Building a Nazi Europe

In a compelling new study, Martin Gutmann offers an in-depth

examination of the Swedish, Swiss, and Danish men who worked
and fought for the Schutzstaffel, or SS, during the Second World War.
Dispelling a host of myths regarding foreign collaboration with Hitler’s
regime, it reveals how these men were highly motivated to affect a
National Socialist Revolution across northwestern or “Germanic”
Europe. Working behind Berlin desks, they played a pivotal part in
shaping the Nazi New Order and actively participated in the regime’s
brutal atrocities, fighting in the trenches of the Eastern Front and on the
streets of Copenhagen. The book argues that these men became a focal
point for infighting in the regime regarding the role of non-Germans in
National Socialism, a source of tension that directly contributed to the
regime’s failure. Building a Nazi Europe sheds new light on historical
conceptions of fascism, collaboration, transnational history, and the
Holocaust.

Martin R.  Gutmann is European Union Marie Skłodowska-Curie

Fellow at Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg.
Building a Nazi Europe
The SS’s Germanic Volunteers

MARTIN R. GUTMANN
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg
 University Printing House, Cambridge CB2 8BS, United Kingdom

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

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www.cambridge.org
Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781107155435
© Martin R. Gutmann 2017
This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception
and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements,
no reproduction of any part may take place without the written
permission of Cambridge University Press.
First published 2017
A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication data
Names: Gutmann, Martin R., 1979– author.
Title: Building a Nazi Europe: the SS’s Germanic volunteers /
Martin R. Gutmann (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg).
Description: Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York, NY:
Cambridge University Press, 2017. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016024244 | ISBN 9781107155435 (hardback)
Subjects: LCSH: Waffen-SS – Recruiting, enlistment, etc. – History. |
Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter-Partei. SS-Hauptamt. Germanische
Leitstelle – History. | World War, 1939–1945 – Collaborationists – Switzerland. |
World War, 1939–1945 – Collaborationists – Sweden. | World War, 1939–1945 –
Collaborationists – Denmark. | Waffen-SS – Biography. | Himmler, Heinrich,
1900–1945 – Political and social views. | Germanic peoples – Europe – Ethnic
identity – History – 20th century. | Fascism – Europe – History – 20th century. |
Transnationalism – Political aspects – Europe – History – 20th century. |
BISAC: HISTORY / Europe / General.
Classification: LCC D757.85.G87 2016 | DDC 940.54/1343–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016024244
ISBN 978-1-107-15543-5 Hardback
Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of
URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication,
and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain,
accurate or appropriate.
To Djahane, Espen, Emil, and Ylva
 Contents

Acknowledgments page ix
Note on Names xiii
Common Abbreviations and Foreign Terms xv

Introduction 1
1 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment 26
2 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches 52
3 Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS 89
4 Building a Germanic Europe 118
5 Molding the Germanic Political Soldier 149
6 The End of the Germanic Project 175
Conclusion 203

Bibliography 209
Index 225

vii
 Acknowledgments

During the long process of writing this book, I  was blessed with the
generous support of numerous individuals and institutions. A  number
of scholars, librarians, and archivists supported me in my work. First
and foremost, Michael Ebner was instrumental in my completing the dis-
sertation upon which this manuscript is based. He braved through my
frequent U-turns and stumbles with calm and humor. He managed to
remain a good mentor, motivator, and friend. Michael as well as David
Bennett, Fred Marquardt, Paul Hagenloh, and Brian Taylor were instru-
mental in my development as a scholar and guided my dissertation proj-
ect with great care. I am grateful, too, for the support and feedback from
scholars the world over, in particular Nir Arielli, Waitman Beorn, Claus
Christensen, Terrence Corrigan, Peter Geiger, Robert Gerwarth, Asgeir
Gudmundsson, Werner Hagmann, Ulrich Herbert, Thomas Kuehne,
Mark Mazower, Niels Poulsen, Matt Smith, Lennart Westberg, and
Michael Wildt. Jon Mathieu and Dorothee Brantz, in particular, went
above and beyond in their advocacy for me. I would also like to thank
the many archivists and librarians who helped me locate hard-to-find
sources and secure permission to view otherwise closed files, in particu-
lar the unknown administrator of the Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen
who managed to get me last-minute access to the closed files of
K.B. Martinsen’s papers a mere few hours before my flight was departing.
I wish to thank my editors Lewis Bateman and Michael Watson and the
rest of the Cambridge team for the professionalism and care with which
they guided this project through the publication process. Their dedication
to producing the best possible book is exemplary and inspiring. I  also

ix
 Acknowledgments xi

have been completed without her patience and encouragement. Our

year of research, writing, and expecting the birth of our first child in
Berlin will forever remain with me as a most magical year. Our lovely
son Espen managed to motivate me to finish writing even before he was
born. Indeed, he arrived on a wonderful Berlin spring day, three days
after I completed a first draft of the manuscript. Now, five years later,
his brother Emil and sister Ylva have joined us. My deepest love and
appreciation to the four of you!
 Note on Names

For the sake of brevity, I have refrained from spelling out the full des-
ignations of SS combat formations. Thus, for example, I  refer to the
SS-Division “Nordland” instead of the 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier
Division “Nordland.” SS ranks are in the original German with those of
foreign militaries translated into their English equivalent. Place names are
in their original except in cases where a common English usage exists.
The spelling of an individual foreign volunteer’s name often varies
between sources, as German officials inadvertently “Germanized” many
names. The Swede Hans-Caspar Kreuger, for example, appears in many
German records as Hans-Kaspar Krueger. I  have, as far as possible,
retained the original spelling. In cases in which the SS gave volunteers
pseudonyms, I use the name that was most prevalently used by the volun-
teer himself, with a corresponding mention in the footnotes. Because of
archival regulations, some volunteer’s full names cannot be revealed. In
such cases, I refer to them by their initials (for example, P.R.E[. . .]).

xiii
 Common Abbreviations and Foreign Terms

AfZ Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, Archive of the Swiss Federal

Institute of Technology (ETH)
BA Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, German Federal
Archive
BAL Bundesarchiv Aussenstelle Lichterfelde, German
Federal Archive in Lichterfelde
BAMA Bundesarchiv Militärarchiv, German Federal Military
Archive
BAR Bundesarchiv, (Swiss) Federal Archive
BiG Bibliothek am Guisanplatz, (Swiss) Federal Military
Library
DNSAP Danske National-Socialistiske Arbejder Parti, Danish
National Socialist Workers’ Party
Germanische Germanic Office, office under SS-HA
Leitstelle
HIAG Hilfgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit der Angehörigen
der ehemaligen Waffen-SS, Mutual Aid Organization
of former Waffen-SS Members
HSSuPF Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer, Higher SS and Police
Officers
IfZ Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Institute for
Contemporary History
KB Kongelige Bibliotek, (Danish) Royal Library
LLA Landesarchiv Liechtenstein, National Archive of
Liechtenstein
MUST Militära Underrättelse- och Säkerhetstjänsten, Swedish
Military Intelligence and Security Service
NARA National Archives and Records Administration

xv
xvi Common Abbreviations and Foreign Terms

Nationale Front Swiss Fascist Party

NL Nachlass, personal papers
NSDAP Nationalsocialistische Detusche Arbeiterpartei,
German National Socialist Worker’s Party
Pz. Panzer, armored
RA Rigsarkivet, (Danish) National Archive
RAS Riksarkivet, Stockholm, (Swedish) National Archive,
Stockholm
RASA Riksarkivet Stocholm-Arninge, (Swedish) National
Archive Stockholm-Arninge
Reichsführer-SS Reich’s Leader of the SS, title and rank of Heinrich
Himmler
RSHA Reichssicherheitshauptamt, SS Reich’s Security Main
Office
RuSHA Rasse- und Siedlunghauptamt, SS Main Office for
Race and Resettlement
Säpo Säkerhetspolisen, (Swedish) Security Police
SS Schutzstaffel
SS-FHA SS-Führungshauptamt, SS-Main Leadership Office
SS-HA SS-Hauptamt, SS-Main Office
Waffen-SS Military wing of the SS
Wehrmacht German armed forces, composed of Army, Navy and
Air Force and with effective command over Waffen-SS
formations
 Introduction

Brutal excesses were a daily occurrence on the Eastern Front of the Second
World War. During the early stages of the German invasion of the Soviet
Union in the summer of 1941, members of the elite SS-Division “Wiking”
rounded up some sixty civilians, mostly Jews.1 “Wiking” was no ordinary
military formation, but rather a part of the Waffen-SS, the military wing
of Heinrich Himmler’s SS. The SS was the Nazi party organization tasked
with, among other things, coordinating “racial” policy, overseeing the
police, and implementing the Holocaust. A  “Wiking” soldier involved
in this particular roundup of Jews recalled the grueling facts of what
happened in an interview in 1943: The Jews were put to work digging
a trench. Some of the soldiers fired into the huddled group of working
men, while others swung their rifle butts at the condemned men’s heads.
Finally, the interviewee concluded, “the rest had to fight to death with
their shovels in the grave with the promise that survivors would be let
out. These were also shot.”2
Before the beginning of the war, Himmler had established the Waffen-
SS to compete with the regular German Army. As part of the SS it was
a military force fully saturated with the racist and brutal Nazi ideology.
Waffen-SS units regularly participated in the murders of civilians on the
periphery of the battle front. The shooting of these sixty Jews was not,
however, a standard story of Nazi violence. The man who recounted this
story was not a regular German SS soldier, but instead a young Swedish

1
Richard Rhodes, Masters of Death:  Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the
Holocaust (New York: Vintage, 2003), 63.
2
Förhör med Kurt Lundin, 24 December 1943, in RASA, Säpo PA, Kurt Lundin.

1
2 Introduction

volunteer named Kurt Lundin. The citizen of a neutral country largely

unaffected by the war, Lundin seems an unlikely candidate to perpetrate
genocide. But he did, and he was not alone. By the end of the war the
Waffen-SS had developed into a force of over half a million soldiers; of
these some eight thousand were non-German volunteers from the neutral
countries of Sweden, Switzerland, and Denmark.
Four years after the executions on the Eastern Front, in April 1945,
a large contingent of Lundin’s fellow neutral Waffen-SS volunteers with-
drew into Berlin. As the men entered Germany’s once magnificent cap-
ital, they found the city in ruins after weeks of bombardment. In the
chaos of the nearly surrounded city, the men prepared to meet the Red
Army’s onslaught. Concentrated around Hitler’s bunker in the center of
Berlin, the men would be among the dictator’s final defenders. In the next
few weeks all but a handful of them would die fighting for a murderous
regime whose defeat was already certain.3
The questions raised by these examples are deeply perplexing. Neither
the Axis nor the Allies threatened the homes of these men. Many of the
volunteers had young children. Several were highly educated and came
from stable, middle-class families. Why would these men from countries
largely unaffected by the war volunteer to murder and die for a brutal,
racist and foreign ideology? Nor were these neutrals citizens the only
non-Germans who voluntarily fought for the Nazi regime. By the end of
the war, over sixty thousand so-called Germanic Europeans and nearly
half a million non-Germans had served under the Nazi flag.4

3
Lennart Westberg and Lars Gyllenhaal, Svenskar I  Krig (Stockholm:  Historisk Media,
2005), 287. See also Auszüge aus den Aufzeichnungen des ehem. SS-Obersturmführer
Hans-Gösta Pehrsson, 1944–45 Kompaniechef in der SS-Pz.Aufklärungsabteilung
11 “Nordland” in Estland und Pommern, in AfZ, NL FR, ungeordnet.
4
Germanic was a Nazi term for the supposedly racially and culturally related peoples of
northwestern Europe, corresponding roughly to Scandinavia, Holland, Flemish-Belgium,
Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. Whether Estonia was a Germanic country was contested
within the SS leadership. Though the Germanic peoples included Germans as well, the
term was used to refer to these non-German Western Europeans throughout the war, as
opposed to Reichsdeutsche, German citizens, and Volksdeutsche, foreigners of German
heritage and “blood,” mostly from the East. Estimates of the numbers of Germanic vol-
unteers are hard to establish with certainty and vary from 60,000 to 130,000. The total
number of non-Germans in the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, including hundreds of thou-
sands of Eastern Europeans, was well over a million. Rolf-Dieter Müller estimates that
non-Germans accounted for 20 percent of the total Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS strength on
the Eastern Front. Rolf-Dieter Müller, An der Seite der Wehrmacht: Hitlers Ausländische
Helfer Beim “Kreuzzug Gegen Den Bolschewismus” 1941–1945 (Berlin: Christoph Links
Verlag, 2007), 422.
 Introduction 3

This book examines the phenomenon of Germanic volunteers to the

SS through the stories of the neutral volunteers to the Waffen-SS lead-
ership corps – those who became officers or assumed other positions of
responsibility – as well as the SS institutions they worked for. Although
many of the hundreds of thousands of non-Germans who fought for the
Nazi regime were likely coerced into joining by the occupying Germans,
this book focuses on volunteers from countries outside of Germany’s
control – Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark – thereby eliminating coer-
cion or propaganda as explanations for their decisions to volunteer.5
Unlike non-Germanic volunteers who were given a lower status within
the Waffen-SS or came under the command of the German army, volun-
teers from the Germanic countries were fully integrated into the Waffen-
SS and were simultaneously members of the elite SS umbrella organiza-
tion. Moreover, out of the Germanic volunteers, those from the neutral
countries proved to be particularly interested not only in fighting for
the regime, but also in working as administrators to establish a Greater
Germanic Reich.
Much has been written in the last decade on the SS plans for the
colonial reorganization of the occupied Eastern territories. SS officers,
many of them with academic doctorates, conceptualized and personally
participated in the mass murder of the population in the East and the
“Germanization” of the culture and landscape. The parallel SS plans for
the West, in contrast, have been comparatively under-examined. This is
partly because the plans for the West were to a large degree conceptu-
alized by non-German SS men. Most of the Swiss, Swedish, and Danish
volunteers came to the SS armed with ideological visions for the reorga-
nization of Europe that were complimentary to those of their German
colleagues. In the service of the SS they planned to create a Greater
Germanic Reich, an empire in which Germanic racial and cultural unity
would supersede artificial borders and institutions. The term “Germanic”
is itself an artifact of this ideology, as it refers to the supposed racial and
cultural links between peoples in the Northwestern regions of Europe.
Moreover, the volunteers shared a thoroughly anti-democratic vision
based on German-Germanic hegemony over the many “inferior” peoples
of Europe. The Waffen-SS was central to this Germanic project. The bond

5
Sweden and Switzerland remained unoccupied and “neutral” for the duration of the war.
Denmark was occupied by Germany in 1940 but until 1943 was allowed significant free-
dom in administering its internal affairs. Although some Danish volunteers may have
been coerced after 1943, officer corps volunteers, with very few exceptions, joined in
1940 and 1941.
4 Introduction

forged on the Eastern front between these elite Germanic men and their
German colleagues intended to serve as both the catalyst for an organic
alignment of the Germanic countries and as the glue that would hold the
Greater Germanic Reich together. The Germanic “brothers in arms” of
the Waffen-SS would be the seed for a new Europe and form the core of
its elites and leaders.
The history of the SS and the Waffen-SS is hardly unknown. Even so,
the significance of the Germanic volunteers has been misinterpreted. Too
often, their stories have been molded to fit the more comfortable notion
that National Socialism, the Holocaust and the Nazi New Order were
purely German phenomena, anathema to Europe’s steady march towards
democracy and human rights. Works focusing on the Third Reich and the
Second World War often acknowledge the volunteers but examine them
only from the German perspective.6 Nationally focused studies on non-
German Western European countries, for their part, have either ignored
or portrayed the Waffen-SS volunteers as abominations of the national
character, traitorous men who were unrepresentative of the societies from
which they came.7 Both bodies of works portray these volunteers as non-
actors of sorts, who represented an insignificant anomaly in an other-
wise clear-cut story of National Socialist Germany and anti-Nazi Europe.
Those few works that acknowledge the Waffen-SS’s talk of a Greater
Germanic Reich typically reduce this endeavor to pure propaganda – a
tale spun for the benefit of gullible foreign volunteers.8
This book is, above all, an attempt at integrating the personal sto-
ries of Germanic volunteers to the Waffen-SS into the larger narrative of
efforts to reorganize large portions of Europe under the Nazi regime. It
examines who these men were, what drove them, how they contributed
to various aspects of the Nazi project, and how their views developed
during the course of the war. At the same time, the book seeks to link

6
Most recently, see Antony Beevor, The Second World War (New York: Little, Brown and
Co., 2012).
7
See, for example, Robert O. Paxton, Vichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940–
1944 (New  York:  Columbia University Press, 2001), 255; Georg Kreis and Bertrand
Müller, Die Schweiz und der Zweite Weltkrieg (Basel: Schwabe & Co., 1997); Stig Ekman,
Klas Åmark, and John Toler, eds., Sweden’s Relations with Nazism, Nazi Germany, and
the Holocaust (Stockholm:  Universitet Stockholms, 2003); Bosse Schön, Hitlers Svenska
Soldater (Stockholm:  Bokförlaget DN, 2005); Linus Reichlin, Kriegsverbrecher Wipf,
Eugen:  Schweizer in der Waffen-SS, in Deutschen Fabriken und an Den Schreibtischen
des Dritten Reiches (Zürich: Weltwoche, 1994).
8
George H. Stein, The Waffen SS:  Hitler’s Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945 (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), 145–46.
 Introduction 5

these men to decision making on the part of the German SS leadership,

including its chief, Himmler. That is, I wish to treat these men as the real
historical actors they were. This is a study of perpetrators, of ideology, of
the unique institution that was the SS, and, above all, of the interaction
of the three.
In particular, this book examines the hundred most influential and
high-ranking neutral volunteers, all of whom either worked for or closely
with the Germanische Leitstelle, the office most central to the Germanic
project within the SS. Hence, a narrative following the development of
this office parallels the biographies of these men. Far from naïve fanatics
or mentally disturbed individuals, as postwar myths and national his-
toriographies usually regard them, they were well-educated and trav-
eled members of the middle-class, of strong and adventurous character.
They were leaders, not followers. In joining the Waffen-SS they were not
running away from social isolation or economic dislocation at home.
Instead, they sought to defend what they saw as the core of European
civilization and culture from the dual threat of Soviet Bolshevism and
Anglo-American Liberalism and to effect a radical reorganization of the
European political and social order. Once in the service of the Waffen-
SS, their goals were thwarted by friction with various competing Nazi
institutions and the changing fortunes of the war. Along with elucidating
the experiences and contributions of these Germanic volunteers, then,
this book is additionally a case study of the “polyocratic” nature of the
Nazi regime.9 Understanding why the plans for a greater Germanic Reich
failed to take hold within the regime, or even fully within the SS, helps us
better understand the workings of the Nazi regime.
By the end of the war, many Germanic volunteers to the SS had grown
disillusioned. This did not, however, prevent many of them from par-
ticipating in some of the most gruesome crimes of the Nazi regime  –
Lundin’s story being a case in point. It must be said immediately and
unequivocally that in examining who these men were and the decisions
they made, I am no way attempting to excuse their behavior or beliefs;
instead I  am attempting to gain deeper insight into the perpetrator’s
minds and motives and the complexity of the world in which they acted.10

9
Polyocracy refers to Nazi Germany’s overlapping and competing centers of power
among its government institutions. See Jost Dülffer, Nazi Germany, 1933–1945: Faith
and Annihilation (London: E. Arnold, 1996), 96, 110.
10
In this I  am influenced greatly by George L.  Mosse’s concept of “methodological
empathy.” George L. Mosse, Confronting History: A Memoir (Madison:  University of
Wisconsin Press, 2000), 9. See also, Emilio Gentile, “A Provisional Dwelling: The Origin
6 Introduction

Much of the existing literature on the volunteers was written by former

participants – or sympathetic “apologists” – who justified their involve-
ment as a fight for the benefit of Europe.11 In arguing that the men were
motivated by an ideal, the apologists are essentially correct. What the
apologists fail to mention is that the world the volunteers were fighting
for did not have room for everyone – Jews, communists, and others were
to be expunged with the most violent methods – nor for what they saw
as outdated and artificial institutions, such as parliamentary democracy
and individual rights.

Understanding the Waffen-SS

After the Waffen-SS was labeled a criminal organization at the
Nuremberg trials, its former members began a campaign to exoner-
ate both the organization and their service. Hence, former Waffen-SS
officers have been among the most prolific authors on the subject of
the Waffen-SS. Foremost among these are the former generals Felix
Steiner and Paul Hausser.12 The title of Hausser’s popular book,
Soldaten Wie Andere Auch (“Soldiers just like others”), summarizes
the thrust of both his and Steiner’s main argument.13 One or more
former Waffen-SS volunteers wrote similar books for each coun-
try that supplied volunteers.14 These authors have been joined by a
large number of apologists and military enthusiasts who portray the

and Development of the Concept of Fascism in Mosse’s Historiography,” in What

History Tells: George L. Mosse and the Culture of Modern Europe, ed. Stanley G. Payne,
David J. Sorkin, and John S. Tortorice (Madison:  The University of Wisconsin Press,
2004), 58.
11
Felix Steiner, Die Freiwilligen; Idee und Opfergang (Göttingen:  Plesse, 1958); Paul
Hausser, Soldaten Wie Andere Auch:  Der Weg der Waffen-SS (Osnabrück:  Munin,
1966); Richard Schulze Kossens, Militärischer Führernachwuchs der Waffen-SS:  Die
Junkerschulen, 3rd ed. (Coburg:  Nation Europa, 1999). Apologetic literature on the
Waffen-SS has proliferated into the current decade. This extensive body of works will
not be catalogued here.
12
See Felix Steiner, Die Wehridee des Abendlandes (Frankfurt: Parma-Edition, 1951); Die
Freiwilligen; Idee und Opfergang.
13
One of the most popular memoirs by an SS soldier similarly downplays the political
elements of the organization. Of his time in the Waffen-SS, Johann Voss (pseudonym)
writes, “The notion of the Waffen-SS as politically or racially indoctrinated fanatics
driven by Party ideology and hate, was, in my experience, far from reality.” Johann Voss,
Black Edelweiss. A Memoir of Combat and Conscience by a Soldier of the Waffen-SS
(Bedford: Aberjona, 2002), 57.
14
The former Danish Waffen-SS volunteer Oluf Krabbe, is one such example. Oluf Krabbe,
Danske Soldater I Kamp På Østfronten 1941–1945 (København: Bogans Forlag, 1998).
 Understanding the Waffen-SS 7

Waffen-SS as a modern fighting force and a forerunner to NATO

and the multinational peacekeeping forces of the later twentieth
century.15 Though not all of these works are overtly sympathetic to
the Nazi ideology, their strict emphasis on military issues and their
glorification of the German war-making machine is a clear attempt
to distance the Waffen-SS from the bearers of the Nazi ideology and
perpetrators of crimes and suffering. These works, and their interpre-
tations, are easy to dismiss. More troubling is a second group of works
produced by pseudo-academic historians whose thoroughly researched
writings, imbued with the language of scholarship, straddle the line
of apologia. These sorts of works, which claim to examine the phe-
nomenon of non-Germans in both the Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht as a
whole, usually withhold any sort of judgment in favor of documenting,
in encyclopedic detail, the participation of volunteers from individual
countries in particular Waffen-SS formations.16
Perhaps as a result of the monopolization of Waffen-SS literature by for-
mer Waffen-SS members and their apologetic supporters, serious historians
long wrote the topic off. With the exception of studies by the German his-
torian Berndt Wegner and the American historian George Stein, the history
of the military arm of the SS was neglected for almost fifty years.17 As the
historiography of the Nazi regime and its war crimes has become a lot more
complicated over the past few decades, dealing with everything from race,
class, gender, and sexuality to transnationalism, historians’ assumptions
about the origins and role of the Waffen-SS were frozen in time.
This situation has begun to change in the last decade, with a resurgence
in works on the Waffen-SS as an organization integral to the Nazi regime
and its crimes.18 These works support the pioneering work of Wegner

15
See, for example, the works of Patrick Agte with Munin Verlag and Chris Bishop with
MBI Publishing.
16
Hans Werner Neulen, An Deutscher Seite: Internationale Freiwillige Von Wehrmacht und
Waffen-SS (München: Universitas, 1985); Vincenz Oertle, Sollte Ich Aus Russland Nicht
Zurückkehren:  Schweizer Freiwillige an Deutscher Seite, 1939–1945 (Zürich:  Thesis
Verlag, 1998).
17
Bernd Wegner, Hitlers Politische Soldaten, die Waffen-SS 1933–1945: Studien Zu Leitbild,
Struktur und Funktion Einer Nationalsozialistischen Elite (Paderborn:  Schöningh,
1982); Stein, The Waffen SS: Hitler’s Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945.
18
See, for example, Die Waffen-SS. Neue Foschung (Paderborn:  Ferdinand Schöningh,
2014); Martin Cüppers, Wegbereiter der Shoah:  Die Waffen-SS, der Kommandostab
Reichsführer-SS und die Judenvernichtung 1939–1945 (Darmstadt:  Wissenschaftliche
Buchgesellschaft, 2005); Jürgen Förster, “Die Weltanschauliche Erziehung in der Waffen-
SS:  ‘Kein Totes Wissen, Sondern Lebendiger Nationalsozialismus’,” in Ausbildungsziel
Jugendmord? “Weltanschauliche Erziehung” Von SS, Polizei und Waffen-SS Im
8 Introduction

and Stein in discrediting the apologetic readings of the Waffen-SS. Recent

publications have also offered suggestive challenges to the readings of
the Germanic volunteers as having been “outsiders” – either criminally
inclined or mentally unstable.19 These studies paint a complex picture of
collaboration. For example, a 2008 work on Christian Schalburg, the
commander of the Danish Waffen-SS Legion until his death in 1942,
caused an uproar in Denmark because it made clear that Schalburg, who
had been a convinced Nazi and complicit in numerous acts of brutality,
had been an influential Danish officer in the prewar years and a close
friend of the royal family.20 My close examination of the roles of other
leading non-German Waffen-SS volunteers suggests that Schalburg was
the norm, rather than the exception.
Beyond its contributions to the history of the Third Reich, the Waffen-
SS and the individual neutral countries, this book opens a critical dialogue
with several key strands of twentieth-century European historiography.
Primary among these are theories of transnational history, Täterforschung
(examinations of the perpetrators of the crimes of the Third Reich), the
appeal in Western Europe of fascism in general, and the Nazi New Order in
particular. Considering these strands together allows me to make sense of
what on the surface appear to be several contradictions represented by the
volunteers: they were clearly fascists, yet for the most part did not belong
to a fascist party; they were stout nationalists yet advocated for the aban-
donment of the nation state; they were ideologues yet saw themselves pri-
marily as “actors,” not “thinkers”; they were “normal” citizens of neutral
countries who enthusiastically participated in abhorrent acts of violence.
The phenomenon of neutral volunteers from several countries arriving
at a similar ideological inclination cannot be fully appreciated without a

Rahmen der “Endlösung,” ed. Jürgen Matthäus, et  al. (Frankfurt am Main:  Fischer
Taschenbuch Verlag, 2003); Jean-Luc Leleu, La Waffen-SS. Soldats Politiques En Guerre
(Paris: Perrin, 2007).
19
A notable exception is Søren Schou, De Danske Østfront-Frivillige (København: Suensen,
1981). This book attempts to understand who the Danish volunteers were. Written sev-
eral decades ago, however, Schou’s work suffers from a lack of quality sources (see John
T. Lauridsen, De Danske Nazister (Københamn: Det Kongelige Bibliotek, 1995), 25–26).
20
Mikkel Kirkebæk, Schalburg:  En Patriotisk Landsforræder (Copenhagen:  Gyldendal,
2008). On reactions, see Rasmus Wiin Larsen, “Nazibøger vælter ud fra forlagene,”
Politiken 28 February 2008. Accessed at http://politiken.dk/boger/article608449.ece 21
May 2009; “Kongahuset elskede dansk topnazist.” Arbejderen 26 April 2008. Accessed
at http:// www.arbejderen.dk/ index.aspx?F_ ID=48069&TS_ ID=3&S_ ID=40&C_
ID=147, May 21 2009. For similar studies, see Terje Emberland and Bernt Rougthvedt,
Det Ariske Idol: Forfatteren, Eventyreren og Nazisten Per Imerslund (Oslo: Aschehoug,
2004); Westberg and Gyllenhaal, Svenskar I Krig, 269–72.
 Understanding the Waffen-SS 9

transnational lens. The very fact that a group of similarly minded men
from different countries threw their lot in with the Nazi regime – a phe-
nomenon that is obscured when viewing from the perspective of a single
nation – hints at the cultural and social forces that affected men across
European boundaries in the prewar years. Both the discourse that they
consumed and produced and the very essence of their outlook were trans-
national. They imagined a utopia not within but instead of the countries
from which they came. For these reasons, this book is transnational at
its core.
The last decade has seen an explosive proliferation of literature on the
methodological benefits and heuristic value of transnational studies as
well as an accompanying reevaluation of the merits of comparative his-
tory. I have found the concept of ‘entangled’ history, or histoire croisée,
particularly useful; it informs my underlying assumption that a nation-
ally compartmentalized understanding of the war, including of National
Socialism, distorts a very complex reality.21 The country of Switzerland,
for example, cannot reasonably be portrayed as unified actor; instead
various persons and institutions responded differently to the reality of the
Nazi New Order. More importantly, of course, even if one were to accept
a reified notion of Switzerland, its government’s decisions were intimately
bound to decisions and conditions established abroad.
Though a problem in many areas of historical studies, the temptation
to reify the nation-state has been particularly strong in historiography
on the Second World War. Older accounts that portray Germany as a
complete aberration of European culture, and therefore as solely respon-
sible for the catastrophe in the surrounding countries, positioned non-
Germans as victims who resisted Germany’s nefarious intentions at every
turn.22 These assumptions have been challenged more recently, in partic-
ular in economic history. Recent studies of each of the neutral countries,
for example, have revealed the extent to which their economies relied on
Nazi Germany and how, in turn, neutral economic assets sustained the

21
For a good overview of these related concepts, see Jürgen Kocka, “Comparison and
Beyond,” History and Theory 42 (2003). For a good overview of transnationalism, see
Patricia Clavin, “Defining Transnationalism,” Contemporary European History 14, no.
4 (2005). See also Kiran Klaus Patel, “Transatlantische Perspektiven Transnationaler
Geschichte,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 29, no. 4 (2003).
22
Dan Stone has argued that the long tendency to ignore collaboration resulted from
the Cold War paradigm. Dan Stone, Goodbye to All That? The Story of Europe since
1945 (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2014), viii. The classic “Sonderweg” work is
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich:  A  History of Nazi Germany
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990).
10 Introduction

German war effort.23 With the ongoing recognition that small numbers
of collaborators within societies largely opposed to Hitler is not an accu-
rate reflection of wartime Europe, studies are emerging that examine the
complex nature of Western Europe’s relationship to National Socialism.
But while some of this work uses a transnational lens, much continues to
operate within the confines of the nation-state.24 This has been especially
true of studies of the Germanic volunteers referred to above.25
In keeping with the notion of an “entangled” history, I  portray the
development and experiences of Germanic volunteers as shared and
mutually informed. Though colored by their specific national upbring-
ings, even in the prewar years these men held remarkably similar ideas –
ideas informed by a transnational discourse and European-wide pres-
sures. In this sense I  seek to observe the transnational flow, effect and

23
See, for example, Mario König and Bettina Zeugin, eds., Die Schweiz, der
Nationalsozialismus und der Zweite Weltkrieg:  Schlussbericht der Unabhängigen
Expertenkommision Schweiz  – Zweiter Weltkrieg (Zürich:  Pendo, 2002); Martin
Fritz, Sveriges Tyskgruvor. Tyskägda Gruvor I  Sverige under Andra Världskriget
(Kristianstad: Sekel, 2007); Phil Giltner, “The Success of Collaboration: Denmark’s Self-
Assessment of Its Economic Position after Five Years of Nazi Occupation,” Journal of
Contemporary History 36, no. 3 (2001); Walter Hofer and Herbert Reginbogin, Hitler, der
Westen und die Schweiz 1936–1945 (Zürich: NZZ Verlag, 2003); Adam LeBor, Hitler’s
Secret Bankers: The Myth of Swiss Neutrality During the Holocaust (Seacaucas: Citadel
Press, 1997).
24
Indeed, a group of leading scholars have complained that despite the great emphasis on
transnationalism, few fundamentally transnational studies exist, C.A. Bavly et al., “AHR
Conversation: On Transnational History,” American Historical Review 111, no. 5 (2006).
On national studies, see, for example, Julian Jackson, France:  The Dark Years, 1940–
1944 (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001). Ekman, Åmark, and Toler,
Sweden’s Relations with Nazism, Nazi Germany, and the Holocaust. Good examples of
transnational studies are Arnd Bauerkämper, “Ambiguities of Transnationalism Fascism
in Europe between Pan-Europeanism and Ultra-Nationalism, 1919–39,” German
Historical Institute London Bulletin 2 (2007); Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the
Nazis Ruled Europe (New York:  Penguin, 2008); Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth
Century (New  York:  A.A. Knopf, distributed by Random House, 1999); though with
a focus outside of Western Europe, also notable is Federico Finchelstein, Transatlantic
Fascism: Ideology, Violence, and the Sacred in Argentina and Italy, 1919–1945 (Durham,
NC: Duke University Press, 2010).
25
Excellent but nationally centered studies on Germanic and other Western European
volunteers include, Claus Bundgard Christensen, Niels Bo Poulsen, and Peter
Scharff Smith, Under Hagekors og Dannebrog:  Danskere I  Waffen-SS 1940–1945
(Copenhagen:  Aschehoug, 1998); Kirkebæk, Schalburg:  En Patriotisk Landsforræder;
Bruno De Wever, ““Rebellen” an der Ostfront. Die Flämischen Freiwilligen der Legion
“Flandern” und der Waffen-SS,” Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte 39, no. 4 (1991);
Westberg and Gyllenhaal, Svenskar I Krig; Philippe Carrard, The French Who Fought
for Hitler: Memories from the Outcasts (Cambridge; New York:  Cambridge University
Press, 2010).
 Understanding the Waffen-SS 11

propagation of broad Germanic fascist ideas, over, across, and through

national boundaries.26 Moreover, although they were convinced national-
ists, with very few exceptions all of the men discussed here traveled out-
side of their national boundaries, both physically and intellectually. Most
of them abandoned at an early age the traditional building blocks of
their respective national identities, especially the Church. They were very
much cosmopolitan nationalists or, to use Benjamin G. Martin’s phrase,
“inter-nationalists.”27 The tension and inherent contradictions of such a
Weltanschauung plagued their entire careers. They too, like much of the
historiography that would follow in the war’s wake, were trapped in a
nation-state-centered world.
Transnational investigations have traditionally centered on the inter-
actions of goods or people, in particular interactions outside of the
state’s control or influence. Indeed transnationalism is often placed in
direct opposition to the nation-state.28 In this regard, the story of the
neutral volunteers and their efforts to create a Greater Germanic Reich is
unique. Their discourse and efforts at affecting change in their homelands
occurred across national lines, far from the reach of their national govern-
ments. Yet it took place within the confines of perhaps the most powerful
state-structure in modern European history:  the Nazi state. Moreover,
once in Germany, the story of these men became intimately linked with
that of German SS officers, including Heinrich Himmler, many of whom
had similar inclinations.
In this sense, the volunteers’ story fits in with and connects to a recent
trend in Nazi historiography that has focused on the tremendous sup-
port the regime received from young German intellectuals, who were
instrumental in providing academic and administrative competency for
the regime’s policies.29 It was only within the institutions of the SS that

26
As methodologically proposed by David Thelen, “The Nation and Beyond: Transnational
Perspectives on United States History,” Journal of American History 86, no. 3 (1999): 958.
27
Benjamin G. Martin, “A New Order for European Culture: The German-Italian Axis and
the Reordering of International Cultural Exchange, 1936–1943” (PhD thesis, Columbia
University, 2006).
28
See Clavin, “Defining Transnationalism,” 422.
29
See, for example, Michael Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten: Das Führungskorps des
Reichsicherheitshauptamtes (Hamburg:  Hamburger Edition, 2002); Ulrich Herbert,
Best: Biographische Studien Über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und Vernunft, 1903–
1989 (Bonn:  J.H.W. Dietz, 1996); Lutz Raphael, “Radikales Ordnungsdenken und die
Organisation Totalitärer Herrschaft: Weltanschauungseliten und Humanwissenschaftler
Im NS-Regime,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 27, no. 1 (2001); Götz Aly and Susanne
Heim, Architects of Annihilation: Auschwitz and the Logic of Destruction (Princeton,
NJ:  Princeton University Press, 2002); Susanne Heim, “Research for Autarky:  The
12 Introduction

what had originally been vague ideas and desires for a solution to the per-
ceived degradation of Europe that the idea of a Greater Germanic Reich
formed more concretely in the minds of the neutral volunteers. Although
this idea developed, evolved and was unsuccessfully implemented by a
group of German and neutral SS officers, to say that the neutral vol-
unteers were inculcated with these ideas once in Germany is wrong.30
Hardly mere receptacles for ideology, the volunteers were carriers of and
actively involved in conceptualizing national socialist ideology. They
played a major role in ‘educating’ new Germanic recruits and in popular-
izing the cause by writing articles, magazines, and books to promote the
Germanic idea.
The genre of works that analyze the role of individual SS perpetrators
has a long history. An early postwar work characterized concentration
camp guards as men without any “character or technical training” who
had failed in their studies and private careers.31 In her classic work on the
subject, Hannah Arendt turned her gaze above the concentration camp
guards and redefined the regime and the Holocaust as a bureaucratic
process, encapsulated in her description of the “banality of evil.”32 More
recently, this static image of the thuggish concentration camp guard and
the paper-pushing “deskbound-killer” has been revised significantly by
scholars building on the concept of “reactionary modernism” to show the
men as at once well educated, technically proficient and ideologically rad-
icalized.33 In particular, high-ranking SS officers have emerged in recent
studies as “fighting bureaucrats” – that is, as highly educated, articulate

Contribution of Scientists to Nazi Rule in Germany,” in Geschichte der Kaiser-Wilhelm-

Gesellschaft Im Nationalsozialismus (Berlin:  Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung
der Wissenschaften, 2001).
30
This view is widely propagated. In addition to literature already cited, see Norman
Davison, “The Myth of the European Army: Foreign Nationals in the German Waffen-
SS During World War Two” (PhD thesis, Kean University, 1975), 17–18.
31
Eugen Kogon, Der SS-Staat. Das System der Deutschen Konzentrationslager
(München: Kindler, 1974), 290.
32
Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (New York:
Penguin Books, 1994); see also Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews
(New York: Holmes & Meier, 1961).
33
Jeffrey Herff, Reactionary Modernism. Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar
and the Third Reich (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 1984), especially 152–
88; Aly and Heim, Architects of Annihilation: Auschwitz and the Logic of Destruction;
Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men:  Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final
Solution in Poland (New York:  Perennial, 1993), especially his description of men such
as Martin Luther, 27.
 Understanding the Waffen-SS 13

and ambitious men who were eager not only to conceptualize but also to
implement murderous policies.34
The traditional caricature of the neutral volunteer is as outdated as
that of the old SS perpetrator. This book provides a more nuanced sketch
of the neutral men, showing them not as social misfits and or followers,
but as highly intellectual and ambitious men whose belief in National
Socialist ideas existed not despite of, but in fact grew from, their complex
understanding of the world they lived in. Like many German SS officers,
they too were “fighting bureaucrats.” They saw themselves, and were seen,
both as ‘thinkers’ and ‘doers.’ This book therefore attempts to uncover
the essence of the neutral volunteers by combining “biographical” and
“institutional” approaches. This is not merely an exercise in integrating
their stories into the institutions they worked within – the Germanische
Leitstelle, the SS Officer Cadet School Tölz and the “Nordland” and
“Wiking” divisions of the Waffen-SS  – but rather an investigation into
the dynamic relationship between their personal views, the radicalizing
effects of front-line experience, and the efforts to create concrete policies
in cooperation with other Germanics and Germans.
Another broad historiographical strand with which this work is in
dialogue is that of the Nazi New Order. The Nazi New Order, which has
seen a resurgence of historical interest in recent years, can at its most
basic be seen as two parallel strands: first, German conceptions of and
efforts to effect a reorganization of the European political, social and
economic landscape; and second, the European response to and com-
plicity in these various efforts. After the war, occupied and un-occupied
countries alike were quick to claim that they had been mere victims who
collaborated in order to “weather the storm.” Recent historical investiga-
tions contradict this view. Beyond political and economic collaboration,
historians are discovering that many of the tenets of Nazi ideology and
goals of the Nazi New Order resonated with a significant portion of the
well-educated elites of Western Europe.35 Some scholars, following in the
tradition of George L. Mosse, have gone so far as to say that “fascism,

34
The primary example of this is Werner Best, a leading SS lawyer whose work was
integral to the development of the RSHA and occupation policy in Western Europe.
See, Herbert, Best:  Biographische Studien Über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und
Vernunft, 1903–1989. See also Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten: Das Führungskorps
des Reichsicherheitshauptamtes, 203–06.
35
Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century, 140; Joachim Lund, “Denmark
and the ‘European New Order’, 1940–1942,” Contemporary European History 13, no.
3 (2004).
14 Introduction

Nazism, and the Final Solution” should be seen “as the (not necessarily
inevitable) culmination of deeper immanent trends, perceptions, and pro-
cesses operating in Western and Central European culture – albeit in their
most radical and corrupted form.”36
This book engages with works on the appeal and implementation
of the Nazi New Order in three ways. First, it attempts to answer the
pressing question of just how deep support for a German victory went
in Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, and, by extension, Western Europe.37
Second, this book follows the lead of recent scholars in seeing the Nazi
New Order not simply as a fictional or unactualized concept but as a set
of emerging policies that not only promised to change postwar Europe
but were in fact already doing so.38 Moreover, this work highlights an
element of non-German participation in the conceptualization and imple-
mentation of these plans. Finally, the story of the neutral volunteers is
very much a micro-history of how Hitler and the Nazis lost the support
of their would-be Germanic supporters. The fact that many of these eager,
fascist, and by 1942–1943 very much committed men grew increasingly
resentful of the behavior of fellow German SS officers and the policies of
various institutions of the regime is a testament to the absolute inability
of the regime to compromise and incorporate differing opinions into its
operations. The story of the neutral volunteers fully shows the extent to
which Hitler’s regime squandered – and it must be said thankfully so –
what could have been long-term, enthusiastic support among some of
Western Europe’s most competent young men for even the most radical
and brutal aspects of its plans.
Finally, this book relies on and contributes to theories on fascism.
Studies of generic fascism have resurged in the past two decades.39 These
works have greatly expanded our understanding of the subject, show-
ing that fascism was more than a simple “anti-ideology” in reaction

36
Steven E. Aschheim, “Introduction,” in What History Tells:  George L.  Mosse and the
Culture of Modern Europe, ed. Stanley G. Payne, David J. Sorkin, John S. Tortorice
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004), 6.
37
Ekman, Åmark, and Toler, Sweden’s Relations with Nazism, Nazi Germany, and the
Holocaust, 17.
38
Most recently, see Martin, “A New Order for European Culture:  The German-Italian
Axis and the Reordering of International Cultural Exchange, 1936–1943,” especially 10–
14; Joachim Lund, “Building Hitler’s Europe: Forced Labor in the Danish Construction
Business During World War II,” The Business History Review 84, no. 3 (2010).
39
In following the practice of scholars of fascism, the term is capitalized only when refer-
ring to the movement in Italy. See, for example, Robert O. Paxton, “The Five Stages of
Fascism,” Journal of Modern History 70 (1998): 1.
 Understanding the Waffen-SS 15

to communism.40 Nevertheless, most of these studies continue to focus

on self-proclaimed fascist movements and parties. Consider, for exam-
ple, historian Robert Paxton’s understanding of fascism as “a form of
political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community
decline, humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of unity,
energy and purity,” harnessed by a political party that “abandons demo-
cratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical
restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.”41 Whether
“officially” organized as National Socialists or not, the men who would
become Waffen-SS officer corps volunteers were in fact obsessed with
their country’s decline, both culturally and racially. Moreover, they often
blamed the strong democratic traditions of their homeland for this decline
and believed that the political system needed to be drastically overhauled
to ensure the survival of the nation. Most of them also sought out ways
to redeem themselves – both personally and on a national level – through
violence. And, following the observations of other scholars on fascism,
the men in this study shared a sense of a “temporal crisis.”42 Despite this,
many of these men were not members of a fascist party.
Fascism remains very much a vague and disputed concept; other schol-
ars may disagree with my choice to label the neutral Waffen-SS volun-
teers as fascists. If fascism is understood as a concrete ideology propa-
gated by members of a self-proclaimed fascist or national socialist party,
then these men can rightfully be excluded. Yet if one sees fascism more
as what Sven Reichardt has referred to as a Sinnsystem – a state of mind
or system of feelings – and a combination of several impulses – fear of
communal degradation, sense of a temporal crisis, a sacralization of poli-
tics, and advocacy of a radical overhaul of the existing order in the name
of a fantastic, antimaterialist goal – then the term is indeed a useful tool
in understanding the neutral Waffen-SS leadership corps.43 This book

40
Ernst Nolte, Der Fascishmus in Seiner Epoche:  die Action Française, der Italienische
Faschismus, der Nationalsozialismus (Munich:  Piper, 1963). On more recent work,
see Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London:  Routledge, 1991); Roger Eatwell,
Fascism: A History (London: Vintage, 1996); Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism
(New York: Knopf, 2004).
41
The Anatomy of Fascism, 218.
42
Roger Griffin, “Withstanding the Rush of Time:  The Prescience of Mosse’s
Anthropological View of Fascism,” in What History Tells. George L.  Mosse and the
Culture of Modern Europe, ed. Stanley G. Payne, David J. Sorkin, and John S. Tortorice
(Madison: University of Wisconsin, 2004); “Party Time: The Temporal Revolution of the
Third Reich,” History Today (April 1999).
43
Sven Reichardt, Faschistische Kampfbünde: Gewalt und Gemeinschaft Im Italienischen
Squadrismo und in der Deutschen SA (Köln: Böhlau, 2002), 24.
16 Introduction

moreover seeks to move beyond an analysis of doctrine to anchor the

concept of fascism in concrete actors, to see the phenomenon as existing
in the dialogue between theory and practice, often manifesting itself in
violence.
Because of the different degrees to which these impulses resonated
within these various men, it may be more appropriate to speak of their
ideological inclination or predisposition towards fascism rather than to
speak of them as doctrinal fascists (at least in the years before they vol-
unteered for the Waffen-SS). They were all, to different degrees, shaped
by and carriers of many of these ideas. Yet, with the exception of the
Swiss, these inclinations did not lead them to join their local national
socialist parties. Though the reasons for these decisions will be explored
extensively in Chapter Two, a primary factor  – and a fact that caused
significant tension between those volunteers who were members of their
national fascist parties and their party comrades who did not join the
Waffen-SS in the prewar years  – was their decidedly internationalist
leaning.

