Legion Wallonie: This was organized as a mountain-infantry battalion. It was formed by the SS from the Frenchspeaking Belgians (Walloons) and was taken over by the Wehrmacht in late 1941 so as not to offend the "Germanic" Flemings already serving in the Waffen-SS. It fought exceptionally well in the campaign through the Caucausus Mountains alongside the SS Division "Wiking." It contained many former Belgian Army Officers and the famous political leader Leon Degrelle, who exhibited a flare for death-defying heroics. It was finally re-transferred back into the Waffen-SS in June 1943 at Degrelle's request and was reformed as an assault brigade.
Croatian Legion
: This was a regiment that fought on the southern part of the eastern front with considerable valor and was totally annihilated in Stalingrad. It was later replaced by three full-scale divisions.
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As Hitler's armies advanced on Stalingrad they overran the Cossack regions of the Don, Terek and Kuban. Hundreds of thousands of Russians willingly enrolled in the German army to form a Cossack Army under the Russian General Krasnoff. Hitler promised that they would be settled in 'lands and everything necessary for their livelihood in Western Europe'. Their new homeland was to be in north-east Italy in the valley of Carnia on the plain of Undine where they would live their national life free from the confines of Bolshevism.
Italian families in the area were ejected from their homes which were then used to house the Cossack soldiers and their families who had arrived in fifty trains during July and August 1944. To the Cossacks this was paradise far removed from their dreary life in the Ukraine. Hitler had named this new independent state 'Kosakenland'. Many atrocities were committed by these Russians against the Italian civilians, particularly the women, causing one Archbishop to write to Mussolini 'It is terrible to think that Friuli will be governed by these illiterate savages'. Discipline was soon restored when General Krasnoff himself arrived. Cossack officers were under no delusions, they knew they were there to shed blood for the Nazi cause. With the Allied armies approaching from the south and Tito's IX Yugoslav Corps approaching from the east, the 'Free Republic of Carnia' soon disintegrated and the Cossacks and their followers forced to trundle north towards Austria and internment by the British.
When the SS announced on March 3, 1943 that an SS Division was to be formed in Latvia to fight the Russians, around 32,000 Latvians volunteered. They formed the 'Waffen Grenadier Division der SS (No. 1)' During the winter offensive they fought bravely against the Soviets. Pulled out of the battle zone to avoid encirclement, they were sent back into Prussia. Gradually pushed westward by the advancing Red Army they eventually surrendered to the British.
Not so lucky was the 2nd 'Waffen Grenadier Division der SS' formed soon after the first. It failed to escape to the west and was overtaken by the Red Army. As Latvia was annexed by the USSR, they were classed as Soviet citizens and therefore guilty of treason and being guilty of treason, they were all executed.
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Spanish Legion: This was the independent 250th Infantry Division of the "Spanish Blue" Division that fought with incredible heroism on the Lake Ilmen Front. After it was withdrawn from the eastern front in August 1943 by Franco, survivors carried on in a Spanish SS Legion that fought until the end of the war.
Per Sorensen: Portrait of a Legionary
The 27 year old Danish Army Lieutenant Per Sorensen (formerly Adjutant of the Viborg Battalion) was the ideal model of what the Germans were looking for when they launched the Legionary Movement. On 1 July 1941, Sorensen volunteered for service with the "Freikorps Danmark" motivated by anti-communist feelings and a vague sort of National Socialist attitude. In the autumn nonths he attended the Waffen-SS Officer School at Bad Toelz and in the spring of 1942, rejoined the "Freikorps" as commander of the 1st Company.
During the summer months he led his company in the tough back-and-forth fighting that raged in the relief corridor to the Demyansk Pocket. After several engagements, 1st Company had been reduced from over 200 men to only 40. They had to hold a long stretch of front against strong communist forces. On the afternoon of 16 July 1942, Sorensen telephoned "Freikorp's" HQ that he didn't know whether his troops could survive another strong attack but they would stay in position no matter what. That night a Red Army infantry battalion attacked with tank support. The communists were soon in 1st Company's trenches. From sundown to midnight hand-to-hand fighting raged for possession of the positions. Then suddenly it was all over with the Russians either dead or driven out. Thanks to Sorensen's leadership, 1st Company held.
In the years to come, whether in White Russia or Estonia, Lativia or Pomerania, the troops under Sorensen's command would always do the job. Before every action, the tall, slender Dane would make a personal reconnaisance of the terrain and during the fighting he was always as the hottest spots with a machine-pistol dangling from his neck.
To his soldiers, Sorensen had the uncanny habit of attracting the enemy. They passed around the phrase: "Wherever Sorensen is -the Russians will come!" And they usually were right. For his endless solicitude and patience, he received the nickname "På Sorensen" from his men. Time and time again, Sorensen provided the special qualities so vital in ji leader. In January 1944, he took over an en-trapped battalion near Vitino in northern Russia and literally led it to safety by staying at the point of the column on a I ourney through thick, snow shrouded forests.
After commanding battalions and battlegroups, Sorensen received command of the 24th SS Regiment "Danmark" just to the east of Berlin in April 1945. Finally, the Regiment was reduced to trying to defend a street-car station in the heart of Berlin. While climbing a telephone pole to try and survey the terrain, Sturmbannführer (Major) Sorensen was picked off by an enemy sniper. On the next day, in the midst of the desperate, last battle for the German capital, Sorensen was given a military funeral in the Plötzensee cemetery by Germans and Danes from the "Nordland" Division.
With shells detonating all around, the body of Sorensen was taken to the cemetery in an armored troop carrier. Over the open grave, Sturmscharführer (Sgt.) Hermann gave a brief eulogy:
We are standing here by the graveside to take our last departure from a courageous Danish comrade, the foremost officer and leader of the Regiment "Danmark": Per Sorensen! I must, even in this hour give the thanks of my people for you and your many Danish comrades who have stood so loyally beside us. I would like to express from my heart: may you find peace at last in our bleeding city!
As Hermann spoke, the coffin (constructed from ammunition crates by "Nordland" engineers) was lowered into the grave. Two of the Danish officers attending struggled to contain their emotions. Hermann led a last salute and the eight man honor guard fired three salvos over the grave. A woman flak helper tossed flowers into the grave, and each of the Danish and German soldiers attending passed by throwing in a handful of earth. As the great city shook under rumbling artillery fire and great clouds of smoke obscured the sky, the haunting strains of "I had a Comrade" echoed over Sorensen's grave as the funeral reached its conclusion. The tragic symbolism was complete and fitting: in the very heart of Europe, on its last battlefield, a prototypical representative of the European Volunteer Movement had met his end.
The European Movement takes Shape
In 1943, the European Volunteer Movement which had been individually developing in the Legions and the Waffen-SS was finally amalgamated and consecrated within the ranks of the Waffen-SS. The spiritual citadel of the "Movement" now became the SS Officers' School at Bad Töllz in Bavaria, which in 1943 established its first "class' (or "inspection") exclusively for West European Volunteers. Previously the volunteers had received no specialized treatment but were treated like Germans. Now all of that changed and a sense of European unity with respect for all nationalities and cultures was openly fostered. Within the next two years, SS-JS Töllz would produce more than 1000 highly motivated European officers from 12 different countries exclusive of Germany.
