland all became part of the Western family after 1945. Pressing them on their war records was not a priority in the West. Our vision of wartime ''neutrality'' was an illusion. But so, too, in some ways, was our vision of ourselves. As the British historian Norman Davies has pointed out, the only war crimes deemed worth investigating in 1945 ''were those committed by the defeated enemy.'' Credit: British-born author Roger Cohen and Wikipedia i.a. Top image: Swedish railway police guarding a German train transport in Östersund in August 1942. Sweden supplied the German war industry with steel and machined parts throughout the war and permitted the transit of the fully armed Engelbrecht division across Sweden to join Operation Barbarossa. Further, approx. 2.140.000 German soldiers were permitted to cross through Sweden travelling to and from Norway and Finland. Officially the trains transported wounded soldiers and soldiers on leave, which would still have been in violation of Sweden's proclaimed neutrality. Photo by Swedish military conscript O. Ekman. PD. Bottom image: German soldiers with Swiss counterparts on the French-Swiss border at Les Verrieres in July 1940. Photo by Adolf Hitler's official photog. Heinrich Hoffmann. Credit: Julius Backman. Heinrich Hoffmann Archive.

Berliner Joachim Peiper: Der letzte Gefallene – Last of the Fallen

Former SS-Standartenführer Jochen Peiper

Headstone of the Peiper Family

After eleven years in Allied custody, Joachim Peiper decided to relocate in France with his family. He was released as the last of his comrades in December 1956. With the help of former French prisoner of war Mr. Gauthier, he managed to buy a watermill in Traves in the Haute-Saône department in eastern France in 1957. Jochen Peiper had a house built there for his family in 1960, high up on the bank of the river Saône. The house was like a military fort – surrounded by bushes and was not seen from the street. He and his family lived there quite peacefully for over sixteen years when Paul Cacheux, member of the French communist party, recognized him. This resulted in a hate-campaign openly directed by the communist party. Flyers showing Jochen Peiper as a war criminal and Nazi were distributed all over Traves. He decided to send his beloved wife and daughter to their family in Germany. Jochen Peiper was convinced he would be unable to protect his family adequately in case of an attack. Fearing his neighbor and friend, the former Leibstandarte officer SS-Obersturmbannführer Erwin Ketelhut, would shoot at any attacker caused him to refuse his friend's offer to spend the nights at his house. At 23:30 Jochen Peiper shot in the air trying to intimidate the intruders. What happened afterwards can only be told by the culprits. The winner of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oakleaves and Swords SS-Standartenführer Joachim Peiper's charred and asphyxiated corpse was found in his burned down house on July 14 1976, the Bastille Day in France. He died at about 01:00. The perpetrators were never identified, but were suspected to be French communists. Jochen Peiper is buried alongside his wife Sigurd at Friedhof Schondorf am Ammersee. Left image: post-war photography of Jochen Peiper taken by the Wiking veteran Benno Müller in 1957. Private collection, with permission. Right image: photo by Osamu Suzuki. PD.