Reconstructing the Story of the

Germanic Volunteers
The most prominent studies of the Germanic volunteers have relied on
German, “institutional” sources – that is, the records left behind by the
Waffen-SS.44 Although these sources provide basic insights into how the
SS leadership integrated, educated, and employed Germanic volunteers,
they are less useful for understanding the motivations and attitudes of
individual volunteers. This book therefore pairs these institutional records
with biographical sources, ranging from personal archives to intelligence
files. The combination provides a complex picture of the experiences and
actions of the men and their relation to the larger SS structure and the
German war effort.
In the case of several Swiss and Danish volunteers, large personal
collections are housed in the Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, in Zurich, and
the Kongelige Bibliotek and Rigsarkivet, in Copenhagen, respectively.

44
Kenneth Estes, A European Anabasis:  Western European Volunteers in the German
Army and SS, 1940–1945 (Gutenberge, Columbia University Press, 2003); Mark Philip
Gingerich, “Toward a Brotherhood of Arms:  Waffen-SS Recruitment of Germanic
Volunteers, 1940–1945” (PhD thesis, University of Wisconsin – Madison, 1991); Wegner,
Hitlers Politische Soldaten, die Waffen-SS 1933–1945: Studien zu Leitbild, Struktur und
Funktion Einer Nationalsozialistischen Elite.
 Reconstructing the Story of the Germanic Volunteers 17

A  typical collection contains a rich array of letters, photographs, tran-

scripts, diaries, official correspondence and articles, essays and disserta-
tions authored by the volunteer. These sources most often span the vol-
unteer’s lifetime, with a particular concentration of material from the
war years.
I have gained further insight into the volunteers from the Bundesarchiv’s
former Berlin Document Center SSO files – the SS’s personnel files – and
files of the respective Swedish, Swiss, and Danish intelligence services.
Though the Danish police did not investigate volunteers until after the
war, the Swedish and Swiss civil and military intelligence services main-
tained detailed records of the volunteers. In many cases, this included
wiretaps on family members’ phones and the opening of letters the vol-
unteers sent to their family members and friends. This is a unique source,
as this personal correspondence was obviously neither intended for the
public by the volunteer nor screened by family members, as the case may
have been in private collections. The records of postwar judicial proceed-
ings against the volunteers also produced thorough documentation of
their careers and actions while in German service.
Another unique source is the collection of interviews conducted jointly
by the Swedish security police, SÄPO, and the Swedish military intelli-
gence unit, MUST, with returning Waffen-SS volunteers. Unlike the Swiss
government, the Swedish government did not criminalize foreign military
service; only those men who had deserted from the Swedish army were
punished. These interviews were hence not intended to serve a judicial
function. Instead, the Swedish police only wanted to establish that the
volunteers had not leaked sensitive information to a foreign power, while
MUST was interested in gathering information on how best to combat
the Red Army. Upon returning from the war, then, the surviving Swedish
Waffen-SS volunteers, many no doubt traumatized by their experience,
found a sympathetic and curious ear in the security police and military
investigators. They used this opportunity to debrief, confess, and ratio-
nalize their deeds without the fear of repercussions. The result is explicit
and detailed testimonies of both personal experiences and the workings
of the Waffen-SS and the SS bureaucracy, including surprisingly frank
testimonials of involvement in the shooting of prisoners of war, Jews and
other civilians.45

45
Although in each case, the interviewee never uses the active voice – “I shot” – but exclu-
sively describe the incidents in a passive voice  – “they were shot.” See, for example,
Protokoll över Förhör, in RA, SÄPO PA Kurt Lundin.
18 Introduction

This account combines these biographical sources with the ‘institu-

tional’ sources of the Waffen-SS and the SS in general. These latter doc-
uments are crucial in understanding the organizational nature of the
various SS departments, schools, and combat units, and to put the expe-
riences of the volunteers into their appropriate context. Housed primarily
at the Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, the Bundesarchiv-Miliärarchiv
Freiburg, and the National Archives and Records Administration in
Maryland, these sources are familiar to scholars who have worked on the
Nazi regime in general and the SS in particular. I have additionally used
a number of more obscure sources, such as the war crime investigation
files of the Bundesarchiv Aussenstelle-Ludwigsburg, the former central
German Nazi war-crimes office, and the dossiers of the Antifaschistisches
Pressearchiv in Berlin (a watchdog organization that monitors and doc-
uments the postwar activities and publications of former Waffen-SS
members).
The Germanische Leitstelle, the office within the SS-Hauptamt (SS-
HA, the SS Main Office) that played the primary role in recruiting
Germanic volunteers and integrating them into a vision of the creation
of a Greater Germanic Reich, is one of the least written-about offices
within the SS bureaucracy. While documents from the other SS offices,
including Himmler’s personal and staff papers and the records of the
Reichssicherheithauptamt (RSHA), which engineered the Holocaust,
survived the war largely intact, only scattered documents from the
Germanische Leitstelle headquarters remain. One possible explanation is
the fact that the Germanische Leitstelle offices were located in the Berlin
neighborhood of Grünewald, away from the SS central complex around
the Anhalter train station. The office may have suffered a devastating
fire during the siege of the city, or perhaps its employees managed to
destroy the contents of the office before fleeing the city. As a result, the
Bundesarchiv Berlin, which maintains individual record groups  – or
at worst several dossiers  – from even the most obscure SS offices has
only a few pages from the Germanische Leitstelle. The historian wishing
to piece together the workings of this office must therefore undertake
the painstaking work of locating relevant correspondence in the record
groups of other SS offices. As a practicality, then, the present study is
limited to the Germanische Leitstelle’s top-level communiqués. While it is
clear that a large number of neutral Germanic Waffen-SS officers worked
for the office by 1942, their exact contributions to the office’s policies are
difficult to uncover.
 Reconstructing the Story of the Germanic Volunteers 19

Outside of the Bundesarchiv, the richest source for this German office
is, quite counter-intuitively, found in Switzerland. During the war the Swiss
government, fully aware of and threatened by the office’s plans for the
eventual union of Switzerland with the Reich, painstakingly catalogued
the efforts of the Germanische Leitstelle. It paid particularly close atten-
tion to the activities of the office’s many Swiss staff members. This infor-
mation later resurfaced in the historically invaluable 1947 trial of nineteen
Swiss Nazi collaborators.46 The panel of scholars and jurists preparing the
trial documents uncovered and highlighted aspects of the Nazi regime that
did not emerge in the historiography for several decades more, including,
for example, the ambition of the Generalplan Ost.47 They moreover rec-
ognized the extent to which German plans for the West were not solely
pragmatic, but were instead fueled by ideology and replete with visions
that, while vague, included a drastic reorganization of the political land-
scape. The Germanische Leitstelle played a central role in these plans.48
My approach to the subjects of this study is best understood as a set
of shrinking concentric circles. Of the roughly eight thousand volunteers
from the three neutral countries, less than one thousand became offi-
cers in the Waffen-SS. In addition to these, several dozen men achieved
positions of leadership within the SS hierarchy without being commis-
sioned as officers. I refer to this group collectively as a “leadership corps.”
I have collected basic information on some three hundred of these, along
with scattered poignant or anecdotal stories from their experiences in
Germany. From the information in the various personal sources, I have
further been able to create a detailed biographical database of roughly
one hundred men.49 The selection was based on the richness of the

46
The proceedings, findings and sentences of the trial are summarized in “Urteil des
Bundesstrafgerichts in Sachen Franz Riedweg und 18 Mitangeklagte, Luzern, 20.12.1947,”
in BAR, E 4320 (B), 1984/29 and in AfZ, NL Heinrich Büeler, 9.4. Strafprozess
Bundeswaltschaft gg Franz Riedweg, Heinrich Büeler und Konsorten, Luzern 1947, Urteil
des Bundesstrafgerichts. Referred to as “Urteil” in citations. For good summaries of the trial,
especially with an emphasis on the Germanische Leitstelle, see newspaper coverage in the
Neue Zürcher Zeitung and the TagesAnzeiger, for example, “Die ‘Germanische Leitstelle’
der S.S. Der Landesverräterprozess vor Bundesstrafgericht,” in Neue Zürcher Zeitung (12
December 1947), 1, “Vorkämpfer für ein antikommunistisches Europa. Das Hauptargument
der Angeklagten im Luzerner Prozess,” in TagesAnzeiger (16 December 1947), 1.
47
Urteil, 7.
48
Ibid., 5.
49
In addition to personal collections, compiled primarily from records in BA, SSO (BDC);
RASA, SÄPO PA; BAR, E 2001 E 1968/78 Bd. 158 & 159; RA, RIAD 1349/11; BAMA,
RS 5/979, 981 & 982.
20 Introduction

availability of sources, not on any discrimination on the author’s behalf.

Nevertheless, the database almost certainly suffers from a selection bias,
in that those men who were more intellectually inclined and involved
in administrative work by their very nature wrote more, both before
and during the war. More, too, was written about them. Although the
data clearly indicate that there was a significant group of highly intellec-
tual volunteers who sought to support the Third Reich as soldiers and
administrators, it would be a leap to assume that all of the remaining
nine hundred officer corps volunteers were of a similar character. Within
this sample of highly involved volunteers, a group of roughly thirty men
became deeply active in the work of the SS and left an especially rich trail
of writing behind. These men form the core group of this study. Their
experiences are followed from the 1930s through their deaths during the
war or decades later.
Of the eight thousand neutral SS volunteers, over six thousand – the
overwhelming majority – were Danes. Some additional thirteen hundred
were Swiss and roughly two hundred Swedish. This discrepancy does not
represent a varying degree of interest but the fact that while the Danish
government sanctioned Waffen-SS volunteering, the Swiss and Swedish
governments actively sought to prevent it. There were also some one hun-
dred Liechtensteinian volunteers, whom I treat largely as Swiss, in line
with the policies of both the SS and the Swiss government. These num-
bers are hard to establish with any certainty; estimates in various works,
and indeed among the statistics of the SS, vary widely – there may in fact
have been many hundreds more than my estimate accounts for.50 Nor do

50
The SS’s own statistics survived insufficiently; where they did, they are often contradic-
tory and contain an unknown amount of overlap from previous lists. See, for example,
Stand 31.1.1944, in BA, NS 19/3987, and 12.31.1.1942 in BAMA, N756/234c. The
invisibility of those who had already lived in Germany at the start of the war compli-
cates the counting; moreover, especially in the Swedish case, a great number may have
returned unnoticed. In the Swiss and Danish cases, obviously only those volunteers who
survived and returned to their homes – some gained German citizenship and remained
there – were put on trial. I work with a rough estimate of two hundred Swedes. The Swiss
judicial system had files on 1,360 Swiss who illegally fled to Germany and were regis-
tered at a SS processing facility in Stuttgart. Of these, the report estimates that some one
thousand joined the Waffen-SS. See, “Urteil.” I use thirteen hundred, as a great number of
Swiss did not pass through the Stuttgart site. In the case of Liechtenstein and Denmark
the numbers are more certain. Peter Geiger, ed. Fragen Zu Liechtenstein in der NS-Zeit
und Im Zweiten Weltkrieg: Flüchtlinge, Vermögenswerte, Kunst, Rüstungsproduktion: S
chlussbericht der Unabhängigen Historikerkommission Liechtenstein Zweiter Weltkrieg
(Zürich:  Chronos, 2005), 54; in the Danish case, see Christensen, Poulsen, and Scharff
Smith, Under Hagekors og Dannebrog: Danskere I Waffen-SS 1940–1945, 31.
 Reconstructing the Story of the Germanic Volunteers 21

these numbers take into account the many who volunteered but were not
accepted by the Waffen-SS, which in the Danish case, for example, was
another six thousand.51
But despite the striking differences in national patterns of volunteering
(about which more will be said in Chapter Three), the number of neutral
volunteers who ended up in leadership positions within the Waffen-SS
was nearly the same for each country.52 The number of neutral SS men
working for the Germanische Leitstelle, for example, was comparable
from each country, with the Swiss outnumbering the Danes. Similarly,
the number of neutral members of the SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers  – the
elite propaganda and wartime correspondence unit  – was roughly the
same for each country: twenty-five Swedes, some twenty-five Danes, and
a slightly lower number of Swiss. These raw numbers suggest that there
was a core group of men in each of these countries who were willing to
get to Germany by any means possible. In the Danish case this proved
quite easy, in the Swiss case somewhat more difficult and in the Swedish
case thoroughly challenging. The excess thousands of volunteers from
Denmark and hundreds from Switzerland may have been the stereotyp-
ical young, impressionable, naïve types who in the Swedish case simply
stayed at home. Additionally, some two thousand of the Danish volun-
teers appear to have been ethnic Germans living in the Jutland peninsula
border region who could quite obviously have been motivated by more
straightforward motives.53
This phenomenon appears to be specific to the three neutral coun-
tries. The Germanische Leitstelle, as we will see, was staffed with more
Swiss, Danes and Swedes than persons of any other nationality other
than Germans.54 This is a startling fact. For example, though there were
between twenty-five thousand and forty thousand Dutch volunteers to
the Waffen-SS, with the exception of some translators, none worked for

51
Under Hagekors og Dannebrog: Danskere I Waffen-SS 1940–1945, 11.
52
The Swedish volunteer Thorolf Hillblad too noticed that the neutral volunteers stood out
from the other Germanics because of their engagement with political work and, in the
Swiss and Swedish case, the difficulty they had in getting to Germany. See, Schön, Hitlers
Svenska Soldater, 83. See also E[. . .] V[. . .] to Hillblad, 25 February 1944, RASA, SÄPO
PA Thorolf Hillblad.
53
Franz Wilhelm Seidler, Avantgarde Für Europa: Ausländische Freiwillige in Wehrmacht
und Waffen-SS (Selent:  Pour le Mérite, 2004), appendix. Again, with these German-
Danes, it is unclear how many were counted as Danes in the SS statistics, further compli-
cating the potential total figure.
54
Author’s spreadsheet of Germanische Leitstelle staff members created from archival
sources, including BA, NS 19, BAMA, N 756, BA, SSO (BDC), and WPA.
22 Introduction

the Germanische Leitstelle. This is compared to some dozen upper-level

Swiss SS men employed by the Germanische Leitstelle out of a total of
slightly more than one thousand Swiss volunteers.55 Indeed, the office
was run by a Swiss, Dr. Franz Riedweg. The same disproportionate repre-
sentation of Swiss, Swedes and Danes in leadership roles is found among
the Germanic instructional staff at SS schools working with Germanic
volunteers and within combat formations. In the so-called III. Germanic
Panzer Corps, for example, Danes and Dutchmen each accounted for
roughly 250 officers and NCOs. There were, however, twice as many reg-
ular Dutch soldiers (over two thousand) as Danes.56 This suggests that,
for whatever reason, men from Denmark, Switzerland and Sweden were
more interested in – or the Waffen-SS leadership was more keen to have
these men engaged in – work that involved conceptualizing and imple-
menting the New Order.
The volunteers’ interest in working for the SS and the form that this
work took are major foci of this study. Even a preliminary glance at the
three countries’ political climates, historical specificities, and relations to
Nazi Germany reveal several similarities that might explain why intellec-
tual men with a fascist inclination and a desire to affect drastic change
would have gravitated towards the Waffen-SS leadership corps. First, as
will be discussed in greater detail in Chapter Two, many of these neutral
men felt that their countries’ recent history of sitting out wars and failing
to seek out colonial territories indicated a loss of a martial spirit in need
of reawakening. “Neutral,” a term of self-description that usually held a
positive connotation within these three countries, was used with disdain
by the volunteers.
Just as important, all three countries remained outside of Germany’s
sphere of influence – or in the case of Denmark, partially so, as its elected
government remained in power for the first half of the war. In Holland,
a man committed to furthering a Nazi agenda could stay put and work
with the local representatives of the Nazi regime. Until the German

55
Although no complete list of employees of the Germanische Leitstelle is available in
the German archives, it is possible to piece together most of the departments and their
staff through fragmentary documents in foreign archives, personal collections and trial
testimony. Although several men from Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark held posi-
tions or were associated with the office, the absence of Dutch, Norwegian, French, or
Belgian staff members (except as translators) is notable. See, for example, “Organigram,”
in BAMA, N 756/52b, “Germanische Leitstelle Organigram,” in WPA.
56
Bernd Wegner, “Auf dem Wege Zur Pangermanischen Armee. Dokumente Zur
Entstehungsgeschichte des III. (“Germanischen”) SS-Panzerkorps,” Militärgeschichtlische
Mitteilungen 2, no. 80 (1980): 129.
 Organization of the Book 23

occupation fully reached Denmark in 1943, however, the neutral men

had no such option. The future of the continent, these men believed, lay
in National Socialism, with European countries operating either under
the tutelage of or in cooperation with the Reich. In serving the Waffen-SS,
these men believed that they were accelerating the inevitable tide of his-
tory. The term “organic solution,” used to describe the desired, inevitable,
and natural reconciliation between National Socialist Germany and the
neutral countries, first emerges in the letters, speeches, and other records
of the neutral volunteers.

Organization of the Book
Chapter One explores the origins of the SS and the Waffen-SS as well
as the decision-making behind and efforts to recruit Germanics into its
ranks. Here Riedweg, a Swiss doctor who was one of the first Germanics
to volunteer and who came to lead the Germanische Leitstelle, plays a
major role. Under his leadership, the office became a central part of the
SS’s drive to create a Greater Germanic Reich. Joining Riedweg at the
Germanische Leitstelle were a slew of like-minded German and Swiss,
Swedish, and Danish SS men, all of whom believed that through their ser-
vice they would serve as role-models and catalysts for what they hoped
would be an organic alignment of their countries to Germany. From the
beginning, however, the Germanische Leitstelle encountered opposition
from rival SS offices and officers, as well as other Nazi institutions.
Chapter Two responds to a persistent historical myth that describes
the Germanic volunteers as lower-class, social outsiders, or “losers” who
were inculcated once in the service of the Waffen-SS.57 I explore the pre-
war background of the future volunteers and show that although they
held a unique worldly outlook and shared high levels of education, intel-
lect, and strong personal ambition, they were not “asocials,” criminals,
or blind fanatics. Moreover, many of them had developed a longing for
a radical reorganization of the European political, social, and economic
landscape before they joined the Waffen-SS.
Why the men volunteered and how they were incorporated into the
Waffen-SS, and larger SS, apparatus are the focus of Chapter Three. At
the same time, I explore how the Germanische Leitstelle became one of
the most powerful and well-funded offices within the SS structure. Its
57
As explored in greater detail in Chapter Two, this myth may bear some truth in regards
to some of the younger, more impressionable volunteers, but not in regards to leadership
corps volunteers.
24 Introduction

role would become especially important after the summer of 1941, when
the invasion of the Soviet Union served to catalyze large-scale recruit-
ment of regular Waffen-SS soldiers from the Germanic countries. The
Germanische Leitstelle coordinated and tried to funnel this recruitment
towards the creation of a Greater Germanic Reich.
Chapter Four stays with the work of the Germanische Leitstelle and its
neutral SS men during its peak of influence (from 1941 to 1943). During
this time, that office attempted to instigate an “organic solution” between
the neutral countries and the Third Reich. Riedweg and other neutral
Germanics launched an ambitious program of conferences, journals and
weltanschaulische Erziehung, or “ideological propaganda-education,”
aimed both at Germanic Waffen-SS soldiers and at the general popula-
tions of Western Europe. Young gifted Danish officers, such as Christian
Schalburg and K.B. Martinsen, sought to use their combat experience on
the Eastern Front to inspire regular Danes to follow their lead.
The attempts of the Germanic volunteers to create a Germanic brand
of the Nazi political soldier did not go unchallenged within the SS.
Chapter Five takes a closer look at how the Germanische Leitstelle and
the neutral Germanics molded men at the SS Officer Cadet School at
Tölz and in the Germanic divisions of the Waffen-SS, and how competing
offices within the SS and the regime blocked these efforts. Beyond their
theoretical conceptions of the Greater Germanic Reich, many of these
men became complicit in the Holocaust and other war crimes. Moreover,
they laid brutal plans for the populations in their home countries, to
be enacted once Germany successfully assumed control over the neutral
countries. German SS officers, however, largely remained unwilling to
concede that non-Germans, even if of Northern European origin, were
the racial and cultural equals of Germans. Such opposition ranged from
bureaucratic wrangling to physical and mental abuse in the field.
By 1943 the Germanic project had been thoroughly defeated by com-
peting Nazi institutions that advanced German interests over Germanic
ones. The naked imperialism of the German occupation of Western
Europe amplified the volunteers’ frustrations. Chapter Six, then, exam-
ines the story of the volunteers from 1943 until the regime’s downfall.
Although for the most part thoroughly disillusioned with the course of
the war, and increasingly regarded as traitors by the populations of their
home countries, most of the volunteers held strong to their ideological
convictions through the bitter fighting on the Eastern Front. Ironically,
by this point these non-Germans came to see themselves as the only
true carriers of National Socialism:  for them, Aryan-racial unity  – or
 Organization of the Book 25

Germanic unity as they referred to it – trumped the rights of individual

nations, including those of Germany. Nevertheless, many neutral volun-
teers found themselves among the last and staunchest defenders of Berlin
in the final days of the war. The chapter also offers a brief glimpse of the
experiences of the surviving volunteers in the postwar world and their
efforts at remolding the memory of the Waffen-SS.
The Germanic volunteers from Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark,
though relatively small in number, represent a significant phenomenon.
The concluding chapter reflects on how their experience speaks to the
dark undercurrents of Europe’s twentieth century  – racism, violence,
and antidemocracy – that resonated far beyond the mass fascist parties
of Italy and Germany. Moreover, the men’s experiences are a testament
to the destructive nature of radicalized intellectuals motivated not only
to conceptualize an alternative but also to actively fight for it. In many
respects, the neutral volunteers to the Waffen-SS are not unique. Broad
swaths of the European population in the interwar period shared their
convictions. They are unique only in that they chose to put their thoughts
into action. Although the Greater Germanic Reich never materialized, the
story of its planners and would-be implementers sheds light on a dark
corner of European history usually reserved for Germans alone.
 1

Germanic Dreams

The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

The Schutzstaffel, or SS, is one of the most infamous organizations of the

Nazi state, having had a hand in several aspects of the regime and nearly
all of its crimes. It is also one of the most nebulous. Initially little more
than party leaders’ personal protection squad, it was dwarfed in size and
influence by the party’s paramilitary organization, the Sturmabteilung
(SA), during the turbulent, street-fighting years of the 1920s. This began
to change in 1929, when Heinrich Himmler took charge and began a
massive expansion of the organization’s size and responsibilities – a pro-
cess accelerated by Hitler and the party’s ascension to national leadership
in 1933. By the end of the war, the SS had ballooned into the regime’s
largest and most powerful organ outside of the Wehrmacht, in charge of
the police, the concentration and extermination camps, and several other
instruments of terror and business.1
From its inception, Himmler strove to make the SS the collection point
for the men deemed most racially fit and committed to National Socialism.
The SS set itself up as a racial elite. The organization formulated rigid
entrance requirements, which included racial screenings of an applicant’s
family. SS men whose would-be spouses did not pass racial screenings
were forced to end their engagement or face dismissal from the SS.2
1
Works on the SS are numerous, both on the organization as a whole as well as on specific
departments within it. For an excellent, although somewhat dated overview, see Heinz
Höhne, The Order of the Death’s Head: The Story of Hitler’s SS (New York:  Coward-
McCann, 1970). See also Adrian Weale, The SS:  A  New History (London:  Little,
Brown, 2010); Robert Lewis Koehl, The SS:  A  History, 1919–1945 (Charleston,
SC: Tempus, 2000).
2
Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler: A Life (Oxford and New York:  Oxford University
Press, 2012), 354.

26
 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment 27

But in Himmler’s mind, the SS would be both the elite of the Nazi state
as well as the institution that enacted its most radical racial policies.
When the SS Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA) assumed control over
all German police agencies in 1939, for example, its leader Reinhard
Heydrich reoriented the country’s crime fighting efforts to focus on
racial enemies. When Eastern Europe fell under the regime’s control,
starting with Poland in 1939, SS agencies classified and ultimately
murdered millions of racial inferiors. Hitler also appointed Himmler
as the Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums (Reich
Commissioner for the Strengthening of German Ethnicity) in 1939, in
addition to his role as the Reichsführer-SS (Head of the SS). This appoint-
ment mandated him to “bring back those German citizens and ethnic
Germans abroad who are eligible for permanent return to the Reich,” and
to create new a colonial Empire for racial Germans in the East.3
Racial “sciences” had a long history in Germany and beyond. By
the 1930s academics engaged in the study of eugenics, geography, and
anthropology had prepared the intellectual groundwork for a regime
whose primary policy initiatives would always be rooted in notions of
race.4 From 1933 on, academics of all disciplines engaged in work on race
that received direct support from the regime, sometimes in close collab-
oration with Himmler and his various lieutenants. Beyond the “science,”
Himmler also adhered to a mythical pre-Christian, Germanic-dominated
past in which Teutonic heroes had kept inferior races at bay.5 To Himmler
and other Nazi ideologues, race was not the same as nationality. Racial
scientists and Nazi ideologues understood there to be a wide spectrum
of races, at the bottom of which were the Jews.6 Slavs, too, ranked near
the bottom of the racial hierarchy. Himmler believed that Slavic peo-
ples were “never capable of creating something . . . or organizing [them-
selves]”. . ., but were “always capable of conspiring to overthrow the
existing rulers.”7 Thus, as this statement makes evident, Slavs were in
3
“Decree of the Führer and Reich Chancellor on the Strengthening of German Ethnicity,”
signed Hitler, Göring, Lammers, and Keitel, 7 October 1939, Nuremberg Document N0-
3075, reproduced in Robert Lewis Koehl, German Resettlement and Population Policy,
1939–1945: A History of the Reich Commission for the Strengthening of Germandom
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1957), 247–249.
4
Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State:  Germany, 1933–1945
(Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 51.
5
Longerich, Heinrich Himmler: A Life, 270.
6
See, for example, Hans F. K. Günther, Rassenkunde des Deutschen Volkes (München and
Berlin: J.F. Lehmanns Verlag, 1937).
7
Bradley Smith and Agnes Peterson, eds., Heinrich Himmler:  Geheimreden, 1933 Bis
1945, und Andere Ansprachen (Frankfurt am Main: Propylaen, 1974), 166.
28 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

Himmler’s mind not merely occupying valuable land but constituted an

existential threat to German rulers. On the other end of the spectrum
was the Germanic race. Although far from a clearly defined concept,
the idea that northwestern Europe was populated by a culturally and
racially related people preceded the Nazi ascent to power.8 Geographers
such as the Swede Rudolf Kjellen and the German Karl Haushofer pub-
lished a variety of works in the first decades of the century, arguing for
a union across northwestern Europe’s traditional nation states. They
moreover suggested that this Germanic area had the right to dominate
its surroundings.9
It follows that an organization built on the concept of race would be
open to the admission of foreign citizens considered of equal racial stock.
Thus as early as 1938, Himmler proclaimed, “I really do have the inten-
tion to gather Germanic blood from the whole world, to rob it, to steal it
wherever I can.”10 At the same time, Himmler proclaimed that it was his
goal to unite the Germanic peoples into a Greater Germanic Reich.11 Few
Nazi officials disagreed with the general sentiment that Scandinavians,
for example, were the racial equals of Germans. The practical implica-
tions of these beliefs, however, caused constant tension within the SS and
the regime at large. Hitler, whose belief in what he referred to as the
Aryan race was unwavering, nevertheless cautioned on numerous occa-
sions that foreigners, especially those conquered by Germany, should
never be armed.12 Numerous SS officers and other regime functionaries
agreed with this sentiment, setting the foundation for a fundamental and
irresolvable conflict at the very core of the SS.
Nowhere would this tension be more evident than in the work of the
Germanische Leitstelle, the office within the SS tasked with recruiting
Germanic volunteers for the Waffen-SS and preparing the ground for the
Greater Germanic Reich. The very fact that the office was led by a non-
German Germanic, the Swiss Dr.  Franz Riedweg, proved the source of
never-ending contention between Riedweg’s boss, SS General and Head

8
Bernard Mees, “Hitler and Germanentum,” Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 2
(2004): 255.
9
See Rudolf Kjellen, Der Staat Als Lebensform (Leipzig:  Hirzel, 1917); Karl Haushofer,
“Die Weltpolitische Machtverlagerung 1914 und die Internationalen Fronten der
Panideen,” Deutschlands weg an der Zeitenwende (1931): 208–232.
10
Himmler, Führerbesprechung, 8 November 1938, in BA, NS 19/4005.
11
Longerich, Heinrich Himmler:  A  Life, 386; André Mineau, SS Thinking and the
Holocaust (New York: Editions Rodopi, 2011), 25.
12
See, for example, Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Secret Conversations, 1941–1944 (New  York:
Farrar, 1953), 353.
 The Development of the Waffen-SS 29

of the SS-Main Office (SS-HA) Gottlob Berger, and other SS functionar-

ies. The organizational peculiarities of the SS further fueled the flame of
this tension that grew out of the organization’s convoluted founding and
early development – and its particular leadership personalities.

The Development of the Waffen-SS

The Waffen-SS was the armed wing of the SS; as such, it was simulta-
neously an organ of the SS and, in practice, one of the four components
of the German armed forces, the Wehrmacht.13 Although the Waffen-
SS engaged in combat during the war in ways that were often indistin-
guishable from the Wehrmacht, it remained intimately linked to Nazi
ideology. This double role has created room for a variety of historical
interpretations on its role in the Third Reich, especially its effectiveness
as a fighting force and its participation in war crimes.14 What is not in
doubt, however, is that ideological indoctrination played a major role
in the Waffen-SS from the start, as the organization sought to create an
elite group of “political soldiers.” Moreover, until the later stages of the
war when the Waffen-SS’s expansion diluted its elite status, all Waffen-SS
officers were simultaneously SS officers and often interchanged posts as
combat commanders with stints in administrative offices or concentra-
tion camps. Similarly, it is abundantly clear that the Waffen-SS was not
a static entity. From its modest origins in the prewar years, to its growth
to an army in its own right with some one half a million soldiers, the
relationships between the Waffen-SS, the Wehrmacht, and Himmler – and
indeed within different elements of the Waffen-SS, as the story of the
Germanische Leitstelle will make clear – were continually evolving.
The Waffen-SS, known initially as the SS-Verfügungstruppe (SS-VT),
grew through a series of discernable steps in the prewar years. In 1933
some one hundred members of the SS were formed into the paramili-
tary unit Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, which grew into regiment strength
within a few months. This newly formed paramilitary wing of the SS
played a crucial role in the “Night of the Long Knives” of 1934, an event
that effectively decapitated the leadership of the SA and ensured the

13
The Heer (Army), being by far the largest, followed by the Luftwaffe (Air Force), and
Kriegsmarine (Navy). Although the Waffen-SS was not technically a branch of the
Wehrmacht, the fact that it came under Wehrmacht command in the field means it is
often included as a fourth branch.
14
For a good historiographical discussion of these issues, see Michael Thomas, “Waffen SS
1933–45. ‘Soldiers Just Like the Others’?,” Military History Journal 12, no. 6 (2003).
30 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

primacy of the SS within the Nazi state.15 One month after the com-
pletion of the operation against the SA, Defense Minister Werner von
Blomberg signed a directive that granted the SS-VT the right to recruit
twenty-five thousand soldiers who would be paid Wehrmacht rates. They
would additionally be trained and equipped for war by the Army.16 As the
SS-VT grew, the Army leadership’s suspicions about the SS’s intentions
increased; directives from Hitler in August 1938 and May 1939 solidified
the Waffen-SS’s position as a rival military wing.17 The 1939 directive
authorized the creation of an entire SS division within the Wehrmacht,
with the clear intention of adding several more in future years.18
Until this time, the Waffen-SS had been composed of some twenty
thousand men in various units scattered between different Army com-
mands. With the existence of a separate division legally established, and
with the war underway in September of 1939, the Waffen-SS expanded
rapidly.19 By the start of the Western campaign in the summer of 1940, the
Waffen-SS had some fifty thousand men. At the same time, Himmler and
the Waffen-SS leadership moved to extricate themselves from the Army’s
control. In November 1939, Himmler removed Waffen-SS soldiers from
the Wehrmacht’s judicial system.20 The name Waffen-SS replaced SS-VT
at first informally and in the summer of 1940 officially, in an attempt to
signal its growing significance.21 As much as Himmler sought to separate
his organization from the army command, however, combat formations

15
Between 30 June and 2 July 1934, the SS, with the help of the police, Gestapo, and
Reichswehr, murdered several dozen SA or Sturmabteilung leaders, as well as other per-
sons critical of the regime. Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris (New York: Norton,
1999), 512; Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A New History (New York:  Hill and
Wang, 2001), 175; Höhne, The Order of the Death’s Head, 93–131.
16
Jürgen Förster, “Die Weltanschauliche Erziehung in der Waffen-SS:  ‘Kein Totes
Wissen, Sondern Lebendiger Nationalsozialismus’,” in Ausbildungsziel Jugendmord?
“Weltanschauliche Erziehung” Von SS, Polizei und Waffen-SS Im Rahmen der
“Endlösung,” ed. Jürgen Matthäus, Konrad Kwiet, Jürgen Förster, and Richard Breitman
(Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2003), 90.
17
Ibid., 91.
18
Bernhard R. Kroener, “Die Personellen Ressourcen des Dritten Reiches Im Spannungsfeld
Zwischen Wehrmacht, Bürkoratie und Kriegswirttschaft 1939–1942,” in Das Deutsche
Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg:  Band 5.2 Organisation und Mobilisierung des
Deutschen Machtbereichs, ed. Horst Boog, et  al. (Stuttgart:  Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt,
1988), 722.
19
Franz Wilhelm Seidler, Avantgarde Für Europa: Ausländische Freiwillige in Wehrmacht
und Waffen-SS (Selent: Pour le Mérite, 2004), 32.
20
Ibid.
21
Bernd Wegner, Hitlers Politische Soldaten, die Waffen-SS 1933–1945: Studien Zu Leitbild,
Struktur und Funktion Einer Nationalsozialistischen Elite (Paderborn:  Schöningh,
1982), 127–128.
 The Development of the Waffen-SS 31

of the Waffen-SS remained under the command of the Wehrmacht while

engaged at a front and were often integrated into Army groups.
Although the Waffen-SS had been forced to rely on the Wehrmacht for
training, equipment, and leadership – a situation that Himmler sought to
remedy by recruiting experienced officers from the Wehrmacht – the orga-
nization had from the start differentiated itself by upholding high “racial”
standards and by emphasizing ideological indoctrination. Himmler boasted
in 1937 that only 10 to 15 percent of applicants met the admission require-
ments into the SS, a prerequisite for joining the Waffen-SS.22 Germanics,
too, were expected to meet the high physical, health, and racial standards
before enlistment. This highly ideological component of the force created
its own distinct “corporate identity,” as historian Jürgen Förster has called
it, and distinguished the Waffen-SS throughout the war.23
As the war progressed, military realities partially eroded the Waffen-
SS’s elite pretensions. By 1945, the Waffen-SS had ballooned into a half a
million–plus solider army with volunteers from Eastern and Southeastern
Europe, including Muslim soldiers from the Balkans. In the face of clear
contradictions with its elite identity, the Waffen-SS leadership sought in
1943 to maintain as its racial standards by creating three separate group-
ings of its combat units, ranked by its members’ racial suitability.24 The
core formations, to which most Germanics belonged, fell into the high-
est echelon of this grouping and remained thoroughly committed to the
unrestrained racist, violent, and political tenets of the rest of the SS.
Whereas some Germanic volunteers to the Waffen-SS experienced the
war little differently than the almost-equally inculcated soldiers of the
Wehrmacht, the stories of others betray the fluidity between the Waffen-
SS and the SS. Consider, for instance, the Waffen-SS’s relationship to the
concentration camps. Many volunteers served in concentration camps
during sick leave from the front; a tour of concentration camps was man-
datory in officer training courses; and many volunteers served in units
that provided security or other support for Einsatzgruppen, the SS mur-
der squads tasked with executing Jews and Communist functionaries
behind the front in the East. The Waffen-SS was, from the beginning, an

22
Himmler appears to have exaggerated the low acceptance rate. Longerich, Heinrich
Himmler: A Life, 303. On the SS’s reproductive policies, see Amy Carney, “Preserving
the “Master Race”: SS Reproductive and Family Policies During the Second World War,”
in Racial Science in Hitler’s New Europe, 1938–1945, ed. Anton Weiss-Wendt and Rory
Yeomans (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2013).
23
Förster, “Die Weltanschauliche Erziehung in der Waffen-SS,” 90.
24
Wegner, Hitlers Politische Soldaten, die Waffen-SS 1933–1945, 315.
32 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

organization committed to the National Socialist principles embodied by

the SS.
The Waffen-SS managed to attract more recruits than it was allowed
to admit. In part, this may have been based on the appeal of the more
explicitly political aims of the organization compared to the military
more generally. The unscrupulous practices of the man in charge of the
recruitment effort, the gregarious Bavarian Gottlob Berger, were, how-
ever, at least equally responsible.25 A decorated veteran of the First World
War, Berger had joined the Nazi party as early as 1922 and the SS in
1936. In December 1939, Himmler placed Berger in charge of the newly
created SS-Ergänzungsamt, or recruitment office, as well as the main SS
administrative office, the SS-HA.26 Berger’s career would be marked by
conflict with the heads of institutions he believed were obstructing the
proper development of the Waffen-SS. Friends and foes within the orga-
nization referred to him as the “Almighty Gottlob” – a play on words as
Gott means God in German.27 Under an agreement between the branches
of the military, the Waffen-SS was allowed to enlist only a limited number
of the total available conscripts each year  – in 1939, for example, the
Waffen-SS was allowed to enlist 2 percent of all eligible men. The Army
received 66 percent, with the remaining conscripts divided between the
Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. Berger and his officers continually ignored
the agreed-upon quota and recruited as many Waffen-SS soldiers and
officers as they could.28
Like Himmler, Berger was a strong advocate for the SS as an orga-
nization that “could not stop at artificially drawn borders.” Thus, he
claimed in 1944 that the recruitment of Germanic volunteers had been
his and Himmler’s intention since long before the war began.29 It would
not be until after the conquest of Denmark, Norway, and the Benelux
countries in the spring and summer of 1940 that this could become a
large-scale reality for the SS. By that point, however, Berger was not the
sole propagator of Germanic policy in the SS. One of his and Himmler’s

25
On Berger’s early work on recruitment, see Gerhard Rempel, “Gottlob Berger and
Waffen-SS Recruitment 1939–1945,” Militärgeschichtlsiche Mitteilungen 27, no. 1
(1980).
26
Surprisingly few studies of Gottlob Berger exist. For a limited overview of his life and
career, see Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring, eds., Die SS: Elite Unter dem Totenkopf
(Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2000), 47–53.
27
Robert Lewis Koehl, The Black Corps: The Structure and Power Struggles of the Nazi SS
(Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), 236.
28
George H. Stein, The Waffen SS:  Hitler’s Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945 (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), 93–96.
29
Berger speech at Luftfahrtsministerium, 1944, in BA NS 33/213.
 The First Germanic Warrior 33

first Germanic recruits would become instrumental in creating the

Germanische Leitstelle and in transforming Himmler and Berger’s visions
of a Germanic SS into concrete policy.