Bad Tölz was considered the premier officers' training school in World War II and in addition to a thorough training program that featured live ammunition in most field exercises, it offered well-rounded athletic, cultural and educational opportunities. The great opera, musical and theatrical troops of central Europe made frequent visits while the athletic facilities were unsurpassed in Europe. Twelve different coaches, each one either an Olympic or world class champion in his field, supervised a vast sports program that even included golf and tennis. In the academic arena, freedom of speech was not only permitted but encouraged and the writings of such disparate souls as Marx, Hitler, Jefferson and Churchill were openly discussed and debated.
What Bad Tölz produced was literally a "Renaissance man" who was also a top-notch military officer, In early 1945, the staff and students were mobilized into the newly authorized 38th SS Division "Nibelungen," and one of the great ironies of the war took place: a mostly German division was officered by non-German Europeans (the officer cadets) instead of the other way around. Once in action against the Americans in southern Bavaria, the Scandinavians, Lowlanders and Frenchmen found themselves opposing an enemy whom they thought could only have existed on the Eastern Front. Like all of the Waffen-SS units to serve in the west in 1945, "Nibelungen" was soon victimized by numerous "war crimes." Entire companies and battalions were bludgeoned and shot to death after going into U.S. captivity. To date this grisly story has only been revealed in bits and pieces and has-naturally enough-been largely suppressed by the Allied side. However, it is interesting to note that some former members of the Waffen-SS consider it likely that more of their comrades were killed in American captivity than on the battlefield itself!
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After the Italian armistice on September 3, 1943, around 100,000 Italians volunteered to help the Allied cause.
On October 13, 1943, Italy declared war on Germany.
About 600,000 disbanded Italian soldiers from the German occupied north of Italy were crammed into cattle cars and transported to Germany for forced slave labour.
The Italian soldiers transported to Germany after the armistice, were treated abominably and had to survive on starvation rations. Hundreds died of hunger and overwork, tuberculosis and pneumonia. Their living quarters were primitive, 250 men in barracks designed for 100. Those still loyal to the Fascist government of Mussolini were treated far better in the camps.
Volunteers were asked for to form an SS Division and thousands volunteered encouraged by the promise of better food and clothing. When the Italian SS Division finished its training it was sent to Italy to try and stem the Allied advance. Once in Italy, the volunteer soldiers deserted in their thousands and joined the partisans.
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A recruitment poster for the Black Brigades,
urging Italians to "fight for the honour of Italy" |
Black Brigades (Italian: Brigate Nere) were one of the fascist paramilitary groups operating in Italian Social Republic (in northern Italy), during the final years of World War II, and after the signing of the Italian Armistice in 1943.
Benito Mussolini had been arrested after the Grand Fascist Council, with the support of King Vittorio Emanuele III, overthrew him and began negotiations with the Allies for Italy's withdrawal from the war. Mussolini was rescued by German paratroopers led by Otto Skorzeny and installed as the President of the Italian Social Republic, a regime nominally administering the German-occupied northern Italy.
As the Milizia Volontaria per la Sicurezza Nazionale (MVSN, also known as "Black Shirts") was disbanded by the terms of the armistice, the Guardia Nazionale Repubblicana was formed on 24 November 1943 out of carabinieri, ex-army, and others still loyal to the fascist cause.
The Black Brigades were formed out the members of the Fascist Republican Party, with a law dated 30 June 1944. They not only fought the Allies, and Italian partisans, but also fought against and murdered their political opponents and others whose support of "the cause" was less than exuberant. Many were killed in the fighting.
The Black Brigades were not actually brigade sized units, they were in reality only weak battalions or strong companies with 200 to 300 personnel each. There were 41 territorial brigades numbered one through 41, and there were eight mobile brigades, these were numbered one through seven plus the Second Arditi Brigade. Although they wore the standard Italian army uniform they tended to only wear a black sweater with the grey-green uniform pants and their badge or insignia was the jawless death's head. | |
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Irish Volunteers in German Service
There were no Irish units in the Waffen-SS or Wehrmacht, although there were Irish volunteers.
Contrary to popular supposition, no Irishmen served in the 'British Free Corps'.
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British Free Corps
Also known as The Legion of St. George. The idea that British POWs be recruited to form an infantry SS unit was first put forward by the self-styled fascist, John Emery, son of a minister in Churchill's war cabinet. In 1943 the SS expressed interest in the idea and the Legion of St. George was created to fight only against communists on the German-Finish front. Despite promises of an easy life of luxury, only about thirty prisoners responded. Lieutenant William Shearer was the only officer to volunteer but was soon diagnosed as a schizophrenic and repatriated to England on medical grounds. The unit included three Canadians, three South Africans, three Australians and one New Zealander. Many changed their minds and were returned to their POW camps. By March, 1943, only six remained as part of the 11 SS Panzergrenadier Division 'Nordland'. After the war, John Emery was tried for treason and received the death penalty. He was hanged on December 19, 1945. The remaining members received periods of imprisonment. |
1944-45: A European Army at War
The year 1944 opened with the Flemish SS Storm Brigade "Langemarck" fighting a savage retrograde action near Zhitomir in southern Ukraine. Simultaneously the Scandinavian "Nordland" Division and Dutch "Nederland" Brigade were desperately trying to stem a massive Red Army offensive in the Leningrad sector, and the European "Wiking" Division and Belgian Brigade "Wallonien" were going into the "sack" west of Cherkassy. The breakout from the Cherkassy Pocket on the southern Eastern Front was a true epic of heroism: a sacrificial struggle that bound troops of different nationalities firmly together. In the post-war years the survivors have held annual rememberence meetings so that to this day "Cherkassy" remains a living symbol of the European Voluntary Movement.
The spring of 1944 saw the three Baltic SS Divisions fighting with steadfast courage on the eastern boundaries of their countries. In Lithuania, the nucleus for a new SS Division began taking shape under the guidance of former Lithuanian Army generals, but the country was overrun by the communists before the project could be brought to fruition. Against the Anzio beachhead in Italy, the first combat ready Italian SS battalion grimly held its ground against all American breakout attempts. All over Europe, manpower was being voluntarily mobilized into the Waffen-SS to participate in what many people saw as the forthcoming, decisive struggle for the freedom of the continent.
The summer of 1944 saw the "battle of the European SS" on the Narva Front in Estonia. Here, nationals from Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Flanders, Holland and Estonia shared the trenches and fought shoulder-to-shoulder to throw the Bolsheviks back off "Orphanage Hill" and "Grenadier Hill." Leon Degrelle personally led a battalion from his "Wallonien" Division in a brilliant defensive action near Tartu on the west shore of Lake Peipus. Near Brody in Ukraine, the 14th Ukranian SS Division fought a life-or-death battle to escape from a Soviet encirclement; only about one-fourth of the Division survived the fighting, but they had acquitted themselves well.
As the year went on, more and more foreign volunteer divisions were formed. This meant that flexible leadership was needed to handle the different cultural distinctions and surprisingly, the Waffen-SS was equal to the task. Although organized religion was kept separate from the Waffen-SS, volunteers from devout Catholic, Moslem, Greek Catholic and Orthodox countries were given total freedom to practice their religions with their own clergy. For morale purposes, ethnic cultural activities were actively encouraged. It was quite a contrast to the way some minority groups were treated in the Allied armies at the time.
Some of the foreign SS divisions composed of Russian and Moslem volunteers had to be disbanded, since the time and personnel needed to develop these units were lacking. By the autumn of 1944 the Waffen-SS European volunteer tally sheet contained the following elements: 2 Dutch brigades, 2 Belgian brigades, 1 French brigade and 1 Italian brigade, (all being transformed into divisions), 2 Croat Moslem divisions, 1 Albanian Moslem division, 2 Hungarian divisions with 2 more in the works that never panned out, 2 Scandinavian/German divisions, 2 Latvian divisions, 1 Estonian division, 2 Russian divisions (both of which would later be transferred to the Vlasov Liberation Army), 1 Ukranian division, 1 Italian/German division, 1 Hungarian/German division, 1 Balkan/German division, 1 Serbian division, numerous ethnic brigades from the Soviet Union, and small detachments of Spaniards, Britons, Greeks, Romanians, Bulgarians, Arabs and Indians. The foreign SS units were all suitably supplied with national badges, insignia and unit distinctions. And while there were many volunteers from such neutral countries as Ireland, Sweden and Switzerland they could not be openly designated as such so as not to offend their respective governments.
On the Eastern Front, the war raged with unending intensity. In White Russia, part of the French SS Storm Brigade fighting with the 18th Hungarian/German SS Division "Horst Wessel," sacrificed itself completely in hard defensive action, losing two-thirds of its personnel in the process. In Estonia, a regiment of Estonian soldiers who had been serving in the Finnish Army returned home to fight for their country. They were reformed into a battalion of the 20th Estonian SS Division and in desperate combat on the Latvian frontier, were virtually annihilated. With grim determination the Latvian 15th and 19th SS Divisions fought the communists for every square foot of their homeland, while in the Carpathian Mountains, the Ukranian Volunteer Division was reassembled.
In Slovenia and Hungary, the brave Moslems of the 13th SS Division "Handschar" performed well against both Tito's partisans and the Red Army, but in France the 30th White Russian SS Division had virtually collapsed while in action against the Americans and French Maquis. These soldiers had only wished to fight the communists and saw no point in what they were doing in the west.
This was not the case in regard to both the 29th Italian SS Division and the 34th Dutch SS Division "Landstorm Nederland." The Italian SS troops fought both the Americans and the rear area communist partisans, and they distinguished themselves as perhaps the best troops that Italy produced during the war. "Landstorm Nederland" first battled the British at Arnhem as part of a hurriedly organized self-defense brigade, but during the winter of 1944-45 it was enlarged into a full-scale 12 000 man infantry division. In the spring of 1945, the almost exclusively Dutch "LN" SS Division gave the British and Canadians fits as they tried with little success to advance into northwest Holland. None of the Allies could figure out why so many Dutchmen chose to join the "Landstorm" Division, so to avoid embarrassment, the story of this unit has been largely suppressed ever since. For the Dutch volunteers, there was no motivation problem. The Allies had joined with the Bolsheviks against not only their homeland but what they perceived to be European civilization as well. Like their fellow countrymen on the Eastern Front, the men of "Landstorm Nederland" fought with a dedicated resolve.
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During the Second World War, 74% of the 140,000 Dutch Jews were murdered, a higher percentage than in any other Western European country. Due to the Anne Frank paradigm, the myth of the good Dutchman has persevered in giving the impression that large parts of the Dutch population resisted the Nazis and helped the Jews. Much attention is given to the remarkable Dutchmen who hid her and none to those who betrayed and arrested her.
The truth about Dutch collaboration with the Nazis is very different from what is commonly known outside the country. The Dutch authorities sent the Jews on their first steps to their extermination on German orders; the Germans required very few of their own people for this. Dutch policemen arrested the Jews. The policemen were well aware of the criminal character of their acts; it is the role of the police to arrest suspected criminals, not innocent citizens or babies.
Dutch railway employees transported the Jews to the transit camps. Dutch policemen guarded them there. There was a small minority of Dutchmen who helped hide the Jews and they deserve great respect. The numbers of Dutch Nazi collaborators during the war, however, exceeded those active in the resistance. Relative to the size of its population, the Netherlands had the most Waffen SS volunteers in Western Europe. Furthermore, out of the 24,000 Jews who were hidden, 8,000 were betrayed by Dutchmen for a reward which in today's money amounts to perhaps 30 Euro per victim. Almost all of them were murdered in the death camps.
The Dutch government-in-exile in London cared little about the fate of the Jews who were deported to Poland. It did not instruct the Dutch under occupation not to collaborate with the Nazis. After the war, the Dutch transport minister praised the Dutch railways for not striking when they transported the Jews because that would have been bad for the Dutch economy. In more than four years of radio speeches from London, the Dutch queen, Wilhelmina, devoted a total of five sentences to the Dutch Jews and their fate.
After the war, the surviving Jews were discriminated against in many ways by successive Dutch democratic governments. Though substantial evidence exists to the contrary, the Dutch government denies until today that many cases of this discrimination were intentional.
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The Belgian and French SS Divisions were brought up to strength in the fall of 1944 from among the many refugees that had fled to Germany plus veterans of the war with Russia. In Holland, volunteers flocked to the Waffen-SS recruiting offices like never before and not because they had to. It didn't take a clairvoyant to see that Germany was virtually finished, but still the European volunteers rushed to join the battle.
The establishment historians have never been able to understand this phenomenon, perhaps because it involved an abstract concept alien to most of them: conscience. There was a great desire for many people, who had until this point sat out the war, to finally be "true to themselves"; to make the ultimate sacrifice out of loyalty to their beliefs, their homelands and their fellow countrymen who had already done so much. This was Europe's moment of crisis and many young men made the decision to leap into the crucible. It was a manifestation of spiritual honesty.
The Waffen-SS also managed to project a certain natural attractiveness. Littlejohn, in his book The Patriotic Traitors , described the pull of the Waffen-SS as follows: "The Runic Flag evoked a heroic pagan spirit, a swaggering defiant attitude to life equally contemptuous of bourgeois timidity and of communist anarchy." The far-sighted Leon Degrelle, who had almost obtained political power in prewar Belgium also saw a powerful attraction and purpose in the Waffen-SS. In his words: "True elites are formed at the front ... the young leaders are born there ... the emblem of the SS shows Europe where political and social truth is to be found ... We are preparing the political cadres of the post-war world in the Great Seminary of the Front Line." A good many volunteers agreed with him.
The end of 1944 saw Leon Degrelle's 28th SS Division "Wallonien" moving into that part of Belgium that had been retaken in the Ardennes offensive, where it received a hearty welcome and new recruits! But the curtain was rising on the last act on the Eastern Front, and in the weeks ahead most of the European volunteer forces would be in action there. In Kurland, Western Latvia three SS divisions-lith "Nordland," 23rd "Nederland" and 19th Letvian-were caught up in an unequal life-or-death struggle in January 1945. A few extracts from the history of the 49th Dutch SS Regiment "De Ruyter" gave the flavor of the action: (From the series of articles titled "Soldiers of Europe: The III. SS Panzer Korps" in Siegrunen Magazine):
After a surging, back-and-forth struggle, the south bastion of Ozoli Hill fell irretrievably to the Russians. The over-powered First Co./SS Rgt. "De Ruyter" fell back to the west. Untersturmführer Schluifelder, the commander, was badly wounded and shot himself rather than fall into enemy hands.