The First Germanic Warrior

The single most important Germanic SS volunteer was the Swiss
Dr. Franz Riedweg.30 He was not only among the first foreigners to join
the SS and Waffen-SS, but also was a staunch advocate of some form of
Germanic or European unity. He attempted to realize these plans through
his work directing the Germanische Leitstelle.31 Along with Berger, he
played a critical role in the drive to recruit Germanics into the ranks of
the Waffen-SS and in the reconceptualization of the SS as a Germanic, not
German-specific, organization.
Riedweg was born in 1907 to a hotel owner in the central Swiss
town of Lucerne. From the available sources, his youth appears to have
been ordinary. After gymnasium, Riedweg attended medical school at
the University of Bern, completing part of his studies in Rostock and
Berlin. In Bern, Riedweg became an active member of a pan-European
student organization, which celebrated European cultural achievements
and advocated a closer political union between all European countries.32
To Riedweg, a committed Swiss nationalist, pan-Europeanism, though a
worthwhile end in and of itself, was intimately linked to anti-Bolshevism.
He saw this internationalist movement as the only hope for staving off a
Bolshevik revolution.33 This feverish fear of Bolshevism – which would
lead later commentators to describe Riedweg not as an ideologue but as
a mere fanatic – would characterize his entire career.34

30
For a brief summary of Riedweg’s career in the SS, see, Marco Wyss, “Un Suisse au
service de la SS. Dr. Franz Riedweg et le “travail germanique” de la SS.,” Schweizerische
Zeitschrift für Geschichte 57, no. 4 (2007).
31
Interestingly, one of the other early Germanics, the Swede Olaf Jürgenssen, also joined
the medical branch of the SS as early as 1936. See “Lebenslauf,” in BA, SSO (BDC) 142A,
Jürgenssen, Dr. Olof.
32
Urteil, 153. See also Niederschrift einer Unterrednung mit Herrn Dr.  Med. Franz
Riedweg, 22 November 1955, in IfZ, ZS669, Riedweg Franz.
33
According to the judge in Riedweg’s 1948 trial in Hiddesen, Germany, Riedweg, “already
as a student saw in Communism a great danger for Europe. . . . He was of the convic-
tion that this danger could only be met by the union of Europe on an anti-Communist
basis and with complete equality of European nations under a directory.” “Urteil des
20. Spruchkammer des Spruchgerichts Hiddesen 18.11.1948,” p. 2, in AfZ, NL Franz
Riedweg, 3. Personalakten Franz Riedweg.
34
See, for instance, Testimony of Dr. Wilhelm Stukart, Nürnberg, 29 October 1947, in AfZ,
NL Franz Riedweg, ungeordneter Bestand.
34 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

After passing his medical exams in 1933, Riedweg completed his resi-
dency in a Berlin clinic, returning to Switzerland in 1934. Before return-
ing to Switzerland, however, Riedweg met his future wife Sibylle von
Blomberg, daughter of the then Minster of Defense Werner von Blomberg.
Although they would not marry until 1938, Riedweg’s engagement lent
him connections and credibility within the German establishment. On his
marriage application to the Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt – the SS office
in charge of assuring the racial purity of the organization – one of his two
mandatory references was none other than Army General Wilhelm Keitel,
who simply wrote “War Ministry” (Kriegsministerium) when asked for
his address.35 Riedweg’s contacts with high-ranking Nazi and SS officials
would prove important for his work throughout the war.
Back in Switzerland, Riedweg, along with the Parliamentarian Jean-
Mary Musy, formed the Action Suisse contre le Communisme (Swiss
anti-Communist League). Riedweg later admitted that one of the goals of
the Action was to use the fear of communism to consolidate conservative
power across Europe.36 By this point, influenced by völkisch thinkers in
Germany, Riedweg had abandoned the potentially liberal implications of
Pan-Europeanism and advanced a Germanic nationalism. As the secre-
tary of the Action, Riedweg traveled widely throughout Europe to meet
with foreign anti-Communist groups. Among these was the German Anti-
Komintern-Bewegung, led by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.
After several meetings with Ribbentrop, Riedweg was further introduced
to a series of high-ranking Nazi officials in 1936 and 1937, including
Himmler, Reinhardt Heydrich, Karl Wolff, and Joseph Goebbels.37
In addition to Himmler and Berger, Heydrich would, until his assas-
sination in 1942, play the most significant role in Riedweg’s career in
the SS. As the head of the RSHA since its creation in September of 1939,
Heydrich oversaw the German police forces, including the Gestapo and the
SD.38 Heydrich was the archetypical “fighting bureaucrat” SS officer: he
was not only the main architect of the Holocaust but participated in

35
BA, RuS (BDC) E5446, 1294. Keitel’s son Karl-Heinz married von Blomberg’s other
daughter Dorothea in January of 1938.
36
Niederschrift einer Unterredung mit Herrn Dr.  Med. Franz Riedweg, 22 November
1955, p. 2, in IfZ, ZS669, Riedweg Franz.
37
See ibid. p.  4. Joseph Goebbels was the Nazi propaganda minister. For more, see
Helmut Michels, Ideologie und Propaganda:  Die Rolle Von Joseph Goebbels in der
Nationalsozialistischen Außenpolitik Bis 1939 (Frankfurt am Main:  Lang, 1992). Karl
Wolff was in charge of Himmler’s office. See Jochen von Lang, Karl Wolff, der Man
Zwischen Hitler und Himmler (Berlin: Herbig, 1985).
38
Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten: Das Führungskorps des Reichsicherheitshauptamtes.
 The First Germanic Warrior 35

numerous campaigns as a fighter pilot.39 His ambitions for the SS were

boundless. As the Deputy Protector of Bohemia and Moravia, as the
occupied Czech lands were termed, he became known for his ruthless
retaliatory policies against any opposition. In early 1942 he chaired the
Wannsee Conference, which streamlined the efforts to deport European
Jews to the death camps. Riedweg later recalled that at a breakfast meet-
ing in Berlin in 1936 – long before these events – Heydrich boasted that
within a few years Martin Bormann (the head of the Nazi Party), the
Gau-leaders, and party dignitaries would be history.40 How Riedweg
reacted is unknown, but Heydrich’s comments would have removed any
doubt that the leaders of the organization he was increasingly aligning
himself with were deeply ambitious about its future.
Regardless of what Heydrich may have thought of the Swiss Doctor,
Riedweg must have made a good impression on Himmler. After their ini-
tial introduction, the two met again for a longer meeting in March 1938.
According to Riedweg, the primary purpose of the meeting was to discuss
his “long-standing intention of entry into the SS.”41 The details of this
meeting remain obscure; it is not clear, for example, to what extent the
two discussed the possibility of admitting other non-Germans into the
SS or creating the Germanische Leitstelle. It is fair to assume, however,
that any such ideas would have been embryonic at this point. Moreover,
Himmler demanded that Riedweg apply for German citizenship before
he could be admitted into the SS.42 This request implies that Himmler had
yet to fully swallow the idea of recruiting Germanics for the SS in 1938.
In fact, it appears that Riedweg himself may have been instrumental in
warming the Reichsführer-SS up to the idea. Although the possibility
to create a truly Germanic organization was obviously complimentary
to Himmler’s ideological inclinations, it would have significant conse-
quences for the SS.
According to Riedweg’s postwar testimony in a trial, he and Himmler
did in fact discuss the future union of Germanic Europe during their
March meeting. Riedweg claimed that Himmler commented that, “if the

39
For a recent biography, see Robert Gerwarth, Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich
(New Haven: Yale, 2012).
40
Niederschrift einer Unterredung mit Herrn Dr.  Med. Franz Riedweg, 22 November
1955, p. 4, in IfZ, ZS669, Riedweg Franz
41
Riedweg to RF-SS, Chef des Perönlichen Stabes SS-Gruppenführer Wolff, 22 April 1938,
in BA, SSO (BDC) 030B, Riedweg, Dr. Franz.
42
Riedweg to RF-SS, Chef des Persönlichen Stabes SS-Gruppenführer Wolff, 22 April 1938,
in BA SSO (BDC) 030B, Riedweg, Dr. Franz.
2 Introduction

volunteer named Kurt Lundin. The citizen of a neutral country largely

unaffected by the war, Lundin seems an unlikely candidate to perpetrate
genocide. But he did, and he was not alone. By the end of the war the
Waffen-SS had developed into a force of over half a million soldiers; of
these some eight thousand were non-German volunteers from the neutral
countries of Sweden, Switzerland, and Denmark.
Four years after the executions on the Eastern Front, in April 1945,
a large contingent of Lundin’s fellow neutral Waffen-SS volunteers with-
drew into Berlin. As the men entered Germany’s once magnificent cap-
ital, they found the city in ruins after weeks of bombardment. In the
chaos of the nearly surrounded city, the men prepared to meet the Red
Army’s onslaught. Concentrated around Hitler’s bunker in the center of
Berlin, the men would be among the dictator’s final defenders. In the next
few weeks all but a handful of them would die fighting for a murderous
regime whose defeat was already certain.3
The questions raised by these examples are deeply perplexing. Neither
the Axis nor the Allies threatened the homes of these men. Many of the
volunteers had young children. Several were highly educated and came
from stable, middle-class families. Why would these men from countries
largely unaffected by the war volunteer to murder and die for a brutal,
racist and foreign ideology? Nor were these neutrals citizens the only
non-Germans who voluntarily fought for the Nazi regime. By the end of
the war, over sixty thousand so-called Germanic Europeans and nearly
half a million non-Germans had served under the Nazi flag.4

3
Lennart Westberg and Lars Gyllenhaal, Svenskar I  Krig (Stockholm:  Historisk Media,
2005), 287. See also Auszüge aus den Aufzeichnungen des ehem. SS-Obersturmführer
Hans-Gösta Pehrsson, 1944–45 Kompaniechef in der SS-Pz.Aufklärungsabteilung
11 “Nordland” in Estland und Pommern, in AfZ, NL FR, ungeordnet.
4
Germanic was a Nazi term for the supposedly racially and culturally related peoples of
northwestern Europe, corresponding roughly to Scandinavia, Holland, Flemish-Belgium,
Switzerland, and Liechtenstein. Whether Estonia was a Germanic country was contested
within the SS leadership. Though the Germanic peoples included Germans as well, the
term was used to refer to these non-German Western Europeans throughout the war, as
opposed to Reichsdeutsche, German citizens, and Volksdeutsche, foreigners of German
heritage and “blood,” mostly from the East. Estimates of the numbers of Germanic vol-
unteers are hard to establish with certainty and vary from 60,000 to 130,000. The total
number of non-Germans in the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, including hundreds of thou-
sands of Eastern Europeans, was well over a million. Rolf-Dieter Müller estimates that
non-Germans accounted for 20 percent of the total Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS strength on
the Eastern Front. Rolf-Dieter Müller, An der Seite der Wehrmacht: Hitlers Ausländische
Helfer Beim “Kreuzzug Gegen Den Bolschewismus” 1941–1945 (Berlin: Christoph Links
Verlag, 2007), 422.
 The First Germanic Warrior 37

intellect, and strength of conviction seem to have been decisive in his

rapid integration and rise in the SS structure.
After completing work on a Swiss film project entitled Der Rote Pest
(the Red Pest) and securing his German citizenship, Riedweg joined the
SS on 1 July 1938 and was assigned to eight weeks of infantry-medical
training in Munich. Deciding to join the SS had momentous and immediate
consequences. Switzerland forbid service in a foreign army, and by the late
1930s the Swiss media was acutely interested in identifying any Swiss Nazi
collaborators, real or imagined. A series of newspaper articles immediately
condemned Riedweg as a traitor.47 He reacted with what appears to have
been genuine shock at his countrymen’s “misunderstanding” of what he
considered to be patriotic actions. In a letter to the Swiss ambassador to
Germany in May 1939, Riedweg complained bitterly of the unfair treat-
ment he had received in the Swiss press and the seeming indifference of the
government. He reiterated his patriotic credentials and insisted that he had
“no intention of reneging his Swiss citizenship.” He moreover requested
that the government provide some form of protective detail for his family’s
trip to Switzerland the following summer, fearing for his and their safety.48
Riedweg’s planned trip never took place. Throughout the summer, of
course, the embryonic Waffen-SS was busy preparing for its first engage-
ments in what seemed to be an inevitable conflict. Although Riedweg sat
out the invasion of Poland, he served as a field-hospital doctor in the cam-
paign in the West, in the artillery unit of the SS-Division “Deutschland.”
Although it is impossible to unravel Riedweg’s exact experience during
the campaign, he presumably witnessed the heavy casualties suffered by
the inexperienced Waffen-SS units. This does not appear to have soured
his taste for combat, as long after this engagement he would continue to
write approvingly of the virtues of war. Riedweg was similarly exposed
to the SS’s larger racial aims and brutal methods quite early in his
career, despite his later claims to the contrary.49 During the Kristallnacht
pogrom of 1938, Riedweg served in the medical unit stationed at Dachau

47
See, for example, “Ein bedenklicher Fall. Der frühere Sekretär des eidg. Aktionskomitees
für die Wehrvorlage ist aktiver Nazi und deutscher SS-Haupsturmführer,” in Volksstimme
14.9.1938, 1, and “Denn er ist ein Riedweg,” Volksrecht, 20.10.1938, 1.
48
Riedweg to Schweizerischen Gesandten, Dr. Carl Frölicher, 26 May 1939, in BA, SSO
(BDC) 030B, Riedweg, Dr. Franz.
49
Riedweg claimed repeatedly after the war that details of the Holocaust were completely
unknown to him at the time. See, for example, Interrogation NO. 583, Auf Veranlassung
Von Mr. Bobbs, SS-Section. Vernehmung von Franz Riedweg durch Mr. de Vries am
20.1.1947 von 14.00–15.00 UHR, in IfZ, ZS 669, Riedweg, Dr. Franz.
38 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

concentration camp, a post he would return to again in early 1939.50

During his post there he presumably witnessed or participated in the bru-
talization and murder of Jews and other civilians. These few months of
service at Dachau in 1938 and 1939 are marked by noticeable gaps in his
later recollections of the war, both private and public, and in his numer-
ous testimonies regarding his posts within the SS.
Although Riedweg’s experience in joining the SS was uniquely com-
plex and drawn out, more Germanics would soon follow in his foot-
steps. Their admittance would depend less on the personal patronage of
Himmler or Berger, however, and more on the changing power dynamics
on the European continent and the work of Riedweg.

The Decision to Recruit Germanics

The realm of the possible changed dramatically for the SS in the late
spring of 1940. Himmler, who had long spoken of the racial brother-
hood of the Germanic peoples suddenly found Denmark and Norway
under the regime’s control. By the end of the summer, most of the conti-
nent had been subdued under the seemingly incontestable power of the
Wehrmacht. The Nazi regime had developed surprisingly few plans on
how these newly acquired territories might be ruled, but they unques-
tionably presented the SS with several opportunities.51 The populations
in the new territories offered an especially attractive solution to the prob-
lem of Waffen-SS recruitment. Instead of competing with the Wehrmacht
over scarce German soldiers, the Waffen-SS could recruit the millions
of Germanics now under its control. This was not, however, merely an
improvised solution to the manpower problem.52 Instead, the decision to
recruit in the Germanic lands had grown out of Himmler and Berger’s
contacts with Riedweg in the interwar years and had begun to take shape
before the fall of Denmark and Norway. Germanic soldiers offered a
way both to incorporate the eventually conquered Germanic lands into

50
An investigation, presumably into Riedweg’s complicity in crimes committed at Dachau
concentration camp, was launched in 1961 in Munich (Verfahren StA München I, 1 b
Js 1290/61) though it did not lead to a trial. The investigation documents remain sealed.
See Riedweg’s “Karteikarte” at BAL, 415 AR 1310/63 P [sealed].
51
Peter M.R. Stirk, “Making the New Europe in the Second World War:  1940–45,” in
A History of European Integration since 1914, ed. Peter M.R. Stirk (London:  Pinter,
1996), 53.
52
Stein, The Waffen SS:  Hitler’s Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945, 129; Hans-Dietrich
Loock, “Zur “Grossgermanischen Politik” des Dritten Reiches,” Vierteljahrshefte für
Zeitgeschichte 8, no. 1 (1960): 55–56.
 The Decision to Recruit Germanics 39

National Socialist Germany and to assure the primacy of the SS over

other Nazi organs of state.53
In February 1940, before the coming conquest of Scandinavia,
Himmler and Berger began planning new SS divisions that simply could
not be manned without a serious violation of the quota numbers for
German conscripts worked out with the Wehrmacht. Their intention
appears to have been to fill these divisions with Germanic volunteers,
though at the time this was not made clear. At a meeting on 2 February,
Himmler assured the Army leadership that he was not planning any new
formations that would require more German manpower than allowed
by the quota system. When the Army leadership found out about the
planned new divisions, however, they called Himmler out on this incon-
sistency, writing him an angry letter that fell just short of calling him a
liar.54 The accusation forced Himmler to reveal his hand. A week after the
invasions of Denmark and Norway had begun, he responded, “Should
the Germanic countries be suitable for the recruitment of a significant
number of SS-fit and racially and politically dependable volunteers in the
future, . . . these new units could be created without any damage to the
overall pool of German conscripts.”55
With the successful campaign in the West in 1940, Berger began
recruiting Germanics to fill the Waffen-SS’s insatiable need. In the fall
of 1940, he set up satellite recruitment offices in the occupied countries
and began filling up two new Waffen-SS regiments, “Nordland” and
“Westland,” with Dutch, Norwegian, and Danish recruits. Together with
the German Regiment “Germania,” these units were to form the core of
the SS-Division “Wiking.” From that point on, the Waffen-SS became an
increasingly non-German force as Germanics and an even greater num-
ber of Volksdeutsche (ethnic Germans from the East) were recruited and
coerced into its ranks.
Riedweg assisted Berger with recruitment. Moreover, he was a key
figure in conceptualizing the concrete steps necessary to turn Himmler’s
vague and long-term plans for a Germanic SS and a Greater Germanic
Reich into policy. Although it is difficult to establish the exact flow of
ideas between individuals, it is not coincidental that Himmler first came
into contact with Riedweg at exactly the moment that the German Reich

53
See Henning Poulsen, Besættelsemagten og De Danske Nazister (Copenhagen: Gyldendal,
1970), 128. Jürgen Elvert, “‘Germanen’ und ‘Imperialisten’. Zwei Europakonzepte Aus
Nationalsozialistischer Zeit,” Historische Mitteilungen 5 (1992): 163.
54
Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres to RF-SS, 30 March 1940, in BAMA, N 756/234c.
55
Himmler to Oberbefehlshaber des Heeres, 17 April 1940, in BAMA, N 756/234c.
40 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

was beginning to expand and opportunities for the future of the SS were
beginning to emerge. It was immediately after their meetings in March
1938 that Himmler first mentioned his desire to “gather Germanic blood
from the whole world, to steal it.”56 Riedweg’s enthusiasm for the SS may
in fact, then, have led Himmler to believe his dreams of making the SS a
Germanic organization could be achieved. Over the following two years,
Himmler, Berger, and Riedweg laid further plans for the Germanization
of the Waffen-SS.
The Wehrmacht was not interested in non-German recruits; its lead-
ership therefore voiced no opposition to Himmler’s plan. From this
point on, the largest opposition to the recruitment of Germanics into
the ranks of the Waffen-SS came from within the SS itself. This oppo-
sition was fueled by structural changes undertaken by Himmler in the
summer of 1940, with the creation of a new SS-Führungshauptamt
(SS-FHA, SS Main Leadership Office). The SS-FHA inherited some of
the SS-HA’s responsibilities, including training and commanding com-
bat units of the Waffen-SS.57 Under the direction of Hans Jüttner, the
office proved especially uncomfortable with the idea of anyone but
Germans wearing the uniform of the Waffen-SS. Although the SS-FHA
would eventually accept the need for non-Germans to compensate for
the drastic loss of life among the organization’s ranks, the SS-FHA
(and the majority of German Waffen-SS officers it oversaw) never
accepted the idea that non-Germans were equals to Germans. Beyond the
opposition to Germanic ideas within the SS-FHA, the SS’s increasingly
complex structure ensured that many policy initiatives were slowed by
the polyocratic quagmire. By 1941 the SS housed twelve Main Offices,
many of which operated as independent and quite powerful agencies,
acting at times in unison with and at other times against their sister
SS offices. The Main Offices held overlapping areas of responsibility,
increasingly so as each office sought to expand its influence during the
course of the war. No fewer than four offices, for instance, had some
claim to responsibility over the Waffen-SS, and four offices oversaw
aspects of SS foreign policy in Western Europe.
Even before the creation of the SS-FHA, the opposition to Germanics
within the SS had been evident. Indeed, the first contentious issue had

56
Himmler, Führerbesprechung, 8 November 1938, in BA, NS 19/4005.
57
Kurt Mehner, Die Waffen-SS und Polizei 1939–1945: Führung und Truppe (Noderstedt:
Militair-Verlag, 1995), 14.
 The Decision to Recruit Germanics 41

been Himmler’s decision to admit Riedweg into the SS in 1938. Several SS

officers sent letters to Himmler voicing concerns over Riedweg’s admis-
sion, especially as some of these officers had become aware of the Swiss
media campaign labeling Riedweg an opportunist and traitor. The fact
that Riedweg was applying for German citizenship appeared irrelevant
to these critics. Himmler refused to reconsider his decision to accept the
Swiss doctor. In a letter responding to one critic, he wrote,
Dear Schmitt!
I was surprised at your letter of 24 September 1938. Don’t you think that any man
of Germanic heritage, from Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Flanders or
some other place who shows up and becomes an SS-man, would not be under-
stood by the well-meaning people of his home and be labeled a lackey, traitor and
opportunist by the mean-spirited ones. I  am in no way considering dismissing
Dr. Riedweg from the SS; he stays in the SS.
Himmler58

Opposition continued to mount among influential SS officers even after

Himmler’s intervention, especially as word spread that Riedweg had no
plans of renouncing his Swiss citizenship.59 The fact that Himmler’s letter
refers to Germanic volunteers in general is telling of Himmler’s attempts
to prepare his hesitant officers for a future influx of non-German recruits.
Under Jüttner, the SS-FHA continued to resist the influx of Germanics
into the Waffen-SS. (It should be noted that, in Jüttner’s specific case,
this may have been based on military objections:  the politically prom-
ising Germanic officers the SS-HA sent him were often not on par with
Germans in terms of their military capabilities.)
Shortly after Hitler approved the creation of the two new Germanic
regiments – “Nordland” for Scandinavian volunteers and “Westland” for
Dutch volunteers – Himmler and Berger began laying the foundations for
a new office to attract, train, integrate, and care for this influx of non-
German soldiers. At the end of April 1940, Berger created recruitment
centers in Oslo and Copenhagen, but there was as of yet no comprehen-
sive coordinating office within the SS structure.60

58
Reichsführer-SS to Schmitt, Betr: SS-Hauptsturmführer Dr. Franz Riedweg, 30 September
1938, in BA, SSO (BDC) 30B, Riedweg, Dr. Franz. See also Otto Rahm to Reichsführer-
SS, Geheim, 9 June 1938, in BA, SSO (BDC) 30B, Riedweg, Dr. Franz.
59
Urteil, 153.
60
Loock, “Zur “Grossgermanischen Politik” des Dritten Reiches,” 55. In the Norwegian
case, no serious recruitment would begin until the end of January 1941. Skildbred, 195.
42 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

THE CREATION OF THE Germanische

Leitstelle
The origins of what would later become the Germanische Leitstelle are
somewhat obscure, and there is reason to believe this was an intentional
strategy designed to deflect opposition from both the SS and the broader
regime. It is clear, however, that from the beginning the office was slated to
handle more than just coordinating Germanic volunteers. The seeds for an
office engaged in Germanic politics were planted with Riedweg’s acceptance
into the Waffen-SS. As with the Waffen-SS, historical interpretations of the
Germanische Leitstelle’s origins and original purpose have been clouded by
participants’ postwar need to justify their own participation. In the imme-
diate postwar period, former members of the office sought to portray them-
selves as military men, not ideologues, responsible solely for recruitment.
Riedweg, the director and ideological founder of the office, claimed after the
war that he had opposed including “Germanic” in the office’s name because
of the term’s association with the “blood-myth,” something he claimed
never to have believed in.61 Similarly, Dr. Heinrich Büeler, a Swiss lawyer
who headed the office’s propaganda department, acknowledged that the
office worked on “spiritual, ideological, and political” matters, but insisted
that those efforts were strictly limited to the Waffen-SS and not intended to
address “internal nor foreign political, state or volk questions.”62 He later
added that the “G[ermanische] L[eitstelle] had no policy regarding the cre-
ation of a Germanic Reich,” and that there was, “no Europe-politics within
the Waffen-SS.”63 Both men were cleared in German postwar trials, though
not in their 1947 trial in Switzerland.
Many historians followed the participants’ lead. The term’s most
frequent translation into English as the ‘Germanic Coordination’ or
‘Germanic Guidance’ office suggests a passive, administrative role.64

61
“Aus der Radio Sendung ‘Schweizer in der Waffen-SS’ von Hans-Rudolf Lehmann, DRS
I,” 15 May 1977, in AfZ, NL Benno Schäppi, ungeordneter Dossier 6. See also Riedweg’s
interrogation by his US captors:  Interrogation NO. 583, “Auf Veranlassung Von
Mr. Bobbs, SS-Section. Vernehmung von Franz Riedweg durch Mr. de Vries am 20.1.1947
von 14.00–15.00 UHR,” in IfZ, ZS 669, Riedweg, Dr. Franz.
62
Heinrich Büeler, Bemerkungen zu bewusst oder unbewusst falschen Behauptungen oder
Begriffsbildungen in der Anklageschrift der Schweizerischen Bundesanwaltschaft, p.1, in
AfZ, NL Büeler, 10.2, E11.
63
Heinrich Büeler, “Meine Stellungnahme zu den Anschuldigungen während der
Strafuntersuchung und der Anklage vor Bundesstrafgericht in der persönlichen
Einvernahme,” pp. 1–2, in AfZ, NL Heinrich Büeler, 10.2, E 9.
64
See, for example, Höhne, The Order of the Death’s Head:  The Story of Hitler’s SS,
500; Gingerich, “Toward a Brotherhood of Arms: Waffen-SS Recruitment of Germanic
 The Creation of the Germanische Leitstelle 43

Because of the lack of sources in German archives (as discussed in the

Introduction), those historians who recognized the office’s significance
have had little to say.65 Additionally, the office’s true role was deliber-
ately kept from competing SS offices and other departments of the regime
during the war. Robert Koehl, the historian who most engages with the
office, writes that Germanische Leitstelle quickly “went underground,”
that is, the Leitstelle sought to keep its true agenda hidden from as many
people for as long as possible so as to not evoke opposition to their
Germanic plans.66 When combined with the initial round of participants’
histories, this institutional strategy has made the Germanische Leitstelle’s
broader ideological objective and strategies difficult to discern.
By the time Riedweg left the office in the fall of 1943, its official respon-
sibilities had ballooned from merely recruiting and integrating Germanic
Waffen-SS volunteers to the handling of all “Germanic questions” (ger-
manische Fragen) and “international questions” (Ausslandsfragen) for
the SS.67 Officially, the office was to coordinate these efforts with the
Foreign Ministry, the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces (OKW),
the RSHA, and other agencies within the SS bureaucracy. In practice, it
fought bitter and lingering turf wars with other these competing organs
of the Nazi regime. A 1942 memo from the Foreign Ministry, for exam-
ple, catalogued what the authors described as Himmler’s attempts to
“enact an independent foreign policy,” while simultaneously voicing
grudging respect for the Germanische Leitstelle’s ambitions: “The idea
of winning over every Germanic person to National Socialism and to
house this collected, homogenous racial power under our leadership, is
correct and should be applauded.”68 The Foreign Ministry was right to
be concerned: by the second half of the war, the Germanische Leitstelle
was inviting foreign dignitaries to Germany without asking for approval
from the Foreign Ministry, had established its own foreign policy desks,

Volunteers, 1940–1945,” 151; Koehl, The Black Corps:  The Structure and Power
Struggles of the Nazi SS, 197.
65
See Rempel, “Gottlob Berger and Waffen-SS Recruitment 1939–1945,” 46. See also, Elvert,
“ ‘Germanen’ und ‘Imperialisten’. Zwei Europakonzepte Aus Nationalsozialistischer
Zeit,” 163–68; Czeslaw Madajczyk, “Das Hauptamt Für Volkstumsfragen und die
Germanische Leitstelle,” in Das Unrechtsregime. Internationale Forschung Über Den
Nationalsozialismus Band I:  Ideologie  – Herrschaftssystem  – Wirkung in Europa, ed.
Ursula Buettner (Hamburg: Hamburger Beträge zur Sozial- und Zeitgeschichte, 1986).
66
Koehl, The Black Corps: The Structure and Power Struggles of the Nazi SS, 199.
67
“Germanische Freiwilligen-Leitstelle,” in BAMA, NA 756/52b.
68
Aufzeichnugnen. Bemühungen der RF-SS, selbsstätigen Aussenpolitik zu treiben, u.a. in
bezug auf die Schweiz, Referat D III, 20 September 1942, in AfZ, NL Franz Riedweg,
4. Germanische Leitstelle, Nürnberger Dokumente: NG 3909.
44 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

and had proposed numerous blueprints for the integration of Germanic

Europe.69 Similarly  – and again to the Foreign Ministry’s chagrin  – by
1944 the Germanische Leitstelle had implemented a policy whereby a
Swiss citizen, for example, wishing to travel to Germany had to apply
directly to that office, not the Foreign Ministry, for a visa.70 Most of these
jurisdictional disputes were never resolved.
Although most of the Germanische Leitstelle’s plans failed utterly,
they nevertheless speak to the scale and scope of the SS’s ambition. Much
like the Generalplan Ost, the SS’s plan for the reconstruction of the occu-
pied East as a “German” landscape – plans which ultimately failed but
resulted in the murder of millions  – the Germanische Leitstelle’s plans
for the Greater Germanic Reich in the West provides a unique window
into the Germanic project.71 To gain a better understanding of what the
Germanische Leitstelle and its Germanic volunteers hoped to accomplish
and why, we must return to the vexed question of the office’s origins.
At the end of the summer of 1940, Riedweg presented Himmler with
a memorandum in which he argued for the creation of an office to coor-
dinate the recruitment and integration of Germanic volunteers.72 One
month later, Dr.  Rudolf Jacobsen, a “racial expert” and RuS-Führer of
the Nordost district, sent a similar memo to the SS-FHA and volunteered
himself to serve as its head.73 The startling simultaneity of these sugges-
tions by both a Germanic and a German SS officer highlights the transna-
tional origins of the SS’s Germanic policies. Unfortunately for Jacobsen,

69
“Germanische Leitstelle Organisation,” in BAMA, N 756/52b.
70
See Oertle, Sollte Ich Aus Russland Nicht Zurückkehren:  Schweizer Freiwillige an
Deutscher Seite, 1939–1945., 526.
71
See, for example, Mechtild Rössler and Sabine Schleiermacher, eds., Der “Generalplan
Ost.” Hauplinien der Nationalsozialistischen Planungs und Vernichtungspolitik
(Berlin:  Akademie-Verlag, 1993); David Blackbourn, The Conquest of Nature:  Water,
Landscape and the Making of Modern Germany (New  York:  W.W. Norton &
Company, 2006).
72
See Niederschrift einer Unterredung mit Herrn Dr. Med. Franz Riedweg, München, 22
November 1955, p. 5, in IfZ, ZS669, Riedweg Franz. The memo itself has not survived,
so we cannot know exactly what functions the office Riedweg recommended should have
served. Although few scholars of the Waffen-SS attribute the creation of the office to
Riedweg, several other Germanische Leitstelle officers have confirmed that the initiative
came from Riedweg. See, for example, Fritz Ulrich’s “Die Grossgermanische/europäische
Reichsidee und die Waffen-SS,” p. 13, in WPA.
73
Though Jacobsen’s original memo appears lost, Himmler referred to it in a January 1941
letter to Berger. See Himmler to Berger, 7 January 1941, in BAMA, N 756/234c. The
Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt was founded in 1931 by Himmler to assure the “racial
purity” of the SS. Originally led by Walter Darré, the RuSHA had to approve all mar-
riages within the SS. It would also provide racial examiners in trials for infringements
against racial codes and oversee various “Germanization” projects.
 Introduction 5

these men to decision making on the part of the German SS leadership,

including its chief, Himmler. That is, I wish to treat these men as the real
historical actors they were. This is a study of perpetrators, of ideology, of
the unique institution that was the SS, and, above all, of the interaction
of the three.
In particular, this book examines the hundred most influential and
high-ranking neutral volunteers, all of whom either worked for or closely
with the Germanische Leitstelle, the office most central to the Germanic
project within the SS. Hence, a narrative following the development of
this office parallels the biographies of these men. Far from naïve fanatics
or mentally disturbed individuals, as postwar myths and national his-
toriographies usually regard them, they were well-educated and trav-
eled members of the middle-class, of strong and adventurous character.
They were leaders, not followers. In joining the Waffen-SS they were not
running away from social isolation or economic dislocation at home.
Instead, they sought to defend what they saw as the core of European
civilization and culture from the dual threat of Soviet Bolshevism and
Anglo-American Liberalism and to effect a radical reorganization of the
European political and social order. Once in the service of the Waffen-
SS, their goals were thwarted by friction with various competing Nazi
institutions and the changing fortunes of the war. Along with elucidating
the experiences and contributions of these Germanic volunteers, then,
this book is additionally a case study of the “polyocratic” nature of the
Nazi regime.9 Understanding why the plans for a greater Germanic Reich
failed to take hold within the regime, or even fully within the SS, helps us
better understand the workings of the Nazi regime.
By the end of the war, many Germanic volunteers to the SS had grown
disillusioned. This did not, however, prevent many of them from par-
ticipating in some of the most gruesome crimes of the Nazi regime  –
Lundin’s story being a case in point. It must be said immediately and
unequivocally that in examining who these men were and the decisions
they made, I am no way attempting to excuse their behavior or beliefs;
instead I  am attempting to gain deeper insight into the perpetrator’s
minds and motives and the complexity of the world in which they acted.10

9
Polyocracy refers to Nazi Germany’s overlapping and competing centers of power
among its government institutions. See Jost Dülffer, Nazi Germany, 1933–1945: Faith
and Annihilation (London: E. Arnold, 1996), 96, 110.
10
In this I  am influenced greatly by George L.  Mosse’s concept of “methodological
empathy.” George L. Mosse, Confronting History: A Memoir (Madison:  University of
Wisconsin Press, 2000), 9. See also, Emilio Gentile, “A Provisional Dwelling: The Origin
46 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

responsibility for the political work of the SS and became central in

implementing the SS’s visions for the East. In the end, however, Himmler’s
decision to place the Germanische Leitstelle within the SS-HA makes
sense as a compromise position between the thoroughly political and
police-oriented RSHA and strictly combat-oriented SS-FHA.
In February, one month after Berger’s memo, Himmler sent out an
updated version of the SS-HA’s organizational chart, this time including
a new and sixth office, the Germanischen Freiwilligen Leitstelle. It did
not, however, contain any explanation as to what this new office was to
do.80 The February 1941 memo was the first time many within the SS
and the regime heard of this new office that, it appears, had actually been
operating within the SS-HA since January. Riedweg was not officially
transferred to the office until May, at which point Himmler signed and
distributed the Stabsbefehl, or official order, mandating the creation of
the new office.81
Given that Himmler and Berger seem to have decided that Riedweg
would lead the new office as early as September 1940, why did they
wait so long to acknowledge the move? The most likely explanation
appears to be that their grand plans for the office would garner oppo-
sition. Beyond merely recruiting and training Germanic recruits, the
Germanische Leitstelle would slowly help the SS secure its control over
the occupied Germanic lands and spread the Nazi revolution in Europe.
Recruiting and training Germanic soldiers was a necessary, but insuffi-
cient, first step. The bond that would be formed among these Germanic
elites in the trenches of the Eastern Front would lay the seeds for their
work in Western Europe. Berger, no doubt, was worried about the reac-
tions of the strong German-centric factions within the SS as well as those
of the NSDAP and the Foreign Ministry, both of whom saw relations
with the Germanic countries as falling within their responsibilities. Hence
the office and its mandate developed quietly and ambiguously, yet with
the clear intent of expanding the SS’s influence into the Germanic coun-
tries and Germanic policy at large.
This conclusion is evident in the fact that Himmler and Berger were
assigning Riedweg Germanic work far beyond recruiting volunteers as
early as 1940. An exchange between Himmler, Berger, Heydrich, and

80
Himmler, 28 February 1941, Betr.: Organisation des SS-Hauptamtes, in BA, NS 31/96.
81
Stabsbefehl Nr. 19/41, RF-SS, Chef des SS-HA, 9 May 1941, Betr.: Amt VI – Germanische
Freiwilligen-Leitstelle, volksdeutsche und volksgermanische Ergänzung, BA, NS 31/
72, 88.
 From Germanic Volunteers to a Germanic Policy 47

Wolff from November 1941 is equally telling. Himmler reminded them

“not to speak of a Germanische Leitstelle yet, but to continue to [speak
of] a Germanischen Freiwilligen Leitstelle.”82 For the moment, but his
wording suggests not for too much longer, the name must include a
reference to Freiwilligen, or “volunteers,” limiting its implied mandate.
The mandate officially expanded in the summer of 1942, at which point
Himmler also allowed the office to drop the Freiwilligen from its name.

From Germanic Volunteers

to a Germanic Policy
Whatever the official name, Riedweg had engaged in Germanic work from
the beginning. Along with expanding recruitment efforts in the Germanic
countries, Riedweg immediately set up general SS organizations in the
Germanic countries in the spring of 1941 – similar to the general SS in
Germany – to train and educate sympathetic men who did not necessarily
wish to fight on the front. His early Germanic work was, perhaps not
surprisingly, especially focused on Switzerland. For Riedweg and other
Swiss and German SS officers, Switzerland was next in line for a natu-
ral Anschluss to the Greater German Reich – a view not widely shared
by others in the Nazi regime. Even Himmler at this point was unsure
whether Switzerland was rife for incorporation; though the German-
speaking Swiss were Germanic, in his view, the country as a whole was
a prime example of a Fehlentwicklung, a “mis-development,” and would
need time before it would be ready for incorporation.83
Despite his doubts, Himmler gave Riedweg the green light to begin
expanding the SS’s role in Swiss-directed “foreign policy.” In October
1940, Riedweg organized a meeting between various leading Swiss
National Socialists in Munich, the aim of which was to coordinate their
efforts intended to move their country closer to Germany. Riedweg, sta-
tioned at the Foreign Ministry at the time, managed to have this office
pay for the conference.84 No concrete decisions or proposals emerged
from the meeting, largely because the various Swiss fascists did not agree

82
RF-SS, Persönlicher Stab, 8 November 1941, Betr.: Germanische Freiwilligen-Leitstelle,
in NARA, T-175, 74/2592354. Himmler had long wrangled over which name would be
best suited for the office during its formative stages and solicited suggestions from his
top officers. His initial inclination seems to have been to Germanische Mittelstelle. See
Himmler to Berger, 7 January 1941, in BAMA, N 756/234c
83
Jörg Fink, Schweiz Aus der Sicht des Dritten Reiches (Zürch: Schulthess, 1985), 53, 69.
84
Urteil, 24–25.
48 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

on what policies to pursue next. The Swiss government’s decision to ban

both the Nationale Front, the main fascist party in Switzerland, and
its spin-off, the NSB, in November 1940, propelled Riedweg back into
action. Through Himmler he organized to have the SS officer Dr. Wilhelm
Gröbl transferred to the German Consulate in Zurich. Gröbl, who had
been sent to Austria before the Anschluss and had been integral in pre-
paring the country for its union with the Reich, was expected to perform
a similar task in Switzerland.85 His experience in Switzerland shows the
extent to which the SS’s policies on the Germanic countries continually
received input from Germanics themselves.
Riedweg and the Swiss lawyer Dr. Heinrich Büeler decided that a nec-
essary first step in affecting an “organic solution”  – a term the Swiss
preferred over Anschluss – would be to create a small SS-like movement
in Switzerland. They managed to gain Gröbl’s blessing for the under-
taking. This new group, composed of racial and intellectual Swiss elites,
would bond through military-like training, begin cataloguing Jews and
other “foreign elements,” and be at the ready to serve the SS’s interest
once Switzerland became aligned with the Reich.86 After a trip to Berlin
in early January 1941, Büeler returned to Zurich and set to work setting
up a Sportsschule, or “Athletics School,” as cover for the new organiza-
tion. The funds for the project were funneled from Berlin through Gröbl
at the Zurich Consulate. Over the next few months, Büeler and his co-
conspirator Othmar Maag managed to attract some three hundred mem-
bers from half a dozen schools scattered throughout Switzerland.87 But
despite this early success, few members of the German regime outside of
Riedweg’s circle at the SS-HA appeared eager to affect an Anschluss with
Switzerland – although eventually, everyone agreed, this would have to
take place.88 The Sportschule continued its recruiting and training efforts
until the summer, at which point it was broken up by the Swiss police.
Designed to deter fascism, the police action ironically convinced most of

85
Urteil, 29.
86
For more on the Sportschule, see Edgar Bonjour, Geschichte der Schweizerischen
Neutralität:  Bd. 4.  Geschichte der Schweizerischen Neutralität Vom Ausbruch des
Zweiten Weltkriegs an (Basel: Schwabe, 1971), 279, 404.
87
See “Sportschule Maag – SS Schule in der Schweiz,” Tagesanzeiger (11.1.1946), 1, and
Urteil, 29–35. On Büeler’s reflections on the creation and failure of the Sportschule  –
which conform to the official report in the Urteil  – see Büeler to Otto Gloor, 14
August 1941, in AfZ, NL Heinrich Büeler, 4.1 Militärgerichtliche Untersuchung und
Untersuchungshaft 10.6.-27.10.1941 bis zur flucht am 21.11.1941.
88
Fink, Schweiz Aus der Sicht des Dritten Reiches, 69–71.
 From Germanic Volunteers to a Germanic Policy 49

Sportschule’s members that Switzerland might best be integrated into the

German Reich through their service in the Waffen-SS.
The extent to which Riedweg was open about his Germanic projects
with the Foreign Ministry and the other branches of the SS during his tour
of these various offices is unclear – that is, whether his various Germanic
initiatives were undertaken with the approval of his hosting offices or
behind their backs. Consider, for example, the creation of a collection
point in Stuttgart for Swiss citizens fleeing to the Reich. During the sum-
mer and fall of 1940, most of the handful of Germanic volunteers came
from Switzerland. Upon slipping across the border, many of these willing
collaborators were arrested by the German border patrol and held by the
Gestapo as suspected spies.89 To remedy this and to streamline their inte-
gration into the Waffen-SS, Riedweg set up the so-called Panoramaheim,
a house on Panorama Street in Stuttgart, where Swiss men would be gath-
ered, housed, and screened before their files were sent ahead to Berlin.
SS-Gruppenführer Karl Klaus, chief of the SS-Oberabschnitt, the SS
administrative zone that included Stuttgart, was not informed of the
house’s existence. In late March 1941, Klaus received a visit from a
“Dr. Hutton” – a pseudonym used by the house’s first director, the Swiss
Waffen-SS officer Alfred Nikles – who requested Klaus’s cooperation in
sending all intercepted Swiss to the Panoramaheim.90 Klaus, thoroughly
perplexed by this bizarre personal visit from a Swiss SS-man and angry to
learn of the existence of a secret SS operation in Stuttgart, fired off a letter
to the SS-HA on 29 March demanding clarification.91 Within a few days,
he had received a reply from Riedweg explaining that the Panoramaheim
had been operating in Stuttgart since 1 March – in reality it was closer to
1 January. Riedweg signed his letter “Stabsführer Amt VI,” “director of
office VI,” the future designation of the Germanische Leitstelle.92 Because
the office did not yet officially exist, his letter was sent on blank sta-
tionary, without any official letterhead. This only upset Klaus more: who
was this unknown officer from an office he had never heard of, giving

89
Reichlin, Kriegsverbrecher Wipf, Eugen:  Schweizer in der Waffen-SS, in Deutschen
Fabriken und an Den Schreibtischen des Dritten Reiches, 10.
90
Urteil, 44.
91
Aktennotiz, SS-Gruf. Klaus, SS-Oberabschnitt Sudwest, Stuttgart, 29 March 1941, in BA,
NS 31/237, 4.
92
Riedweg to SS-Oberabschnitt Südwest, Stuttgart, 1 April 1941, in BA, NS 31/237, 3. The
Swiss Benno Schäppi, who ran the Panoramaheim from 1942 to 1944, recalls its creation
as early as January of 1941. See “Das Panoramaheim,” p.1, in AfZ, NL Benno Schäppi,
I.3.3 Das Panoramaheim. This is confirmed by the fact that several Swiss men who fled
to Germany in January and February.
50 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

him orders? On 7 April, Klaus wrote directly to Berger, pledging not to

cooperate with the Panoramaheim until the issue was clarified.93 Berger,
it appears, did not respond, but Himmler’s official announcement of
Riedweg’s appointment as head of the Germanische Leitstelle presum-
ably clarified the matter for Klaus. The Panoramaheim remained oper-
ational and under the Germanische Leitstelle’s control until late 1944,
eventually funneling 1,000 of a total of 1,360 Swiss men who registered
at the home into the Waffen-SS.94
Riedweg, with Himmler and Berger’s support, also went behind the
back of the Foreign Ministry. At an event hosted by the Foreign Ministry
in March 1941 for foreign ambassadors, both the Swiss Ambassador and
the German hosts were surprised to find the Swiss fascist and SS volun-
teer Dr. Max Keller in attendance, apparently sent there by the SS-HA
to represent Swiss interests.95 Such conflicts continued throughout the
war and were only amplified once the Germanische Leitstelle’s existence
was officially proclaimed in May 1941. Although it would spend the
remainder of the year focusing on recruiting Germanics for the campaign
against the Soviet Union, starting in 1942 it would return to its attempts
to effect an organic solution with the Germanic countries and to spread
the SS’s influence over Germanic foreign policy.
After the war, Berger and Riedweg denied that any such political work
had ever been the intent behind the creation of the office. Himmler’s role
and intentions are more difficult to gauge. Although the SS was one of the
most centrally run organizations of the Nazi regime, Himmler frequently
gave conflicting mandates to competing offices and refused to intervene in
or clarify the resulting conflicts.96 Himmler certainly approved of Berger’s
and Riedweg’s actions  – and was integral to the conceptualization of
the Germanische Leitstelle in the fall of 1940 – but approved a series of
competing and contradictory initiatives by other SS offices. Himmler, a
busy man with a penchant for initiating various grandiose schemes, was,
in general, happy to let his top lieutenants fight among themselves.

93
Klaus to Berger, 7 April 1941, in BA, NS 31/237, 2.
94
Urteil, 70. The Panoramaheim was moved to Stassbourg in 1943 after the Stuttgart house
was destroyed in a bombing raid, and finally to Bregenz in 1944. See Urteil, 43–48.
95
Le Ministre de Suisse a Berlin, H. Fröhlicher to Chef de la Division des Affaires etran-
geres du Departement politique, P.  Bonna, Berlin, 29 March 1941, in Antoine Fleury,
Mauro Cerutti, and Marc Perrenoud, eds., Documents Diplomatiques Suisses, vol. 14
(1941–1943) (Bern: Benteli, 1997), 26.
96
On Himmler’s “divide and conquer tactics” between his top lieutenants, see Bernd
Wegner, The Waffen-SS: Organization, Ideology and Function (Oxford: Basil Blackwell,
1990), especially 211.
 From Germanic Volunteers to a Germanic Policy 51

The largest problem, however, came from within the Waffen-SS itself.
Since the establishment of the SS-FHA, Jüttner had increased his influence
and would continue to oppose the SS-HA on issues and jurisdiction over
indoctrinating troops and the best use of foreign volunteers.97 Like post-
war historians, Jüttner showed little interest in the individual Germanics
who left their homes to fight for the Nazi regime. Their prewar military
experiences and political ambitions were of no significance in his mind.
Though their numbers would always be short of Himmler and Berger’s
visions, the Germanic recruits’ commitment to the Germanic project of
the SS was high. In fact, most future members of the Germanic Waffen-SS
leadership corps had developed similar ideas long before joining the SS.
To understand how and why requires examining their experiences in the
prewar period.