The Red Army infantry was storming forward. Guided entirely by radio reports, Obersturmführer Behler directed the heavy weapons fire of his Dutch gunners at the center of the enemy onslaught. But by mid-day, Behler's positions were entirely surrounded by the enemy. In bloody, close combat, Obersturmführer Behler and a few of his men managed to break out to the west.
In the same battle area, Danish Obersturmführer Johannes Hellmer's company from Second Battahon/"De Ruyter," was fighting for its life ... Using his own initiative, Kanonier Jenschke, a private, led a small battle group to a successful breakout. Jenschke's rank insignia had been obscured by his camouflage jacket so the men that he had been ordering about were unaware that they outranked him!
During these two days of heavy fighting all of the companies in the main battle line were fully extended. There was nothing to fall back on ... only 7 men could be spared to defend the whole town of Kaleti ... This, the defensive struggle of SS Division "Nederland" was the most heroic battle that I have ever lived through. Everyone, stayed in position to the finish. The attack came right up to the barrels of our artillery pieces. The firing pits were the main battle line. But although we were weakened and dispersed, we had acquitted ourselves with honor.
~This extract from the war diary of Untersturmführer Horstmann
By the end of the fighting, the SS Regiment "De Ruyter" with a nominal strength of 2000 men had been reduced to 80 combatants! The Regiment was rebuilt on the run and thrown into action again on the Pomeranian Front less than two weeks later. For the first time "De Ruyter" received a Third Battalion, this being composed of Dutch and German war reporters whose jobs had become rather superfluous given recent military reversals.
Remaining in Latvia was the 19th Latvian SS Division, which time and again had proved itself the mainstay of bitter defensive fighting and had received several mentions in the Wehrmacht war bulletins. The Latvian volunteers received more decorations than any other non-German group in the Waffen-SS, including the award of 13 Knight's Crosses; a good indication of their contributions on the battlefield. In Poland and Silesia, the Hungarian and Estonian SS Divisions were temporarily able to stop the enemy onslaught, even though the commander of the 26th SS Division, "Hungaria," Oberführer Zoltan von Pisky had been killed in action at Jarotschin.
As the Eastern Front was pushed slowly westwards, bits and pieces of the 27th Flemish SS Division "Langemarck" were rushed to the Oder River line from various training camps. Here they served alongside their co-national rivals, the Walloons, in a spirit of unbridled comradeship. First Battalion of the 66th SS Regiment/Division "Langemarck" picked up the nickname "leaping tiger" for the way its soldiers threw themselves into battle. But even more amazing was the fact that the battalion was composed mostly of teenagers from the Flemish Hitler Youth who had volunteered for service in the Waffen-SS after their country had been overrun by the Allies. If there was one drawback to service in this battalion it was that the regimental quartermaster stubbornly saw that the young troopers received a special ration of Schokolade and Bonbons instead of the Schnapps and cigarettes passed out to the older soldiers!
With a good sense of historical irony, the Eastern Front slowly bent and folded itself around the German capital city of Berlin, throwing a good many of the foreign volunteers into the battle for the city. Regiments of the 15th Latvian SS Division, battered beyond belief, had naively decided to throw in their lot with the western allies against the communists (which proved to be an unfortunate decision for many of the officers who were forcibly repatriated to the death camps), and made a complete circuit of Berlin travelling in no-man's land all the time, until they saw a chance to make it to the American lines. The Division's reconnaissance battalion went out a little too far on a scout mission and wound up being impressed into the defense of the city.
To the north of Berlin, 500 survivors of the 33rd French SS Division "Charlemagne" which had been decimated in the defense of Pomerania, actually volunteered to go to the defense of the German capital, even though the Divisional commander had absolved them from any more service obligations. In the week of the epic battle that followed, these Frenchmen constituted the core of defense in the city center, displaying courage and fortitude on a scale seldom seen. When the fighting was over, only a few dozen would still be alive and four of their number would be decorated with Knight's Cross. One could call their mission a "beau geste," but the French soldiers saw it as a moral obligation-another abstract concept the establishment scholars choke on. The following is a description of these soldiers from the aritlce "Defeat in the Ruins: France's Last Battle for Europe," by Gustav Juergens (Siegrunen, June 1980):
By this time, the warriors of the "Charlemagne" Division didn't even look like human beings any more. Their eyes were burning and their faces skull-like and covered in dirt and mortar dust. Supplies only came in negligible amounts, the most telling being the lack of water. The young SS men moved like robots through the hell of Berlin. The future was the farthest thing from anyone's mind. The only motivating idea that burned in their consciousness and kept them from collapsing was their flaming desire to come to grips with the Bolsheviks! They had to throw hand grenades, destroy tanks, and hold out against the Reds. That was their only reason for living and for dying.
The SS Divisions "Wallonien," "Nederland" and "Nordland after spearheading the last successful offensive on the Vistula sector to relieve the trapped garrisons at Arneswalde, had been driven inexorably westward. "Nederland" was split into two segments, one being trapped and destroyed in the Halbe Pocket to the south of Berlin and the other retreating to the north of Berlin. Much of the "Nordland" Division, including the staff elements, wound up in Berlin itself.
At Prenzlau, due north of Berlin, the Flemish "Langemarck" Division led by the "leaping tigers" of its Hitler Youth battalion, made the last relief attack against the communist encirclement on 25 April 1945. In violent, savage fighting "Langmarck" was burnt to a cinder along with the "Wallonien" Division and parts of "Charlemagne" and "Nordland"; the survivors were forced to fall back towards the Elbe River. In Silesia, the 20th Estonian SS Division was surrounded and forced to surrender to the Soviets; beginning what for most, would be a long, final journey to the Gulags. One the Austrian frontier, the Ukrainian, Moslem and Cossack SS formations fought with skill and valor before retreating to the west. Most of the Moslems and Cossacks would later be forcibly repatriated to their deaths at the hands of the Yugoslav and Soviet communists; the Ukrainians escaped this real "holocaust" by posing as pre-war Polish citizens.
Going with the Cossacks of 15th SS Army Corps to the Gulags, was their beloved commander, Gen. Lt. Helmuth von Pannwitz, the first foreign national ever to be freely elected Ataman of the Cossack tribes. He chose to share the fate of his men although he could have gone into comfortable Allied internment. In 1947, von Pannwitz, along with the Cossack leaders of the 15th SS Corps, was hanged in Moscow as a "war criminal"; the Cossack soldiers and about one-balf million others of their nationality were physically exterminated with the assistance of the United States and Great Britain.
In Italy, after putting up a brave fight, the 29th Italian SS Division surrendered either to the Americans or to the Red partisans and almost to a man, the Italian SS men were put to death. Between 20 000-30 000 of these volunteers were therefore killed outright in captivity. In Yugoslavia another great nightmare unfolded. 10 000 Moslem volunteers from the 13th SS Division "Handschar" were exterminated in a mass execution and their bodies stuffed in an abandoned mine shaft. Many of the soldiers of the 7th SS Mountain Division "Prinz Eugen," recruited from Yugoslav Germans, met a similar fate. In Kurland, Latvia, where a small German Army Group had courageously held out against vastly superior enemy forces until the end of the war, 14 000 members of the 19th Latvian SS Division marched into captivity and oblivion-they were never heard from again.
In Berlin, members of the Spanish SS Legion attempted to breakout of the city wearing pilfered Red Army uniforms; none made it. Those caught by the communists were shot as spies and those intercepted by the Germans were shot as turncoats. When General Krebs went to surrender the Berlin garrison early on the morning of 1 May 1945, he took with him the Latvian Waffen-Obersturmführer (1st Lt.) Nielands as an interpreter. After performing his duty, Nielands returned to the command of his 80 man company from the 15th SS Recce Battalion. For the Latvians there would be no surrender-they asked for no quarter from the Soviets and they gave none themselves. In the ruins of the Air Ministry building the Latvian SS troops made their last stand. In hand-to-hand combat they fought to the death.
A few of the volunteers trapped in Berlin actually escaped. The Danish Obersturmführer Birkedahl-Hansen, suffering from jaundice, led some men from Regiment "Danmark" successfully out of the city through Spandau to the northwest. They made their way to the seaport of WarnemiInde and took a row boat back to Denmark, thus escaping a long trek to Siberia.
The end of the war saw most of the European volunteers frantically trying to make it to the western Allied lines. Surrender, though, only marked the beginning of their problems. The "democratic" governments of the "liberated" countries were determined to inact a painful vengeance. In each country some of the more prominent volunteers were run through quick "judicial" proceedings and executed, with the others being stripped of their civil rights and sentenced to prison terms of varying lengths. Those that wound up in Soviet hands were either: 1) extradited to their home countries for criminal proceedings or 2) simply shipped to forced labor camps with the Germans. Those that survived up to a decade or so of this treatment were eventually sent home.
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FOREIGEN VOLUNTEERS IN WAFFEN-SS
Numbers of the volunteers and main Waffen-SS units from each country in Europe:
THE NETHERLANDS:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
50 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
23. Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier-Division "
Nederland",
34. Waffen-Grenadier-Division Der SS "Landstorm Nederland"
The Netherlands provided more recruits for the Waffen-SS then any other European country.
BELGIUM:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
40 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
27. SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier- Division "Langemarck",
28. SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier- Division "Wallonien"
Initially considered to be non-Germanic, French-speaking volunteers from
France and Wallonia were recruited by the German Army in 1941. They were incorporated into Waffen-SS late in 1943.
FRANCE:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
20 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
33. Waffen-Kavallreie-Division Der SS "Charlemagne"
ITALY:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
15 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
29. Waffen-Grenadier-Division Der SS Italienische Nr. 1
DENMARK:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
10 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
5. SS-Panzer-Division "Wiking",
11. SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier- Division "Nordland"
The Danes raised the only volunteer legion that had the full backing of the government of their country.
NORWAY:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
6 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
5. SS-Panzer-Division "Wiking",
11. SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier- Division "Nordland"
(Den Norske Legion)
(23. Regiment "Norge")
(Regiment Nordland)
(SS-Skijeger-Bataljon "Norge")
FINLAND:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
3 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
11. SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier- Division "Nordland"
LUXEMBOURG:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
2 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
SPAIN:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
1 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
Spanische Freiwilligen Kompanie der SS 101,
28. SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier- Division "Wallonien"
SWEDEN:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
300
Main Waffen-SS units:
5. SS-Panzer-Division "Wiking",
11. SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier- Division "Nordland"
SWITZERLAND:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
300
Main Waffen-SS units:
5. SS-Panzer-Division "Wiking"
RUSSIA:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
Over 60 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
29. Waffen-Grenadier-Division Der SS Russische Nr. 1
LATVIA:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
80 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
15. Waffen-Grenadier-Division Der SS Lettische Nr. 1
19. Waffen-Gernadier-Division Der SS Lettische Nr. 2
ROMANIA:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
50 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
7. SS-Freiwilligen-Gebirgs-Division "Prinz Eugen",
8. SS-Kavallerie-Division "Florian Geyer"
ESTONIA:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
25 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
20. Waffen-Gernadier-Division Der SS Estnische Nr. 1
HUNGARY:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
20 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
25. Waffen-Grenadier-Division Der SS "Hunyadi",
26. Waffen-Grenadier-Division Der SS "Hungaria"
CROATIA:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
20 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
13. Waffen-Gebirges-Division Der SS "Handschar",
23. Waffen-Gebirgs-Division Der SS "Kama"
SERBIA:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
10 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
Sebisches Freiwilligen Korps.
Fought in the Royal Yugosalv Army uniforms.
ALBANIA:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
7 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
21. Waffen-Gebirges-Division Der SS "Skanderberg"
BULGARIA:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
600
Main Waffen-SS units:
Waffen-Grenadier Regiment der SS (Nr. 1), SS-Panzer Zerstörer Regiment
LITHUANIA:
Number of VOLUNTEERS:
50 000
Main Waffen-SS units:
None, mainly Non-SS Police units.
It was non Lithianian SS formations, but 38 Police Battalions were formed.
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The final tally sheet for the European Volunteer Movement ran roughly as follows: (Waffen-SS only)
Western Europe: 162 000 volunteers, ranging from about 55 000 in Holland to 80 from Liechtenstein. Out of this total about 50 000 were killed or missing. Included in this figure would be 16 000 Dutchmen and 11 500 Belgians.
Baltic States and Soviet Nationalities: About 250 000 soldiers. Casualties and post-war losses through forced repatriation and execution were enormous.
Balkan and Slavics: About 100 000. Considerable losses. Ethnic Germans not from Germany: About 300 000.
Germans from the Reich: 400 000. For the Germans and ethnic Germans, losses in killed and missing were about one-third.
In some countries like Holland, the "volunteer" problem was so great, that censorship was imposed, that in most cases remains in place to this day. The Dutch were particularly brutal in treating their military "collaborators"; incarcerating many for long terms in concentration camps that followed the German models faithfully. Many volunteers in the Netherlands subsequently rose to prominence in the political and business fields, but because of their "background" remained vulnerable to a form of blackmail that has seen some of them (including parliamentary leaders) sent into distant oblivion.
Treatment of returning volunteers was equally harsh in other countries. Belgium executed many both legally and illegally while keeping a majority of their "military collaborators" locked up in concentration camps run in the German style. In France, some of the more prominent officers were executed, while the rank-and-file of the "Charlemagne" Division was given the option of doing time in Indo-China with the Foreign Legion. Joining them were numerous Hungarian and German SS men who had wound up in French captivity.
Norway locked up its volunteers in stone fortresses and kept them on near starvation rations for between 4 and 8 years. The Norwegian volunteers had sealed their fate when they had offended a "hanging judge" who had offered them modified clemency for admissions of guilt. The judge was spat upon and pelted with rubbish by the incarcerated soldiers so he threw the book at them. Denmark, which produced a multitude of volunteers (nearly 15 000 including the cream of the Danish officer corps), was relatively lenient to most of their soldiers-only the more prominent ones had to suffer for long. One ex-commander of the "Freikorps Danmark" was executed (a decision officially condemned by the Danish Parliament 30 years later), and the Danish Major-General Kryssing, who had comanded a multi-national ad hoc division on the Eastern Front, was kept in prison 5 years and deprived of his civil rights.
When the volunteers were mentioned at all after the war, it was always in a very derogatory manner; they were usually referred to as criminals and mercenaries. The Dutch went so far as to hire a psychiatrist to buttress this theory. He interviewed 400 volunteers and later propounded the thesis that these men had not served out of any moral committment but had "sold their souls" for material inducements and adventure. This has been pretty much the establishment line ever since although it is never mentioned that the volunteers interviewed (constituting one-half of one percent of the total number of Danish military collaborators), were. quite willing to say anything to secure release from their concentration camp.