97
See ibid., 211.
 2

Restless Youth

Prewar Biographical Sketches

When the Danish publishing house Thanning & Appel sought a trans-
lator for Ernest Hemingway’s latest book, The Torrents of Spring, they
chose the young Danish author, traveler, and Hemingway-enthusiast
Flemming Helweg-Larsen.1 Helweg-Larsen, who had written several pop-
ular books and articles in the late 1930s and early 1940s, was a worldly,
well-educated, and well-read young man.2 He spoke several languages
fluently.3 When not traveling or writing books, he worked as a journalist
and editor in Copenhagen.
With the exception of his remarkable word-crafting abilities and
passion for adventure, Helweg-Larsen was, up until 1941, an average
middle-class, stable and well-integrated member of Danish society. He
was not a member of the Danish National Socialist Party (DNSAP), nor
did he have any contact with other right-wing political groups. But later
that year, Helweg-Larsen volunteered for the Waffen-SS. He became
an influential Waffen-SS war correspondent, and, after fighting on the
Eastern Front, was posted to Denmark where he participated in the wave
of terror unleashed by the SS in the fall of 1943 to discourage further
Danish resistance and sabotage. He was arrested at the end of the war

1
The first edition appeared in 1941. A  second edition, also based on Helweg-Larsen’s
translation, appeared in 1960. Ernest Hemmingway, Lys og Mørk Latter, trans. Flemming
Helweg-Larsen (København:  Thaning og Appel, 1960); ibid. Parts of this chapter have
appeared in Martin Gutmann, “Debunking the Myth of the Volunteers:  Transnational
Volunteering in the Nazi Waffen-SS Officer Corps During the Second World War.”
Contemporary European History 22/4 (2013), 585–607.
2
Flemming Helweg-Larsen, Med 60 Pesos Til Syd-Amerika (København1941).
3
SS File, in BA, SSO (BDC) 83A, Helweg-Larsen, Flemming.

52
 The Myth of the Volunteers 53

and in January 1946 was the first of forty-six Danish collaborators to be

executed.4
The biographies of the neutral men who joined the leadership corps of
the Waffen-SS resist easy categorization. Helweg-Larsen fits neither of the
two most common assumptions about volunteers, namely that they must
have been either mentally disturbed, fanatical Nazis or social deviants.
Nor could he be described as a weak and naïve character, a follower. By
all accounts, Helweg-Larsen might be considered more highly educated,
more worldly, more ambitious, and better socially integrated than the
average Dane. The same can be said of most of his fellow leadership
corps volunteers from Denmark, as well as those from Switzerland and
Sweden. In fact, their high intellect, combined with their propensity for
action, closely matches the profile of German SS “fighting bureaucrats.”
Despite the fact that Helweg-Larsen had not been a member of the
DNSAP, his later work for the SS betrays a strong attraction to right-wing
ideas. In this he was not unique. With very few exceptions, most of the
future volunteers had developed an ideological inclination toward fas-
cism in the years before their association with the SS. Disturbed by what
they perceived as their countries’ cultural, political, and economic stagna-
tion, and alarmed about perceived threats from both the Bolshevik East
and the Anglo-Liberal West, they longed for a new form of organization
that could reinvigorate European civilization. Though not all of them
could articulate this worldview, the longing was present long before they
donned the Waffen-SS coat. The available biographical evidence makes
abundantly clear that the myth of the volunteers is just that – a myth.

The Myth of the Volunteers

On the evening before he left for Germany and a career in the Waffen-SS,
Per Sørensen, a twenty-seven-year-old Dane, wrote to his parents that he
was not embarking on an “adventure” but believed that he was securing
his own and Denmark’s long-term wellbeing.5 Although we do not know
how Sørensen’s mother interpreted his decision, his fear that his motiva-
tion would be misinterpreted was not unfounded. Historians, politicians

4
For a good summary of the trials and biographies of the executed, see Frank Bøgh, De
Dødsdømte (Hellerup: Documentas, 2006).
5
Sørensen to parents, 18 July 1941. Sørensen’s letters have been published in Erik Haaest,
Intet Nyt Fra Østfronten: Beretningen Om Regiment 24 Dänemarks Sidste Kommandør.
Fortalt Af Ham Selv I Frontbreve, Sat I Perspektiv Af Erik Haaest (København:  Bogans
Forlog, 1998), 35.
 Understanding the Waffen-SS 9

transnational lens. The very fact that a group of similarly minded men
from different countries threw their lot in with the Nazi regime – a phe-
nomenon that is obscured when viewing from the perspective of a single
nation – hints at the cultural and social forces that affected men across
European boundaries in the prewar years. Both the discourse that they
consumed and produced and the very essence of their outlook were trans-
national. They imagined a utopia not within but instead of the countries
from which they came. For these reasons, this book is transnational at
its core.
The last decade has seen an explosive proliferation of literature on the
methodological benefits and heuristic value of transnational studies as
well as an accompanying reevaluation of the merits of comparative his-
tory. I have found the concept of ‘entangled’ history, or histoire croisée,
particularly useful; it informs my underlying assumption that a nation-
ally compartmentalized understanding of the war, including of National
Socialism, distorts a very complex reality.21 The country of Switzerland,
for example, cannot reasonably be portrayed as unified actor; instead
various persons and institutions responded differently to the reality of the
Nazi New Order. More importantly, of course, even if one were to accept
a reified notion of Switzerland, its government’s decisions were intimately
bound to decisions and conditions established abroad.
Though a problem in many areas of historical studies, the temptation
to reify the nation-state has been particularly strong in historiography
on the Second World War. Older accounts that portray Germany as a
complete aberration of European culture, and therefore as solely respon-
sible for the catastrophe in the surrounding countries, positioned non-
Germans as victims who resisted Germany’s nefarious intentions at every
turn.22 These assumptions have been challenged more recently, in partic-
ular in economic history. Recent studies of each of the neutral countries,
for example, have revealed the extent to which their economies relied on
Nazi Germany and how, in turn, neutral economic assets sustained the

21
For a good overview of these related concepts, see Jürgen Kocka, “Comparison and
Beyond,” History and Theory 42 (2003). For a good overview of transnationalism, see
Patricia Clavin, “Defining Transnationalism,” Contemporary European History 14, no.
4 (2005). See also Kiran Klaus Patel, “Transatlantische Perspektiven Transnationaler
Geschichte,” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 29, no. 4 (2003).
22
Dan Stone has argued that the long tendency to ignore collaboration resulted from
the Cold War paradigm. Dan Stone, Goodbye to All That? The Story of Europe since
1945 (Oxford:  Oxford University Press, 2014), viii. The classic “Sonderweg” work is
William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich:  A  History of Nazi Germany
(New York: Simon and Schuster, 1990).
 The Myth of the Volunteers 55

The skewed and simplistic understanding of the volunteers emerged

even during the war. As the German occupation in Europe grew more
brutal and the war effort more desperate, foreigners in the Waffen-SS
increasingly came to be seen as traitors by their countrymen. The feel-
ings were often mutual; with alienation came the belief among volunteers
that they and not the population at home represented the true interests
of Sweden, Switzerland, or Denmark. In the Danish case, many Waffen-
SS members returned home to partake in the bloody suppression of the
Danish underground resistance in the second half of the war. Although
denied this opportunity, the Swedish Waffen-SS volunteer Gunnar Eklöf
wrote to his friend during a brief vacation in Sweden in 1942, “fuck man,
I hate this country. Of all the retarded, forsaken, and imbecile idiots, the
Swedish democrat takes the cake. Let’s hope the mass executions arrive
in due time.”10
The fact that the volunteers were alienated from the population at
home during the war does not, of course, automatically mean that they
felt this way in the years before the war. Their alienation from the pop-
ulations at home began in the second half of the war, and was cemented
afterwards. The postwar period was rife with myth making in Western
Europe, as governments and people scrambled to make sense of the
humiliation of German dominance and the emergence of the postwar
world order.11 The myth of resistance, which not only exaggerated the
size and relevance of resistance movements but also purported that the
masses had been fundamentally and consistently opposed to National
Socialism and the New Order, depended on the myth of the volunteers’
alienation from broader society.12 As Danish historian Jon Lauridsen
has written, “There is hardly a school child who has not been exposed
to the exaggerated version of the Danish “resistance struggle,” while
widely read histories of Denmark dwell at length on the freedom fight,
when Denmark defied a superior power and the Danish Jews were
saved.”13 Despite such heroic accounts, the facts are less impressive. In
the occupied countries, the numbers of volunteers heavily outweighed

10
Quoted in Schön, Hitlers Svenska Soldater, 443.
11
Judt, Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, 41.
12
Lars Breuer and Isabella Matauschek, ““Seit 1945 Ist Ein Guter Däne Demokrat”
Die Deutsche Besatzungszeit in der Dänischen Familienerinnerung.,” in Der Krieg der
Erinnerung:  Holocaust, Kollaboration und Wiederstand Im Europäischen Gedächtnis
(Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 2007), 79.
13
Lauridsen, Samarbejde og Modstand. Danmark under Den Tyske Besættelse 1940–45.
En Bibliographi., vi.
56 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

resistance fighters. In the case of Denmark, for example, the six thousand
men who served in the Waffen-SS were matched by less than one thou-
sand who joined the resistance.14 An additional roughly six thousand
Danes volunteered for the Waffen-SS but were not accepted; thousands
more served in such non-Waffen-SS armed units as the Schalburgkorps.
If the few hundreds who had picked up guns and dynamite against
the Germans were to serve as a symbol for the entire nation then the
several thousands who had fought with the Germans would need to be
discredited.
In Sweden and Switzerland, both of which remained unoccupied
throughout the war, the myth of resistance took a different form. A “mil-
itarized” popular memory of the war quickly developed, which held that
the essence of the countries’ wartime experience had been their military
preparedness to repel a German attack.15 Swiss soldiers who had guarded
the border became not mere Swiss patriots, but anti-Nazis; by exten-
sion, the Swiss, too, must have been opposed to the Nazis. Hence the
Danes, Swedes, and Swiss who had joined the Waffen-SS, sworn an oath
to Hitler, and executed Jews in trenches on the Eastern Front could not
possibly have been socially integrated.
In the cases of Denmark and Switzerland, this phenomenon is illus-
trated by the stories of two volunteers who have come to stand in for
the group. Eugen Wipf and Søren Kam have become household names
in Switzerland and Denmark, respectively. Their stories have been retold
in countless books and newspaper articles. They also represent the two
most common caricatures of the Waffen-SS volunteer: the criminal, social

14
De Danske Nazister, 22.
15
In both countries the myth of armed neutral resistance began to develop during the war
and has held a powerful grip on the historiography and popular memory of the war ever
since. This myth, which builds on the accurate fact that both countries were militarily pre-
paring to resist a Nazi invasion, ignores economic and political collaboration and inde-
cisiveness and highlights purely military dimensions. The literature deconstructing this
myth has become extensive in recent years. See Luc Van Dongen, “Swiss Memory of the
Second World War in the Immediate Post-War Period, 1945–48,” in Switzerland and the
Second World War, ed. Georg Kreis (Portland: Frank Cass, 2000), especially 270. In the
Swedish case, a good summary of the postwar myth building and historiographical devel-
opments is Ekman, Åmark, and Toler, Sweden’s Relations with Nazism, Nazi Germany,
and the Holocaust. William Carlgren argues that Swedish foreign policy was not anti-
Nazi but instead varied depending on the fortunes of the war. See Willhelm M. Carlgren,
Svensk Utrikespolitik 1939–1945 (Stockholm:  Allmänna Förlaget, 1973); Maria-Pia
Boethius, Heder och Samvete. Sverige under Andra Världskriget (Stockholm:  Ordfront,
1991). Although an emphasis on military preparedness characterizes the postwar myth
in both countries, the dimensions of the war-time experience differed greatly in the two
countries. This will be discussed at greater length later.
 The Myth of the Volunteers 57

deviant, troublemaker and the young, impressionable, fanatical Nazi.

Eugen Wipf began the war in the Swiss Army but was repeatedly arrested
for excessive drinking and running up a debt. In the summer of 1940
he escaped from his cell and fled to Germany, where he was coerced
into joining the Waffen-SS. After numerous disciplinary problems, Wipf
deserted in December. He was caught and shipped off to a concentra-
tion camp. Rising through the inmate ranks, Wipf eventually became a
feared Kapo and, some have claimed, was reinstated into the SS as a con-
centration camp guard.16 Whatever his formal role in the camp, he beat
several prisoners to death. In 1948 a former inmate recognized Wipf; he
was tried by a Swiss court and sentenced to twenty years’ incarceration.
Though Wipf is hardly representative of the Swiss men who joined the
Waffen-SS, this is precisely how he is remembered.17
Kam was barely a teenager when he joined the National Socialistisk
Ungdom [National Socialist Youth] in 1937. Later he would join the
DNSAP. Having been brought up in the closed circle of the small
national socialist movement, Kam and many of his peers volunteered
for the Winter War in Finland in 1939. He joined the Waffen-SS imme-
diately upon his return to newly occupied Denmark in June 1940.18 In
1943 he was sent back to Denmark to help educate the most radical of
the Danish National Socialist youth. During the upheaval in the sum-
mer of 1943, Kam, together with two colleagues, kidnapped and mur-
dered a Danish editor and suspected member of the resistance move-
ment, Carl Henrik Clemmensen – a murder so heinous, not to mention
unsanctioned, that even the SS brought him to trial. Acquitted by a
Berlin SS court, Kam was sent immediately back to the Eastern Front.
Kam survived the war and settled in West Germany after the war, even-
tually becoming a citizen of the Federal Republic of Germany – where
he has remained beyond the reach of Danish courts who continue to
attempt to have him extradited for the murder of Clemmensen to this
day. Kam is also widely rumored to have been integral in the operation
to round up Danish Jews for deportation to the death camps.19 As is

16
Reichlin, Kriegsverbrecher Wipf, Eugen:  Schweizer in der Waffen-SS, in Deutschen
Fabriken und an Den Schreibtischen des Dritten Reiches, 69–71.
17
He remains the primary focus of many Swiss works on the Waffen-SS volunteers. See,
for example, ibid.; Volker Schneider, Eugen Wipf. “. . .Ein Scheusal in Menschengestalt.”
(Neuhütten: Online-Publikation, 2003).
18
See SS personnel file in BA, SSO (BDC), 150A, Kam, Sören.
19
See also Personalkarte Søren Kam in Personenkartei at BAL and BA SS, A7 2931 and
A9 919.
58 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

the case with Wipf in Switzerland, Kam has become a household name
in Denmark.20
This chapter will attempt to formulate a more nuanced and demythol-
ogized sketch of the volunteers’ prewar background through a detailed
examination of the biographies of the neutral Waffen-SS leadership corps.
Joining the German Waffen-SS was a profound decision taken only by
confident and ambitious individuals who were well aware of its potential
consequences but were nevertheless willing to gamble for the sake of an
ideal. The neutral volunteers do not fit into neatly prescribed categories
that separate them from the population at large. While they became alien-
ated and came to be regarded as traitors during the course of the war – in
the Swiss case immediately so – they had not, with few exceptions, been
alienated before the beginning of the war. And the reasons that brought
them to their fateful decision differ in each individual case.
This is not to say that the men did not share certain characteristics.
What emerges from a detailed examination of these men’s biographies is
a vague profile based on similar social origin, outlook, personality traits,
and ideological inclination. If one were to tease out a rough caricature
of the volunteers profiled in this study, the person would be of a mid-
dle or upper-class upbringing, with a good education. He would be well
integrated into his society. Moreover, the person would have a cosmo-
politan outlook, an openness to the wider world, evident through fre-
quent travels, study abroad, international reading habits, and the ability
to speak several foreign languages. His superior officers, both at home
(in the case of men who had military experience in their home countries)
and in Germany, would describe him as deeply ambitious, superbly con-
fident, adventurous, and quick to take action. Finally, this man, though
often ambivalent toward the German National Socialist party and its
program, would have what can be best described as an ideological incli-
nation toward fascism, albeit a fascism laced with internationalist ten-
sion. Through his travels, he would have developed both a love of his
home and an aspiration toward a community above the nation. He was

20
For recent media reports on Kam see, for example, Bruno Waterfield, “Former SS
Officer sheltering in Germany” Telegraph, accessed 29 November 2007 at http://www
.telegraph.co.uk/ news/ worldnews/ 1570818/ Former- SS- officer- sheltering- in- Germany
.html; Steve Rosenberg, “The Danish Nazi,” Our World on BBC Radio February 10
2008; Søren Atrup, “Kam slipper for nazi-anklage:  Det kan ikke bevises, at Søren
Kam spillede en rolle i bestræbelserne på at sende danske jøder i tyskernes dødslejre,
afgør statsadvokat,” Politiken, 5 November 2008, accessed on 25 May 2009 at http://
politiken.dk/indland/article586272.ece. The most recent book is Erik Haaest and Gurli
Haaest, Søren Kam: Hitlers Danske Ydling (Copenhagen: Bogan, 2006).
 The Role of Germany in Prewar Europe 59

at once a nationalist and an internationalist. His prewar history would

further betray a desire both to move beyond the confines of many of his
society’s traditions and to reclaim the “purity” of his nation.
Much of the rest of this chapter therefore draws on biographical materials
to fill out the profile sketched above. Few of these men’s characteristics are
much different from other elites within their societies. Nor was the belief that
the Nazis had gotten many things right hardly unique in interwar Europe.21
However, in their decision to volunteer to aid Nazi Germany, of course, the
men stood out. Thus, as we will see, personal characteristics are not enough to
determine participation. Before delving into the sorts of personal details that
informed their decisions, however, we must first take a detour through certain
aspects of European culture in the years before the Second World War.

The Role of Germany in Prewar Europe

A critical piece of the volunteers’ puzzle is the extent to which they grew
up in a German-centric world. In the 1930s, before the war and the crimes
of the Nazi regime thoroughly discredited all German aspirations to cul-
tural leadership, Germany was in fact one of, if not the, cultural centers of
the Western World. Despite the harsh judgment leveled at Germany by the
Treaty of Versailles, by 1930 the country once again had a gravitational pull
wholly unthinkable to a commentator only fifteen years later.22 German
composers, writers, artists and above all scientists still held their own against
the steadily increasing American influence.
Although a dominant cultural power in most of Europe, German cul-
ture held particularly strong sway in nearby Switzerland, Sweden, and
Denmark. Both Switzerland and Denmark, of course, border Germany.
Moreover, some 70  percent of the Swiss population spoke a dialect
of German as their native tongue; some thirty thousand Danes in the
southern-most regions were considered ethnic Germans. In Sweden,
German was, by law, the first foreign language taught in schools. In the
decades before the Second World War, 50  percent of Swedish school-
teachers who traveled abroad on a government grant chose Germany
(with some 20 percent traveling to England and 10 percent to France.)23

21
Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century, 140.
22
Niall Ferguson, War of the World: Twentieth Century Conflict and the Descent of the
West (New York: Penguin, 2006), 235.
23
Gunnar Åselius, “Sweden and Nazi Germany,” in Sweden’s Relations with Nazism,
Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, ed. Stig Ekman, Klas Åmark, and John Toler
(Stockholm: Universitet Stockholm, 2003), 36.
60 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

If Germany represented the cultural pillar for young Swedes, Danes,

and Swiss, the Soviet Union was its antithesis. For example, during the
brief Winter War of 1939–1940 following the Soviet Union’s attack on
Finland, private Swedish donations for their beleaguered Scandinavian
neighbor topped 145  million Swedish Kroner. When Germany invaded
and subsequently occupied Sweden’s other neighbor Norway a few
months later, Swedes were much more ambivalent: only 8 million Swedish
Kroner trickled in.24 For Swedes, with the exception of those in the com-
munist movement, the Soviet Union was the danger to world stability
whereas Germany was the cultural pillar.25
An excerpt from a Swedish article that broke the news of the German
invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 shows a similar urge:
Surrounded by the Western powers, Germany has burst through its shackles and
is moving with freedom and increased strength toward its European, its world-
historical mission to crush the red regime which has been a constant threat
against the very principle of freedom . . . Under Germany’s leadership, Europe is
embarking on a war of the people against the red menace.26

These words did not appear in a National Socialist or right-wing paper.

Instead, this reference to Germany’s invasion as fulfilling a “world-
historical mission” fought on behalf of Europe’s people appeared on the
front page of one of Sweden’s largest and thoroughly middle-of-the-road
papers, Aftonbladet. While, in hindsight, Germany’s attempt to char-
acterize its invasion as a Schicksaalskampf on Europe’s behalf appears
completely hollow, it did not necessarily appear so to all Europeans at
the time.
Many prominent and well-known Scandinavian authors heaped
praise on Hitler and his many “accomplishments” throughout the 1930s.
Knut Hamsun, the Norwegian Nobel Laureate, wrote in 1944 that “all
the nations ought now to stand up as one man to help Germany to
save us all from Bolshevism. . . . For no country and no people will avoid
the embrace of the Russian octopus if Germany should succumb in the
gigantic struggle it finds itself in today.”27 Of course, by then, his son
Arhild was serving in the Waffen-SS. Johannes Jensen, a Danish Nobel

24
Sverker Oredson, “Stormaktsdrömmar och Stridsiver. Ett Tema I Svenks Opinionsbildning
och Politik 1910–1942,” Scandia 59, no. 2 (1993): 291.
25
Ibid.
26
“Europas Frihetskrig,” in Aftonbladet 22 June 1941, 1.
27
Knut Hamsun, Selected Letters, ed. Harald and James McFarlane Næss, vol. II
(Norwich: Norvik Press, 1998), 227–28.
 The Role of Germany in Prewar Europe 61

Laureate in literature, similarly embraced most of Nazi Germany’s

most virulent features, including eugenics as a form of promoting social
health.28 The Danish playwright Kaj Munk, who would be killed by
the SS in 1944, argued fiercely in favor of overturning democracy and
praised Hitler’s use of terror in 1934.29 One of Sweden’s most famous
authors, the explorer Sven Hedin, was similarly full of admiration and
praise for the Nazi regime. In 1937, he described his visit to a concentra-
tion camp in admiring terms, praising the camp’s aesthetics of discipline
and cleanliness.30
This is the German-centric context in which the phenomenon of
Germanic Waffen-SS volunteers must be understood; the world they
grew up in many ways revolved around Germany. For all the author-
itarian talk, the Swedish and Danish political systems did, of course,
remain thoroughly democratic and parliamentary-based, largely as a
result of a successful alliance between social democratic and peasant
parties. These coalitions, expanded at the start of the war to include a
broader spectrum of parties (but still excluding far right and far left)
ruled throughout the interwar period and the war in Sweden and up to
1943 in Denmark. In Switzerland, an authoritarian revision of the polit-
ical system loomed closer in the mid-1930s, but never came to fruition.
Even so, with Germany’s sweeping victories in the spring and summer of
1940, the sense that the world was rapidly changing, that the chains of
the past had been broken by Germany, and that any and all institutions
and norms were up for revision captured the imagination of Europeans.
The neutral Waffen-SS volunteers were no different from the broader
population in this regard. Their particular personalities and ideological
inclinations did, however, predispose them to jump at an opportunity to
effect change. Most of them immediately volunteered for the Waffen-SS –
many before the Waffen-SS had even begun to officially recruit Germanic
soldiers. Rather than outliers, they must be seen as a vanguard for what
could have been a significant flow of volunteers had the Nazi regime
acted differently and sought to incorporate, not alienate, the significant
sympathy it enjoyed in various circles in Western Europe.

28
Christensen, Poulsen, and Scharff Smith, Under Hagekors og Dannebrog:  Danskere
I Waffen-SS 1940–1945, 83.
29
Hans Hertel, Tilbageblik På 30 Erne, Litteratur, Teater, Kulturdebat 1930–39, En
Antologi (København: Aschehoug, 1997), 183.
30
Sven Hedin, Germany and World Peace, trans. Gerald Griffin (London:  Hutchinson &
Co., 1937), 284–89.
62 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

Profiles of Transnational Fascists

Despite being older than many volunteers, Max Leo Keller is otherwise
exemplary of the typical neutral volunteer to the Waffen-SS leadership
corps. Born in Switzerland in 1897, Keller studied electro-engineering in
Winterthur, Switzerland, followed by history at the University of Zurich,
electrophysics at the prestigious ETH in Zurich, electro-economics in
Darmstadt, Germany, and finally law, philosophy, national economics,
and management at the University of Bern, where he earned his doctorate
in 1918.31 Keller worked for a large energy company in Chicago in the
1920s and oversaw the overhaul of Philadelphia’s energy grid in 1927.
Throughout the 1920s, he was involved in the construction of power
plants in the United States, Norway, Italy, and Switzerland. A  series of
studies of the Swiss power system and economy, combined with his
consulting work, garnered attention from officials within industry and
government regulators after his return to Switzerland in 1929.32 As the
world economic crisis crippled the Swiss economy, Keller was chosen
by the government of the Canton of Bern to head a new Office for the
Development of new Industries [Zentralstelle für Einführung neuer
Industrieen] in 1932, a position he held until 1939.
Over the second half of the decade, Keller grew increasingly worried
that Swiss and European culture, and the Germanic volk in particular, was
threatened by a variety of dangers, including Bolshevism and Jews. He
increasingly associated with right-wing groups, including the Nationale
Front, formed in 1933 as Switzerland’s only genuine fascist movement.33
At this time, however, Keller’s association with the Front and other right-
wing groups does not appear to have put him out of favor with the Swiss
government or mainstream society, as he continued to serve as the devel-
opment director for the Canton of Bern. With the outbreak of the war,
Keller moved to Germany and joined the SS. Among other responsibil-
ities, he advised the regime on rationalizing the European energy grid
and exploiting natural gas from the East. Keller ended the war as the
general director of a subsidiary of Reimahg, the industrial cartel tasked
with building the next generation of fighter planes.34

31
Beruflicher Lebenslauf, pp.  1–3, in AfZ, NL Max Leo Keller, 1.  Materiallen zur
Biographie.
32
Max Keller, “Grundlagen Zur Lösung Praktischer Erwärmungsfragen der Elektrotechnik,”
Archiv für Elektrotechnik 13, no. 4 (1924).
33
Stanley Payne, A History of Fascism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995), 309.
34
Keller to Bundespräsident K. Kobler, 6 Juli 1946, in BAR, E 4320 (B), 1973/87, 5.
 Profiles of Transnational Fascists 63

Åke Kretz’s story, though different in certain details, bears many sim-
ilarities, with the notable exception that Kretz had absolutely no affil-
iation or contact with National Socialist circles. Kretz was Sweden’s
foremost expert on air defense in the 1930s and 1940s, especially the pro-
tection of civilians and infrastructure.35 Born in 1908, he joined the police
force after graduating from high school and rose through the ranks until
becoming the chief of the air defense division within the Gothenburg
police  – Sweden’s second largest city  – in the late 1930s. In 1937 the
police department sent him to Spain to examine its air defenses and expe-
riences during the Civil War. During his career, he wrote and co-authored
several technical works on protecting civilians from bombings, all of
which were published by the official military press.36 He also coauthored
a comparative work on air defenses in Europe, for which he traveled
widely throughout Europe to conduct research.37
Despite having secured a lucrative and respectable career (and having
gotten married in 1940), Kretz nevertheless decided to join the Waffen-
SS in the spring of 1941. At the time, Kretz was serving as a reserve
lieutenant in the Swedish army. From the available sources it is impos-
sible to surmise exactly why or when Kretz made his decision. Neither
the Swedish military nor the political police department, the 6e roteln,
recorded any contact between Kretz and National Socialist circles, nor
any sympathies for right-wing politics.38 The only marks on his records
were repeated reports of attempted rape, a serious though unpolitical
charge. None of these cases were current, nor had they resulted in con-
victions, making them an unlikely cause for his decision.39 The only clue
comes from a letter he wrote to a Norwegian liaison between interested
Swedish volunteers and the SS. This letter, sent via diplomatic courier
from the German embassy in Stockholm, was intercepted by the Swedish
police. In it, Kretz discounts any financial or career incentives for joining
the Waffen-SS. He wrote, “Even though I  will be promoted to captain
shortly and my current yearly income is roughly 10,000 Kroner, I  am

35
Background information on Kretz comes from RASA, SÄPO PA Bengt Åke Valdemar
Kretz.
36
Åke Kretz, Då Ingrep Hemvärnet (Göteborg: Luftskyddsförl., 1941); Luftanfall: Hur Skall
Jag Handla (Göteborg: Luftskyddsförlaget, 1939); Karl Axel Bratt and Åke Kretz, Luftkrig
Över Sverige?: Befolkningens Skyddande Mot Bombanfall (Stockholm: Militaria, 1938).
37
Torsten Schmidt and Åke Kretz, Det Civila Luftskyddet I Europa (Stockholm:  Kungl.
Krigsvetenskapsakademiens handlingar och tidsskrift, 1937).
38
After the war, Säkerhetspolisen (SÄPO) was created as the security police and inherited
the duties and the files from the 6e roteln.
39
Hemlig D. nr. 1192/1941, in RASA, SÄPO PA Bengt Åke Valdemar Kretz.
64 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

willing to sacrifice all of this to be a part of building a new Europe.”40

This sentence is our only hint to what must have been Kretz’s pervasive
belief in the necessity of a social and political reordering of Europe.
Following the interception of this incriminating letter, the police began
surveillance of Kretz, included a wiretap of his telephone. When Kretz
applied for permission to travel to Norway  – ostensibly to sell his lat-
est book but in actuality, as revealed through the wiretaps, to join the
Waffen-SS  – he was denied. From the records of his telephone conver-
sations, it is clear that Kretz decided to shift his focus from Germany to
Finland. In June 1941 he again asked for leave from his military duty, this
time to fight with the Swedish volunteer force in Finland. After an inter-
view with the police, during which Kretz repeatedly denied having any
plans to join the Waffen-SS, the police and military leadership granted
Kretz permission to travel to Finland.41 Kretz served as a platoon leader
of the Swedish volunteer force at the Hangö front until December 1941,
seeing spurts of heavy combat against the Red Army.42
Upon returning to Sweden, Kretz again attempted to gain permission
to travel to Norway with the intent of continuing on to Germany; his
experience in Finland had not soured his taste for combat. But Kretz
never made it to the Waffen-SS. The police and military repeatedly foiled
his attempts at crossing the border into Norway. Finally, a year after
returning from Finland, Kretz blew off part of his hand when attempting
to detonate some munitions he found in the pocket of his old service
coat.43 Kretz remains one of an unknown number of ‘volunteers’ who
never actually got to do so. He is widely known in Sweden today not for
his desire to fight in the Waffen-SS but for his well-read memoir of the
war in Finland (currently in its third edition).44
The cases of Keller, Kretz, and Helweg-Larsen are symptomatic of the
level to which future Waffen-SS leaders had established themselves in
40
Kretz to B.  Meidell, 11 May 1941, in RASA, SÄPO PA Bengt Åke Valdemar Kretz.
Significantly, by the time Kretz wrote this letter he was already expected by the Waffen-
SS and had been promised a commission as an SS-Haupsturmführer by Himmler; the
letter hence reads not as a plea for acceptance into the Waffen-SS but instead as one in a
series of correspondence with the Norwegian SS liason, Professor B. Meidell, regarding
the war and the particular problem of how Kretz was best to abscond to Norway. On
Himmler’s promise of a Waffen-SS commission for Kretz, see SS-FHA to SS-PH, Betr.
Einstellung des ehem. Hptm. der schwedischen Schutzpolizei Ake Kretz, 23 May 1941, in
WPA and Berger to SS-FHA, Betr. Polizeihauptmann Kretz, 20 March 1941, in BA, SSO
(BDC) 213A, Kretz, Ake.
41
PM 7/7 1941, in RASA, SÄPO PA Bengt Åke Valdemar Kretz.
42
Lennart Westberg, “PM SS-Hauptsturmführer Åke Kretz,” p. 4, in WPA.
43
PM 4/3 1943, in RASA, SÄPO PA Bengt Åke Valdemar Kretz.
44
Åke Kretz, Frontvardag (Göteborg: Bokförmedlingen, 1942).
 Understanding the Waffen-SS 13

and ambitious men who were eager not only to conceptualize but also to
implement murderous policies.34
The traditional caricature of the neutral volunteer is as outdated as
that of the old SS perpetrator. This book provides a more nuanced sketch
of the neutral men, showing them not as social misfits and or followers,
but as highly intellectual and ambitious men whose belief in National
Socialist ideas existed not despite of, but in fact grew from, their complex
understanding of the world they lived in. Like many German SS officers,
they too were “fighting bureaucrats.” They saw themselves, and were seen,
both as ‘thinkers’ and ‘doers.’ This book therefore attempts to uncover
the essence of the neutral volunteers by combining “biographical” and
“institutional” approaches. This is not merely an exercise in integrating
their stories into the institutions they worked within – the Germanische
Leitstelle, the SS Officer Cadet School Tölz and the “Nordland” and
“Wiking” divisions of the Waffen-SS  – but rather an investigation into
the dynamic relationship between their personal views, the radicalizing
effects of front-line experience, and the efforts to create concrete policies
in cooperation with other Germanics and Germans.
Another broad historiographical strand with which this work is in
dialogue is that of the Nazi New Order. The Nazi New Order, which has
seen a resurgence of historical interest in recent years, can at its most
basic be seen as two parallel strands: first, German conceptions of and
efforts to effect a reorganization of the European political, social and
economic landscape; and second, the European response to and com-
plicity in these various efforts. After the war, occupied and un-occupied
countries alike were quick to claim that they had been mere victims who
collaborated in order to “weather the storm.” Recent historical investiga-
tions contradict this view. Beyond political and economic collaboration,
historians are discovering that many of the tenets of Nazi ideology and
goals of the Nazi New Order resonated with a significant portion of the
well-educated elites of Western Europe.35 Some scholars, following in the
tradition of George L. Mosse, have gone so far as to say that “fascism,

34
The primary example of this is Werner Best, a leading SS lawyer whose work was
integral to the development of the RSHA and occupation policy in Western Europe.
See, Herbert, Best:  Biographische Studien Über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und
Vernunft, 1903–1989. See also Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten: Das Führungskorps
des Reichsicherheitshauptamtes, 203–06.
35
Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century, 140; Joachim Lund, “Denmark
and the ‘European New Order’, 1940–1942,” Contemporary European History 13, no.
3 (2004).
66 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

instructor during his Waffen-SS officer course at Tölz remarked that, “in
spite of his modest schooling he exhibits good general knowledge and
strives constantly to expand his knowledge.”53 And indeed, by the time
Borg left for Germany in 1942, he had enrolled as an officer cadet at the
military academy in Karlberg, where he received the highest marks in his
class before his premature departure.54
Equally notably, almost all of the men came from middle or upper-class
households. Most had been born into this class, though some were social
climbers. This is evidenced not only by their distinctive levels of educa-
tion, but also by their, and their fathers’, choice of professions. Although
information on many of the volunteers’ fathers is unavailable, fourteen of
the twenty had fathers with clear middle-class professions, five of whom
were businessmen. Comparing the volunteers’ own prewar employment
histories with those of their fathers shows that some managed to climb
beyond their social origins. Borg and Martinsen, for example, are two
men with unremarkable backgrounds who rose to respectability, in both
cases through the military.
It is important to note that these findings are not merely a reflection of
Waffen-SS officer standards. Unlike the Wehrmacht, the Waffen-SS did not
discriminate on the basis of education or social origin in selecting officer
candidates; candidates needed not even have graduated with a high school
(gymnasium) diploma.55 The men of the neutral Waffen-SS leadership
corps, then, appear overall to have come from higher social backgrounds
than their German Waffen-SS counterparts.56 Instead, judging by their
education, profession, and father’s profession, they more closely match the
profile of the average German Wehrmacht officer or of the mid and upper

53
Allgemeine Beurteilung der Persönlichkeit, Der Kommandeur der Lehrgruppe A, in BA,
SSO (BDC) 91, Borg, Sam Gösta.
54
Westberg and Gyllenhaal, Svenskar I Krig, 269.
55
See Laufbahnbestimmungen für die Dauer des Krieges, 16 June 1941, in BA, NS 33/46.
The three main criteria for admission into an officer academy were: “a. Character as a
German man; b. Qualifications as a national socialist and an SS-man; c. Abilities as a
soldier and leader.” The policy remained largely unchanged throughout the rest of the
war. See, SS-FHA, 9 February 1944, “Verteiler A III, Betr.: Reserveführer-Nachwuchs,”
in BA, NS 33/264. See also, Wegner, The Waffen-SS:  Organization, Ideology and
Function, 261.
56
A comparison of the biographies of German Junkers in the “11th wartime officer
training course” with Germanic Junkers in the parallel “3rd Germanic officer training
course,” for example, shows this to be true as well. For lists of participants, see SS-FHA,
Sonderverteiler, 11. Kriegsjunkerlehrgang an der SS-Junkerschule Tölz, 14 March 1944,
in BA, SSO (BDC) A14, 2578–1584 and Sitzliste, in BAMA, RS 5/327 and matching
individuals’ personnel files in BA, SSO (BDC).
 Profiles of Transnational Fascists 67

echelons of the SS leadership.57 Whereas it is possible that the neutrals who

joined the Waffen-SS as regular soldiers were, in fact, uneducated social
deviants, drawn to service by naïveté or greed – a conclusion that seems
questionable – this was decisively not the case for those who joined the
officer corps and became influential members of the Waffen-SS structure.
This phenomenon garnered attention even at the time. Berger, for exam-
ple, noticed the extent to which Germanic Waffen-SS officers, unlike their
German counterparts, came from a “bourgeois environment.”58 Indeed, as
we will see, the ills of this environment is one of the things many of these
men hoped to combat by serving the Waffen-SS.
Another piece of evidence suggesting that the neutral volunteers mostly
came from reasonably wealthy circumstances is their extensive travel his-
tory. The travels, language skills, international relationships, and personal
observations recounted in the volunteers’ biographies testify to an open-
ness to experiences outside of their national cultures and traditions. This
is obvious in the cases of Keller, Kretz, and Helweg-Larsen, but is preva-
lent among the other volunteers as well. The Swede Sigurd Baecklund, son
of a professor and himself a university student, visited the United States,
England, Norway, Denmark, Germany, Russia, Finland, Estonia, Lithuania,
Czechoslovakia, Italy, Bulgaria, France, Spain, and Switzerland between the
ages of seventeen and twenty-four, all without the accompaniment of his
parents. He was fluent in four foreign languages.59 His countryman, Hans-
Caspar Kreuger, spoke English, French, Spanish, and Russian in addition to
the expected Swedish and German.60 The Swiss Heinrich Weichlin visited
fifteen European countries in the 1920s and 30s during his PhD studies and
as part of his work as a journalist.61 Martinsen, the gifted Danish officer,
commanded a nuanced French as well as English and German.62

57
For an overview of Wehrmacht officers’ education, social origin and profession of fathers,
see Bernhard R. Kroener, ““Menschenbewirtschaftung,” Bevölkerungsverteilung und
Personelle Rüstung in der Zweiten Kriegshälfte (1942–1944),” in Das Deutsche Reich
und der Zweite Weltkrieg:  Band 5.2 Organisation und Mobilisierung des Deutschen
Machtbereichs, ed. Horst Boog, et al. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1999), 865.
58
Gottlob Berger, speech at Luftfahrtministerium, Berlin, “Auf dem Weg zum Germanischen
Reich,” February 1944, in BA, NS 33/213. Copy in BAMA, N 756/238.
59
Sigurd Baecklund (3.7.1916) Gävle, S, Beurteilung Tölz 15.2.1944, in BAMA, RS5/983
Personalangaben und Abganszeugnisse.
60
Schön, Hitlers Svenska Soldater, 91–92.
61
Dr.  H.  Weichlin to Dr.  H.  Büeler, 21 October 1941, in AfZ, NL Heinrich Büeler, 4.1
Militärgerichtliche Untersuchung und Untersuchungshaft 10.6.-27.10.1941 bis zur
flucht am 21.11.1941.
62
Realexamen Maj-Juni 1923, in KB, Acc. 2008/8, II. Personalia. See also postcards written
during time as observer to the Spanish Civil War in KB Acc. 2008/8, I. Breve.
68 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

Many of the volunteers were born abroad. Büeler, born in Chochin in

British India, studied in Paris and Hamburg, as well as various cities in
Switzerland. He was fluent in English, Dutch, German, and French.63 His
countryman Friedrich Weilenmann grew up in Bucharest.64 Schalburg grew
up in Russia until his Danish aristocratic family fled home in the face of the
Bolshevik Revolution.65 The Swedish doctor Olaf Jürgenssen was born in
Vladivostok, Russia and in 1936 decided to pursue his medical studies in
Germany within the framework of the SS.66 Many of those who had not
traveled extensively abroad before their service in the Waffen-SS had either
tried to do so, and failed, or were too young to do so before the hostilities
broke out.67
Indeed, the volunteers’ uncanny linguistic abilities left an impression
on their German trainers. For example, of Sigurd Baecklund’s twenty-one
Germanic classmates in the 11 Kriegsjunkerlehrgang, eleven spoke two
or more foreign languages  – and neither German nor their native lan-
guage was considered a foreign language by the SS evaluators. Of these,
many commanded three or four such foreign languages.68 Significantly,
in only one of the cases did the supervising German officers complain by
the end of the course that a cadet spoke insufficient German, an especially
remarkable finding as the Waffen-SS leadership frequently complained
about German cadets’ command of their native language.69 In only two
cases of the entire core group of volunteers examined for this study did a
German officer complain of a volunteer’s language skills as lacking after
more than a few months in German service.70 Although many of the vol-
unteers had studied German in school and spent time in Germany before
the war, some had not. Instead, it seems, most of these men, through their

63
BA, SSO (BDC) 117, Büeler, Heinrich 12.12.1901 and Lebenslauf, in AFZ, NL HB, 5.2.
64
Urteil, 169–70.
65
Lebenslauf, in BA SSO (BDC) 69B, Schalburg, Christian von.
66
Lebenslauf, in BA, SSO (BDC) 142A, Jürgenssen, Olaf. See also, Westberg and Gyllenhaal,
Svenskar I Krig, 283.
67
Malmö Polisen, Hemlig Rapport, Ang. Kemisten Hans-Gösta Pehrson och Sångpedagågen
Yngve N[. . .], 25 October 1945, p. 2, in RASA, SÄPO PA Hans-Gösta Pehrsson.
68
See “Zeugnisse” and “Beurteilungen,” in BAMA, RS 5/979–984 and matching personnel
files in BA, SSO (BDC).
69
SS-FHA, Chef des Staabes, Berlin, 15 July 1941, in BA, NS 33/220.
70
Beurteilung, SS-I.G. Aus.u.Ers.Btl.1, 2 December, 1943, in BA, SSO (BDC), 147A, K
[. . .], Tage. The evaluator of the other student was similarly positive. “H. is interested
during lecture and shows clear thinking. Even if language difficulties result in a certain
reticence, he still shows that he can follow the issues discussed. His efforts are sufficient
and will improve as his language capabilities do.” See “H[. . .], Roland Louis (19.9.1917),
Dänemark, Beurteilung Tölz, 10.01.1942” in BAMA, RS 5/979 Zeugnisse.
 Profiles of Transnational Fascists 69

travels, studies and above-average abilities were adept at adapting to new

situations, including perfecting a foreign language.
Although an inclination for travel is in and of itself hardly unique
among young men, the prevalence of this trait in nearly all of the men
who would become influential members of the Waffen-SS is striking. It
hints at an openness to explore the world and a comfort with foreign
ideas and cultures. This is evident, too in the number of men who married
foreign women. Of the one hundred some officers studied in detail, over
60 percent were married; in the twenty-six cases in which it is possible to
identify the national origins of their partners, exactly half were married
to foreign women.71
The men’s writings – many of the men were journalists – betray a great
longing for adventure, a yearning to step out of the ordinary. In Helweg-
Larsen’s 1941 book Med 60 Pesos till Sydamerika, he described why he
decided to abandon his job and travel to South America.
The existence in a slumbering office would be unsustainable in the long run. For
three long years, after finishing school I’d sat and banged on a typewriter, and
sorted file cards from nine in the morning until five at night. . . . And so suddenly
one day I jumped up and knocked on the director’s door and quit. I have always
wanted to get out. As a boy, my favorite readings were books about the tropics
and the white man’s experiences. For drawn-out years I dreamt about getting out
and experiencing the same adventures as the heroes of my books. . . . The safaris
in Africa, tiger hunting in India and expeditions in South America. That was the
stuff of my dreams when I went to bed at night.72

Although many a bored young professional in the 1930s had similar

thoughts, Helweg-Larsen actually acted on them. During his many years
in South America, he volunteered to fight for Paraguay in the Chaco War
against Bolivia. In his own words, he felt a “tremendous desire” to fight
and relished the thought of gaining literary inspiration from “the war in
the green hell.”73 Similarly, in 1934, the sixteen-year-old Swede Thorolf
Hillblad biked alone through Germany and back to Sweden. When this
fearless teenager biked past a road sign for the Oranienburg concentra-
tion camp, which he had read about in Sweden, he made the detour,