If one looks at the rigorous screening process that the Germans applied to their foreign volunteers the myth of their being "criminals" and "mercenaries" is pretty well exploded. The basic criteria for acceptance in the Waffen-SS revolved around the applicant's physical fitness, mental attitude and past record. Anyone with a criminal record was simply not accepted, although some did slip through. Utilizing these standards, the Waffen-SS accepted only 3000 recruits out of about 12 000 who flooded the recruiting offices of the original Dutch Legion. And out of this 3000 another 400 would be culled out during training for either harboring a criminal past or an incompatible political attitude. Similarly we can look at the Ukranian volunteers and see that out of 81 999 initial applicants only 29 124 were finally accepted after screening!
If there is any judgment that can be made from this it is that the men who got into the Waffen-SS usually represented the best human material that their respective countries had to offer. There is no way to categorize them individually since they came from all different classes and backgrounds sharing only one common denominator: a love of their country and continent.
It is fair to say that the European volunteers left a mark on the battlefields of the Eastern Front far out of proportion to their actual numbers, and this paper would not be complete if it did not include a sampling of their achievements.
In the Linden Hills east of the Oder River, Obersturmführer Capelle's company of Walloon volunteers was in its death struggle. Enemy tanks were swarming all over -- many had been knocked out but all of the Panzerfäuste were now exhausted. At this point, Capelle radioed to "Wallonien" Division headquarters that he was going to try and breakout and link-up with the Division. But escape for the company was no longer possible. Walloon volunteers were crushed to death by tanks running over their foxholes. The badly wounded fired their weapons until their last breath.
Finally all that was left was the company command post. In a heroic stand, the Belgian SS men fought it out until the end. The severely wounded were humanely put out of their misery. The survivors fought on with rifle butts and service revolvers. Incredibly, the command post resisted for the whole day. As it was finally overwhelmed in the early evening, Obersturmführer Capelle went down firing his pistol. Two wounded Walloons reached the German lines during the night to tell of this last battle.
On the next day, 27 February 1945, a supplement to the daily Wehrmacht war bulletin was read over the German radio: "In Pomerania a battle-group from the SS Volunteers Grenadier Division 'Wallonien' under the leadership of SS-Obersturmführer Capelle was deployed for flank for flank protection. Displaying exemplary steadfastness and fanatical battle spirit, it was destroyed (in action)." Capelle was recommended for the posthumous award of the Knight's Cross but documentation for the decoration was lost in the chaos of the war's end.
* * *
On the morning of 26 January 1944 a Soviet tank force broke into the town of Gubanizy. The Dutch volunteer Caspar Sporck drove his self-propelled gun right into their midst and began shooting them up right and left, eventually claiming 11 kills. Later, during the last hours of the German retreat to the Narva bridgehead on 31 January 1944, Sporck stayed back alone with his armored vehicle and patrolled far to the east of the main battle lines, seeking out enemy tanks and vehicles and providing protection for stragglers. At dusk, with the enemy close behind, Sporck's assault gun was the last vehicle to cross into the German lines. For his initiative and valor, Casper Sporck was later awarded the Knight's Cross.
* * *
On 12 June 1944 at the "Sunshine" outpost to the southeast of the Narva bridgehead, the Danish NCO Egon Christophersen literally saved the main front, when with a small assault troop he counterattacked German trenches that had been seized by the Russians and regained them in hand-to-hand combat. Christophersen and his men then defended the positions against all attackers, enabling the broken German lines to reconsolidate and hold. Christophersen was awarded the Knight's Cross.
* * *
At the Vepskula bridgehead on the wast bank of the Narva River in February 1944, the bedraggled German forces were unable to eliminate a dangerous Soviet inroad. Fresh Estonian assault troops were brought in. For a time they too were pinned down. Then the young Estonian Sergeant Haralt Nugiseks led a leap-frog attack that broke through the communist lines. In vicious close combat the enemy trenches were cleared all the way to the river's edge. Nugiseks was awarded the Knight's Cross.
* * *
In August 1943 on the Wolchov Front, the Latvian Sergeant Zanis Butkus led a storm troop into the enemy lines and proceeded to capture a string of communist bunkers without loss. He returned to the German lines with many prisoners and much booty. Butkus was given an officer's commission on the spot. Later, after taking part in 59 close combat engagements, Butkus was awarded the Knight's Cross.
* * *
In July 1944, on the north side of "Orphanage Hill" on the Narva Front, the Flemish NCO Remi Schyrnen singlehandedly knocked out more than a dozen enemy tanks while wounded and cutoff from his unit. In a 48 hour period he turned back -- all by himself -- several Soviet tank attacks that would have encircled the Flemish and Estonian volunteer battalions fighting nearby. He even scored a lucky "double kill" when one shot from his anti-tank gun penetrated through two tanks advancing side-by-side. Incredibly, in January 1944, Schyrnen had pulled off a similar feat to save the "Langemarck" Brigade near Zhitomir. Schyrnen was awarded the Knight's Cross.
* * *
Strong Soviet tank forces were attacking along the road south of Dorpat in eastern Estonia in August 1944 with the intention of severing the entire Estonian Front. The only things blocking their way were three anti-tank guns from the "Wallonien" Division under the direct command of the Walloon Lieutenant Leon Gillis. Gillis positioned his guns directly in the road and flung back attack after attack. In furious fighting that raged all day, the anti-tank guns were destroyed and most of the Walloons wounded. The whole front hinged on Gillis' next move. He chose to attack. The Walloon volunteers knocked out three more tanks with hand grenades and drove back the rest. The enemy was unable to advance. Leon Gillis was awarded the Knight's Cross.
* * *
In February 1945, the communists were closing in on the military training camp at Neuhammer in Silesia. The Hungarian Captain, Georg Hermandy in command of the emergency battalion of the 26th SS Division "Hungaria" led his unit in a valiant counterattack to prevent a breakthrough. Even after being badly wounded, Hermandy insisted upon staying in the front lines and directed a successful defensive battle that saved the Neuhammer sector. After the fighting, the Wehrmacht Colonel in charge of the area visited the Hungarian SS positions, took off his own Knight's Cross and draped it around the neck of Hermandy. Waffen-Haupsturmführer George Hermandy was subsequently killed on 23 March 1945 leading his men in yet another counterattack.
* * *
The last bridgehead on the east bank of the Oder River in March 1945 was held by the 1. Battalion/SS Regiment Division "Wallonien," led by the Walloon Major Henri Derriks. Derriks, or "Der Boss" as he was known to his men, deployed his two tanks and his companies of infantrymen with cool decisiveness, enabling the last German soldiers and refugees to make their way to safety. Finally, with the communists closing in from three sides, Derriks calmly pulled back his forces step-by-step and got them safely across the river, destroying the last bridge behind them. It was nothing new for "Der Boss," he had earlier commanded the last group of "Wallonien" soldiers to fight their way out of the Cherkassy encirclement in south Ukraine. Later, Derriks led the last assault of the "Wallonien" Division on the Eastern Front. Among his many decorations for bravery, Sturmbannführer Henri Derricks received the German Cross in Gold.
* * *
And there were many, many more European heroes, most of whom would not have their deeds recorded at all but would instead find a final resting place in an unmarked grave somewhere in the "East." We cannot begin to do justice to them in this paper, but we can hopefully, lift part of the veil that has hidden their exploits for so long a time.