71
Author’s biographical spreadsheet compiled primarily from records in BA SSO (BDC);
RASA, SÄPO PA; BAR, E 2001 E 1968/78 Bd. 158 & 159; RA, RIAD 1349/11; BAMA,
RS 5/979, 981 & 982.
72
Helweg-Larsen, Med 60 Pesos Til Syd-Amerika, 19.
73
Ibid., 91. Unfortunately for Helweg-Larsen, the conflict ended before the unit he was
assigned to reached the front lines.
70 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

pulled up to the guard booth, demanded to see the Kommandant, and got
himself invited to eat and spend the night with the inmates.74
Those men who kept journals through their early adulthood displayed
a similar deep desire to see the world and experience raw adventure.
During his officer training, the Dane Christian Kryssing, for example,
wrote in an essay that he wished to “escape from the daily surroundings
into the wide world, yes to finally escape from Europe, this prison of
civilization.”75 Büeler, the Swiss lawyer, displayed a similar restlessness
in the face of respectable life. In his twenty-page apologia, written while
imprisoned in Switzerland in 1947, his opening statements concerned just
this trait.
I was never in my life a person who would simply love an idea for its own sake.
I  always tried to bring thoughts to living expression. . . . I  was always a seeker,
even though I came from a proper bourgeois upbringing – perhaps this is exactly
why I became so. The bourgeois environment never satisfied me; even later when
I had a good legal practice and a good marriage, I never found my inner balance.76

Both Büeler’s sentiment of needing to “bring thoughts to living expres-

sion” and his restlessness are exemplary of volunteers’ visions of them-
selves as both ‘thinkers’ and ‘doers.’
In Britain, France, or even Belgium, men with such cravings as Büeler’s
would likely have found their way into colonial administration and
forces. None of the three countries that supplied significant numbers of
volunteers to the Waffen-SS leadership corps had a significant colonial
history.77 Moreover, as these men would comment repeatedly throughout
their careers, their countries’ failure to establish colonies had not only
robbed them personally of a chance at adventure and glory, but also sig-
nified a lost opportunity for their people – as had the failure to partake
in the First World War.
Many future Waffen-SS Swedes and Danes sought to rectify these per-
ceived failures by volunteering to fight against the Soviet Union in the
Winter War in Finland, which broke out in late November 1939. The
Svenska Frivilligakåren (Swedish volunteer force) was officially sanctioned

74
Schön, Hitlers Svenska Soldater, 46–48.
75
C.P. Kryssing, 3. En uhyggelig Oplevelse (17/12–1911), in KB, Utilg. 841, C.P. Kryssing,
II. Breve og Aktstyk, 4. Militaere papier.
76
Heinrich Büeler, “Gedanken einer Verteidigungsschrift gemäss Schreiben der Schweiz.
Bundesanwaltschaft vom 15.1.1947,” p.  1, in AfZ, NL Büeler, 8.1. Materialien und
Schriftsätze Heinrich Büelers zu seiner Verteidigung 1947, E8.
77
Denmark, of course, controlled Greenland, and Sweden had once held a small island in
the Caribbean. These were hardly the makings of the grand empire these men envisioned.
 Profiles of Transnational Fascists 71

by the Swedish government and attracted some 8,600 volunteers.78 The

Swedish volunteers were the only of the some eleven thousand foreigners
to arrive in time to see heavy combat.79 Of the Swedes who would later
become influential Waffen-SS members, nearly half had fought in Finland
(and many of those who had not had been too young to do so). The
Danish government, too, sanctioned a force to serve in Finland.80 Several
of the one thousand volunteers, including Schalburg, would later join the
Waffen-SS. Interestingly, most of those who did not join the Waffen-SS
instead joined the Danish resistance.81 This is perhaps not surprising, as
men who have learned the art of organized violence are more prone to
use it again. Yet their initial instinct to join the fight in Finland speaks
to a certain personality trait – that of a person not afraid to take action,
with great ambition and confidence, and perhaps with an adventurous
and violent inclination.
Swiss citizens, in contrast, were not given the opportunity to aid
Finland in its struggle against the Soviet Union, owing to that country’s
policy of strict neutrality and the laws against foreign military service.82
The Fremdendienstverbot, or prohibition on service in foreign armies
(still in effect today), was first adopted in 1859 to reduce the tradition
of Swiss mercenaries. It gradually became intertwined with the idea of
armed neutrality and universal male conscription.83 It was, however,
exactly this ‘misguided’ policy of neutrality that many Swiss Waffen-SS
volunteers lamented; many of them took inspiration from the legacy of
Swiss mercenaries. Benno Schäppi remarked repeatedly that Switzerland
had lost its martial spirit and that he had a personal “affinity with

78
See Neulen, An Deutscher Seite: Internationale Freiwillige Von Wehrmacht und Waffen-
SS, 162. The Swedish government also donated some “100 machine guns, 89 artil-
lery pieces, 77,000 rifles, and 18 anti-tank guns.” See William R. Trotter, Den Finske
Vinterkrig 1939–1940 (Copenhagen: Borgens Forlag, 2004), 254.
79
Den Finske Vinterkrig 1939–1940, 255.
80
The most recent work on the Danish volunteer force is Jan Ahtola Nielsen, I Orkanens
Øje – Det Danske Finlandskorps 1939–40 (København: Gyldendal, 2006).
81
Christensen, Poulsen, and Scharff Smith, Under Hagekors og Dannebrog:  Danskere
I Waffen-SS 1940–1945, 48.
82
A handful of Swiss did manage to volunteer in the Winter War and the Spanish Civil War,
though these, for the most part, lived abroad. None of these, it appears, later volunteered
for the Waffen-SS. See Schweizerische Freiwillige nach Finland während des Kreiges
1939/40, B.37.21.Fi.1, in BAR, E 2001 (D), Eidg. Politisches Departement: Abteilung für
Auswertiges 1940–1942, 3/Band 248.
83
Beat Fenner, “Der Tatbestand des Eintritts in Fremden Militärdienst” (Dissertation,
Universität Zürich, 1973), 34–36.
72 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

soldiering and always looked back with great admiration at the soldierly
in Switzerland’s history.”84
Most of the volunteers, then, could be characterized as inclined toward
the soldiering life – as evident in the high number of professional officers,
Finland volunteers, and in the private martial adventures. Yet this desire
cannot be understood as a mere affinity toward violence or the military.
For many of these men, violence appears to have taken on a redemptive
quality for both themselves and for their countries, as Schäppi’s quote
makes clear. The memoirs and diaries of those who had fought in Finland
or other foreign conflicts read like treatises on the virtues of violence
and conflict.85 The case of the Swede Erik Wallin is exemplary. Wallin,
who would became a platoon leader in the so-called “Swedish Company”
of the SS-Division “Nordland,” had been among the eighty-six hun-
dred Swedes who joined the winter war 1939–1940 in Finland and had
returned to fight in Finland during the continuation war in 1941.86 Upon
returning to serve in the Swedish military at the beginning of 1942, his
mother noticed a restlessness and longing for combat in her son. She
wrote a letter to the police in October 1942 warning them of her fears
that he might join the Waffen-SS.87 Before the police could act, however,
Wallin had slipped across the border and on to Germany. Toward the
end of the war, Wallin wrote to his mother to explain his conviction and
need for combat. “The soldiering life changes a person, sometimes for the
worse but sometimes for the better.” At that time, Wallin’s division had
been pushed by the Red Army into the narrow pocket on the Courland
peninsula in the Baltic; its fate looked grim. It was in exactly such situa-
tions, he wrote, that “humans are truly tested.”
Wallin moreover viewed his likely sacrifice as a necessary act to “honor
the Swedish colors and the old Carolinian shield.”88 This reference to

84
Aus der Radio Sendung, “Schweizer in der Waffen-SS” von Hans-Rudolf Lehman Teil III,
DRS I, 5.Juni, 1977, in AfZ, NL Benno Schäppi, ungeordneter Dossier 6.
85
See, for example, Helweg-Larsen, Med 60 Pesos Til Syd-Amerika; Kretz, Frontvardag. The
same is true of memoirs about the Second World War, though these have to be read with
more care as they are often infused with overt nostalgia. See Thorolf Hillblad, Twilight
of the Gods: A Swedish Waffen-SS Volunteer’s Experiences with 11th SS Panzergrenadier
Division ‘Nordland’, Eastern Front 1944–45 (Solihull, West Midlands:  Helion & Co.,
2004), especially 48–50; P.R. E[. . .], Frikorps Danmarks Historie (Copenhagen: Rigsarki
vet, 1992).
86
Protokoll, 23 June 1945, in RASA, SÄPO PA Erik Wallin.
87
PM 7.10.43, in RASA, SÄPO PA Erik Wallin.
88
Wallin to parents, 23 February 1945, in WPA. The Karolinska förbundet or Caroline
Association, founded in 1910, had been formed by the Swedish right to reintro-
duce the population to the mythical, warrior-spirit of King Karl XII. See, Oredson,
 Profiles of Transnational Fascists 73

Sweden’s supposed martial past is echoed in Schäppi’s comments, which

looked back toward a glorious and martial Swiss past in need of honor
and reawakening. For these men, the need to redeem themselves and their
countries was pervasive; the sentiment grew only stronger as they became
increasingly isolated from the populations at home and radicalized by a
vitriolic ideology and the bloody realities of war. Variations of “War is
great, it is beautiful,” appear in countless letters and diaries during the
second half of the war.89
A final notable characteristic among the volunteers was their confi-
dence, ambition, and leadership qualities. These characteristics can best
be observed in their military evaluations, both at home and in Germany.
Riedweg, for example, was described by his front-line commander in
1944 as “an energetic, goal-oriented person with healthy ambition.”90
When Martinsen was serving as the Danish military observer to the
Spanish Civil War in France, his commanding officer characterized him as
“a good officer, with good form, intelligent, excellently schooled, enthu-
siastic, and loyal, who does his service with a great deal of dedication,
ardor, and tact.”91 Another example is the Swiss Dr. Wilhelm Knapp, a
First Lieutenant in the Swiss military and later a SS-Hauptsturmführer in
the Waffen-SS. Even while investigating Knapp for harboring National
Socialist sympathies, his Swiss commanding officer noted that “he is a
proper, generally well-educated officer with impeccable behavior. Loyal
as an officer, dependable, and respected by troops, colleagues, and supe-
riors. His personal and military leadership-qualities warrant no reason
for his removal.”92

“Stormaktsdrömmar och Stridsiver. Ett Tema I  Svenks Opinionsbildning och Politik

1910–1942.” See also Gustav Adolf. Sverige och Trettoåriga Kriget. Historieskrivning
och Kult (Lund: Universitet Lund, 1992).
89
H[. . .]-N[. . .], “Erindringer om Frikorps Danmark og som russisk fange,” in RA, FOARK
1010/90D, VII/3.
90
Stellv. Korps-Arzt, SS-San.Abteilung 11, Gef.St., Beurteilung über SS-O’Stubaf. Riedweg,
Franz, 8 June 1944, in AfZ, NL Franz Riedweg, 3.  Personalakten Franz Riedweg.
Nürnberger Dokumente, No. 3588.
91
Commision Internationale de Non-Intervention en Espagne, L’Administrateur Principal
en France, 31 August 1938, in KB, Acc. 2008/8 Martinsen, K.B., 1905–1949, officer, II.
Personalia.
92
Rapport vom 17. Mai 1940, Betr. Oberleutnant Wilhelm Knapp, BAR, E 27/4730.
Similar reports from native military commanders are frequent. See also, for example,
Uebersetzung, Führungszeugnise, 2. Feldartillerueregiment, 1 December 1932, B.742, in
BA, SSO (BDC) 183, Ejlkjär, Andreas and Beurteilung des SS-Hstuf. Hans Buehlmann,
1 June 1941, in BA, SSO (BDC) 118, Buehlmann, Hans. See also Sørensen’s evaluation
from 1944, Beurteilung, 9 June 1944, in BA, SSO (BDC) 141B, Sørensen, Per.
74 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

An evaluation of the Swedish volunteer Olaf Jürgenssen sums up the

men’s collective qualifications:
Works independently and efficiently. Great work ethics. Has a clear mind, intel-
lectually above-average, gifted speaker, and is great at organizing. Great ability to
learn, great desire to learn, and gifted with languages. Shows great willingness to
further his ideological training. Physically powerful . . . sympathetic appearance
with a soldierly posture.93

These words  – ‘goal-oriented,’ ‘secure/strong character,’ ‘ambitious,’

‘respected leader’, ‘willingness to learn’  – are present in nearly every
evaluation of the neutral Waffen-SS leadership corps volunteers. A cur-
sory glance at the evaluations of German officer cadets makes clear that
SS evaluators were not generally quick with praise. In the eyes of their
German supervisors, as well as their superiors in their native militaries,
the neutral leadership corps volunteers were not weak followers but con-
fident leaders.94

The Ideological Predisposition

On 8 March 1941, Waffen-SS officer cadet Jackues T., a former Dutch
reserve lieutenant and university student, walked into his barrack room
at the SS Officers Cadet School Braunschweig after a shouting match with
a superior officer and shot himself.95 A few days earlier, T. had written a
final plea to the Waffen-SS leadership in which he asked to be transferred
from the school in the eastern reaches of the Reich to the SS Regiment
“Westland.”96 He was not afraid to fight or unhappy about his decision
to join the Waffen-SS. Instead, T. complained that his enlistment time in
the Waffen-SS was nearing its conclusion and that he might miss out on

93
Beurteilung des Dr. J. Olof, 13 June 1944, in BA, SSO (BDC) 142A, Jürgenssen, Dr. Olof.
94
Further evidence of the men’s martial, adventurous and confident personalities comes
from examining their behavior at the front. Both von Schalburg and Perhson, for exam-
ple, each had numerous instances in which they recklessly led  – and in Schalburg’s
case died  – by example. See K.B. Martinsen, Freikorps Danmark, Bericht über das
Stoßtruppunternehmen 1./2.6.42, Btl.Gef.Stand, 7 June 1942, in BA, SSO (BDC) 69B,
Schalburg, Christian von.
95
See Der Kommandeur der SS-Junkerschule Braunschweig to Chef des Amtes für
Führerausbildung, SS-Brigadeführer v. Treuenfeld, 8 March 1941 and SS-Obersturmführer
M[. . .], Meldung an den Kommandeur der SS-Junkerschule, betr. Vorfall Unterscharführer
T[. . .], in BA, NS 33/159, 19–21, 24. T. survived his attempted suicide but his later fate in
the Waffen-SS is unknown.
96
Abschrift, GBH.T[. . .], Unterscharführer to Lehrgang II, Junkerschule Braunschweig, 5
March 1941, “Betr.: Versetzung,” in BA, NS 33/159, 41.
 The Ideological Predisposition 75

the opportunity to fight against the British, something he “absolutely”

wanted to partake in.97
With the invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941, Himmler
and the SS leadership sought to rally Western Europe by painting the
struggle as a ‘Crusade against Bolshevism.’98 This propaganda campaign,
in turn, became the foreign Waffen-SS veterans’ main alibi after the war –
they had primarily been fighting to defend Europe against the threat
of Bolshevism. But while there was clearly a strong anti-Bolshevik ele-
ment in the neutral Waffen-SS leadership corps volunteers’ world-view,
this was by no means the single nor in many cases even their primary
focus. Jackues T.’s example highlights the complexity of the Germanic
volunteers’ world-view. Classical elements of fascist ideology, such as
anti-Semitism and a wish for a militarization of society, pervaded their
thinking. Moreover, they perceived the West  – in particular unbridled
American and British capitalism  – as major threats to the stability of
Europe. Anti-Bolshevism – that is, the East – posed only half of the ideo-
logical target for both the regime and its recruits.99 In these beliefs they
were hardly extraordinary.
The fact that many European intellectuals perceived a cultural crisis
in the interwar period is a well-documented and studied phenomenon.100
Beyond the objections to the materialist emphasis of both capitalism and
communism, many observers remarked that both the East and the West
represented a spiritual vacuum.101 In Germany, this broad movement
is referred to as “völkisches Denken” whereby the ‘Volk’ represented a

97
Ibid.
98
Sönke Neitzel, “Hitlers Europaarmee und der “Kreuzzug” Gegen die Sowjetunion,” in
Armeen in Europa – Europäische Armeen, ed. Michael Salewski (Munster:  Lit Verlag,
2004), 137.
99
Recent research confirms the extent to which the West was an ideological target by
National Socialist ideologues. See Adam Tooze, The Wages of Destruction:  The
Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (New York: Penguin, 2006), 665. See also
MacGregor Knox, Common Destiny: Dictatorship, Foreign Policy and War in Fascist
Italy and Nazi Germany (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2000), especially
143. Aurel Kolnai published an analysis of the Nazi regime and ideology in 1938, which
also outlined the anti-Western elements of National Socialism. Aurel Kolnai, The War
against the West (New York: Viking, 1938).
100
George L. Mosse, The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectual Origins of the Third Reich
(New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1964); Nina Witoszek and Lars Trägårdh, Culture and
Crisis: The Case of Germany and Sweden (New York: Berghahn Books, 2002).
101
On views on materialism and consumerism, see Victoria de Grazia, Irresistible Empire:
America’s Advance through Twentieth-Century Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2005), 4.
 Reconstructing the Story of the Germanic Volunteers 17

A  typical collection contains a rich array of letters, photographs, tran-

scripts, diaries, official correspondence and articles, essays and disserta-
tions authored by the volunteer. These sources most often span the vol-
unteer’s lifetime, with a particular concentration of material from the
war years.
I have gained further insight into the volunteers from the Bundesarchiv’s
former Berlin Document Center SSO files – the SS’s personnel files – and
files of the respective Swedish, Swiss, and Danish intelligence services.
Though the Danish police did not investigate volunteers until after the
war, the Swedish and Swiss civil and military intelligence services main-
tained detailed records of the volunteers. In many cases, this included
wiretaps on family members’ phones and the opening of letters the vol-
unteers sent to their family members and friends. This is a unique source,
as this personal correspondence was obviously neither intended for the
public by the volunteer nor screened by family members, as the case may
have been in private collections. The records of postwar judicial proceed-
ings against the volunteers also produced thorough documentation of
their careers and actions while in German service.
Another unique source is the collection of interviews conducted jointly
by the Swedish security police, SÄPO, and the Swedish military intelli-
gence unit, MUST, with returning Waffen-SS volunteers. Unlike the Swiss
government, the Swedish government did not criminalize foreign military
service; only those men who had deserted from the Swedish army were
punished. These interviews were hence not intended to serve a judicial
function. Instead, the Swedish police only wanted to establish that the
volunteers had not leaked sensitive information to a foreign power, while
MUST was interested in gathering information on how best to combat
the Red Army. Upon returning from the war, then, the surviving Swedish
Waffen-SS volunteers, many no doubt traumatized by their experience,
found a sympathetic and curious ear in the security police and military
investigators. They used this opportunity to debrief, confess, and ratio-
nalize their deeds without the fear of repercussions. The result is explicit
and detailed testimonies of both personal experiences and the workings
of the Waffen-SS and the SS bureaucracy, including surprisingly frank
testimonials of involvement in the shooting of prisoners of war, Jews and
other civilians.45

45
Although in each case, the interviewee never uses the active voice – “I shot” – but exclu-
sively describe the incidents in a passive voice  – “they were shot.” See, for example,
Protokoll över Förhör, in RA, SÄPO PA Kurt Lundin.
 The Ideological Predisposition 77

in their youth, was equally unappealing as it promoted the equality of

nations and races and eschewed violence. The volunteers came to believe
that the future of their countries lay neither in continued isolation and
neutrality nor in greater alignment with either the West or the East. The
spread of Bolshevism needed to be checked and Anglo-American, Western
materialism had to be rolled back if the current stagnation of the political
and cultural order were to be reversed. This could best be achieved, they
believed, through some form of cross-national alignment.
Consider, for instance, the worldview articulated in a letter that
Heinrich Weichlin, a Swiss journalist, wrote to a friend in 1941, shortly
before he joined the Waffen-SS. Weichlin recalled the importance of travel
on his intellectual development and the emergence of his ‘international-
ist’ sentiments. Weichlin felt a calling toward journalism when he was
travelling in Russia in the 1920s, shortly after that country’s conflict with
Poland. It was there that he developed a “commitment to always exam-
ine things with my own eyes.” Fueled by this curiosity and the desire
to understand his European surroundings, Weichlin’s travels in fifteen
countries spawned a deep sense of European belonging while simultane-
ously strengthening his Swiss patriotism: “And so I feel first of all Swiss
but secondly European.”108 Similarly, Schalburg called for “a union of
national European states, in which people respect the maxim God – king
and fatherland,” in a handwritten program for the future of Europe he
drew up in 1930 (“racial hygiene” and an end to “secret societies” were
also on the list).109
It is in this desire for a reinvigoration of Europe  – Heinrich Büeler,
for example, called for the “necessity of a rebirth of the European
peoples” – that these men, even those who were not members of National
Socialist parties, can be characterized as fascist.110 Numerous scholars,
most notably Stanley Payne and Roger Griffin, have pointed to this
“palingenetic” impulse – the desire for a “rebirth of the national spirit,
culture, and society” – as one of the most poignant features of Fascists.111
But if the volunteers’ palingenetic inclination was hardly unique, their

108
Dr. H. Weichlin to Dr. H. Büeler, 21 October 1941, in AfZ, NL Heinrich Büeler, 4.1
Militärgerichtliche Untersuchung und Untersuchungshaft 10.6.-27.10.1941 bis zur
Flucht am 21.11.1941.
109
Kirkebæk, Schalburg: En Patriotisk Landsforræder, 40.
110
Heinrich Büeler, “Gedanken einer Verteidigungsschrift gemäss Schreiben der schweiz.
Bundesanwaltschaft vom 15.1.1947,” in AfZ, NL Heinrich Büeler, 8.1  – Materialien
und Schriftsätze Heinrich Büelers zu seiner Verteidigung 1947, E8, 1.
111
Griffin, The Nature of Fascism; Payne, A History of Fascism, 5; Griffin, The Nature of
Fascism.
78 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

internationalism separated them both from their governments and, more

strikingly, from the members of right-wing and national socialist parties
who would not join the Waffen-SS. Keller, for example, a long-term mem-
ber of the Swiss nationalist movement National Front, professed a hatred
only for the type of internationalism which ignored the cultural-relations
of peoples (“den volksfremden Internationalismus”) – a view that earned
him considerable criticism from his Frontist brethren who eschewed all
forms of internationalism.112
The pervasive tension in the interwar dialogue between advocates of
Pan-Europeanism – a union based on equality of the various states – and
the Mitteleuropa idea – a union of north-central states under some form
of German tutelage – would similarly color the ‘internationalism’ of the
volunteers once they arrived in Germany.113 During their university years,
some of the volunteers had interacted with Liberal internationalist move-
ments, and some even gravitated toward international socialism, but the
majority found German völkisch thinkers and movements most attrac-
tive.114 An embryonic völkisches Denken (racial-cultural thinking) per-
vaded the German universities in the late 1920s and early 1930s, though
this had a decidedly German-centric tinge.115 The volunteers exposed
to this, however, took from the völkisch impulse not an exaggerated
love of the specifically German peoples but the idea that the Germanic
volk, seen in a broader, northern-European context, were related. One
Swede’s Waffen-SS officer file mentions his application to join a right-
wing student organization when he was studying at the University of
Nuremberg.116 Riedweg, too, interacted with German völkisch students
and carried this experience with him to Switzerland after his studies
in Berlin.117 The University of Innsbruck in Austria, where two future
neutral officers received their doctorates, had a particularly pronounced

112
Dr. Max Leo Keller to Dr. H. K[. . .], 25 April 1939, “Betr. Meine Strafklage gegen die
Herausgeber der “S.Z. am Sonntag,” Eduard Behrens und Fritz Lieb,” p. 4, in AfZ, NL
Max Leo Keller, 3. Frontistische Tätigkeit.
113
See Peter M.R. Stirk, “Between Pan-Europa and Mitteleuropa:  1919–39,” in A
History of European Integration since 1914 (New York:  Pinter, 1996), 18–50; Jürgen
Elvert, Mitteleuropa! Deutsche Pläne Zur Europäischen Neuordnung, 1918–1945
(Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1999).
114
Most noticeably Riedweg; see Niederschrift einer Unterredung mit Herrn Dr.  Med.
Franz Riedweg, 22 November 1955, in IfZ, ZS669, Riedweg Franz.
115
Herbert, Best:  Biographische Studien Über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und
Vernunft, 1903–1989, 87, 95. See also Martin Brozat, “Die Völkische Ideologie und der
Nationalsozialismus,” Deutsche Rundschau 84 (1958).
116
BA, PK (BDC) C50, 389, Ekström, Gustaf.
117
Urteil des 20. Spruchkammer des Spruchgerichts Hiddesen 18.11.1948, p.  3, in AfZ,
NL Franz Riedweg, 3. Privatakten Franz Riedweg. Riedweg, interestingly, is the only
 The Ideological Predisposition 79

völkisch movement.118 Many other future Swiss Waffen-SS leaders, as we

have seen, also studied at German universities, though the specifics of
their time there is hard to trace. Moreover, large groups of students in
the universities in Sweden, Switzerland, and Denmark were exposed to
similar ideas.119
Both those volunteers who interacted with the völkisch movements and
those who did not, shared a longing for a utopian Volksgemeinschaft of
sorts. Many of those volunteers who were not exposed to this idea during
their university education seem to have gained it through their youthful
association with Communist groups.120 Several future Waffen-SS members
had in fact been members of communist parties in their youth.121 One of
these was the Swiss lawyer Büeler, who had been a member of the Swiss
Communist Youth Organization for four years before his “nationalist per-
spective” earned him too much disfavor with his fellow members.122 This
background helps explain an otherwise curious speech he gave before a
right-wing audience in 1933 entitled “Swiss Socialism.” The speech begins
not with a condemnation of Marxism but by arguing that Bolshevism
is not a true representation of Marxism – a fairly bold proclamation to
make in front of a thoroughly anti-Marxist crowd. He continued by argu-
ing both against materialism – “Only the spiritual can penetrate the mate-
rial, not the other way around” – and against Liberalism:
The Liberal state gives every individual the greatest degree of personal freedom.
Past experience shows that this freedom can be abused, that an individual can
commit acts of the most detrimental kind against the people without the state

volunteer who became involved in the more liberally oriented Pan-European move-
ments prevalent in the interwar period.
118
See Michael Gehler, Studenten und Politik:  der Kampf Um die Vorherrschaft an der
Universität Innsbruck 1918–1938 (Innsbruck: Haymon, 1990).
119
See, for example, Svante Nordin, Fredrick Bööl, En Levnadstekning (Stockholm: Natur
och kultur, 1994); Sverker Oredson, Lunds Universitet under Andra Världskriget.
Motsättningar, Debatter och Hjälpinsatser (Lund: Lunds universitäthistoriska sällskap,
1996).
120
Zeev Sternhell, “Fascist Ideology,” in Fascism:  A  Reader, ed. Walter Laqueur (1976).
The most famous case of a Socialist turned Fascist is of course Mussolini him-
self. But this phenomenon has also been observed in other in-depth studies of right
wing intellectuals. See, for example, Werner Hagmann, Krisen- und Kriegsjahre Im
Werdenberg: Wirtschaftliche Not und Politischer Wandel in Einem Bezirk des St. Galler
Rheintals Zwischen 1930 und 1945 (Zürich: Chronos, 2001).
121
In addition to Büeler’s experience with Communism, detailed below, see also the story
G.S[. . .] in Rapport, 25 May 1944, in MUST, FX 2:22/301 and of H.H[. . .] in Schön,
Hitlers Svenska Soldater, 90.
122
Lebenslauf, in AfZ, NL Heinrich Büeler, 5.2. Büeler, of course, does not mention his
Communist past when applying to the Waffen-SS. See, BA, SSO (BDC) 117, Büeler,
Heinrich Dr.
80 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

intervening. This concept of freedom can lead to economic treason without the
state moving a finger.123

Finally, Büeler advocated not only a national Volksgemeinschaft, but a

European-wide one, because “Switzerland’s fate is inextricably linked to
that of Europe.”124
This pseudo-Fascist, internationalist ideological predisposition is eas-
ily traced in the speeches and writing of those future volunteers who were
politically active. It is equally present, though harder to track, in their
less politically engaged comrades. The Swiss academic Kurt Brüderlin is
a good example. His 1941 dissertation, entitled “The Modern Theory
of inter-State Capital Movement,” betrays nascent fascist inclinations
behind a thoroughly Keynesian, liberal analysis of the world economic
system.125 After the war, during which he served the Waffen-SS in numer-
ous functions on various fronts, Brüderlin reflected on the development
of his worldview, especially in regards to his fear of Bolshevism, which he
characterized as a dangerous, all-encompassing ideology that could only
be “countered” by another ideology.”126 Presumably, this is what led him
to abandon Liberalism as well – its inability to compete with Marxism’s
broad and total appeal.
The ideas of National Socialism as an ideological force that could both
supplant Liberalism and combat Communism, as well as the belief in
an inevitable Volksgemeinschaft, were most fully articulated among the
volunteers who were politically active on the far right. Max Keller, for
example, wrote very much with a fully formed National Socialist ideol-
ogy in mind even before the war. In a 1939 libel suit against two Basel
newspaper reporters, Keller justified and summed up his beliefs in a clear
Swiss, pro-German, National Socialist framework:

123
“Eidgenössischer Sozialismus,” in AfZ, NL Heinrich Büeler, 2.2 Über eidg. Sozialismus,
Rede Heinrich Büelers.
124
Ibid.
125
Kurt Brüderlin, “Die Moderne Theorie der Zwischenstaatlichen Kapitalbewegungen”
(Inaugural-Dissertation, Universität Bern, 1942), 183.
126
Konrad Bergmann, Einsichten und Ansichten Eines Schweizer Freiwilligen:  Bericht
Eines Schweizer Kriegsfreiwilligen der Waffen-SS (Bern:  Militärhistorische
Arbeitsgemeinschaft, 2002), 10. Bergmann was Brüderlin’s pseudonym after the war
as he published apologetic texts regarding his experience in the war while continuing
a “respectable” career. He earned a second PhD in the postwar period and authored
a further book. Kurt Brüderlin, Freiheit Ohne Geldherrschaft, Gerechtigkeit Ohne
Staatswirtschaft:  Begründung und Darstellung Einer Gesunden Wirtschaftsordnung
(Hannover: Pfeiffer, 1971).
 The Ideological Predisposition 81

I see in National Socialism, Fascism, and Frontism nothing less than the ascent
and triumph of a new Weltanschauung. Just as Liberalism determined the nine-
teenth century, the national and social movements rising all over will determine
the shape of their country’s future. In the same way that Liberalism did not orig-
inate in our country yet still found its own Swiss form, so too, I  believe, the
national and social Weltanschauung will find a fitting form for our country and
Volk. I admit that this work initially demands a certain amount of faith . . . If we
turn away from Germany, it is not the Reich but we who would be damaged,
most likely we would decay and go under.127

Some, though not all, of these party men also displayed a high degree of
racial anti-Semitism. Most of those future volunteers who were not for-
mally affiliated with National Socialist parties in the prewar years – and
this is the majority  – spoke of their desire for some form of European
unity more in terms of culture and politics, not race. Not surprisingly,
then, racial anti-Semitism can be found primarily among the volunteers
who were organized Nazis in the prewar years. Whether they joined these
movements because they were anti-Semites, or whether they became anti-
Semites after joining is hard to say. The Swiss Othmar Maag, for exam-
ple, often explicitly compared the Volk to “a human body,” which when
“operated on incorrectly [a reference to Liberalism and the emancipation
of the Jews] suffers for a long time.”128 Similarly, the Dane P.R. E[. . .],
who though a member of the DNSAP had a somewhat troubled relation-
ship with the party, wrote on the day he was accepted into the Waffen-SS
that “the people are led by the press, the press by capital and the govern-
ment. The government is chosen by the people and capital, Jews have the
capital.”129 Although less explicitly racialized, E[. . .]’s thinking still con-
forms to the fantastical, conspiratorial hatred of Jews common among
organized National Socialists.
Two men stand out as particularly prolific and uncompromising in
their anti-Semitism:  the Dane Erling Hallas and the Swiss Dr.  Alfred
Zander. Both men regarded themselves as the ideologues of their respec-
tive movements  – the DNSAP in Denmark and the Nationale Front in
Switzerland. Zander, who later became a Waffen-SS Weltanschauuliche

127
Dr. Max Leo Keller to Dr. H. Kramer, Betr. Meine Strafklage gegen die Herausgeber der
“S.Z. am Sonntag,” Eduard Behrens und Fritz Lieb, 25. April 1939, p. 6, in AfZ, NL
Max Leo Keller, 3. Frontistische Tätigkeiten.
128
See, for example, Othmar Maag to H.  Büeler, 24 October 1941 (Büeler in
Untersuchungshaft), in AfZ, NL Heinrich Büeler, 4.1 militägerichtliche Untersuchung
und Untersuchungshaft 10.6.-27.10.1941 bis zur Flucht am 21.11.1941. “
129
30/4 1941” PR E[. . .] Notitser, in RA, FOARK 1010/90a. Besættelsestidens Arkiv
1940–1945.
82 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

Erziehung [ideological indoctrination] instructor  – wrote some four-

teen books and a plethora of articles in the years before the war. His
writing made abundantly clear that he saw Jews and Bolsheviks – often
conflated as one corrupting entity – as the primary threat to Swiss and
European existence.130 Hallas, too, wrote and spoke of the “Jewish prob-
lem” as all-encompassing, responsible for every ill. Both men called for
decisive action against the Jews. In one of many such utterances, Hallas
explained, “Jews have not sat directly on the farmers’ plow but they have
planted themselves on our monetary system, our press, our literature.
Unemployment, crisis, and impoverishment are the results of the collec-
tive Danish indifference to racial laws.”131
To see these men as simple anti-Semites is, however, only half of the
picture. In addition to hate-filled anti-Jewish accusations and threats,
Zander’s writings contain most of the same ideological elements found
among the other volunteers. In 1934, for example, he edited and published
a collection of writings on Erziehung, Schule und Volksgemeinschaft
(Education, Schools, and Volksgemeinschaft). Zander begins his own
contribution to the volume by outlining the dangerous decay threatening
the Swiss nation and Europe at large, caused, he claimed, by the historical
“mis-development” of the French Revolution:
Should European culture be overwhelmed by the chaos (cultural Bolshevism)?
Should we label Switzerland as a dying, powerless state-structure with a grand
past but unworthy present? Are these foreign voices correct who label the Swiss
Volk as a futureless Volk of traders, bankers and hoteliers?
No, no a thousand times over! Where danger is large – the economic is but the
least of it – a solution grows. We are standing at the end of a mis-development, at
the end of an age of individualism. This epoch began with the French Revolution,
[it] built millions of machines and laboratories, conquered the farthest corners of
the world with unquenchable greed.132

130
He wrote several pieces dedicated to such arguments, see, for example, Alfred Zander,
Dokumente Zur Judenfrage in der Schweiz (Zurich:  Verlag Eidgenössische schrifte,
1935). For an indepth examination of Zander’s life, see Martin Näf, “Alfred Zander,
1905–1997: Pädagoge, Frontist, Landesverätter,” Traverse 3 (2003); Martin Gutmann,
“Engineering the European Volksgemeinschaft:  Social Engineering, Pedagogy and
Fascism in the Case of the Swiss Alfred Zander,” Contemporary History (2015).
131
Erling Hallas, Racekamp:  Vejladning Til Forsaaelse Af Jødeproblemet (Bovrup:
D.N.S.A.P.s Forlag, 1941), 145.
132
Alfred Zander, “Erziehung Zur Volksgemeinschaft,” in Erziehung, Schule und
Volksgemeinschaft, ed. Alfred Zander and Wilhelm Brenner, Schriften der “Nationalen
Front,” Sonderdruck Aus “Schweizer Monats-Hefte, Heft 12,13. Jahrg., März 1934
(Zürich: Front Verlag, 1934), 6–7.
 Volunteers & Their National, National Socialist Movements 83

Zander argued that the true, communal nature of human society, tem-
porarily obscured by Liberalism’s failure, could be reawakened in a new
society. The present crises were in fact an opportunity to correct Europe’s
path and to work toward reestablishing a Volksgemeinschaft. The place
to begin, he argued, was education:
We are at the beginning of a new epoch. To recognize what educating [youth]
in the spirit of a new Volksgemeinschaft means, the mistake of the past must be
uncovered. This period, the individualistic – one could also call it the Liberal – put
the individual at the center . . . [but] the human [lives naturally] in communities,
in families, tribes, Volk, nation. Humans will not survive with intelligence alone,
united through treaties; we are connected by common blood, through common
fate, through common soil and common history . . . the community comes first,
only after that comes the individual.133

Zander’s words, “community comes first, only after that comes the indi-
vidual,” exemplify the ideological predisposition shared by most future
Waffen-SS volunteers. In his case, this sentiment had developed into a
fully-fledged National Socialist worldview; in others, it appeared more
as a sliver of doubt about the sustainability of the current order and a
creeping desire for a more organic form of social organization. The views
of those who were and were not in prewar fascist parties differ only in
degree, not substance. Moreover, given their assertive, adventurous, and
intellectual personalities, these men were predisposed toward joining any
movement that seemed to offer an opportunity to actualize their dreams.
Such an opportunity was about to present itself.

The Volunteers and Their National,

National Socialist Movements
An ideological predisposition is, of course, not enough to explain why
the neutral volunteers joined the Waffen-SS. In fact, their beliefs differed
little from those of thousands of their countrymen who did not volunteer
to the Waffen-SS. Although their internationalist leanings and their belief
that the sociopolitical system could be changed distinguished them some-
what from their peers, the remainder of their worldview rested on tenets
that were common in mainstream, interwar Europe. Neutrality was sim-
ilarly contested among significant groups in each country.
Several homegrown National Socialist parties emerged in the neu-
tral countries in the prewar years, none of which achieved any political

133
Ibid., 7.
84 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

significance. In Sweden, the most successful electoral attempt by a National

Socialist party came in 1936, with a meager 0.7 percent of the national
vote.134 In Switzerland, outside of the small canton of Schaffhausen,
where the Nationale Front gained 27 percent of the vote and sent a rep-
resentative to the national parliament, the movement was as unsuccessful
as its Swedish counterpart.135 Similarly, the Danish DNSAP peaked at less
than forty-three thousand votes, or 2.1 percent of the voting population,
in the elections of 1943.
For all their political failures, however, previous scholars have
seen these parties as critical for the Germanic volunteer movement.136
Although there is an obvious link between the parties and volunteers, the
connection should not be exaggerated. Although the DNSAP was briefly
put in charge of recruiting for the Waffen-SS – a point that has led numer-
ous authors to draw a causal link between being an organized Nazi and
joining the Waffen-SS – the party did not begin actively encouraging its
members to join until well after the invasion of the Soviet Union, by
which point almost all of the men studied here had already signed up.137
Those members of the DNSAP who joined the Waffen-SS before the sum-
mer of 1941 (Schalburg and E[. . .], for example) were acting against the
wishes of the party. At that point, the organization was still focused on
taking over the government and had a vested interest in keeping their
most motivated members at home. Although no doubt a certain number
of young impressionable DNSAP members joined the Waffen-SS in late
1941 because they were so instructed, the link between party member-
ship and Waffen-SS service was not usually that clear. Most Swedes and
Danes of the Waffen-SS leadership corps were not formally affiliated with

134
Jonas Hansson, “Sweden and Nazism,” in Sweden’s Relations with Nazism,
Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, ed. Stig Ekman, Klas Åmark, and John Toler
(Stockholm: Universitetet Stockholms, 2003), 146.
135
Payne, A History of Fascism, 309. For an outdated but comprehensive study of the
National Front, see Beat Glaus, Die Nationale Front (Zürich: Benziger Verlag, 1969).
136
Frits Clausen, leader of the DNSAP, is of course the perfect such example. After the
failure of the DNSAP to secure a mandate during the 1943 elections, Clausen, though
retaining his title as head of party, left for the Eastern Front along with much of the
party leadership. See Ole Ravn, Fører Uden Folk: Frits Clausen og Danmarks National
Socialistiske Arbejder-Parti (Odense: University of Southern Denmark, 2007).
137
Claus Bundgard Christensen, Niels Bo Poulsen, and Peter Scharff Smith, “The Danish
Far Right Goes to War: Danish Fascism and Soldiering in the Waffen-SS, 1930–1945,” in
Fascism and Neofascism: Critical Writings on the Radical Right in Europe, ed. Angelica
Fenner and Eric D. Weitz (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004), 87. Until 1941, there
was some limited recruitment by the DNSAP but mostly of the Danish German minority
in Schleswig. See Under Hagekors og Dannebrog: Danskere I Waffen-SS 1940–1945, 46.
 Volunteers & Their National, National Socialist Movements 85

organized National Socialists at the time that they joined the Waffen-SS.
Those who volunteered from Sweden and Denmark did so not because
of, but in spite of, the existence of those national movements.
In the Swiss case, in contrast, a majority of the volunteers had in
fact been members of one of the national fascist parties in the prewar
years. The Swiss Nationale Front provided the Waffen-SS not only with
a significant number of intellectual fighting-bureaucrats, but also with
the concrete idea of an “organic solution” between National Socialist
Germany and the small neutral states. Upon joining the Waffen-SS, these
Swiss volunteers spread this idea to neutral volunteers as well as to their
German colleagues at the SS, as will be examined in the next chapter. The
difference between these national patterns is striking. The thirty highest-
ranking and arguably most influential neutral volunteers to the Waffen-
SS consisted of nine Danes, ten Swedes, and eleven Swiss. Of these, only
three of the Danes and two of the Swedes were active with their national
parties, as opposed to all eleven of the Swiss.138
The explanation lies in the differences between the Swiss and
Scandinavian political climates. As we have seen, in none of these coun-
tries did the National Socialist movement thrive. While an earlier genera-
tion of scholarship assumed that this failure reflected anti-Nazi resistance,
more recently, historians have pointed to the overlap between fascist pro-
grams with traditional political parties.139 In Sweden, for example, the
largest National Socialist party, the Lindholmare, shared a large part of its
core principles not only with conservative parties but also with the Social
Democrats.140 Similarly, in both Sweden and Denmark, the conservative
agrarian parties subsumed a large part of the “fascist agenda,” thereby
securing voters who otherwise might have migrated further to the politi-
cal right (as happened in Italy).141 In December 1933, a group of Swedish

138
Author’s biographical spreadsheet composed primarily from records in BA, SSO (BDC);
RASA, SÄPO PA; BAR, E 2001 E 1968/78 Bd. 158 & 159; RA, RIAD 1349/11; BAMA,
RS 5/979, 981 & 982.
139
The National Socialist parties of the neutral countries, especially Denmark, were
until recently understudied. Of 7,322 books on Denmark and the Second World War
period, only 1.4  percent deal with anti-parliamentary parties and groups. The orga-
nized resistance movement, by comparison, is examined in 12.1 percent of the works.
Lauridsen, Samarbejde og Modstand. Danmark under Den Tyske Besættelse 1940–45.
En Bibliographi., forord.
140
Helene Lööw, Nazismen I Sverige 1924–1979 (Stockholm: Ordfront, 2004), 27.
141
Hansson, “Sweden and Nazism,” 146. In the Danish case, see Niels Ulrichsen, J.A.K.-En
Dansk Krisebevægelse (Copenhagen:  Historiske Institut ved Københavns Universitet,
1978); ibid. Henrik Fode, J.A.K. – Jord, Arbejde, Kapital, En Bevægelse I og Med Tiden
(Århus: Landsforeningen J.A.K., 2008).
86 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

Nazis violently disrupted a lecture on “the Nordic Race” by a professor

and known Nazi opponent. Their objection was obviously not the speech’s
content but presumably the perceived hijacking of what they saw as their
platform.142 The anti-Communist and strongly anti-Democratic youth
organization of the Konservativ party in Denmark, the Konservative
Ungdom, counted some 30,000 members in its paramilitary-style youth
group in the prewar years.143 In both Switzerland and Denmark, nation-
ally recognized politicians made statements that would not have seemed
out of place in National Socialist literature. In 1940, for example, one of
Switzerland’s six federal councilors – the executive body of the federal
government – remarked that “Everywhere, in all areas – spiritually and
materially, economically and politically  – the necessary rebuilding will
require serious effort, which, in order to be effective, must be sought
outside of out-of-date parameters.”144 This search for solutions outside of
archaic and stale ideas was, of course, exactly what the National Socialist
movements believed themselves to be engaged in. Their solutions, though
not wholly incompatible with those from other, more mainstream parties,
were merely too radical, too closely aligned with the German Nazi party,
or too vulgar to appeal to a majority of voters.
It is in this context that volunteers’ membership (or lack thereof) in
National Socialist prewar organizations must be understood. In the same
way that the programs of the National Socialist parties overlapped with
more mainstream parties, so, too, did the views of National Socialist and
non-National Socialist neutral volunteers. Many Swedish and Danish
volunteers were either uninterested in organized party politics or found
the street brawling of their local National Socialist movements to be
unappealing and vulgar. In Denmark, the DNSAP’s alignment with the
interests of ethnic Germans in southern Denmark was unappealing to
many potential recruits.145 In Sweden, the only two fascist parties of any
significance – a relative term as both remained very much on the fringe –
were known for their unintellectual, thuggish membership.146 The larger

142
Lööw, Nazismen i Sverige 1924–1979, 23–24
143
Claus Friisberg, ed. Kilder Til Det Ny Danmark 1914–1992, Lange Linjer, 2nd ed.
(København: Munksgaard, 1992), 74; ibid.
144
Rede des amtlichen Verteidigers Dr. L. Gander vor dem Bundesstrafgericht am 2.7.1948
in Luzern, in AfZ, NL Max Leo Keller, 4.1.5. Prozessunterlagen.
145
See Malene Djursaa, DNSAP:  Danske Nazister 1930–45 (Copenhagen:  Gyldendal,
1981); Lauridsen, De Danske Nazister; Ravn, Fører Uden Folk:  Frits Clausen og
Danmarks National Socialistiske Arbejder-Parti.
146
Heléne Lööw offers a good overview of the various parties, their significance, and devel-
opment in her chapter “I. Lindholmare, Furugårdare och andra,” in Lööw, Nazismen
 Reconstructing the Story of the Germanic Volunteers 21

these numbers take into account the many who volunteered but were not
accepted by the Waffen-SS, which in the Danish case, for example, was
another six thousand.51
But despite the striking differences in national patterns of volunteering
(about which more will be said in Chapter Three), the number of neutral
volunteers who ended up in leadership positions within the Waffen-SS
was nearly the same for each country.52 The number of neutral SS men
working for the Germanische Leitstelle, for example, was comparable
from each country, with the Swiss outnumbering the Danes. Similarly,
the number of neutral members of the SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers  – the
elite propaganda and wartime correspondence unit  – was roughly the
same for each country: twenty-five Swedes, some twenty-five Danes, and
a slightly lower number of Swiss. These raw numbers suggest that there
was a core group of men in each of these countries who were willing to
get to Germany by any means possible. In the Danish case this proved
quite easy, in the Swiss case somewhat more difficult and in the Swedish
case thoroughly challenging. The excess thousands of volunteers from
Denmark and hundreds from Switzerland may have been the stereotyp-
ical young, impressionable, naïve types who in the Swedish case simply
stayed at home. Additionally, some two thousand of the Danish volun-
teers appear to have been ethnic Germans living in the Jutland peninsula
border region who could quite obviously have been motivated by more
straightforward motives.53
This phenomenon appears to be specific to the three neutral coun-
tries. The Germanische Leitstelle, as we will see, was staffed with more
Swiss, Danes and Swedes than persons of any other nationality other
than Germans.54 This is a startling fact. For example, though there were
between twenty-five thousand and forty thousand Dutch volunteers to
the Waffen-SS, with the exception of some translators, none worked for

51
Under Hagekors og Dannebrog: Danskere I Waffen-SS 1940–1945, 11.
52
The Swedish volunteer Thorolf Hillblad too noticed that the neutral volunteers stood out
from the other Germanics because of their engagement with political work and, in the
Swiss and Swedish case, the difficulty they had in getting to Germany. See, Schön, Hitlers
Svenska Soldater, 83. See also E[. . .] V[. . .] to Hillblad, 25 February 1944, RASA, SÄPO
PA Thorolf Hillblad.
53
Franz Wilhelm Seidler, Avantgarde Für Europa: Ausländische Freiwillige in Wehrmacht
und Waffen-SS (Selent:  Pour le Mérite, 2004), appendix. Again, with these German-
Danes, it is unclear how many were counted as Danes in the SS statistics, further compli-
cating the potential total figure.
54
Author’s spreadsheet of Germanische Leitstelle staff members created from archival
sources, including BA, NS 19, BAMA, N 756, BA, SSO (BDC), and WPA.
88 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

“greater Germany,” mainstream Swiss political parties adopted a slogan

of the Nationale Front – building a “spiritual national defense” – against
totalitarian and foreign influences.153 In 1935, the Nationale Front
attempted to regain control of a movement they felt was theirs, calling
for the complete revision of the national constitution along authoritarian
lines. The referendum failed but nonetheless received nearly two hundred
thousand of the half a million votes cast.154
After the failed referendum, the National Front would never regain
its limited influence. The movement became increasingly isolated. It
had, however, unlike the National Socialist movements in Denmark and
Sweden, been a movement in which the future volunteers could partici-
pate. The party not only had a sophisticated and intellectual leadership
corps, but, at least for a while, stood a chance of effecting change. Once
it failed, most of the Frontists continued to agitate from obscurity. Others
turned their gaze toward their northern neighbor.

153
Joseph Mooser, “‘Spiritual National Defense’ in the 1930s:  Swiss Political Culture
between the Wars,” in Switzerland and the Second World War, ed. Georg Kreis (Portland,
OR: Frank Cass, 2000), 240–45.
154
Kaestli, Selbstbezogenheit und Offenheit  – Die Schweiz in der Welt des 20.
Jahrhunderts: Zur Politischen Geschichte Eines Neutralen Kleinstaats, 211.
 3

Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS

By the time that Germany launched its invasion of the Soviet Union in
the summer of 1941, a mere three thousand Germanic men had joined
the organization. Among these, however, were nearly all of the highly
motivated volunteers who would hold leadership roles in the SS. These
early volunteers were integral to the process of conceptualizing and trans-
mitting a particular Germanic National Socialist ideology to the tens
of thousands of Germanic volunteers who eventually joined the Waffen-
SS to support Germany in the war against the Soviet Union. What moved
these early volunteers to throw their lot in with Germany?
Joining the Waffen-SS was a profound decision that had obvious
implications not just for the individual involved, but also for his parents,
his siblings, and, if he had them, his wife and his children. While the
Danish government allowed Danes to join the German war effort, the
Swiss and the Swedish governments actively sought to prevent their citi-
zens from doing so. Swiss and Swedish volunteers knew that they could
expect legal ramifications upon returning home from service in Germany.
Additionally, in every case the men must have been aware that they were
embarking on no ordinary adventure. Even in the highly successful inva-
sion of France, the Wehrmacht suffered close to thirty thousand dead
and over one hundred thousand wounded.1 The men who volunteered
to serve in the Waffen-SS would face real combat and the possibility of
injury or death.
Although individual future volunteers shared an ideological predis-
position that made them sympathetic to the cause, this worldview is not

1
Alan Shepperd, France 1940: Blitzkrieg in the West (London: Osprey, 1990), 88.

89
90 Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS

sufficient to explain the decision to volunteer. Many others who shared

their views simply chose to sympathize quietly and to wait and see what
would happen. Indeed, most men their age, whether officially organized
as members of National Socialist parties or not, did not actively sup-
port or oppose the German war effort. For the volunteers, however, the
combination of their ideological predispositions with their distinctly
ambitious, action-oriented personalities and the events of 1940 proved
decisive. In Denmark in particular, the shock of the German invasion
of April prompted many Danish officers to consider a future in the
service of the SS. The letters many of these Danish volunteers wrote to
their families after leaving for Germany offer a glimpse into their deci-
sion making process. Similarly, many Swiss and Swedes justified their
decision to join Germany in written statements to their parents or the
authorities.
Once in Germany, Riedweg and his staff worked to train and incorpo-
rate the men efficiently and to harness their enthusiasm for the Germanic
project. The results were mixed. Disagreements with the SS-FHA and
national Nazi party leaders persisted. Moreover, the creation of volun-
teer Legions and SS-controlled units with reduced admission standards
in the aftermath of the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union compromised
Himmler, Berger and Riedweg’s vision of a racial and intellectual elite.
The SS the neutral volunteers encountered was not necessarily the one
they had envisioned. These developments lay in the future, however, as
one by one the individuals that would lead the Germanic movement of
the SS found their way to Germany.

From Belief to Action

Few of the neutral volunteers informed their loved ones of their plans
to join the Waffen-SS. In the Danish case, they may have been worried
about being dissuaded. Swedish and Swiss volunteers likely did not want
to implicate their families in the illegal and difficult border crossing they
were about to undertake. Because of the rugged and isolated terrain
between Sweden and Norway and Sweden and Finland, only some fif-
teen roads lent themselves to a border crossing  – fewer if the person,
as was most often the case, had no personal mode of transportation.
The alternative would have been to slog through tens of kilometers
of treacherous, mountain terrain, an option no one appears to have taken.
The border between Switzerland and Germany, by contrast, is flatter and
more densely populated, making an illegal crossing easier than in the
 From Belief to Action 91

Swedish case – although by no means straightforward as the Swiss police

managed to halt a number of illegal border crossings attempts.
From a methodological perspective, the volunteers’ penchant for
secrecy provides a historical boon. Upon arriving in Germany, most of the
men wrote letters home in which they explained what they had done, and
why. Even aside from their content, the existence of this correspondence
serves as evidence that these men were not socially isolated malcontents.
But of course the content is revealing. Many of these letters, even at this
early stage, already speak of a European mission to which the volunteers
hoped to contribute. This is significant. Most of the highly educated, lead-
ership corps volunteers joined well before the SS had established a con-
crete recruitment and propaganda policy centered on the invasion of the
Soviet Union in the summer of 1941. The Germanic Waffen-SS volunteers
already believed they were fighting for a goal bigger than themselves.
One such letter came from twenty-seven-year-old Danish lieutenant
Per Sørensen. Writing the night before embarking on a train to Germany,
Sørensen justified his actions by writing that his fighting for Germany
was necessary to preserve Denmark’s future.2 A few weeks later, he added
that his country’s weakness, indecisiveness, and “passivity” would lead
to no good. Instead young Danes, such as he, had to fight and sacrifice
to assure a bright future for their country.3 A  few days later, he wrote
yet again to make the same point in different words. Germany needed
nobodies help to win, he argued. Instead, he and his cohorts had “a very
large mission for the new Europe.”4
Sørensen’s series of letters explaining his decision as both personal and
taken on behalf of Denmark – all written before the SS’s own machinery
for recruitment and indoctrination had developed such an argument  –
suggests the intriguing possibility that it was the internationalist neutral
volunteers who cemented these ideas within the SS and not the other way
around. Another letter, written by the Swiss volunteer Benno Schäppi to
his wife, raises similar themes:
You ask why I volunteered. Why I would by free will and choice put on the gray
coat and begin a march without orders, which neither you nor I know when it
will end and if the day will come when we see each other again. . . . Did you not
sense lately how I suffered, how everything in me ached, to be a part of the great

2
Sørensen to parents, 18 July 1941, in Haaest, Intet Nyt Fra Østfronten:  Beretningen
Om Regiment 24 Dänemarks Sidste Kommandør. Fortalt Af Ham Selv I Frontbreve, Sat
I Perspektiv Af Erik Haaest, 35.
3
Sørensen to parents, 17 August 1941, ibid., 49.
4
Sørensen to parents, 8 September 1941, ibid., 53.
 Organization of the Book 23

occupation fully reached Denmark in 1943, however, the neutral men

had no such option. The future of the continent, these men believed, lay
in National Socialism, with European countries operating either under
the tutelage of or in cooperation with the Reich. In serving the Waffen-SS,
these men believed that they were accelerating the inevitable tide of his-
tory. The term “organic solution,” used to describe the desired, inevitable,
and natural reconciliation between National Socialist Germany and the
neutral countries, first emerges in the letters, speeches, and other records
of the neutral volunteers.

Organization of the Book
Chapter One explores the origins of the SS and the Waffen-SS as well
as the decision-making behind and efforts to recruit Germanics into its
ranks. Here Riedweg, a Swiss doctor who was one of the first Germanics
to volunteer and who came to lead the Germanische Leitstelle, plays a
major role. Under his leadership, the office became a central part of the
SS’s drive to create a Greater Germanic Reich. Joining Riedweg at the
Germanische Leitstelle were a slew of like-minded German and Swiss,
Swedish, and Danish SS men, all of whom believed that through their ser-
vice they would serve as role-models and catalysts for what they hoped
would be an organic alignment of their countries to Germany. From the
beginning, however, the Germanische Leitstelle encountered opposition
from rival SS offices and officers, as well as other Nazi institutions.
Chapter Two responds to a persistent historical myth that describes
the Germanic volunteers as lower-class, social outsiders, or “losers” who
were inculcated once in the service of the Waffen-SS.57 I explore the pre-
war background of the future volunteers and show that although they
held a unique worldly outlook and shared high levels of education, intel-
lect, and strong personal ambition, they were not “asocials,” criminals,
or blind fanatics. Moreover, many of them had developed a longing for
a radical reorganization of the European political, social, and economic
landscape before they joined the Waffen-SS.
Why the men volunteered and how they were incorporated into the
Waffen-SS, and larger SS, apparatus are the focus of Chapter Three. At
the same time, I explore how the Germanische Leitstelle became one of
the most powerful and well-funded offices within the SS structure. Its
57
As explored in greater detail in Chapter Two, this myth may bear some truth in regards
to some of the younger, more impressionable volunteers, but not in regards to leadership
corps volunteers.
 From Belief to Action 93

decision taken with care and deliberation. Joining the Waffen-SS was a
career ambition – so was finishing his education.
Other volunteers seem to have experienced some sort of decisive
event that pushed them over the proverbial edge. When this experience
highlighted the gap between a volunteer’s private life and his developing
worldview, it tended to reinforce the latter. For example, Major Johann
Corrodi, a rising star in the Swiss army, received his first negative report
from a superior in the summer of 1940. Corrodi interpreted this through
a broader political context, seeing it as final proof of the stagnation of the
Swiss system and the backwardness of its armed forces. Shortly thereafter
he began corresponding with the SS; he soon departed for a career in the
Waffen-SS.9 The Swiss J.R.[. . .]., who had held the necessary ideological
predisposition for years, left home for Germany only after a particularly
nasty fight with his parents.10
In both Denmark and Switzerland, more often than not, the precipitat-
ing event that drove volunteers to sever their connections to day-to-day
life involved national and international politics. In Denmark, the shock
of the German invasion and, more importantly, the lack of Danish resis-
tance, suggested that the time had come for action. In the early morning
of 9 April 1940, German forces crossed the border into the Jutland pen-
insula of Denmark while amphibious forces disembarked in Copenhagen.
Denmark was strategically vital for the German military leadership. As
early as 1935, Admiral Erich Raeder had called it “a matter of life and
death.”11 By 1940, the German naval leadership had become convinced
that Britain had plans to occupy Denmark and Norway to secure sea and
air operations in the North Sea. Moreover, Sweden’s iron ore, crucial for
the German prosecution of the war, flowed through the harbor at Narvik,
Norway.12 During the Winter War, the British government had asked to

9
See Lebenslauf in BA, SSO (BDC) 183, Elfenau, Johann Eugen and Peter Blaunder, “Der
Fall Johann Eugen Corrodi: Gefangener Seiner Selbst – Ein Stück Zeitgeschichte.” (1996),
p. 7, in BiG. Because Corrodi was a prominent, high-ranking Swiss officer before joining
the Waffen-SS, the SS gave him the pseudonym Elfenau to make him more difficult for
the Swiss military intelligence service to track.
10
Despite not mentioning where he was headed to his parents, they immediately assumed
correctly that he left home to work for the Nazi regime. Köcher, Bern, 28 March 1942,
“Betrf: Schweizer Staatsangehörige Michel M[. . .] und Jean Pierre R[. . .],” in NARA,
T-120, 2459, accessed at AfZ.
11
Quoted in Steffen Werther, Dänische Freiwillige in der Waffen-SS (Berlin:  Wiss.Verl.,
2004), 27.
12
Hans Umbreit, “Auf dem Weg Zur Kontinentalherrschaft,” in Das Deutsche Reich und
der Zweite Weltkrieg: Band 5.1. Kriegsverwaltung, Wirtschaft und Personelle Resourcen,
1939–1941, ed. Horst Boog, et al. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, 1988), 46–47.
94 Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS

send an expeditionary force through Denmark and Sweden, ostensibly

to aid the Finns but primarily to cut off Germany’s iron ore supply  –
a request denied by both governments.13 On 8 April 1940, the British
began laying mines off Norway, giving Germany the pretext it sought for
launching the invasion.14 For all Denmark’s strategic importance to its
powerful neighbors, however, the country was poorly prepared and taken
by surprise by the invasion. Within two hours the Danish government
ordered its soldiers to lay down their arms.
The Danish officer P.R. E[. . .], who would later become a high-ranking
staff officer in the Waffen-SS, was stationed close to the German border
on the morning of the invasion. He recalled that he and his men prepared
themselves for battle after being woken up. “We were ready to fight even
though we were absolutely unprepared,” he wrote some years after the
war.15 He and his men did not take the initial radio address by Prime
Minister Thorvald Stauning seriously and continued their preparations.
Once the King repeated the same message, calling on the population to
“behave in a correct and worthy manner as every sporadic action or
comment could have serious consequences,” they laid down their arms.16
Instead of commanding his men in battle, P.R.E[. . .] received the humiliat-
ing order to serve as the contact person to the German army. He spent the
next few weeks ensuring that the German occupiers had proper lodging
and supplies.
That the invasion, and more importantly the immediate surrender,
would rattle professional officers is not surprising. Professional officers’
options had been shrinking for years under repeated budget cuts. These
officers moreover feared the perceived growing influence of socialist and
pacifists in the Parliament. The invasion of 9 April hence spelled doom
in the minds of many military men. Occupation by a foreign army meant
that the possibility of making a respectable career in the military had all
but vanished.
But the effects of 9 April ran deeper than fears of limited career pros-
pects. For many officers – including many who would not become officers
in the Waffen-SS – the surrender cemented their belief in the impotence of
parliamentary democracies. To them, the day represented a moral failure
for the nation. Although the officers recognized that their country’s flat

13
Hans-Martin Ottmer, “Weserübung,” Der Deutsche Angriff Auf Dänemark und
Norwegen Im April 1940 (München: Oldenbourg, 1994), 24.
14
Umbreit, “Auf dem Weg Zur Kontinentalherrschaft,” 193–98.
15
Diary, in RA, PA P.R.En. 6926/1 Materie vedr. FK Danmarks Historie, 1946–1985.
16
“Proklamationer til det Danske Folk,” Ekstre Bladet 37/47, 9 April 1940, 1.
 From Belief to Action 95

terrain and its limited arms supply meant resistance would likely fail,
they nevertheless saw Denmark’s failure to sacrifice some of its blood
in the country’s defense as an unforgivable crime. Denmark had traded
in its honor without so much as a blink of an eye at the very moment
that it could have redeemed itself. The contrast with Norway, where the
army and the citizens engaged in a bitter, albeit futile, struggle to halt the
German invaders, made the Danish surrender all the more painful for the
officers to accept.
P.R.E[. . .]’s diary entry from 1 August illustrates the sentiment among
younger members of the officer corps in the months following the inva-
sion. P.R.E[. . .] and his peers experienced deep sense of personal and
national shortcoming and the unequivocal desire to rearrange the politi-
cal and social structures responsible for this failure:
The mood in the officer corps is as such: the older officers (staff officers and all
those commissioned before and during the World War, 1914–1918) continue to
believe in democracy, they believe that we are going to continue just as before 9/
4 in a liberal slumber . . . the younger [officers] are clear about the fact that the
old system is done. . . . Parliamentarism in its present form is done. Our govern-
ment has betrayed us (and the Rigsdagen too). . . . We are bitter, partly toward
our superiors, many of whom should be fired (just like 1848), but mostly at our
government and parliament, who are after all responsible. Something has to give.
The way things are now cannot continue. Our superiors should have demanded,
forced the military to be fully prepared. . . . Countless of our superiors proved
themselves on 9/4 to be useless or tired, without initiative, scared for their own
skin, just out for themselves.17

The shock of 9 April on the Danish officer corps was not limited to
those officers who later joined the Waffen-SS. After E[. . .] joined the
Waffen-SS, for example, his former commanding officer wrote to him
that he understood the decision as Denmark had only itself to blame
for being an occupied country. To E[. . .], he wished all the best; to the
Germans, he wished “a decisive victory in Russia because a Russian
victory would be disastrous for the North.”18 Similarly, a former officer
comrade of Waffen-SS volunteer C.P. Kryssing testified at the latter’s
trial in 1946 that, “it was a terrible time for Danish service men after
the 9th of April when they were literally told to sit with their hands
between their legs.”19

17
PR E[. . .], Notitser, in RA, FOARK 1010/90c, Kaptajn E[. . .]s.
18
W[. . .] to E[. . .], 12 January 1942, in RA, PA P.R.En. 6926/1 Materie vedr. FK Danmarks
Historie, 1946–1985.
19
Tillfælet Kryssing, in RA, FOARK 1010/90A. Besættelsestidens Arkiv 1940–1945.
96 Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS

Although many officers seem to have been deeply shaken by the

Danish surrender, most of those who would later become officers in the
Waffen-SS resented the Danish nation as well as the government and the
staff officers. The sense that the Danish people had failed in their duty is
starkly present in all of these men’s diaries, letters, and public utterances.
Without a doubt, their alienation from their own people, the people they
would claim to represent throughout the war, began on 9 April 1940.
A  letter from Kryssing a few days after the occupation is typical. Like
most officers, he voiced his disgust at the government and the citizens
who elected it. “What I predicted occurred, what contemptible govern-
ment we have, and what contemptible nation we belong to, because the
government is chosen by the nation.” The fact that democratic insti-
tutions allowed an unworthy government to ascend to power, a view
many officers shared, was only the beginning of Kryssing’s argument.
He continued, “I regard myself far from all civilians. I see an enemy in
them all, that is every one of them who has never sacrificed anything
serious for the country’s defense.”20 In a radio address to the Danish peo-
ple in the summer of 1941 aimed at recruiting more volunteers to the
Danish Legion he had recently been appointed to lead, Kryssing called
on the population to join in the crusade against Bolshevism to prove the
worth of the Danish people. “We cannot fail, neither as a people nor as a
nation,” he proclaimed.21
It is notable that several of the men who later joined the German
war effort at first contemplated fighting against the German invad-
ers. Martinsen, who was enrolled in a general staff officer’s course at
Frederiksberg Castle in Roskilde, called on his fellow classmates to “fight
from the castle to the last man and the last bullet against the occupying
power.”22 When this plan failed and the officer course was disbanded,
Martinsen returned home, where his family feared he was suffering from
a mental breakdown. In the weeks that followed, he contemplated flee-
ing to England, joining its military, and carrying on the fight against
Germany.23 Schalburg’s reaction was similar. At the time of the invasion,

20
Quoted in Christensen, Poulsen, and Scharff Smith, Under Hagekors og
Dannebrog: Danskere I Waffen-SS 1940–1945, 49.
21
“Bolschevismen er en dødelig Fare for Danmark! Oberstløjtnant C.P. Kryssing Tale i
den Danske Radion den 9. Juli 1941,” RA, FOARK 1010/90D. Besættelsestidens Arkiv
1940–1945.
22
Frank Bøgh, K.B. Martinsen, Officer og Landsforræder (København:  Forlaget
Documentas, 2006), 35.
23
Ibid.
 From Belief to Action 97

he was serving in the volunteer battalion in Finland. After receiving word

of the German occupation, Schalburg broke down in tears, according
to his men. Once he recovered, he sought desperately to engage the bat-
talion in the defense or reconquest of Denmark.24 His father, suspecting
his son’s likely reaction, immediately wrote a letter in which he urged
Schalburg not to waste his life uselessly.25
Although neither Martinsen’s nor Schalburg’s attempts to resist the
Germans came to fruition, the impulse is telling. More than any others,
these two men came to symbolize military collaboration with the enemy
for Danes after the war. Yet during the German invasion of 9 April, they
both responded with an overwhelming desire to meet the attack with
force. They were not born traitors, waiting for an opportune moment
to aid the enemy. Instead they saw themselves primarily as patriots who
were willing to die for Denmark. Throughout their later service to the
Nazi regime, they believed they were risking their lives and killing others
for Germany and Denmark.
In Denmark, 9 April 1940 led many officers to the conclusion that they
could no longer serve their country best by remaining in the Danish army.
The development of Frontist politics and the Swiss government’s clamp-
down on Frontism in the summer and fall of 1940 served a similar func-
tion in Switzerland. Some Swiss men, like their Danish counterparts, saw
no contradiction between their Swiss and their Germanic patriotism. For
example, Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Erwin Jäger, a Swiss officer suspected
of harboring Frontist sympathies, wrote to his commander in May 1940,
“I would firstly like to point out that I too have sworn an oath to the
flag! Just because out of love and loyalty to our people I every now and
then allow myself a different perspective and understanding of important
questions, that does not give anyone the right to question my loyalty to
my home and flag!”26
The Swiss right was shocked by the failed Totalrevision referendum
of 1935 (discussed in the previous chapter) by which they had sought
to create a more authoritarian Swiss state through a popular vote. After
this setback, most of the Nationale Front’s leadership and members
continued unsuccessfully to advance the same agenda. Others, however,
including most of the Frontists who would later join the Waffen-SS lead-
ership corps, abandoned the isolated-Swiss line and turned their gaze

24
Kirkebæk, Schalburg: En Patriotisk Landsforræder, 130–32.
25
Ibid., 133.
26
Dr. Erwin Jäger to Generaladjutant Dolfuss, 28 May 1940, in BAR, E 27/4754.
98 Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS

to Germany and the NSDAP. The German Anschluss with Austria and
its incorporation of the Sudetenland – actions the Nazi regime justified
as part of integrating all Germans into the Reich  – encouraged these
Swiss National Socialists to develop the idea of an organische Lösung,
an “organic solution,” to the looming question of Switzerland’s future.
Instead of a disruptive move – such as the Frontist coup many of their
comrades advocated  – the future neutral volunteers believed that they
could and should steer their country and Germany toward what they
saw as a natural and inevitable union or association. Especially after the
Anschluss in 1938, these Swiss fascists believed that they should naturally
come next. Keller, for example, openly called for German intervention to
“save” Switzerland. He argued that as Germany was more closely related
to Switzerland than Russia and its looming “Bolschewistenherrschaft,”
or reign of Bolshevism, Germany had not only the right but the duty to
intervene and protect the “Germanic-German peoples.”27
This search for an organic solution made large parts of both the
Swiss and German political establishments nervous. Beginning in 1937
many of the Frontist leaders and future Waffen-SS volunteers undertook
frequent trips to Berlin to recruit German aid and support. Although
Dr.  Franz Riedweg, as we have seen, was successful in garnering favor
at the highest levels of the SS and Foreign Ministry – and by 1940 was
actively trying to involve the SS in a forced Anschluss of Switzerland with
Germany – most other such attempts were politely brushed off. Future
volunteer Dr.  Friedrich Weilenmann, for example, sent regular reports
to the German intelligence service, or Sicherheitsdienst (SD), updating
it on the Swiss political situation and keeping it informed of persons he
thought were particularly dangerous.28 Although the SD accepted these
reports, its officers remained wary of what they characterized as a Swiss
attempt at creating a form of “Europa-Union,” in part because it seemed
to the SD to contain Masonic undertones.29

27
Dr. Max Leo Keller to Dr. H. Kramer, Betr. Meine Strafklage gegen die Herausgeber der
“S.Z. am Sonntag, 25. April 1939, Eduard Behrens und Fritz Lieb,” p. 13, in AfZ, NL
Max Leo Keller, 3. Frontistische Tätigkeiten.
28
Weilenmann, Betr.:  Theobald F[. . .], 2 April 1936, in BA, R 58/1031, 6–10. For
Weilenmann’s eliminationist anti-Semitic utterances in the prewar period, see Urteil,
p. 40. Benno Schäppi and Charles ten Brinks also served as informants for the Referat VI
des SD-Leitabschnittes Stuttgart. See, Urteil, pp. 16–17.
29
Betr.: Europa-Union, Schweizerische Bewegung für die Einigung Europas, 6 June 1935,
in BA, R 58/6242.
 From Belief to Action 99

The SD’s assessment of the Swiss National Socialists did not improve as
the war in the West began. In October 1940 the SD prepared a report for
Himmler and Hitler on Swiss National Socialism, which explained that
The Swiss “renewal” movement of National Socialist inclination has suffered
from the beginning from divisions, personality weakness, and ideological inse-
curity. The numerical weight of the movement is much too small and will remain
too small to use the great upheaval of the times to force a political change. The
Frontists and their program are mistrusted by the masses because they see in them
opportunists who are preparing themselves to take a share of the future spoils.30

Several Swiss had, like Dr. Riedweg, drawn similar conclusions and had
left the party and Switzerland altogether. The way to enact an organic
solution, Riedweg believed, was to prove to the German regime that the
Swiss were prepared to sacrifice themselves in the fight for Europe and
inspire their countrymen by their example. More followed Riedweg’s
example. In May 1940, before the Waffen-SS had begun officially accept-
ing Germanics into their ranks, a mere 120 Western Europeans had man-
aged to join. Half of these were Swiss.31
The mass arrest of Frontists in the summer of 1940 propelled even
greater numbers of Swiss to follow this lead.32 In November, the Front
and its successor organization, the NSB, were outlawed after years of
increasing attention by the police and the media.33 Many of those
arrested had already made up their mind to leave for Germany by the
time they were released. Schäppi, who had been imprisoned since July
1939, left the same day he was released.34 The Swiss government’s anti-
Nazi actions convinced those who, like Schäppi, had clung to the hope
of effecting an organic solution that the tactic would never work from
within Switzerland.
Although the arrests encouraged several Swiss to act on a decision
they had contemplated for some time, it cannot, of course, be seen as the
sole reason for joining. They did not go to Germany to escape further
judicial problems; most of them sat out their sentences before departing.

30
Stellungsnahme zu den augenblicklichen Vorgängen innerhalb der schweizerischen
Erneuerungsbewegungen, October 1940, in BA, R 58/1031.
31
Gingerich, “Toward a Brotherhood of Arms:  Waffen-SS Recruitment of Germanic
Volunteers, 1940–1945,” 73–74.
32
Reichlin, Kriegsverbrecher Wipf, Eugen:  Schweizer in der Waffen-SS, in Deutschen
Fabriken und an Den Schreibtischen des Dritten Reiches, 31.
33
Urteil, p. 29.
34
Amnestiegesuche, Benno H. Schäppi, Regensdorf, 20 January 1951, p. 2, in BAR, E 4320
(B), 1970/25/Band 77, C.2.713.
100 Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS

Max Keller, for example, admitted after the war that “police harassment”
had little to do with his decision. Instead, he based his decision on “con-
viction.”35 The arrests merely served as a final inducement to men already
committed to working for what they thought was the future of the coun-
try and Europe. They now chose to do so through other means.

Integrating the Early Volunteers

into the Waffen-SS
Although some volunteers had a military background, many did not. In
either case, the incoming Germanic volunteers would have to be taught and
socialized into Waffen-SS culture and routines, as well as being prepared for
combat. As Germanic recruits began to trickle in after the successful cam-
paign in the West in the summer of 1940, Berger at the SS-HA turned his
attention to creating concrete structures and processes for the integration
of Germanic volunteers into the SS. Earning a spot in the Waffen-SS and
becoming versed in its norms, however, did not guarantee the Germanic
volunteers’ acceptance by German SS members.
In November 1940 Gottlob Berger’s Ergänzungsamt in the SS-HA –
the Waffen-SS recruitment office  – bought a run-down asylum in the
Alsatian town of Cernay, recently rechristened Sennheim in the spirit
of ‘germanizing’ the new German province of Elsass (the formerly
French province Alsace). In the spring of 1941, the Sennheim Lager, as
it become known, was placed under the supervision of the education
department of the Germanische Leitstelle. It was here that all admit-
ted Germanic Waffen-SS recruits would be sent for pre-military training
and screening.36 To the great annoyance of Hans Jüttner and his staff at
the SS-FHA, responsible for Waffen-SS combat operations and training,
the Sennheim Lager provided neither military training nor screening.
Instead, the primary emphasis was to launch recruits on the course to
“political soldierdom.”37 The Germanische Leitstelle used training at
the Lager to assure that its potential soldiers were good representatives
of Germanic “racial stock” and National Socialist values and, equally

35
“Die politische Amnestie. Eine Tat der Gerechtigkeit und Versöhnung,” in AfZ, NL Max
Leo Keller, 4.1 Prozessunterlagen.
36
Little has been written about Sennheim. For a summary of the camp’s development,
see Vopersaal to BAMA, Betr.:  Anfage der Landesversicherungsanstanlt Rheinprovinz,
Bezug: SS-AL Sennheim, 17 December 1970, in BAMA, N 756/336a.
37
“SS-Ausbildungslager Sennheim,” pamphlet published by Germanische Leitstelle (no
date, presumably 1943), in BAMA, N 756/336a.
 Integrating the Early Volunteers into the Waffen-SS 101

importantly, capable of conducting the political work that would be

required of them in the future. The SS-FHA, in contrast, was primar-
ily concerned with the production of capable soldiers. Many of the
Germanische Leitstelle’s most promising young officer recruits would
subsequently be thrown out of the Waffen-SS by the SS-FHA for their
military inadequacies.38
By the end of May 1940, fewer than five hundred Germanics belonged
to the SS. The following summer, before Germany launched its massive
invasion of the Soviet Union, the number of Germanics in the Waffen-SS
had risen to just below three thousand.39 But the conflict between the
SS-HA and the SS-FHA over what roles these recruits should play, and
how they should be treated, was already pervasive. A site of early conflict
between the two was the military base at Klagenfurt, the staging ground
for the newly created SS-Regiment “Nordland.” Although Himmler and
Berger had intended to fill the unit with Scandinavian recruits, the German
officers under the SS-FHA’s supervision proved completely unprepared
and unwilling to deal with non-Germans. The German officers mistreated
the three hundred Danes who volunteered brutally. As a result, all but
fifty had gone missing, had weaseled their way out of service, or had been
thrown out by German officers by the end of 1940.40 In another instance
in the early winter months of 1940, a group of one hundred Flemish
volunteers turned their backs on the Waffen-SS and walked off their base
and straight back to Belgium.41 Reports by disgruntled Germanics, on the
one hand, and by the SS-FHA, on the other, flooded the SS-HA during the
first year of recruitment.
Berger later lamented that the blatant mistreatment of these early
volunteers discouraged an unknown but potentially large contingent of
future volunteers. Similarly, he believed that the great number of poten-
tial volunteers who were rejected on racial grounds increased resentment
against the Nazi regime in the Germanic countries  – though of course
he and Riedweg had been proponents of racial standards as crucial to
the organization’s claim to represent a National Socialist elite.42 Once the

38
See, for example, SS-HA to SS-FHA, 9 February 1942, in BAMA, N 756/336a.
39
Gingerich, “Toward a Brotherhood of Arms:  Waffen-SS Recruitment of Germanic
Volunteers, 1940–1945,” 109.
40
Christensen, Poulsen, and Scharff Smith, Under Hagekors og Dannebrog:  Danskere
I Waffen-SS 1940–1945, 84–86.
41
De Wever, ““Rebellen” an der Ostfront. Die Flämischen Freiwilligen der Legion
“Flandern” und der Waffen-SS.”
42
Berger, Speech at Tagung des Förderkreis des Germanischen Leitheften, Magdeburg, 28
April 1942, in BA, NS 19/1878.
102 Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS

Germanische Leitstelle became fully operational in the spring of 1941,

working to rectify the mistreatment of volunteers would be one of its
primary tasks.
In the meantime, however, Berger managed to score one success. As the
majority of Germanic volunteers were slated for the SS-Division “Wiking”
(initially known as “Germania“), Berger managed to have Felix Steiner, a dis-
tinctly Germanic-oriented officer, appointed as its commanding General.43
Steiner had been a successful Reichswehr officer until he quit in 1933,
convinced that the military lacked a spirit of innovation. He joined the SA
but in 1935 transferred to the newly formed SS-VT, the forerunner to the
Waffen-SS.44 Like Berger, Steiner embraced the idea of integrating worthy
non-Germans into the Waffen-SS. During the course of the war, Steiner and
Riedweg developed a close working relationship and friendship and appear
to have shared a vision of a pan-Germanic army with great hopes for its
political potential. Although the Germanic components of “Wiking,” the
regiments “Nordland” and “Westland,” had already been assembled under
the supervision of various German Waffen-SS units throughout Germany,
Steiner sought to recruit like-minded officers upon taking over command
of the division in December of 1940. He additionally consolidated the divi-
sion’s training and assembly around his headquarters at Munich.
One of the earliest Germanic officers to join “Wiking” was the Dane
Christian Schalburg who left for Berlin in late September 1940 imme-
diately after his return from fighting in Finland.45 In October he was
assigned to the training unit of the SS-Regiment “Germania,” the third
(and mostly German) regiment of “Wiking.” His commanding officer, SS-
Obersturmbannführer Werner Dörffler-Schuband – who would later com-
mand the SS Officer Cadet School Tölz – was favorably impressed with
Schalburg and made a special note of his “greater Germanic thoughts.”46
Once “Wiking” began taking shape at the end of 1940, Schalburg was
transferred to Steiner’s divisional staff. Steiner, too, was impressed with
the young officer.47 Indeed, there is some evidence to suggest that Steiner’s

43
For an overview of Steiner’s background and pro-Germanic orientation, see Karl Heinz
Mathias, Felix Steiner: General der Waffen-SS und Seine Europäischen Freiwilligen; Eine
Umfassende Darstellung (Riesa: DS-Verlag, 2002).
44
See Steiner’s CV, in BA, NS 19/1667, 14.
45
Dienstlaufbahn, in BA, SSO (BDC) 69B, Schalburg, Christian von.
46
Beurteilung Christian von Schalburg, SS-Ostubaf. Dörffler-Schuband, 12 November
1940, in BA, SSO (BDC) 69B, Schalburg, Christian von.
47
Beurteiling Christian von Schalburg, Felix Steiner, 10 October 1941, in BA, SSO (BDC)
69B, Schalburg, Christian von.
 Integrating the Early Volunteers into the Waffen-SS 103

distinctive fighting style – a type of modern, mobile warfare known as

the “Steiner Model” – drew heavily on training methods Schalburg had
pioneered as an instructor in the Danish military.48 The extent to which
Schalburg, as a staff officer in “Wiking,” helped develop its particular
battlefield character and its strong sense of “fighting community” – an
aspect that countless veterans would later eulogize – is hard to measure.
Nevertheless, the similarities between their styles once again serves as a
reminder that the volunteers were not empty vessels waiting to be filled
by the Germans. Steiner and Schalburg were on the same page in terms of
military doctrine and the need for a Greater Germanic Reich long before
meeting each other.
But for all his success at endearing himself to the German officers of
“Wiking,” Schalburg did not escape the bureaucratic kinks and harass-
ment leveled at Germanic volunteers. By the middle of December 1940,
three months after being admitted into the Waffen-SS, the SS-FHA had
not yet recognized his rank as a SS-Hauptsturmführer – the rank granted
to him by the SS-HA and roughly corresponding to his previous rank as
Captain in the Danish army. Although Schalburg was carrying out the
duties expected of a SS- Hauptsturmführer and company commander,
the SS-FHA’s recalcitrance prevented Schalburg from receiving his pay.49
The issue would not be resolved until the following January.50
Schalburg was not the only Danish officer who joined the Waffen-SS
before the summer of 1941. In May a group of three mid-level officers –
K.B. Martinsen, P.R. E[. . .] and Bent Worsøe-Larsen – signed up for the
Waffen-SS and were sent immediately from Copenhagen to the SS Officer
Cadet School Tölz. By the end of the month, another seventeen Danes
would have joined them at the school. The Waffen-SS had four schools for
training its officer corps: the two original ones, in Braunschweig and Bad
Tölz; and two newer ones in Prague and Klagenfurt. Himmler boasted
of the revolutionary nature of these schools, as they had both high racial
and physical standards but were open to anyone, despite their social
background.51 All Germanic officer candidates received their training

48
Wegner, The Waffen-SS:  Organization, Ideology and Function, 184–85; Kirkebæk,
Schalburg: En Patriotisk Landsforræder, 70–77.
49
V. Schalburg, Div. Stabsquartier, to Kommando der Waffen-SS, SS-FHA, 12 December
1940, in BA, SSO (BDC) 69B, Schalburg, Christian von.
50
Dienstlaufbahn, in BA, SSO (BDC) 69B, Schalburg, Christian von.
51
Document 1918-PS, Himmler’s Address to the Officers’ Corps of the SS Leibstandarte
(Bodyguard Company) “Adolf Hitler,” 7 September 1940, p.14, in IMT, 29 Trial of the
Major War Criminals before the International Military Tribunal 101 1948.
104 Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS

at the school in the idyllic Bavarian mountain town of Bad Tölz. Along
with the divisions “Wiking” and “Nordland” and the Germanische
Leitstelle, the school at Tölz became a hotbed for Germanic thought
within the Waffen-SS. Although all schools were theoretically under the
SS-FHA’s control, the Germanische Leitstelle managed to assume greater
influence in the running of the school at Tölz through close personal con-
tacts with the school staff and the Germanische Leitstelle’s mandate over
the ideological indoctrination of Germanic volunteers.52 The three Danish
officers were immediately impressed with the school’s modern facilities as
well as the organization’s self-proclaimed emphasis on equality and merit
rather than education or civilian status.53 The feeling was mutual: their
instructor was favorably impressed and concluded that they were more
than qualified to retain their Danish Army ranks in the Waffen-SS. After
completing their training, the three Danes were assigned to the 1st SS
Brigade which was engaged in what was euphemistically termed “anti-
partisan” duties (during the month the Danes were there 44,125 Jewish
“partisans” were killed with the loss of only two Germans).54
Although the largely uncoordinated recruiting efforts in 1940 and
early 1941 resulted in meager overall numbers of Germanic volunteers,
the more intellectually inclined officer and leadership corps volunteers
needed little prodding to be convinced. Himmler had decided that
although Swedes and Swiss would be accepted into the Waffen-SS, no
official recruitment effort would be launched in either country.55 Even
so, a group of Swedish university students, the most prominent of whom
would be Heino Meyer, completed their university semester before seeking
a way to join the Waffen-SS in early June 1941.56 Meyer inquired about
joining the Waffen-SS at the German embassy in Stockholm. Staffers at
the embassy refused to give him travel money or advice, but they did gave
him an address in Oslo where, should he successfully cross the border,

52
Fritz Ulrich, Die Grossgermanische/europäische Reichsidee und die Waffen-SS, p.  15,
in WPA.
53
See, PR E[. . .], Min første Føling med Vaaben-SS, in RA, PA E[. . .], 8.  Bøgh, K.B.
Martinsen, Officer og Landsforræder, 43.
54
Christopher Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish
Policy, September 1939-March 1942 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004), 311.
55
Berger to RF-SS, Betr.:  Werbung in Schweden, 29 August 1940, in AfZ, NL Franz
Riedweg, ungeordneter Bestand and Himmler to Berger, 4 September 1940, in AfZ, NL
Franz Riedweg, ungeordneter Bestand. It was also decided not to officially recruit in
Switzerland. See, for example, Niederschrift Sitzung AA, 30 June 1941, in NARA, T-120/
2459, accessed at AfZ.
56
Laufbahn, in BA, SSO (BDC) 313A, Meyer, Heino.
 Integrating the Early Volunteers into the Waffen-SS 105

he could enquire about joining the Waffen-SS. Meyer, who unlike many
other potential Swedish volunteers possessed a valid passport from pre-
vious travels and benefited from the fact that Swedish police had not
yet sealed the border, traveled legally to Norway in late June. When he
arrived in Norway two days before the invasion of the Soviet Union,
however, he was told that he fell two centimeters short of the SS’s strict
height requirements. But Meyer was not easily dissuaded; although he
had never belonged to a national socialist organization, he convinced
the recruitment officers of his ideological position and his commitment
to fighting for a better Europe. After a week of haggling, Meyer was
allowed to join on 3 July and was put on a train bound for Sennheim.
Should Meyer have had any doubts, it would have been easy for him to
back out – the train traveled through Sweden on its way south.57 His let-
ters home from Sennheim to his family in Stockholm reveal a young man
simultaneously eager to be thrown into battle and inclined to agree with
the worldview pushed by his German and Germanic mentors. While he
appreciated the new vocabulary and anecdotes he was being taught for
understanding the world, he nevertheless told his parents that he did not
feel that he was being indoctrinated.58
By this point, another young Swede had been working for the Nazi
regime for nearly two years. Like Riedweg, Thorolf Hillblad had dabbled
in various political parties and organizations aiming at overcoming what
he perceived to be Sweden’s malaise and moral decline. As a teenager he
had risen to a leadership post in the Swedish Communist Party before
associating with both the Lindholmare and Fururgårdare fascist parties.59
In the summer of 1940, the twenty-two-year-old Hillblad was one of the
few foreigners accepted to the prestigious journalism and international
politics program at the Humboldt University, Berlin. This new program
was meant to groom future Nazi diplomats and correspondents.60 While
studying full-time, Hillblad made contact with the Propaganda Ministry
and the Foreign Ministry. In a letter sent directly to Ribbentrop, Hillblad
advocated for a Swedish-language radio broadcast to compete with the

57
Protokoll över förhör hållet å kriminalavdelningens station tisdagen den 8 maj 1945 med
studeranden Karl Gunnar Heinrich (Heino) Meyer, in RASA, SÄPO PA Karl Meyer.
58
See letters 3 July through 19 July 1941 in Postkontroll, in RASA, SÄPO PA Karl
Meyer.
59
Stockholms Polis, Kriminalavdelning  – Sammanställning P.M. 5/12  – 1944, in RASA,
SÄPO PA Thorolf Hillblad.
60
Niclas Sennerteg, Tyskland Talar: Hitlers Svenska Radiostation (Lund: Historiska Media,
2006), 13.
106 Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS

BBC in influencing Swedish public opinion.61 Ribbentrop acquiesced, and,

in November of 1940, Hillblad broadcast the first Swedish-language Nazi
newscast from the powerful transmission tower at Königsberg. Hillblad,
who somewhat remarkably was allowed to write his own scripts without
any editing by German officials, placed a great emphasis on “objectivity,”
as he saw it.62 Like Riedweg, Hillblad was convinced of the overwhelm-
ing cultural ties between Sweden and Germany and the inevitable tide of
National Socialism. He did not see his work as propaganda in the decep-
tive sense – in his mind he was not selling a foreign idea to an unwilling
crowd. By reporting on the war from an objective stance – objective as he
saw it from his fascist worldview – Hillblad thought he was simply aiding
the natural process of greater alignment between Sweden and Germany.
His first broadcast invited Swedes to listen with open minds:
Dear listener. We begin our Swedish-language broadcast tonight and ask for your
attention. We are aware that we are speaking to citizens of a neutral nation, which
just like the German Reich’s neighbors is linked culturally and economically, but
also through numerous personal relations from human to human. . . . We have the
same right as the others to make our voice heard. But German radio is not in
the habit  – this you have perhaps already noticed yourself  – to heap so-called
propaganda onto you. We leave this method to our enemies. . . . Above all we will
use the time we have in our brief radio addresses to give you a factual overview
of the day’s events around the world. We are convinced that you will confirm our
goodwill and we hope that not just today but again and again at this time you will
tune your receivers to this frequency – Reichs-broadcast Königsberg in Swedish.63

A Swedish government commission concluded after the war that the

German propaganda effort had presented one of the gravest threats to
Sweden during the conflict. In particular, during the first years of the
conflict (1940 and 1941) many Swedes had apparently not objected to
Hillblad’s message.64 With few noticeable success by the summer of 1941,
however, Hillblad, like many of his future Swiss colleagues, decided that
service in the Waffen-SS was the most assured method of achieving his
homeland’s salvation.65

61
Ibid., 14.
62
Stockholms Kriminalavdelning, 19 Februari 1941, in RASA, SÄPO PA Thorolf Hillblad.
63
Hillblad Radioadress, 20 November 1940, p. 1, in WPA. Also in BA, R78/58. See also
SÄPO’s monitoring of the radio station in RASA, SÄPO Sakakt 140:0311 Radiocentralen
i Königsberg.
64
“Den Tyska Propagandan I Sverige under Krigsåren 1939–1945,” ed. Staatens Offentliga
Utredningar (Stockholm: Kungl. Boktryckeriet, 1946), 10–11.
65
The Swedish radio program employed a host of other capable and intelligent young
Swedes, although Hillblad and Gösta Borg were the only two who also served in the
Waffen-SS. See Sennerteg, Tyskland Talar: Hitlers Svenska Radiostation, 239–53.
28 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

Himmler’s mind not merely occupying valuable land but constituted an

existential threat to German rulers. On the other end of the spectrum
was the Germanic race. Although far from a clearly defined concept,
the idea that northwestern Europe was populated by a culturally and
racially related people preceded the Nazi ascent to power.8 Geographers
such as the Swede Rudolf Kjellen and the German Karl Haushofer pub-
lished a variety of works in the first decades of the century, arguing for
a union across northwestern Europe’s traditional nation states. They
moreover suggested that this Germanic area had the right to dominate
its surroundings.9
It follows that an organization built on the concept of race would be
open to the admission of foreign citizens considered of equal racial stock.
Thus as early as 1938, Himmler proclaimed, “I really do have the inten-
tion to gather Germanic blood from the whole world, to rob it, to steal it
wherever I can.”10 At the same time, Himmler proclaimed that it was his
goal to unite the Germanic peoples into a Greater Germanic Reich.11 Few
Nazi officials disagreed with the general sentiment that Scandinavians,
for example, were the racial equals of Germans. The practical implica-
tions of these beliefs, however, caused constant tension within the SS and
the regime at large. Hitler, whose belief in what he referred to as the
Aryan race was unwavering, nevertheless cautioned on numerous occa-
sions that foreigners, especially those conquered by Germany, should
never be armed.12 Numerous SS officers and other regime functionaries
agreed with this sentiment, setting the foundation for a fundamental and
irresolvable conflict at the very core of the SS.
Nowhere would this tension be more evident than in the work of the
Germanische Leitstelle, the office within the SS tasked with recruiting
Germanic volunteers for the Waffen-SS and preparing the ground for the
Greater Germanic Reich. The very fact that the office was led by a non-
German Germanic, the Swiss Dr.  Franz Riedweg, proved the source of
never-ending contention between Riedweg’s boss, SS General and Head

8
Bernard Mees, “Hitler and Germanentum,” Journal of Contemporary History 39, no. 2
(2004): 255.
9
See Rudolf Kjellen, Der Staat Als Lebensform (Leipzig:  Hirzel, 1917); Karl Haushofer,
“Die Weltpolitische Machtverlagerung 1914 und die Internationalen Fronten der
Panideen,” Deutschlands weg an der Zeitenwende (1931): 208–232.
10
Himmler, Führerbesprechung, 8 November 1938, in BA, NS 19/4005.
11
Longerich, Heinrich Himmler:  A  Life, 386; André Mineau, SS Thinking and the
Holocaust (New York: Editions Rodopi, 2011), 25.
12
See, for example, Adolf Hitler, Hitler’s Secret Conversations, 1941–1944 (New  York:
Farrar, 1953), 353.
108 Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS

Operation Barbarossa, as the invasion was code-named, was never just

the next logical strategic move in Germany’s war plans. The invasion
of the Soviet Union was fundamentally linked to Nazi ideology. From
the start, the conflict against the Soviet Union was a “racially and ideo-
logically driven war of conquest and annihilation” built on Nazi beliefs
about the inferiority of Eastern peoples and the corrupting influence of
“Jewish Bolshevism.”70 Since his publication of Mein Kampf in 1924,
Hitler’s anti-Bolshevik rhetoric had remained unrelenting. This ideolog-
ical element would be crucial in the conduct of the war and the occupa-
tion of the East. The conflict went deeper than a mere hatred of Marxism,
however. Hitler and the Nazis viewed Slavs and Jews as subhuman and
their land as vitally important to the German Reich’s future. The concept
of Lebensraum was closely linked to this racial ideology: the East would
become the new colonial domain for Germany.71
The ideological foundations of the war in the East were operation-
alized in three orders during the summer of 1941, collectively known
to historians as the Criminal Orders. The Criminal Orders set the legal
framework under which the invasion force would be allowed to oper-
ate and legitimized the murder of noncombatants on principle. Reprisals
against villages were henceforth legal if individual partisans could not be
apprehended. Civilians caught committing any “illegalities” would also
be denied the right to appear in a military court. Moreover, Wehrmacht
troops were instructed to liquidate all Bolshevik commissars. In his final
order, Hitler called for “ruthless and energetic measures against Bolshevik
agitators, irregulars, saboteurs, and Jews, and the total eradication of any
active or passive resistance.”72 Thus although Riedweg and his Germanic
cohorts were busy making plans for a Germanic Empire in the West, other
SS officers were envisioning the murder and enslavement of millions of
people living in the East. The SS Einsatzgruppen, which followed behind
the Wehrmacht, immediately set to work realizing this goal. Just one of
these four execution squads, the Einsatzgruppe A, murdered 229,052
Jews and political commissars in the first two months of the conflict.73

70
Manfred Oldenburg, Ideologie und Militärisches Kalkül:  die Besatzungspolitik der
Wehrmacht in der Sowjetunion 1942 (Köln: Bühlau, 2004), 1.
71
Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe, 149.
72
Ben Shepherd, War in the Wild East: The German Army and Soviet Partisans (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 53; Kershaw, Hitler, 1936–45. Nemesis, 357.
73
Karl Dietrich Bracher, Die Deutsche Diktatur:  Entstehung, Struktur, Folgen des
Nationalsozialismus (Frankfurt: Ullstein, 1979), 460.
 “Crusade Against Bolshevism” 109

The genocidal and colonial dimensions of the German war against the
Soviet Union were not immediately apparent to most Western Europeans.
Indeed, the neutral governments’ response to Operation Barbarossa were
initially somewhat warm, fueled by a long-standing respect for Germany
as a cultured nation and a pervasive fear of Bolshevism. The Danish gov-
ernment, at the request of the German representative Cécil von Renthe-
Fink, cut diplomatic ties with the Soviet Union and interned foreign as
well as Danish communists.74 Moreover, without a German impetus,
the Danish government (after some deliberation) issued a proclamation
reaffirming its neutrality but supporting the German effort in defending
“common European interests.” The proclamation expressed hopes for a
swift victory.75 The Swedish and Swiss governments uttered equally unso-
licited words of support for the German cause.
Although the Swedish and Swiss governments forbade and actively
sought to prevent their citizens from volunteering to the German armed
services, they were not immediately opposed to its citizens’ contributions
to the fight against Bolshevism. Any such contribution, however, had to be
made strictly under government’s control. Just a few days after the begin-
ning of the campaign in the East, a Swedish Liberal Party Parliamentarian
stated, in what may have been a common sentiment: “If we have to join
the war, it seems to me that no decision is imaginable but to join the side
of Finland and Germany against the Soviet Union.”76 In late July 1941,
the Swedish government offered (through the German military attaché
in Stockholm) to send a group of Swedish officers, with ranks as high as
general, to aid the German war effort.77 This offer was put to Riedweg,
who demurred on the basis that the Waffen-SS had no use for Swedish
officers unless they could be trained by and integrated into the Waffen-
SS. Berger and Himmler agreed.78 Although this unsolicited offer was
declined, the Wehrmacht accepted an offer from the Swiss government
to send medical personnel to the Eastern Front to aid German troops.
The first group of eighty Swiss combat doctors and nurses, led by Major
General Eugen Bircher, who would later become an influential Swiss

74
Henning Poulsen, Besøttelseaarene 1940–1945 (Aarhus:  Aarhus Universitetsforlag,
2002), 76.
75
Werther, Dänische Freiwillige in der Waffen-SS, 65.
76
Stig Ekman, “La Politique De Défense De La Suède Durant La Seconde Guerre Mondiale,”
Revue d’histoire de la deuxième guerre mondiale 1, no. 125–128 (1982): 6.
77
Riedweg, Besprechung über ausländische Kriegsfreiwillige im AA, 8 July 1941, BA, NS
19/1871.
78
RF-SS Stab, Brandt, date illegible, in NARA, T-175/106, 26229028.
110 Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS

politician, left by the end of the summer and returned to Switzerland in

the final days of 1941. Three more such Swiss groups of doctors eventu-
ally served in German field hospitals before the war was over.79
Unlike the Swiss and Swedish governments, the Danish government
did not forbid its citizens from joining the Waffen-SS. Of course the ele-
ment of German coercion, or perceived coercion, was greater. Unlike
France and other defeated Western European nations, Denmark remained
largely independent and in charge of its own affairs during the first years
of the war. After the German invasion in April 1940, von Renthe–Fink,
a diplomat, had been appointed Reich plenipotentiary and tasked with
overseeing the Danish government. Yet he did so with a tiny staff of one
hundred some Germans and had strict orders not to intervene in the day-
to-day running of the Danish government.80 The Danish King remained
on the throne, and parliamentary elections continued freely up until
1943. As long as this “model protectorate” continued sending its copious
surplus of dairy produce to Germany, the Nazi regime was happy to let
the Danes take care of themselves.81
With this background, then, it appears unlikely that the German
regime exerted much pressure on the Danish government to contribute
to the war effort in the East, although this was the line taken by the
Danish government after the war. The more likely explanation is that the
government, faced with the possibility of a long occupation, believed it
best to show limited acquiescence to the new masters of the continent in
hopes of prolonging favorable terms with Germany. Neither the govern-
ment nor its military officially sanctioned recruitment for the Waffen-SS
on its terrain nor encouraged any of its soldiers to join, yet it repeat-
edly assented when volunteers asked for permission. K.B. Martinsen, for
example, who volunteered before Operation Barbarossa, explicitly asked
for permission from his superiors before leaving for the Waffen-SS. In a
letter to Martinsen dated 8 May 1941, the Danish War Ministry assured
Martinsen that he could be placed on leave – not dismissed – during his
absence and wished him the best of luck.82 After over a year of service
in the Waffen-SS and a summer of heavy combat on the Eastern Front,

79
Reinhold Busch, Die Schweiz, die Nazis und die Erste Ärztemission an die
Ostfront: Schweizer Ärztemissionen Im II. Weltkrieg, vol. I (Berlin: Frank Wünsche, 2002).
80
For a good overview of Denmark’s relationship to the Reich from 1940 to 43, see,
Umbreit, “Auf dem Weg Zur Kontinentalherrschaft,” 46–50.
81
Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe, 104.
82
T.K. Thygessen, Chef for Krigsministeriets 1. Kontor to K.B. Martinsen, 8 May 1941, in
KB, Acc. 2008/8 K.B. Martinsen, 1905–1949, officer, II. Personalia.
 “Crusade Against Bolshevism” 111

Martinsen wrote to the Danish Embassy in Berlin, asking for permis-

sion from the Danish royal house to wear his recently earned German
Iron Cross. In September 1942, the embassy responded that the King had
granted him permission.83
This incident is telling of the Danish government’s approach, but even
more so of Martinsen’s understanding of his role. Fully committed to
the Waffen-SS and the German war effort, Martinsen’s repeated efforts
to receive Danish approval for his achievements indicates that he felt at
least partially responsible to the Danish state. His decision to fight for
the Waffen-SS, then, did not, in his mind, conflict with his position as a
Danish officer. His engagement in the war, in the uniform of a foreign
country, was an extension of his service as a Danish officer. Other Danish
officers and soldiers behaved similarly. P.R. E[. . .], for example, repeatedly
updated the Danish War Ministry of his unit and rank in the Waffen-SS –
communications the SS might have considered espionage had they been
intercepted.84
After the invasion of the Soviet Union, the greatest influx of Danish
volunteers to the German war effort flowed not to the general Waffen-SS
but rather to the Danish Legion, the Freikorps Danmark. Such legions
had also been established in other occupied countries in the months fol-
lowing Barbarossa. These supposedly national, and nominally indepen-
dent, units would, however, be fighting under German command. In fact,
as we will see with the case of the Danish Legion, the Germanic legions
quickly became subsumed by the Waffen-SS, to the point that the distinc-
tion between Legionnaires and Waffen-SS men became irrelevant by the
following summer.
Although some authors have proposed that the Legions originated as a
German idea, there is no evidence that anyone in the SS had foreseen their
existence.85 The legions in fact formed spontaneously throughout occu-
pied Europe.86 When Hitler, the Wehrmacht, and the Waffen-SS agreed to
place these national units within the German chain of command in July,
it appears that the Germans had every intention of leaving the Legions
largely independent – they were to be subject to the country-of-origins’

83
Kongelige Dansk Gesandtskab, Berlin, 3 September 1942, in KB, Acc. 2008/8 K.B.
Martinsen, 1905–1949, officer, II. Personalia.
84
See, for example, T.K. T[. . .], Chef for Krigsministeriets 1. Kontor to PR E[. . .], 13 June
1942, in RA, PA P.R.En. 6926, 1. Materie vedr. FK Danmarks historie 1946–1985.
85
Stein, The Waffen SS: Hitler’s Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945, 152–53.
86
See Gingerich, “Toward a Brotherhood of Arms:  Waffen-SS Recruitment of Germanic
Volunteers, 1940–1945,” 172.
112 Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS

military laws and outfitted in national uniforms with the addition of

a small German insignia  – a useful tool in the emerging propaganda
message of a European fight against Bolshevism. The Waffen-SS agreed
to supervise Legions from Germanic countries  – Denmark, Norway,
Holland, and Belgium’s two ethnic regions of Flanders and Wallonia  –
while the Wehrmacht would oversee the remaining legions.87 So-called
Legionnaires could apply to the SS, but they were not automatically
admitted upon joining a legion. The result of this policy decision was that
Germanic volunteers to the German war effort were now essentially on
two separate tracks: within the Waffen-SS proper or as nominally inde-
pendent Legionnaires under SS supervision. Over the next two years, the
Germanische Leitstelle moved to assert greater control over the legions,
a process which continued until the legions were officially dissolved and
incorporated into the Waffen-SS in the spring of 1943.
In the Danish case, von Renthe-Fink reported only two days after the
invasion that his office was being flooded with inquiries from Danes who
wished to join the war.88 He immediately began negotiating with the
Danish government about the possibility of creating a volunteer force
similar to that sent to Finland. Initially reluctant to concede, the Danish
government and the War Ministry eventually agreed to let civilians who
had completed their military service join and to allow active Danish offi-
cers and soldiers to take leave, with the promise that their positions and
ranks would be honored upon their return.89 Meanwhile DNSAP leader
Frits Clausen, who had somewhat reluctantly supported recruitment of
his men into the SS-Regiment “Nordland,” called on his followers to join
the Danish Legion.90 The prospects of a closed-Danish unit promised
greater control and bargaining power for the Danish Führer, but neither
the Danish nor the German authorities were eager for the Legion to align
itself too closely with the local National Socialist movement. The party
did, however, contribute a significant base of the Freikorps Danmark’s

87
See, for example, Niederschrift Sitzung AA, 12 July 1941, in NARA, T-120, 2459,
accessed at AfZ.
88
Gingerich, “Toward a Brotherhood of Arms:  Waffen-SS Recruitment of Germanic
Volunteers, 1940–1945,” 180.
89
Afskrift, Krigsministertiet, til Tjenstebrug, 8 July 1941, A. 2764/4059, in RA, FOARK,
90A. These conditions of service would be reiterated in 1943. Document 17, in Kossens,
Militärischer Führernachwuchs der Waffen-SS: Die Junkerschulen, 385. For an excellent
summary of the Danish government’s deliberation, see Werther, Dänische Freiwillige in
der Waffen-SS, 67–74.
90
Gingerich, “Toward a Brotherhood of Arms:  Waffen-SS Recruitment of Germanic
Volunteers, 1940–1945,” 180.
 “Crusade Against Bolshevism” 113

volunteers. For this reason, Berger initially allowed Clausen’s organiza-

tion to handle recruitment, though he quickly reneged on the offer.91
Despite Clausen’s early involvement, it would be an exaggeration to
suggest that the Freikorps Danmark was essentially a DNSAP legion.
For example, of the dozen highest-ranking Legion officers who were
also DNSAP members, only two had joined the party before 1940.92
Moreover, the man slated to lead the Legion was C.P. Kryssing, a Danish
officer with no affiliation with the DNSAP.93 For Kryssing, leading the
Legion offered an opportunity to redeem his country’s failure of 9 April
1940 and to defend Denmark against what he called “our civilized coun-
try’s mortal enemy the Bolsheviks.”94 After being approached by numer-
ous comrades about the possibility of leading the Freikorps, Kryssing
requested permission of the War Ministry.95 Although the War Ministry
approved, Kryssing’s direct superior was decidedly cooler to the idea,
writing that Kryssing could not serve under German command, whether
in Finland or elsewhere, and should resign his commission as a Danish
commander.96 In this opinion, Kryssing’s superior seems to have been in
the minority, and the War Ministry’s opinion ultimately prevailed.
The enthusiasm for the Legion in Denmark appears to have been real.
Kryssing was bombarded with fan mail when his leadership of the legion
was announced. One man wrote to apologize sincerely that he would
be unable to join the Legion but assured Kryssing that he would defend
Denmark’s honor at home.97 A few days later, Kryssing delivered a radio
address that stressed the independent, Danish nature of the corps. When
the first group of some four hundred men departed on 19 July 1941, they
were waved off by crowds of cheering Danes and several Danish officers
and ministers.98 But representatives of the DNSAP and the German occu-
pation authorities watched, too; beneath the enthusiasm a power struggle
over the Legion was brewing. Once in Germany, Kryssing would find his
supposedly nonpolitical, national unit pulled in three directions: toward

91
Ibid., 181.
92
Frikorpsets officerer tillhør til DNSAP, in RA, PA P.R.En. 6926, 9.
93
Tilfælet Kryssing, March 1946, in RA, FOARK, 90A.
94
Kryssing to R[. . .], 15 January 1943, in RA, FOARK, 90A.
95
Afskrift, Hollbbæk den 30/6 1941, in RA, FOARK, 90A.
96
Afskrift af Chefen for 2. Feltartilleriregiments Skrivelse, Fortroligt Nr. 49, 30 June 1941,
in RA, FOARK, 90A.
97
Forstassistenten Vagn J[. . .] to Kryssing, 7 July 1941, in KB, Utilg. 842, C.P. Kryssing, II./
1.
98
Estes, A European Anabasis: Western European Volunteers in the German Army and SS,
1940–1945, 2. Crusade and propaganda, 5.
114 Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS

the DNSAP in opposition to German Nazi interests by officers loyal to

Clausen; toward military efficiency (which meant greater integration
into the Waffen-SS) by Jüttner of the SS-FHA; and toward the Germanic
Waffen-SS movement by Riedweg and Berger.
A similar phenomenon played out across Europe. A Norwegian Legion
formed under the command of Norwegian Major Jørgen Bakke at the
end of July, though in Norway the SS had to intervene and encourage the
formation of the Legion more so than in other cases.99 By the following
summer, the 1,150-strong Freikorps Norge would be severely battered in
its first engagement around the Leningrad front. In Holland, the leader
of the national fascist party, the NSB, like Clausen, saw an opportunity
to create a private army. In Holland, the idea for a legion had originally
been broached by the leader of the smaller competing fascist party, the
Nationale Front. After a week of reluctance, the NSB’s Anton Mussert
called on his members to join.100 Mussert’s much larger movement soon
dominated the legion.101 This worried both Berger and Himmler, who
preferred non-NSB men – they appeared to make better soldiers, had no
competing ideological commitment, and the NSB men were needed to fill
the ranks of the unpopular labor service in Holland.102 The twenty-two-
hundred-strong Dutch legion would be the largest Germanic legion, sur-
passed only by the non-Germanic French and Spanish Legions.103 Based
on the SS’s racial logic, Belgium supplied not only one, but two legions,
one Flemish and one Wallonian.104
Although no spontaneous legion emerged in Sweden or Switzerland –
their completely independent governments made this an impossibility –
the Germanische Leitstelle deliberated whether or not such units should
be established independent of Swiss and Swedish government approval.
Immediately following the invasion of the Soviet Union, the German
embassy in Bern reported a number of Swiss enquiring about the possi-
bility of forming a Swiss Legion.105 The embassy received word at the end

99
Ibid., 2. Crusade and propaganda, 8.
100
Gingerich, “Toward a Brotherhood of Arms:  Waffen-SS Recruitment of Germanic
Volunteers, 1940–1945,” 191.
101
For a summary of the formation of the Dutch legion, see Gerhard Hirschfeld, Nazi Rule
and Dutch Collaboration (Oxford: Berg, 1988), 288–300.
102
Himmler, 24 June 1940, in NARA, T-175, 63/2578840.
103
Estes, A European Anabasis: Western European Volunteers in the German Army and SS,
1940–1945, 2. Crusade and propaganda, 11.
104
Niederschrift Sitzung AA, 12 July 1941, in NARA, T-120, 2459, accessed at AfZ.
105
Gesandschaft Bern to AA Berlin, 7 August 1941, in NARA, T-120, 2459, accessed
at AfZ.
 “Crusade Against Bolshevism” 115

of September that a Swiss legion would not immediately be possible, due

both to insufficient volunteers and the anticipated resistance of the Swiss
government. Swiss volunteers should continue to be encouraged to enlist
as individuals in the regular Waffen-SS.106 Berger and Riedweg toyed with
the idea as late as January 1942, but no Swiss legion was ever created.107
The idea of a Swedish legion fizzled out even sooner. At a conference
with representatives from several German government and military
branches on 7 July 1941, Riedweg announced that work had begun on
such a Legion.108 However, after the Waffen-SS declined the Swedish gov-
ernment’s offer to send Swedish officers to the front, the Swedish govern-
ment decided in early September to forbid any of its citizens from serving
in any foreign army except the Finnish, effectively ending any plans for
an official Swedish legion.109
The spontaneous formation of German legions across occupied Europe
provides additional evidence for Germanic Waffen-SS volunteers’ pre-
existing desire to join the German forces, even separate from SS recruit-
ment efforts. Across Europe, eager fascists jumped at the opportunity
to join a European crusade against Bolshevism. In fact, when a French
newspaper first declared that the Eastern Front was “Europe’s war and
that therefore it had to be conducted for Europe as a whole,” Hitler was
outraged.110 To him the war was, above all, Germany’s, and it needed no
one’s support – only obedience. In the middle of July Hitler gave a clear
directive that the war should not be portrayed as being waged on behalf
of Europe.111 Within the regime, however, various actors recognized a
grand opportunity to reach out and integrate Europe under Germany’s
lead. To the Germanische Leitstelle, the crusading sentiment of Western
Europeans, evident in the formations of the legions, was evidence of the
“organic solution” beginning to unfold. As such, the office worked hard
to tie the European fight against Bolshevism into the Germanic past.
A recruitment poster in Denmark showed a modern storm trooper with a

106
Auswärtiges Amt to Gesandschaft Bern, Betr.: Einstellung ausländischer Freiwillige, 21
September 1941, in NARA, T-120, 2459, accessed at AfZ.
107
Berger to Himmler, 14 January 1942, Bericht:  Ins Reich geflohene schweizerische
Nationalsozialisten, in AfZ, NL Franz Riedweg, 4.
108
Brandt to Berger, 23 July 1941, in BA, NS 19/3518.
109
Berger to RF-SS, September 1942, “Bericht über die Arbeit der germanischen Leitstelle
Norwegen,” in BAMA, N 756/333c.
110
Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe, 320.
111
Michael Salewski, “Europa:  Idee und Wirklichkeit in der Nationalsozialistischen
Weltanschauung und Politischen Praxis,” in Europas Mitte, ed. Otmar Franz
(Göttingen: Muster-Schmidt, 1987), 139.
116 Joining the Burgeoning Waffen-SS

silhouette of a Nordic Viking in the background.112 Similar posters were

created for the various nationalities. For the Germanische Leitstelle and
its Germanic officers, the war was more specifically Germanic Europe’s
struggle, evident by their refusal to oversee the French and other non-
Germanic legions.
On 6 November 1941, the Germanische Leitstelle, which had already
unofficially been in charge of coordinating the integration of the Germanic
legions into the Waffen-SS command structure (in cooperation with the
SS-FHA), was officially given responsibility over the legions.113 This
appointment, and indeed the war against the Soviet Union, provided the
office with new opportunities as well as a growing dilemma. Its efforts
to recruit suitable Germanic men to form the future elite were made con-
siderably easier after Barbarossa. By the end of the year the number of
Germanic volunteers in the Waffen-SS – not including those in the legions
and the some twenty-two thousand French and other non-Germanic vol-
unteers – jumped from three thousand to twelve thousand.114 By contrast,
the taxing war against the Red Army made the Waffen-SS’s demands for
more manpower even more insatiable. As the quantity of soldiers grew,
their quality  – at least in the eyes of the Germanische Leitstelle  – suf-
fered. Already in April 1940, the Waffen-SS had been forced to set up a
new division, “Nordwest,” composed of Dutch and Flemish volunteers
who, while eager to fight, did not meet the rigid requirements for admis-
sion into the SS. With the incorporation of the legions into the Waffen-SS
over the coming year, the Waffen-SS began developing different racial
categories of Waffen-SS soldiers. Thus Himmler’s demand for more divi-
sions and more soldiers began contradicting the Germanische Leitstelle’s
efforts to establish a small elite of Germanic soldiers. The dilemma of
quality versus quantity was not to be resolved.
Within a month of Operation Barbarossa, most of the highly capa-
ble and motivated leadership corps volunteers had found their way to
Germany. In July alone, five Swiss volunteers, four of whom had their
doctorates, fled to Germany and began working for the Germanische
Leitstelle.115 Several Swedes and Danes were not far behind. Over the
112
See RA, FOARK, 1010/90A.
113
Gingerich, “Toward a Brotherhood of Arms:  Waffen-SS Recruitment of Germanic
Volunteers, 1940–1945,” 203.
114
Ernst Klink, Joachim Hoffmann, and Gerd Überschar, “Der Krieg Gegen die Sowjetunion
Bis Zur Jahreswende 1941/ 42,” in Das Deutsche Reich und der Zweite Weltkrieg: Band
4. Der Angriff Auf die Sowjetunion, ed. Horst Boog, et al. (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-
Anstalt, 1983), 911.
115
Fink, Schweiz Aus der Sicht des Dritten Reiches, 52.
 “Crusade Against Bolshevism” 117

next two years they would work together, sometimes at the initiative of
but almost always in contact with Riedweg, to establish a Germanic com-
munity within the Waffen-SS. They were beginning to take up posts as
instructors at Tölz, where young Germanic officers would be trained; at
the Germanische Leitstelle; in the propaganda units of the Waffen-SS; and,
above all, in the combat formations on the Eastern Front. Between the
summers of 1941 and 1942, the Germanische Leitstelle grew immensely
in both size and influence. So, too, did the organization’s problems and
opposition to its initiatives. These efforts at creating a Germanic commu-
nity, a bond that they hoped would carry over into the Greater Germanic
Reich, are the focus of the following chapter.
32 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

organization committed to the National Socialist principles embodied by

the SS.
The Waffen-SS managed to attract more recruits than it was allowed
to admit. In part, this may have been based on the appeal of the more
explicitly political aims of the organization compared to the military
more generally. The unscrupulous practices of the man in charge of the
recruitment effort, the gregarious Bavarian Gottlob Berger, were, how-
ever, at least equally responsible.25 A decorated veteran of the First World
War, Berger had joined the Nazi party as early as 1922 and the SS in
1936. In December 1939, Himmler placed Berger in charge of the newly
created SS-Ergänzungsamt, or recruitment office, as well as the main SS
administrative office, the SS-HA.26 Berger’s career would be marked by
conflict with the heads of institutions he believed were obstructing the
proper development of the Waffen-SS. Friends and foes within the orga-
nization referred to him as the “Almighty Gottlob” – a play on words as
Gott means God in German.27 Under an agreement between the branches
of the military, the Waffen-SS was allowed to enlist only a limited number
of the total available conscripts each year  – in 1939, for example, the
Waffen-SS was allowed to enlist 2 percent of all eligible men. The Army
received 66 percent, with the remaining conscripts divided between the
Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine. Berger and his officers continually ignored
the agreed-upon quota and recruited as many Waffen-SS soldiers and
officers as they could.28
Like Himmler, Berger was a strong advocate for the SS as an orga-
nization that “could not stop at artificially drawn borders.” Thus, he
claimed in 1944 that the recruitment of Germanic volunteers had been
his and Himmler’s intention since long before the war began.29 It would
not be until after the conquest of Denmark, Norway, and the Benelux
countries in the spring and summer of 1940 that this could become a
large-scale reality for the SS. By that point, however, Berger was not the
sole propagator of Germanic policy in the SS. One of his and Himmler’s

25
On Berger’s early work on recruitment, see Gerhard Rempel, “Gottlob Berger and
Waffen-SS Recruitment 1939–1945,” Militärgeschichtlsiche Mitteilungen 27, no. 1
(1980).
26
Surprisingly few studies of Gottlob Berger exist. For a limited overview of his life and
career, see Ronald Smelser and Enrico Syring, eds., Die SS: Elite Unter dem Totenkopf
(Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh, 2000), 47–53.
27
Robert Lewis Koehl, The Black Corps: The Structure and Power Struggles of the Nazi SS
(Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1983), 236.
28
George H. Stein, The Waffen SS:  Hitler’s Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945 (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 1984), 93–96.
29
Berger speech at Luftfahrtsministerium, 1944, in BA NS 33/213.
 Building a Germanic Europe 119

racial policy in the Germanic territories. Thus, by the end of the summer,
it had been given an expanded mandate as the department in charge of
Germanic work and the “foreign policy” of the SS.
This chapter explores the “Germanic work” of the Leitstelle and its
related offices through two key projects. Of all the Germanic countries
in which it worked, the Germanische Leitstelle was most influential in
Denmark. Since the German invasion of 1940, the SS had maintained an
ever-growing presence in the country, with officers sympathetic to Berger
and Riedweg’s aims. Moreover, the comparative success of the Freikorps
Danmark vis-à-vis other Germanic Legions and the availability of highly
motivated and competent Danish Waffen-SS officers made it an ideal
country for Berger and Riedweg to implement their plan for a Greater
Germanic Reich.
In the summer of 1943, the Leitstelle attempted to create an all-
Germanic combat unit. This second case study of the Leitstelle’s work
illustrates the organization’s attempts to create a politicized Germanic
warrior elite from non-German volunteers. As part of the creation of
this III. Germanic Panzer Corps, the various Germanic Legions were
subordinated to the Germanische Leitstelle’s control. This move repre-
sented both a great victory for the Germanische Leitstelle and a sign
of its limits. Having finally secured control over a large, all-Germanic
unit, the Leitstelle found that it had far too few Germanic recruits to fill
it. Instead, the unit would be manned primarily with Volksdeutsche  –
“racial” Germans – from the East.
In both cases, Germanic leadership corps volunteers, especially from
the neutral countries, were intimately involved in the process of creat-
ing a Greater Germanic Reich. Whether by conceptualizing its tenets
or transmitting them to other volunteers and the masses at home, these
neutral volunteers actively participated in racial propaganda and war-
time atrocities. While their contributions at the SS Officer Cadet School
at Tölz, and the training camp at Sennheim (as will be seen in Chapter
Five), and the SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers can be retraced in detail through
an abundance of primary sources, the destruction of the Germanische
Leitstelle’s records makes their role within that office more difficult to
uncover. We do know, however, that neutral Germanic officers formed
a large part of the office’s staff, and, as a collective, it is fair to assume
that they contributed greatly to the work of the office. The Germanische
Leitstelle, in turn, played a key role in developing and operationalizing
Nazi racial ideology throughout the war.
120 Building a Germanic Europe

Expansion of the Germanische Leitstelle

A host of SS agencies, academics, and administrators followed the tracks
of the Wehrmacht’s advance in the East. Hitler and Himmler planned
to use the East to provide Germany with Lebensraum. After depopulat-
ing the area by exiling, starving and murdering its residents, everything
from the landscape to architecture would be “Germanized.”1 Although
there are many parallels to previous colonial endeavors – many of them
not lost on the Nazis themselves – the unique role of the Nazi state, the
swiftness with which the plans were to be carried out, and the scale of the
resulting genocide made this project unique in human history.2 The gas
chambers at Auschwitz and the construction of “German” farmhouses in
the Ukraine were all connected to the comprehensive imperial scheme for
much of Eastern Europe, what the SS called the Generalplan Ost.3 These
projects rested not only on economic considerations, but on a worldview
in which racial dimensions were paramount.4 Jews, and to a lesser degree
Slavs, posed a permanent threat to the wellbeing of the German volk. At
the same time, Germans were suffocating within the constricted post-
Versailles borders. Thus, the only salvation for Germany, Hitler, Himmler,
and their sycophants believed, lay in a war of conquest, annihilation, and
rebuilding in the East.

1
See, for example, Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn, “Violence as the Basis of National Socialist
Landscape Planning in the “Annexed Eastern Areas”,” in How Green Were the Nazis?
Nature, Environment and Nation in the Third Reich, ed. Franz-Josef Brüggemeier, Marc
Cioc, and Thomas Zeller (Athens:  Ohio University Press, 2005); Trevor J. Barnes and
Minca Claudio, “Nazi Spatial Theory: The Dark Geographies of Carl Schmitt and Walter
Christaller,” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 103, no. 3 (2013).
2
Jürgen Zimmerer, “Holocaust und Kolonialismus. Beitrag Zur Archälogie des Genozidalen
Gedankens,” Zeitgeschichte für Geschichtswissenschaft 51, no. 12 (2003); Mazower,
Hitler’s Empire:  How the Nazis Ruled Europe. For a critique of the supposed link to
“colonial projects,” see Robert Gerwarth and Stephan Malinowski, “Hannah Arendt’s
Ghosts:  Reflections on the Disputable Path from Windhoek to Auschwitz,” Central
European History 42, no. 02 (2009).
3
Wendy Lower, “A New Ordering of Space and Race: Nazi Colonial Dreams in Zhytmoyr,
Ukraine, 1941–1944,” German Studies Review 25, no. 2 (2002). On the Generalplan Ost,
see, for example, Isabel Heinemann, “Wissenschaft und Homogenisierungsplanungen
Für Osteuropa:  Konrad Meyer, der “Generalplan Ost” und die Deutsche
Forschungsgemeinschaft,” in Wissenschaft  – Planung  – Vertreibung:  Neuordnungskon
zepte und Umsiedlungspolitik Im 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Isabel Heinemann and Patrick
Wagner (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2006); Rössler and Schleiermacher, Der “Generalplan
Ost.” Hauplinien der Nationalsozialistischen Planungs und Vernichtungspolitik.
4
On the interaction of economic motives with Nazi racial considerations, see Tooze, The
Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy, 461–64.
 Expansion of the Germanische Leitstelle 121

The East provided an irresistible focus for the Nazi regime’s most ambi-
tious agencies, being the home of millions of racial enemies and offering
a vast potential for resource exploitation. Thus, as part of the conquest,
most SS offices engaged in racial work turned their efforts and focus pri-
marily Eastwards. In particular, Heydrich’s RSHA and the offices for
the Reichskommissar für die Festigung deutschen Volkstums (Reich’s
Commissioner for the Consolidation of Germandom) eagerly worked to
put the regime’s genocidal plans in action.5 However, some SS agencies, pri-
marily of course the Germanische Leitstelle, recognized that the outcome
of the war and the National Socialist revolution hinged on the peripheral
Germanic nations. With a vast reservoir of racially valuable people and a
small group of already eager collaborators, uniting the area within a Greater
Germanic Reich would consolidate Germany’s continental hold and harness
the full potential of the Germanic race. Supervising the regime’s relations to
Germanic Europe was exactly the role for which the Germanische Leitstelle
had been created. Even more so than in the East, however, there was no
coordinated plan on what to do with the occupied Western territories. Thus,
at the same time as the Leitstelle was developing and beginning to imple-
ment its plans, the uncoordinated rush among competing government agen-
cies with a stake in the West posed a threat to its mandate and plans.
Throughout the fall of 1941 and spring of 1942, Riedweg attempted,
with Berger’s support, to increase the size, competency and influence of
the Germanische Leitstelle vis-à-vis other SS offices and departments of
the regime. By this point, every conceivable organization and institution
within the regime was moving to gain whatever it perceived it needed from
the newly occupied territories. The result, Berger wrote, was that “com-
pletely independent of one another and with the now well-known knack
for competition, each [player] is jumping at the Germanic countries and is
trying to carry out their work there.” Berger feared that this would “make
a bad impression on the German-oriented portions of the population.”6 It
was imperative, therefore, that the Leitstelle move to assert its sovereignty
over Germanic work, both to assure that the SS would become the most
influential actor in Western Europe and that the work to create a Greater
Germanic Reich could unfold in an orderly fashion.7

5
Ibid., 463. In the East, too, the SS had to compete with a host of other Nazi institutions,
such as the Reich Ministry for the Occupied Easter Territories.
6
Berger to Himmler, Betr.: Germanische Leitstelle, 5 November 1941, in NARA, T-175, 74/
2592355.
7
See Niederschrift einer Unterredung mit Dr. Franz Riedweg, 22 November 1955, p. 8, in
IfZ, ZS669, Riedeg Franz.
122 Building a Germanic Europe

After Barbarossa, the Foreign Ministry and the Nazi Party – not the
Germanische Leitstelle or the SS  – exercised the greatest influence and
control in the Germanic countries. In Denmark, a diplomat represented
Germany’s interest. In both Norway and the Netherlands, old party men
were assigned to supervise the German occupations. Both of these men,
Josef Terboven in Norway and Arthur Seyss-Inquardt in the Netherlands,
sought to replicate in the countries they supervised the party’s road to
power in Germany:  a mass party movement followed by a legal revo-
lution.8 When Hitler lost patience with this strategy in Norway, the
national party leader, Vidkun Quisling, was placed at the head of the
national governments.9
To Riedweg, Berger, and their Germanic allies, both of these strate-
gies were artificial and dangerous. All of the Germanic SS men, as we
have seen, had already lost faith in their own population’s resolve – they
recognized immediately that a legal revolution following mass party
enrollment was an unlikely outcome. Moreover, the very act of coming
to Germany signaled their lack of faith in the unpopular local Nazi lead-
ers. Instead, they believed that the creation of a Greater Germanic Reich
could only be assured through a careful re-education of the population
at-large, combined with the training of an elite group of political warriors
and administrators. It was not until the summer of 1942, however, that
this group of Germanic believers within the SS would attain the necessary
power to seriously begin this work.
The Germanische Leistelle’s budget posed the most immediate and
obvious hurdle to its influence. Originally established as simply one of
the SS-HA’s many departments, the office enjoyed a budget sufficient
for recruiting volunteers but not for conducting its own foreign policy.
Riedweg and Berger decided to seek additional money directly from the
Reich Treasurer, Franz Schwarz.10 Berger arranged to meet with Schwarz
just days after the commencement of Operation Barbarossa. At their
meeting, Berger outlined his plans to expand the regular (Allgemeine)
SS into the Germanic countries and hinted at the SS’s long-term plans
in the occupied territories. He mocked a host of competing Nazi admin-
istrators, including Hans Frank’s leadership in Poland, the Foreign
Ministry’s role in Norway and the work of Alfred Rosenberg, head of

8
Loock, “Zur “Grossgermanischen Politik” des Dritten Reiches,” 42, 46.
9
Ibid.
10
Niederschrift einer Unterredung mit Dr. Franz Riedweg, 22 November 1955, p. 6, in IfZ,
ZS669, Riedeg Franz.
34 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

After passing his medical exams in 1933, Riedweg completed his resi-
dency in a Berlin clinic, returning to Switzerland in 1934. Before return-
ing to Switzerland, however, Riedweg met his future wife Sibylle von
Blomberg, daughter of the then Minster of Defense Werner von Blomberg.
Although they would not marry until 1938, Riedweg’s engagement lent
him connections and credibility within the German establishment. On his
marriage application to the Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt – the SS office
in charge of assuring the racial purity of the organization – one of his two
mandatory references was none other than Army General Wilhelm Keitel,
who simply wrote “War Ministry” (Kriegsministerium) when asked for
his address.35 Riedweg’s contacts with high-ranking Nazi and SS officials
would prove important for his work throughout the war.
Back in Switzerland, Riedweg, along with the Parliamentarian Jean-
Mary Musy, formed the Action Suisse contre le Communisme (Swiss
anti-Communist League). Riedweg later admitted that one of the goals of
the Action was to use the fear of communism to consolidate conservative
power across Europe.36 By this point, influenced by völkisch thinkers in
Germany, Riedweg had abandoned the potentially liberal implications of
Pan-Europeanism and advanced a Germanic nationalism. As the secre-
tary of the Action, Riedweg traveled widely throughout Europe to meet
with foreign anti-Communist groups. Among these was the German Anti-
Komintern-Bewegung, led by Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop.
After several meetings with Ribbentrop, Riedweg was further introduced
to a series of high-ranking Nazi officials in 1936 and 1937, including
Himmler, Reinhardt Heydrich, Karl Wolff, and Joseph Goebbels.37
In addition to Himmler and Berger, Heydrich would, until his assas-
sination in 1942, play the most significant role in Riedweg’s career in
the SS. As the head of the RSHA since its creation in September of 1939,
Heydrich oversaw the German police forces, including the Gestapo and the
SD.38 Heydrich was the archetypical “fighting bureaucrat” SS officer: he
was not only the main architect of the Holocaust but participated in