The Reckoning
We are now at the point where it can be asked, what does this discussion of the European Volunteer Movement prove? I think that it has at least validated the following statement by Beadle and Hartmann in their book, The Waffen-SS: Its Divisional Insignia:
By 1945, the Waffen-SS had proved by its combat success that European people could exist together, but as long as they recognized and accepted the national differences between one another. It had been in the Waffen-SS that, for the first time, Dutch had been commanded by Germans and Germans by Belgians. It was this idealism, dearly bought on the roads of Russia and later in its slave labor camps, that created an outstanding spirit of comradeship and combatant ability among all members, regardless of nationality or rank.
Beadle and Hartmann also made one other trenchant statement that I hope is born out in this essay:
The greatest triumph of the Waffen-SS though, was not on the field of battle. It was in its policy of recruiting non-German volunteers, not as hired mercenaries, but as co-fighters for a European ideal.
After a generation of slander, vilification and falsehood concerning the European volunteers, the first rays of light are beginning to shine through. Slowly, but surely, their story is being told. As for the soldiers themselves, many are of the belief that they were ahead of their time, both militarily and philosophically, and that their legacy is yet to be fulfilled.
For myself, perhaps the most incisive observation was made by the former Waffen-SS Colonel Jochen Peiper in a letter to his comrades while he was being held in American confinement under sentence of death:
Don't forget that it was in the ranks of the SS that the first European died ...
Bibliography
Beadle, C. and Hartmann, T., The Waffen-SS, Its Divisional Insignia, Key Publications, 1971.
Bender, R. and Taylor, H.P., Uniforms, Organization and History of the Waffen-SS, Bender Publishing, 4 Volumes, 1969-75.
Buss, P. and Mollo, A., Hitler's Germanic Legions, Macdonalds and Janes, 1978.
Cerff, Karl, Die Waffen-SS im Wehrmachtbericht, Munin Verlag, 1971.
Degrelle, Leon, Die verlorene Legion, Verlag K.W. Schuetz, new printing, 1972.
De la Maziere, Christian, The Captive Dreamer, Saturday Review Press,1974.
Haaest, Erik, Frontsvin, Frostknuder, Forraedere, Bogans Forlag, 3 Volumes, 1975.
Hausser, Paul, Soldaten wie andere auch, Munin Verlag, 1966.
Hausser, Paul, Waffen-SS im Einsatz, Verlag K.W. Schuetz, 9th printing, 1976.
Heike, Wolf-Dietrich, Sie wollten die Freiheit, Podzun Verlag, new printing, 1978.
Historia #32: L'Internationale SS, Paris, 1973.
Huxley-Blythe, Peter, The East Came West, Caxton Press, 2nd printing, 1968.
Kern, Erich, The Dance of Death, Collins, 1951.
Littlejohn, David, The Patriotic Traitors, Doubleday, 1972.
Littlejohn, David, Foreign Legions of the Third Reich Volume One, Bender Publishing, 1979.
Landemar, Henri, Les Waffen-SS, Balliard, 1972.
Mabire, Jean, Berlin im Todeskampf 1945, Verlag K.W. Schuetz, 1977.
Reider, Frederic, La Waffen-SS, Pensee Moderne, 1975.
Schneider, Jost W., Their Honor Was Loyalty, Bender Publishing, 1978.
Stein, George, The Waffen-SS: Hitler's Elite Guard at War, Cornell University Press, 1966.
Steiner, Felix, Die Armee der Geächteten, Verlag K.W. Schuetz, 4th printing, 1971.
Steiner, Felix, Die Freiwilligen, Verlag K.W. Schuetz, 5th printing 1973.
Strassner, Peter, Europäische Freiwillige: Die 5. Panzer-Division Wiking, Munin-Verlag, 1968.
Taylor, H.P., Germanische SS, 1940-45, Historical Research Unit/ Uniforms of the SS series, 1969.
Tieke, Wilhelm, Das Finnische Freiwilligen Bataillon der Waffen-SS, Munin-Verlag, 1979.
Tieke, Wilhelm, Im Luftransport an Brennpunkte der Ostfront, Munin-Verlag, 1971.
Tieke, Wilhelm, Tragödie um die Treue, Munin-Verlag, 3rd printing, 1978.
Wenn alle Brüder schweigen, Munin-Verlag, 1973 & 1975 editions.
Periodicals
Berkenkruis, Birch Cross/Belgium: Publication of the Flemish Waffen-SS veterans association. Various issues.
Der Freiwillige, Munin-Verlag: Monthly magazine of the Waffen-SS veteran's self-help association. 1965 to date.
Siegrunen: The Waffen-SS in Historical Perspective, Glendale, Oregon, all issues, 1976 to date.
Siegrunen Bulletin, Glendale, Oregon, all issues 1979 to date.
Siegrunen Anthology 1, Glendale, Oregon, Spring 1979.
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INDIAN NATIONAL ARMY
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Legionnaires were recruited from German POW camps |
Subhas Chandra Bose, the controversial Indian nationalist leader, arrived in Germany in March, 1941. In Berlin he formed the nucleus of an Indian legion from Indian prisoners of war captured in North Africa and now in German hands. Within months recruits numbered some 3,500 men whose sole aim was the liberation of India from British imperialist rule. After the fall of Singapore on February 15, 1942, Bose and his Indian National Army, as it was now called, declared war on Britain. As the military situation in Europe began to deteriorate, Bose now sought help from the Japanese and in June, 1943, he made his way to Japan by submarine and from a Tokyo radio station he appealed to India for an uprising to oust the British. In doing so was able to enlist thousands more to the cause from British Indian troops held prisoner by Japan. The Japanese Army promised all-out support and together they fought in the disastrous campaign in Burma, the INA casualties being over fifty percent. With the re-occupation of Burma by the British, the surviving members of the INA once again became prisoners of war, this time of the British.
As events turned out, Bose’s dream of his victorious march to Delhi at the head of his Indian National Army never materialised. Subhas Chandra Bose was killed in an air crash in Formosa (Taiwan) when the plane carrying him to Tokyo crashed on take-off from the small Taioku airfield at Taipai on August 18, 1945. He was 48 years old.
It is acknowledged today by historians that Bose did more for the liberation of India than did any other national leader, including Gandhi.
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Hitler's secret Indian army
By Mike Thomson
BBC News
Thursday, September 23, 2004
In the closing stages of World War II, as Allied and French resistance forces were driving Hitler's now demoralized forces from France, three senior German officers defected.
The information they gave British intelligence was considered so sensitive that in 1945 it was locked away, not due to be released until the year 2021.
Now, 17 years early, the BBC's Document programme has been given special access to this secret file.
It reveals how thousands of Indian soldiers who had joined Britain in the fight against fascism swapped their oaths to the British king for others to Adolf Hitler - an astonishing tale of loyalty, despair and betrayal that threatened to rock British rule in India, known as the Raj.
The story the German officers told their interrogators began in Berlin on 3 April 1941. This was the date that the left-wing Indian revolutionary leader, Subhas Chandra Bose, arrived in the German capital.
Bose, who had been arrested 11 times by the British in India, had fled the Raj with one mission in mind. That was to seek Hitler's help in pushing the British out of India.
Six months later, with the help of the German foreign ministry, he had set up what he called "The Free India Centre", from where he published leaflets, wrote speeches and organised broadcasts in support of his cause.
By the end of 1941, Hitler's regime officially recognised his provisional "Free India Government" in exile, and even agreed to help Chandra Bose raise an army to fight for his cause. It was to be called "The Free India Legion".
Bose hoped to raise a force of about 100,000 men which, when armed and kitted out by the Germans, could be used to invade British India.
He decided to raise them by going on recruiting visits to Prisoner-of-War camps in Germany which, at that time, were home to tens of thousands of Indian soldiers captured by Rommel in North Africa.
Volunteers
Finally, by August 1942, Bose's recruitment drive got fully into swing. Mass ceremonies were held in which dozens of Indian POWs joined in mass oaths of allegiance to Adolf Hitler.
These are the words that were used by men that had formally sworn an oath to the British king:
"I swear by God this holy oath that I will obey the leader of the German race and state, Adolf Hitler, as the commander of the German armed forces in the fight for India, whose leader is Subhas Chandra Bose."
I managed to track down one of Bose's former recruits, Lieutenant Barwant Singh, who can still remember the Indian revolutionary arriving at his prisoner of war camp.
"He was introduced to us as a leader from our country who wanted to talk to us," he said.
"He wanted 500 volunteers who would be trained in Germany and then parachuted into India. Everyone raised their hands. Thousands of us volunteered."
Demoralized
In all 3,000 Indian prisoners of war signed up for the Free India Legion.
But instead of being delighted, Bose was worried. A left-wing admirer of Russia, he was devastated when Hitler's tanks rolled across the Soviet border.
Matters were made even worse by the fact that after Stalingrad it became clear that the now-retreating German army would be in no position to offer Bose help in driving the British from faraway India.
When the Indian revolutionary met Hitler in May 1942 his suspicions were confirmed, and he came to believe that the Nazi leader was more interested in using his men to win propaganda victories than military ones.
So, in February 1943, Bose turned his back on his legionnaires and slipped secretly away aboard a submarine bound for Japan.
There, with Japanese help, he was to raise a force of 60,000 men to march on India.
Back in Germany the men he had recruited were left leaderless and demoralized. After mush dissent and even a mutiny, the German High Command dispatched them first to Holland and then south-west France, where they were told to help fortify the coast for an expected allied landing.
After D-Day, the Free India Legion, which had now been drafted into Himmler's Waffen SS, were in headlong retreat through France, along with regular German units.
It was during this time that they gained a wild and loathsome reputation amongst the civilian population.
The former French Resistance fighter, Henri Gendreaux, remembers the Legion passing through his home town of Ruffec:
"I do remember several cases of rape. A lady and her two daughters were raped and in another case they even shot dead a little two-year-old girl."
Finally, instead of driving the British from India, the Free India Legion were themselves driven from France and then Germany.
Their German military translator at the time was Private Rudolf Hartog, who is now 80.
"The last day we were together an armoured tank appeared. I thought, my goodness, what can I do? I'm finished," he said.
"But he only wanted to collect the Indians. We embraced each other and cried. You see that was the end."
Mutinies
A year later the Indian legionnaires were sent back to India, where all were released after short jail sentences.
But when the British put three of their senior officers on trial near Delhi there were mutinies in the army and protests on the streets.
With the British now aware that the Indian army could no longer be relied upon by the Raj to do its bidding, independence followed soon after.
Not that Subhas Chandra Bose was to see the day he had fought so hard for. He died in 1945.
Since then little has been heard of Lieutenant Barwant Singh and his fellow legionnaires.
At the end of the war the BBC was forbidden from broadcasting their story and this remarkable saga was locked away in the archives, until now. Not that Lieutenant Singh has ever forgotten those dramatic days.
"In front of my eyes I can see how we all looked, how we would all sing and how we all talked about what eventually would happen to us all," he said.
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Fate of Indian War Leader Thrown Into Doubt By New Report
The Guardian, 5/17/2006
To the British he was a traitor who joined hands with Hitler. To Indians he was a patriot who took a heroic stance against imperialism.
But the fate of Subhas Chandra Bose, leader of the Indian National Army which collaborated with the Japanese and Germans against the British in the Second World War, remains a mystery after a six-year investigation into his disappearance contradicted the official version of events.
Bose, known in India as Netaji or respected leader, was presumed to have died of burns in a plane crash in Taiwan shortly after the Japanese surrender in August 1945. However a commission led by Supreme Court Judge M.K. Mukherjee said yesterday Bose did not die in the crash and his supposed ashes, kept at Renkoji Temple near Tokyo, were those of a Japanese soldier not those of the Indian hero.
"The Taiwanese have no records of the cremation of Netaji or his three companions. These included an important Japanese general Shidei which would have definitely been recorded," Justice Mukherjee told the Guardian. "As he would be 108 today, I have no doubt Bose is dead but he did not die in a plane crash."
The Mukherjee report instead contends the ashes, which are visited by modern-day Indian leaders on visits to Tokyo, are those of Ichiro Okura, a Japanese officer in the Taiwanese puppet army who died of "heart failure".
All this, the report concludes, was a "smokescreen" by the Japanese authorities to ensure "Netaji's safe passage". The Indian government issued a terse rebuttal saying that it had "examined the report ... and has not agreed with the findings".
Many in India believe that Justice Mukherjee has finally unearthed the truth about Bose. "There have been recurrent accounts of his being seen in the Soviet Union a year after the end of the war," said Anuj Dhar, author of Back from the Dead, a recent book about Bose. Mr Dhar said there were claims he later ended up in Mao's China; another report says the Vietnamese had files relating to his post-war friendship with the country's venerated leader Ho Chi Minh. A persistent theme is that Bose returned to India to live his last days as a holy man.
"But nobody could investigate while the plane crash theory was accepted," says Mr Dhar. "We need now to probe further."
Relatives of the Subhas Chandra Bose say that none of the theories can be easily discounted. Pradip Bose, a nephew of Indian wartime leader, said there were too many holes in the accepted version of his death.
"There are documents showing Stalin talking about my uncle and what to do with him in 1946. His plan was to get to Russia and regroup there. I still keep an open mind on what actually happened to him."
Bose remains an iconic figure especially in his home state of West Bengal.His statue, in military uniform, stands in the Indian parliament with those of India's two most revered leaders: Mohandas K. Gandhi, and the country's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
Part of Bose's legend and enduring mystique stems from his remarkable wartime escapades. The Cambridge-educated freedom fighter rejected Gandhi's pacifism in favour of violent revolution.
Bose escaped from house arrest in Calcutta in 1941 travelling via Kabul to Berlin where he met Hitler. The Führer advised Bose to seek help from the advancing Japanese troops in Asia and offered him passage to Tokyo aboard a German U-boat.
Bose finally arrived in Burma at the head of an 80,000-strong "Indian national army" and advanced to British India's north eastern states. He had set up a government-in-exile and inspired revolts in the British Indian army. A biopic last year showed him planting the Indian tricolour on Indian soil for the first time.
Academics have argued that Bose disagreed with the arguments of racial superiority espoused by Japan and the Nazis. Most paint Bose as a pragmatist who considered an enemy's enemy a friend.
"He was a very clever man and a good bloke. I had a lot of time for him,” Hugh Toye, the former British intelligence officer whose job it was to track down Bose, told the Guardian. "If we had caught him he would have been sentenced to death though. I still think he died in the plane crash."
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