35
BA, RuS (BDC) E5446, 1294. Keitel’s son Karl-Heinz married von Blomberg’s other
daughter Dorothea in January of 1938.
36
Niederschrift einer Unterredung mit Herrn Dr.  Med. Franz Riedweg, 22 November
1955, p. 2, in IfZ, ZS669, Riedweg Franz.
37
See ibid. p.  4. Joseph Goebbels was the Nazi propaganda minister. For more, see
Helmut Michels, Ideologie und Propaganda:  Die Rolle Von Joseph Goebbels in der
Nationalsozialistischen Außenpolitik Bis 1939 (Frankfurt am Main:  Lang, 1992). Karl
Wolff was in charge of Himmler’s office. See Jochen von Lang, Karl Wolff, der Man
Zwischen Hitler und Himmler (Berlin: Herbig, 1985).
38
Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten: Das Führungskorps des Reichsicherheitshauptamtes.
124 Building a Germanic Europe

work of the Germanische Leitstelle. In November 1941, the Waffen-SS

operational office, the SS-FHA, complained that many of the neutral
volunteers were being sent to concentration camp duty – something for
which they had not volunteered. Himmler sided with the SS-FHA and
forbid the use of Germanics as concentration camp personnel – a direc-
tive the SS-HA and its Germanische Leitstelle largely ignored.16 To the
staff of the Germanische Leitstelle, it was clear that the future guardians
of the Germanic Reich would have to be familiar with the workings of
the concentration camps, as these would presumably be set up in the
Germanic countries in the future. For the SS-FHA, in contrast, concen-
tration camp duty seemed an unnecessary and irrelevant distraction from
fighting the current war. Of course this episode, one of several squabbles
between the two competing SS offices, demonstrates that the men of the
Germanische Leitstelle fully intended the Greater Germanic Reich to be
as dark and brutal as the German one, whatever their postwar claims to
the contrary.
Local SS police commanders in the occupied Germanic countries also
complained about the Germanische Leitstelle’s influence. Technically, all
SS personnel and activity on foreign soil were under the authority of the
appointed Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer (HSSuPF). From the beginning,
however, the Germanische Leitstelle branch offices in Oslo, Copenhagen,
and Den Haag ignored the local HSSuPF. In December 1942, HSSuPF
“Northwest” Hans Albin Rauter wrote a series of angry letters to
Riedweg, Berger, and Himmler, complaining that (among other things)
the local Germanische Leitstelle branch was dispensing funds for vari-
ous projects without informing him.17 Berger replied that the accusations
were unfounded.18 Himmler, meanwhile, either stayed out or was kept out
of the issue. His personal secretary, Dr. Rudolf Brandt, instructed Rauter
and Berger to work the issue out for themselves. He further claimed that
he had not shown their letters to Himmler because he preferred to pro-
tect the Reichsführer-SS from unfinished business.19 Whether Himmler
actually knew about Rauter’s letter is not the point; the result is that two
branches of the SS, both of whose work Himmler valued and encour-
aged, remained at an impasse over who had the ultimate authority in the
Germanic countries. By March, however, Himmler intervened and made

16
See SS-FHA, Betr.: Versetzung von germanischen Freiwilligen als Bewachungspersonal zu
den Konzentrationslagern, 17 November 1941, in BAMA, N 756/234c.
17
See, for example, Rauter to RF-SS, 13 December 1941, in BA, NS 19/3647, 8.
18
Berger to Rauter, 18 December 1941, in BA, NS 19/3647, 11.
19
Brandt to Berger, Rauter, 31 December 1942, in BA, NS 19/3647, 12.
 Expansion of the Germanische Leitstelle 125

up his mind in favor of the SS-HA: the HSSuPF in the Germanic coun-

tries were instructed to respect the right of the Germanische Leitstelle to
recruit volunteers, to supervise and censor mail to the foreign Waffen-SS
members, to establish a Germanic SS, to supervise various youth and
adult Nazi organizations, and to coordinate the relationship between vol-
unteers and their homelands.20
A further blow to the security services came in May 1942 with the
assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the head of the RSHA. Heydrich had
been a serious challenger to Berger’s claim to authority in the Germanic
lands. Heydrich, like Berger, was clear that the Germanic lands would
have to be incorporated into the German Reich and that the respective
countries’ elites should be channeled through the SS.21 The question was
whether the SS-HA or the RSHA would oversee this process. It was to
Berger’s advantage that Heydrich’s real focus had always been the East.22
The RSHA was crucial in setting up the framework, infrastructure, and
organization of the Holocaust. Moreover, in September 1941, Heydrich
had been appointed Reich Protector of the former Czech territories of
Bohemia and Moravia, a task which further distracted his attention
from the Germanic lands. Since his appointment, Heydrich had sought
to “Germanize” the Czech lands by cataloguing the racial worth of the
entire population (a project never completed).23 At the end of January
1942, he and Berger met to discuss jurisdiction and cooperation between
the RSHA and the Germanische Leitstelle, at which point Berger again
downplayed his subordinates’ “political work.”24 Heydrich, who had
been in town primarily to chair the now-infamous Wannsee Conference
on the deportation and extermination of Jews from across Europe, left
Berlin shortly thereafter to continue his work in Prague.25 His death a few
months later helped to resolve the issue in Berger’s favor.
The question of the Germanische Leitstelle’s responsibilities vis-à-vis
the Foreign Ministry and the Party had to be negotiated between the
respective Nazi leaders, especially Himmler and Nazi Party Secretary
Martin Bormann. In early April, Berger complained in a memo to
Himmler that the Party was still trying to assert control over the Germanic

20
Dr. Brandt to Berger, 15 March 1942, in NARA, T-175/20, 2524945.
21
Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe, 207.
22
Gerwarth, Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich, 210.
23
Ibid., 250.
24
See Berger to Himmler, Betr.: Besprechung mit Heydrich, 27 January 1942, in NARA,
T-175/124, 2650207.
25
Gerwarth, Hitler’s Hangman: The Life of Heydrich, 209–11.
126 Building a Germanic Europe

countries. He urged the Reichsführer-SS to settle the issue once and for
all.26 Berger and Riedweg followed up with reports on visits to Norway
and Denmark, respectively. In Norway, Berger reported, the fifty-member
Allgemeine-SS was a complete failure, due entirely to the repeated inter-
vention of the Party and Quisling. Riedweg was equally troubled by what
he saw as the Foreign Ministry’s insistence on promoting Clausen and
his discredited DNSAP men to positions of influence in Denmark.27 That
same month, the Foreign Ministry refused to grant exit visas to several
key Danish “Germanic thinkers” who had been invited by Riedweg to
partake in a seminar in Germany.28 A series of letters between Berger and
members of the Foreign Ministry failed to resolve the issue.29
While Himmler often showed himself indifferent toward feuding
within the SS – in fact it he seems to have made a habit of issuing con-
tradictory mandates – he asserted himself vigorously on behalf of the SS
when it was threatened by other Nazi state organs. In the spring of 1942,
Himmler moved to assert the SS’s role in all “Germanizing” projects, both
in the East and the West. That year was the first in which the SS earned
enough money from its myriad business ventures, exploitation of camp
labor, and looting from murdered Jews to finance its operations inde-
pendently of the Reich’s or Party’s treasury, giving Himmler less to fear
from his competitors.30 Himmler’s plans for the “Germanization” of the
Eastern territories through exterminating, re-Germanizing, and resettling
millions of people was already, by this point, well under way.31 In April,
Hitler’s Führer Decree A 54/42 placed Himmler in charge of Germanizing
all of Europe, both East and West. Bormann, a regular rival of the SS, was
forced to perform the humiliating task of distributing Hitler’s order  –
which essentially acknowledged the SS’s ascension over the Party in for-
eign affairs  – to all Nazi offices. The order bestowed exclusively upon
Himmler the responsibility for dealing with Germanic peoples in Western

26
Berger to Himmler, 9 April 1942, in BA, NS 19/1576,
27
Berger to Himmler, 17 April 1942, in BA, NS 19/1576.
28
Berger to Himmler, 25 April 1942, in BA, NS 19/2457, 14.
29
See, for example, correspondence between Berger and Luther, May and June 1942, in BA,
NS 19/2457.
30
Milton Goldin, “Financing the SS,” History Today 48, no. 6 (1998): 30.
31
See, for example, Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe, 204–22. Rössler
and Schleiermacher, Der “Generalplan Ost.” Hauplinien der Nationalsozialistischen
Planungs und Vernichtungspolitik. For a counterfactual analysis of what a fully
implemented Generalplan Ost would have implied, see Michael Burleigh, “What If
Nazi Germany Had Defeated the Soviet Union,” in Virtual History:  Alternatives and
Counterfactuals, ed. Niall Ferguson (New York: Basic Books, 1999), 332–37.
 Expansion of the Germanische Leitstelle 127

Europe. Any related work by other agencies, including the Party, would
have to be cleared with the SS.32 Himmler, now given authority over all
Germanic work, officially passed the responsibility on to the SS-HA and
specifically the Germanische Leitstelle at the end of the month.33
The A 54/42 Decree was the ultimate vindication of the work Riedweg
and Berger – and various German and Germanic SS officers – had been
engaged in for nearly two years. Moreover, it signified the ascendance
of the Germanic project and the Germanische Leitstelle above the mere
recruitment of foreign volunteers for the Waffen-SS. This faction’s plan
for aligning the Germanic countries with the Reich, under its own leader-
ship, was now out in the open.
Hitler’s explicit approval for Himmler’s lead in this area did not,
however, stop the competition within the SS and other Nazi offices.
In November, the Foreign Ministry informed Berger that Ribbentrop
would officially ask Hitler to retract the Decree.34 The Foreign Ministry
recruited the Swiss National Socialist Franz Burri – an old associate of
Riedweg’s living in exile in Austria – to advise it on Swiss policy, an act
Riedweg saw as a personal insult.35 Although Himmler agreed, he was
unable to end the Foreign Ministry’s association with Burri.36 Bormann,
meanwhile, had requested that his men in the Netherlands and Norway,
Arthur Seyss-Inquardt and Josef Terboven, be allowed to pursue their
policies independently.37
Despite their resistance, Bormann and Ribbentrop must have real-
ized that the SS had by the summer of 1942 gained the upper hand.
Under Riedweg’s leadership and Berger’s supervision, the Germanische
Leitstelle had greatly expanded its authority and financial means. There
was as of yet, however, no uneasy truce between the many competing
factions in the occupied Germanic countries. Nevertheless, Riedweg and
his highly motivated and increasingly combat-experienced Germanic

32
As every SS office received a copy of the Anordnung A 54/42, it is found in numerous
record groups. See, for example, NARA, T-175/26, 2532934 or Fernschreiben, Bormann,
in BA, NS 19/3565, 20.
33
Vermerck, VII, Berlin 17. Sep. 1942 – Betr.: Einsetzung des RFs-SS als Zwischeninstanz
für den Verkehr der Partei mit den völkischen Gruppen des Grossgermanischen Raumes,
in BA, R 58/5970, 208. Also see, Madajczyk, “Das Hauptamt Für Volkstumsfragen und
die Germanische Leitstelle,” 262–63.
34
Berger to RF-SS, 3 November 1942, in BA, NS 19/3565.
35
Riedweg to Brandt, 2 November 1942, in BA, NS 19/1764.
36
Himmler to Bohle, 3 November 1942, in BA, NS 19/1764.
37
Bormann to Himmler, 5 October 1942, in BA, NS 19/3565. Himmler, for an unknown
reason acquiesced. See Himmler to Bormann, 24 October 1942, ibid.
128 Building a Germanic Europe

volunteers set about conceptualizing and implementing the plans for a

Greater Germanic Reich.

Coordinating the SS’s Germanic Work

The Germanische Leitstelle’s ability to carry out an effective
Germanization campaign in the Western occupied territories would
depend, in part, upon its ability to prepare the resident populations for
the coming Greater Germanic Reich. With its newly expanded budget in
hand, the Germanische Leitstelle began this Germanic political work in
earnest in early 1942. At this time, however, Riedweg and his staff knew
neither exactly what the Greater Germanic Reich would look like, nor
how it should be created. The only thing that was clear was that the
Germanic volunteers would play a primary role. To most Germanic vol-
unteers, including Riedweg, the idea of a racially based political reorgani-
zation of Northwestern Europe had emerged long before their admission
into the SS. Starting in 1942, the Germanische Leitstelle sought to give
these multiple and vague visions concrete form through a series of confer-
ences, working groups and internal meetings. At the same time, the office
strove to develop and implement strategies to move increasingly skepti-
cal populations toward the hoped-for ‘organic’ alignment with Germany.
These strategies centered mainly on the publication and distribution of
Germanic propaganda and the placing of Germanic volunteers in admin-
istrative positions. Through the volunteers’ stories of heroism at the front
and their personal examples of leadership at home, the Danish – and later
other Germanic – population would be won over.
In the summer of 1942, Riedweg developed a working group on the
Germanic area, Arbeitsgemeinschaft für den germanischen Raum, that
would meet monthly until the end of the war. The group primarily con-
sisted of representatives from the various SS offices, but it additionally
included some Party men and, occasionally, representatives from the
Foreign Ministry. Most of the group’s minutes were unfortunately lost,
making it difficult to gain insight into how the work, priorities, and self-
assessment of this group changed over time.38 The few existing minutes

38
Minutes are available for only two meetings. See the October 1942 minutes, Riedweg,
Monatsbericht/Oktober 1942, 20 November 1942, p. 2, in BA, NS 31/375, 6 and another
from a meeting in January of 1943. Minutes of the conference on 12 January 1943 at
1200 of the SS-Committee for General Labor in the German zone, took place at the SS-
Hauptamt, in IMT, 705-PS, 512–15 with a copy in 4, 1.2.1943, SSHA Berger an Staf.
Sievers (Amt Ahnenerbe):  Niederschrift über die Besprechung des SS-Ausschusses der
 Coordinating the SS’s Germanic Work 129

do show, however, that beneath the higher-ups’ territorial squabbling, the

mid-level functionaries at least attempted to coordinate their policies.39
By now, Riedweg’s relationship with the men of the foreign desk of the
RSHA had also improved.40 Of course he had himself worked at this desk
briefly during his training tour in the fall of 1940. While Heydrich and
Berger competed over jurisdiction in the fall and winter of 1941, Riedweg
continued to encourage cooperation between the two SS offices. Riedweg
particularly drew on the RSHA’s expertise on the publishing industry. The
RSHA had been collecting information on publishers, both friendly and
otherwise, since the mid-1930s, as part of their surveillance. In December
1941, Riedweg informed the office of his plans to publish a new maga-
zine aimed at both the volunteers at the front and their families and other
sympathetic readers in the Germanic countries.41 Dr. Franz Six, the RSHA
officer in charge of the foreign desk, wrote back to congratulate Riedweg
on an excellent project.42 Later, when Berger managed to outbid Heydrich’s
office for the monopoly on Germanic work, the Germanische Leitstelle con-
tinued to benefit from the RHSA’s research and knowledge of politics in the
Germanic territories. Dr. Josef Gürtler, for instance, who developed plans
and proposals for the academic underpinnings of the Greater Germanic
Reich, dutifully sent copies to Riedweg without any such material flowing
in the other direction.43
As the example of Gürtler suggests, Riedweg attempted to keep this
“cooperation” one-sided. When the RSHA asked for Riedweg’s help in
recruiting foreign academics with combat experience to join the RSHA in
the spring of 1942, he demurred, claiming that “no academically trained

Arbeitsgemeinschaft für den germanischen Raum am 12.1.1943 (Lage der germ. Arbeit
in den verschiedenen Ländern ohne Schweiz), in AfZ, NL Franz Riedweg, 4.
39
Minutes of the conference on 12 January 1943 at 1200 of the SS-Committee for General
Labor in the German zone, took place at the SS-Hauptamt, in IMT, 705-PS, 512–15.
40
For more on the Germanic work of the RSHA, see, Gerd Simon, “Germanistik und
Sicherheitsdienst. Germanisten Im SD-Hauptamt,” in Nachrichtendienst, Politische
Elite und Mordeinheit. Der Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers SS, ed. Michael Wild
(Hamburg:  HIS, 2003). Dr.  Josef Gürtler was an officer in the Amt VII. See BA, SSO
(BDC), Gürtler, Dr. Josef.
41
Riedweg to Six, Betr.:  Germanische Gemeinschaft, 1 December 1941, in BA, R 58/
5970.
42
Six to Riedweg, Betr.:  Germanische Gemeinschaft, no date, in BA, R 58/5970. Lutz
Hachmeister, Der Gegnerforscher. Die Karriere des SS-Führers Franz Alfred Six
(Munich:  DM, 1998), passim; Wildt, Generation des Unbedingten: Das Führungskorps
des Reichsicherheitshauptamtes.
43
See, for example, Richtungweisender Plan für die Erforschung des Grossgermanischen
Raumes, [undated, unsigned, likely Dr. Gürtler, June 1942], in BA, R 58/5970, 83.
130 Building a Germanic Europe

SS members from the West or North are available.”44 The statement

was deceptive. The Germanische Leitstelle did have access to dozens
of academically trained neutral volunteers who were only just return-
ing from front-line duty or training. They were unavailable only because
Riedweg intended to keep these men in his pipeline as future Germanic
administrators.
The Germanische Leitstelle had a similarly close relationship with the
RuSHA, the SS office in charge of screening the racial background of SS
applicants and in “safeguarding” the racial purity of the organization.
Several of the German members of the Leitstelle, most notably Riedweg’s
second-in-command Dr. Rudolf Jacobsen, had previously worked for the
RuSHA. One of the Germanische Leitstelle’s foremost experts on ques-
tions of volk, Dr.  Alexander Dolezalek, similarly had a long career in
the RuSHA behind him.45 From the start, the two offices had worked
closely together, especially in selecting potential Germanic members for
the Waffen-SS and in preparing materials for ideological instruction.46
Although the RuSHA and the Germanische Leitstelle worked
well together (at least until 1943), they remained independent of one
another. In contrast, the Leitstelle basically absorbed the functions of the
Ahnenerbe, another SS office devoted to racial studies. Himmler had cre-
ated the Ahnenerbe in 1935 as a Nazi research group committed to fur-
thering Germanic studies. The group of scientists, archeologists, musicol-
ogists, and other social scientists spent the next ten years on expeditions
to the far-off corners of the world, including Tibet and South America, in
search of proof of the accomplishments of the Germanic forefathers. Its
members moreover explored the Soviet Union behind the front and con-
ducted “studies” on concentration camp inmates. Throughout, they were
mandated to share their findings with the public through articles, books
and presentations.47 Like the Waffen-SS, the Ahnenerbe had succeeded in

44
SS-HA, Amt VI to Chef der Sicherheitspolizei und der SD, 20 February 1942, in BA,
R 58/5970, 62. “Wissenschaftlich vorgebildeter SS-Angehöriger aus dem West- oder
Nordraum.”
45
Isabel Heinemann, “Rasse, Siedlung, Deutsches Blut.” Das Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt
der SS und die Rassenpolitische Neuordnung Europas (Göttingen: Wallstein, 2003), 613.
See also Gerd Simon, “Chronologie Alexander Dolezalek.” Accessed online at http://
homepages.uni-tuebingen.de/gerd.simon/ChrDolezalek.pdf on 11 January 2010.
46
Ibid., 344–45.
47
An excellent study of the Ahnenerbe is Michael H. Kater, Das “Ahnenerbe” der SS,
1935–1945 (Stuttgart:  Deutsche Verlags-anstalt, 1974). For a more recent treat-
ment, see Heather Pringle, The Master Plan:  Himmler’s Scholars and the Holocaust
(New York: Hyperion, 2006).
 Germanic Propaganda 131

attracting Germanic intellectuals, most of whom came voluntarily, with-

out any recruitment effort on the SS’s behalf.48
Although the Ahnenerbe remained within the SS, Himmler assumed
personal control of the group in 1939.49 It was put under the control of
the Germanische Leitstelle in the summer of 1942. Each Germanische
Leitstelle satellite office abroad oversaw a local Ahnenerbe staff that
coordinated exhibitions, talks and publications with local museums,
libraries, academics, and publishing houses. Back in Berlin, a significant
portion of the Ahnenerbe staff moved to the Germanische Leitstelle
office, where they staffed a special desk, Referat, on Germanic history
and culture.50 In November 1942, the Germanische Leitstelle and the
Ahnenerbe organized their first joint, large-scale workshop and sympo-
sium on “cultural problems with the Greater Germanic area” as an effort
to work out perceived kinks in the plans for implementing the Germanic
Reich.51 The two offices also worked together in rewriting religious texts
in the occupied Germanic countries to place greater emphasis on a shared
Germanic past.52
Working with its sometimes reluctant partners within the SS, the
Germanische Leitstelle had begun the process of creating, collating, and
distributing information on Germanic culture. These efforts, custom-
ized for each occupied nation, attempted to awaken the populations’
belief in the Germanic race. Increasingly, however, the architects of the
regime’s Germanic programs worried about the lack of suitable litera-
ture, whether in the form of books, magazines or pamphlets.53 Procuring
and disseminating written Germanic materials became a special focus of
the Germanische Leitstelle’s work for the remainder of the war.

Germanic Propaganda
Although the Germanische Leitstelle had been involved in publications
since its inception, starting in 1942 it became prolific in its attempts to

48
See, for example, BA, SSO (BDC), Grönhagen, Yrjö von and BA, SSO (BDC), Wirth,
Dr. Hermann
49
Vierteljahrsbrief an die Mitglieder des “Ahnenerbes” Folge 1–3/1939, in BA, NS 21/163.
50
Riedweg, 5 November 1942, in NS 21/935. See also RF-SS Stabsbefehl Nr. 14/42
Betr.: Zusammenarbeit des Amtes “Ahnenerbe” im Persönlichen Stab des RF-SS mit dem
Amt VI des SS-HA, in BA, NS 21/935.
51
Protokoll, 9 December 1942, in BA, R 58/5970, 157, 219.
52
Riedweg to Sievers, 25 April 1942, in BA, NS 21/938.
53
Vermerkt Betr.:  Arbeit in den germanischen Ländern, Bezug:  Besprechung in
Hövelegaarden bei Kopehagen am 13 December 1942, in BA, NS 21/938.
132 Building a Germanic Europe

create and distribute Germanic literary materials. For the task of win-
ning over Germanic populations and further solidifying the commitment
of Germanic volunteers, the organization preferred soft feature articles.
Whether a compelling historical account of Germanic cooperation or a
profile of a young Germanic Waffen-SS volunteer, heroism, selflessness,
and Germanic loyalty in the face of stubborn nationalists were reoc-
curring themes in texts emanating from the desks of the Germanische
Leitstelle. Throughout, writing remained the preferred vehicle of propa-
ganda. Commissioned paintings, posters, and museum exhibitions rein-
forced similar themes.
One major effort was the magazine Germanische Leithefte, published
several times a year starting in 1941. The Germanische Leitstelle primar-
ily hoped to use the publication to reach Germanic volunteers serving
on the frontlines and their families back home. For all its success at infil-
trating the SS Officer Cadet School at Tölz (on which more in Chapter
Five), the Germanische Leitstelle had few means of communicating with
its frontline troops with the exception of those in the Germanic Divisions
and Legions. The SS-FHA, motivated to keep the SS-HA from infringing
on its work directing the military effort, prohibited direct mass commu-
nications sent from the SS-HA to non-Germanic front-line units. By pack-
aging the magazine as entertainment, rather than ideological instruction,
however, the Germanische Leitstelle overcame the SS-FHA’s objections to
sending their materials to, say, the Swiss men assigned to the SS-Division
“Nord.” Additionally, the magazine allowed the Germanische Leitstelle
to influence volunteers’ family members. The Germanic leaders at the
Germanische Leitstelle believed that preparing the families for the return
of the political soldiers from the front was a critical step in preparing
for the Greater Germanic Reich; the magazine helped the organization
accomplish this goal. Edited by Dr. Rudolf Jacobsen and his staff in the
Germanic Education office of the Germanische Leitstelle, the magazine
appeared in all the Germanic languages and was sent free of charge to
volunteers, their families and anyone else who subscribed. Those who
specifically requested the magazine, however, made up only a small frac-
tion of the Germanische Leithefte’s audience. The circulation in Denmark
was a mere five thousand in 1943, though the Germanische Leitstelle
branch office requested an additional four thousand copies.54
The magazine featured regular contributions by well-known Western
European Nazi sympathizers as well as pieces contributed by front-line

54
“Germanische Leithefte,” in BA NS 31/76, 176.
 Germanic Propaganda 133

troops. Danish, Swedish, and Swiss Waffen-SS volunteers were particularly

prolific in reporting for the magazine. All articles touched on the themes
of a shared Germanic past and future and the importance of the current
war. Some articles achieved their message by pure shock value, such as
a photo essay called “Germanic Order versus Jewish Chaos,” which dis-
played a series of photos of starving children in the Soviet Union with
short captions outlining the Jewish-Bolshevik causes at fault.55 Profiles of
Germanic warriors were also common, especially those that recounted the
heroic deeds of Germanic soldiers killed in action.56 A special “America”
issue appeared in 1943, featuring long and sophisticated essays arguing
that the United States’ achievements had been orchestrated by Germanics
but recently undermined by the country’s “lax” racial policy.57
As the magazine’s articles rarely had bylines, it is hard to estab-
lish which and how many articles were written directly by the neutral
Germanic volunteers. It is, however, clear that a great many were written
by them. The SS-HA’s files, for instance, contain named queries to the edi-
tors.58 Certainly those neutrals working for the propaganda company, the
SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers, wrote frequently for the Germanische Leithefte.
By 1943, the Germanische Leitstelle received regular letters regard-
ing the magazine, almost all of them positive. Copies of the original let-
ters exist in the SS archival collection and make clear that the magazine
touched family members as well as soldiers. A training officer from Tölz
wrote to Riedweg, “I’ve noticed lively interest, even fascination, among
my men, especially among those of Division Wiking.”59 The wife of a
foreign volunteer wrote to Dr. Jacobsen to tell him that she bound every
issue into a scrapbook, “so that our son and all future generations can see
and read about the essence of the German soldier and about the true his-
tory of the Germanics, which I had no idea about growing up.”60 A man,
likely the father of a volunteer, wrote that the Germanische Leithefte had
led him to abandon previously held doubts about the SS; he was now
deeply impressed with the progressive “cultural work of the SS.”61

55
“Germanische Ordnung gegen jüdisches Chaos,” Germanische Leithefte, 1/2 (1941), 35,
in BA, NSD 41/78.
56
“Drei Männer, die den schweren Weg gingen,” Germanische Leithefte, 1/3 (1941), 22, in
BA, NSD 41/78.
57
Germanische Leithefte, 3/1&2 (1943). In BA, NSD 41/78.
58
See, for example, Ergänzungsstelle der Waffen-SS Dänemark, 11 April 1942, Betr.: Beitrag
fur das Germanische Leitheft, in BA, NS 31/75.
59
Theodor P[. . .] to Riedweg, 12 January 1942, BA NS 31/75, 5.
60
Letter to Jacobsen, 29 August 1942, BA NS 31/75, 34.
61
Letter to Germanische Leitstelle, 6 February 1944, BA NS 31/75, 60.
38 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

concentration camp, a post he would return to again in early 1939.50

During his post there he presumably witnessed or participated in the bru-
talization and murder of Jews and other civilians. These few months of
service at Dachau in 1938 and 1939 are marked by noticeable gaps in his
later recollections of the war, both private and public, and in his numer-
ous testimonies regarding his posts within the SS.
Although Riedweg’s experience in joining the SS was uniquely com-
plex and drawn out, more Germanics would soon follow in his foot-
steps. Their admittance would depend less on the personal patronage of
Himmler or Berger, however, and more on the changing power dynamics
on the European continent and the work of Riedweg.

The Decision to Recruit Germanics

The realm of the possible changed dramatically for the SS in the late
spring of 1940. Himmler, who had long spoken of the racial brother-
hood of the Germanic peoples suddenly found Denmark and Norway
under the regime’s control. By the end of the summer, most of the conti-
nent had been subdued under the seemingly incontestable power of the
Wehrmacht. The Nazi regime had developed surprisingly few plans on
how these newly acquired territories might be ruled, but they unques-
tionably presented the SS with several opportunities.51 The populations
in the new territories offered an especially attractive solution to the prob-
lem of Waffen-SS recruitment. Instead of competing with the Wehrmacht
over scarce German soldiers, the Waffen-SS could recruit the millions
of Germanics now under its control. This was not, however, merely an
improvised solution to the manpower problem.52 Instead, the decision to
recruit in the Germanic lands had grown out of Himmler and Berger’s
contacts with Riedweg in the interwar years and had begun to take shape
before the fall of Denmark and Norway. Germanic soldiers offered a
way both to incorporate the eventually conquered Germanic lands into

50
An investigation, presumably into Riedweg’s complicity in crimes committed at Dachau
concentration camp, was launched in 1961 in Munich (Verfahren StA München I, 1 b
Js 1290/61) though it did not lead to a trial. The investigation documents remain sealed.
See Riedweg’s “Karteikarte” at BAL, 415 AR 1310/63 P [sealed].
51
Peter M.R. Stirk, “Making the New Europe in the Second World War:  1940–45,” in
A History of European Integration since 1914, ed. Peter M.R. Stirk (London:  Pinter,
1996), 53.
52
Stein, The Waffen SS:  Hitler’s Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945, 129; Hans-Dietrich
Loock, “Zur “Grossgermanischen Politik” des Dritten Reiches,” Vierteljahrshefte für
Zeitgeschichte 8, no. 1 (1960): 55–56.
 Germanic Propaganda 135

Germanic historical “fighting-bureaucrat” role models. In 1940, he con-

tributed his own volume, on Frederick the Great.67 After the war, Riedweg
recalled that Himmler had been most excited about Jacob Schaffner’s
study of King Heinrich I, as Himmler believed himself to be his rein-
carnation.68 Riedweg also encouraged and oversaw several other works
produced by neutral Germanic volunteers. The Swiss war correspon-
dent Benno Schäppi, for example, published Germanische Freiwillige
im Osten (Germanic Volunteers in the East) as well as Aufbruch, Briefe
Germanische Freiwilligen (Rupture, Letters from Germanic Volunteers).
The latter included a series of carefully selected letters by Germanic vol-
unteers accompanied by commentary by the author.69 Riedweg also com-
missioned the Dane Helweg-Larsen to write a book about the SS-Division
“Wiking”  – a project that was never completed  – and had Martinsen
write a book on his experience with the Freikorps Danmark.70
The Kriegsberichter, or war correspondents, were particularly import-
ant in promoting Germanic writing. The commander of the propaganda
unit of the Waffen-SS, Gunther D’Alquen, worked well with Riedweg
and the staff of the Germanische Leitstelle and shared in their Germanic
ideas.71 Of his some 150 officers, several were neutral volunteers. Neutrals
in leadership positions included the Swedes Gösta Borg, Stig Eriksson,
Hans-Caspar Kreuger, and Thorolf Hillblad; the Danes Flemming
Helweg-Larsen and Olaf Petersen; and the Swiss Benno Schäppi and
Fritz Ulrich. These men often commanded propaganda platoons within
larger combat formations but reported directly to D’Alquen, Riedweg,
and Dr. Franz Six at the RSHA.72 They authored articles and reports for
the various publications of the Germanische Leitstelle and newspapers in

67
Franz Riedweg, ed. Friedrich der Grosse:  Soldat, Staatsman, Denker, Soldat und
Staatsman (Berlin: Niebelungen, 1940).
68
Niederschrift einer Unterredung mit Dr. Franz Riedweg, 22 November 1955, p. 12, in
IfZ, ZS669, Riedeg Franz.
69
Benno H. Schäppi, Germanische Freiwillige Im Osten (Nürnberg: Buchverlag F. Willmy,
1943). Aufbruch has not survived in many Swiss or German libraries but can be found
in AfZ, NL Benno Schäppi, 4.
70
K.B. Martinsen, Frikorps Danmarks Kampe (København: Forlaget, 1944).
71
Mario Zeck, Das Schwarze Korps. Geschichte und Gestalt des Organs der Reichsführung
SS, ed. Anke-Marie Lohmeier and Erich Strassner, Medien in Forschung und Unterricht
(Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2002), 44–45.
72
See Übernahme von Offiziere fremder Wehrmachten in die Standarte “Kurt Eggers,” in
BA, NS 34/46. On the apparently good working relationship between the RSHA and the
Standarte “Kurt Eggers,” see Prof. Dr. Six to Brandt, 23 October 1944, in BA, NS 19/
2453, 3.
136 Building a Germanic Europe

their home countries and additionally participated in propaganda efforts

aimed at the enemy.
As with Hillblad’s Swedish radio reports at the beginning of the war,
what is most striking about these writings is the fact that they appear to
have been untouched by editing or direction from the authors’ superiors.
Borg and Kreuger, for example, frequently sent manuscripts directly to
Swedish newspapers, which printed the stories as received.73 The neu-
tral newspapers do not appear to have been reluctant to accept these
contributions. Hillblad, in fact, served as the main Berlin correspondent
for the Swedish middle-of-the-road daily Dagbladet for a few months in
1942 – without hiding the fact that he simultaneously served in the SS.74
The few times that Borg’s work was censored, he was told to tone down
the aggressive nature of his Germanic views and to respect Sweden’s neu-
trality and sovereignty.75 No one had to encourage these men to adopt or
promote the SS’s racial ideology.
Or consider an article that Kreuger penned at some point in 1943
from a hospital bed in Vienna. The article, “Europe in miniature,” was
subsequently published in both official SS propaganda organs as well as
those targeted at broader populations. It reflected on his time as a patient
in this particular hospital under the care of a Norwegian and a Danish
nurse. Together – or so Kreuger told it – they came to the conclusion that
only the SS had awakened to the realities of Northern Europe’s natural
ties. “Someone once said of our small Nordic states that they were the
‘shards of a great power which never came to be.’ The same can be said
for Europe, and it is high time for us to realize that borders . . . are depen-
dent on time and space while blood and earth are God’s work and are
meant for eternity,” he wrote. Kreuger’s article went beyond formulaic
assertions and bore his own distinct prose. At the end of the two-page
piece, after discussing the SS in general, his experiences in the organiza-
tion, and the redemptive qualities of his and his companions’ suffering,
the story returned to his hospital bed:

73
See, for example, Gösta Borg, “Svensk ‘Beredskapsanda,’ ” in Dagposten, 19 August
1943, 3, Benno Schaeppi, “Die Schweiz und Frankreich,” in Stuttgarter Neuen Tagblatt,
1 November 1942, 1, Benno Schaeppi, “Demokratische Entscheidung,” in Stuttgarter
Neuen Tagblatt, 28 January 1943,1, Alfons Goop, “Der Neue Europa,” in Der Umbruch,
Nr. 176, 7 October 1942, 1.
74
Protokoll 21 December 1944, in RASA, SÄPO PA, Thorolf Hillblad.
75
SS-Obersturmführer Buchholz, Beurteiulung, Gruppe Rundfunk/Fremdsprachen, Berlin
den 25.5.44, in BA SSO (BDC) 91, Borg, Sam Gösta.
 Germanic Propaganda 137

The chestnut tree outside of my window is bare naked. The last leaves blown away
by the pressure of the bombs and several branches were torn by shrapnel and lay
broken on the ground, but the tree itself stands! When dirt and soot clouds dissipate,
one even detects little buds, signaling new life. They are extremely tiny and had been
obscured by the yellow leaves, but now they have appeared! . . . the tree still stands.
Its roots dig deep into the earth and its crown reaches far into the heavens and in it
lies the certainty – not just a hope – that one day spring will arrive again!76

Strict battle correspondence was common too, though the men infused
their exploits from the front with a romance for and fascination with
violence. Borg’s recollection of his experience in the bloody suppression
of the 1944 Warsaw uprising is fairly typical. He called his experience
fighting for the Theater Street and Plaza “the hardest during this fantastic
[author’s emphasis] time.” He then recalled how his unit overcame the
“fanatically defended” barricades:
Gasoline was pumped into the houses, we fought from room to room, blew them
up from within, from the sides and from above. We shot each other in the faces
and died in handfuls. We sprayed fire into tight-packed basements and waded
through the slime of sewers to outmaneuver the opponent. The dead on the
street could not be removed – they were eaten up by flies or shot to bits by the
automatic weapons. Everything was destroyed, spread, thrown around – money,
underclothes, jewelry, food and the remains of people.77

Beyond his fascination with and genuine enthusiasm for battle, the story
shows how involved political officers were in the actual fighting. Borg,
after all, was assigned to a propaganda unit of the SS-Standarte Kurt
Eggers, not a combat unit. The idea of the ‘fighting bureaucrat’ was, at
least in Borg’s case, taken very seriously.
Despite their enthusiasm for the Germanic concept, Kreuger, Borg,
and other Germanic writers remained conspicuously vague on how the
Germanic Reich would actually come about. Nor did they have much
to say on how it would be organized, aside from the abolition of arti-
ficial Liberal institutions. This is the case not only in their official writ-
ings, but also in their letters and diaries. These issues were only slightly
more developed by a cadre of intellectuals and academics working for
the Germanische Leitstelle. A  series of treatises on the coming Greater
Germanic Reich produced by mostly Swiss volunteers were completely
out of touch with the reality of the German occupation of the Germanic
countries.78 In contrast to the specific and complex plans being developed

76
“Ein Europa im Miniatur: in einem SS-Lazarett in Wien” Hans-Caspar Kreuger, in WPA.
77
Quoted in Schön, Hitlers Svenska Soldater, 222. Copy in WPA.
78
See collection “14 Thesen,” in IfZ, ZS 2372.
138 Building a Germanic Europe

by such German administrators as Werner Best, Wilhelm Stuckart, and

Reinhardt Höhn, the treatises of the Germanische Leitstelle remained
conspicuously vague, ungrounded and ultimately naïve.79
All of the treatises, in fact, contained what can best be described as
pseudo-democratic or federal ideas, at least within the confines of National
Socialist thinking. That is, assuming all Germanic countries adopted the
National Socialist framework, they should be free to develop this in a nat-
ural direction. One treatise proposed, for instance, that each European
nation had a “holy and unequivocal right of its particular manifestation,
its organization, its lifestyle and its own political organization.”80 On the
one hand, these treatises argued for an inherent equality among Germanic
nations; on the other, they suggested that Germany, in line with National
Socialist ideology, had a natural right to lead over the peripheral Germanic
nations.81 Moreover, while they advocated for a natural turn toward this
fascist worldview among the populations, they were vehemently opposed to
the local National Socialist parties.82 This betrays the teleology underlying
these men’s beliefs with regard to Europe’s future; the fact that there was
something natural and inevitable about the Greater Germanic Reich meant
that the irreconcilable nature of German dominance and Germanic equality
and freedom would somehow be resolved. The bond created by a common
race and shared combat experience would ensure the ironing out of the
Reich’s particular arrangement in due time.
One of the Germanische Leitstelle’s most concrete attempts at imple-
menting the plans developed in the treatises was a conference planned
for the summer of 1943. The Germanische Leitstelle had high hopes for
the conference. It was jointly organized by the RSHA, the Ahnenerbe,
and the Germanische Leitstelle. Some one hundred political leaders and
academics, half from Germany and the other from Germanic countries,
were to come together for one week to hash out the details of the Greater
Germanic Reich. This, it was hoped, would serve as the decisive “push”
needed to launch the final reorganization of Europe.83 As with other such

79
For a discussion of the theories of these three ideologues, see Mazower, Hitler’s
Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe, 232–40.
80
These 1, p.1, in IfZ, ZS 2372.
81
One treatise mentioned as the first of fifteen points on the Greater Germanic Reich that
“the creation of the Reich and the leadership of Europe is the fate-secured and inviolable
right of the Germans.” “Das Reich und Europa,” p. 1, in BAMA, RS5/310.
82
For a good discussion of this issue and the treatises, see Elvert, “ ‘Germanen’ und
‘Imperialisten’: Zwei Europakonzepte Aus Nationalsozialistischer Zeit,” 163–65.
83
See, for example, the minutes from the conference planning committee. Protokoll der
Vorbesprechung betr. Norldandtagung am 25.11 [1942] in der Tiergartenstrasse 42, in
BA, R 58/5970, 219.
 The Germanische Leitstelle in Denmark 139

conferences, the organizers made a deliberate attempt to portray it as a

purely academic exercise, devoid of practical and political implications,
to avoid the interference of the Foreign Ministry.84 Nevertheless, to the
annoyance of Riedweg and the staff of the Germanische Leitstelle, the
RSHA argued that Swiss and Swedish representatives could not be invited
due to the hostile attitudes of their host governments.85 By December
1942, however, the Leitstelle got its way and Swedish and Swiss repre-
sentatives would be sought.86 Himmler was enthusiastic about the idea
and outline of the conference, and immediately signed off.87 By the time
the conference took place in June 1943, however, conditions in occu-
pied Europe, on the front, and within the power structure of the SS had
changed significantly, making the venture too little and too late.

The GERMANIS CHE LEITS TELLE in Denmark

The Germanische Leitstelle’s ideological work in Germanic Europe was
paralleled by political work – no more so than in Denmark. More than in
any other European country, it was here that the Germanische Leitstelle
managed to become a dominant player in the occupation administration
and began to implement what it saw as the necessary steps toward cre-
ating the Germanic Reich. The Germanische Leitstelle’s administrative
moves in Denmark therefore make it an excellent case study of the SS’s
expansion into Western Europe.
Only one day after the invasion of 9 April 1940, the first SS man, SS-
Brigadeführer Paul Kanstein, arrived in Denmark. With him came twenty
SD men.88 Like other SS officer-administrators, Kanstein was simultane-
ously employed by the Foreign Ministry; it was primarily in this capacity
that he was sent to Denmark along with von Renthe-Fink’s delegation.
Even so, Kanstein’s first loyalty was to the SS, and he worked hard to
weaken the DNSAP’s influence on both the German delegation and the
Danish government. Furthermore, while numerous SS branches were rep-
resented in Denmark, Kanstein channeled his primary communications to
Berlin via the SS-HA, mainly because of his close friendship with Berger.89
84
See Dr. H Schick and Dr. Wolfgang Ispert, 10 December 1942, in BA, R 58/5970, 157.
85
Protokoll der Vorbesprechung betr. Norldandtagung am 25.11 [1942] in der
Tiergartenstrasse 42, in BA, R 58/5970, 219.
86
Vermerk RSHA VII, 9 December 1942, in BA, R 58/5970, 221.
87
Vermerk, Berlin 6 January 1943, Betr.: Wissenschaftliche Tagung “Kulturelle Probleme
des Grossgermanischen Raumes,” in BA, R 58/5970, 223.
88
BA, SSO (BDC), Kansten Paul.
89
Frederik Strand, Førenens Germanske Arm: SS I Danmark (Køpenhavn:  Høst & Søn,
2006), 60.
140 Building a Germanic Europe

This relationship gave the Copenhagen branch of the Germanische

Leitstelle an advantage when it sought to expand its influence in Denmark
vis-à-vis both other SS branches and the Foreign Ministry. This office
had originally opened as a satellite recruitment office of Berger’s Waffen-
SS Ergänzungsamt in the fall of 1940 before coming under the control
of the Germanische Leitstelle in the spring of 1941. With the expanded
mandate of 1942, the Copenhagen branch took control over all National
Socialist youth and student organizations in Denmark, became the formal
mediator between Germany and the DNSAP, and orchestrated a series of
Germanic-oriented events. The Germanische Leitstelle Copenhagen addi-
tionally oversaw German security patrols throughout Denmark, with the
exception of the coastal areas overseen by the Wehrmacht.90
The director of the Foreign Ministry’s largest department, the
Abteilung Deutschland, opposed the expansion of the SS’s authority in
Denmark from the beginning. Martin Luther held a vision for Denmark
similar to that held by the Party men in Norway and the Netherlands –
that the country’s DNSAP party should be supported, cultivated, and
slowly integrated into the leadership structure of the country.91 His influ-
ence, however, was drastically weakened with von Renthe-Fink’s replace-
ment as Reich Plenipotentiary by the SS-lawyer and ideologue Werner
Best in the fall of 1942. Although nominally responsible to the Foreign
Ministry, Best sympathized with the aims of the Germanische Leitstelle.
In fact, his views on the form of the German occupation of the Germanic
countries bore close resemblances to the Leitstelle’s visions of the Greater
Germanic Reich.92 In practice, Best’s arrival meant that the Germanische
Leitstelle no longer had any responsibility to or reasons to coordinate
with the Foreign Ministry. Although Best’s mission was still theoretically
under the auspices of the Foreign Ministry, his loyalty to the SS, com-
bined with Himmler’s Germanic mandate, meant that the Ministry had in
effect been shut out. Berger wrote to Himmler at the end of 1942 to boast
of the great work the Germanische Leitstelle Copenhagen had been able
to accomplish in the absence of Foreign Ministry interference.93
Meanwhile, the Germanische Leitstelle’s own responsibilities had
changed. No longer was the organization primarily responsible for

90
Berger to Hoffmann, 24 June 1942, in RA, AA 443a, PA Boysen.
91
Strand, Førenens Germanske Arm: SS I Danmark, 86.
92
See Riedweg, Monatsbericht/Oktober 1942, 20 November 1942, p.  7, in BA, NS 31/
375, 9. Herbert, Best: Biographische Studien Über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und
Vernunft, 1903–1989, 271–96.
93
Berger to Himmler, 4 November 1942, in RA, AA 443a, PA Werner Best.
 The Germanische Leitstelle in Denmark 141

recruiting and training volunteers from neutral countries. Instead, the

Leitstelle had taken on ever greater political and ideological roles.
Riedweg sent a new chief to Copenhagen, the ambitious Bruno Boysen,
to implement the new Germanic plan in Denmark. With Boysen came a
host of new administrators; the Leitstelle itself soon had to move to a
larger building on the outskirts of Copenhagen.
The Germanische Leitstelle Copenhagen sought to promote the idea
of a Germanic Reich on a few different fronts. In April 1942, the office
brought Schalburg and ten of his Freikorps officers to Denmark to tour
the country and publicize their cause. The trip was a fiasco: Schalburg and
his men, fresh from bloody firefights on the Eastern Front, got involved
in fistfights with protesters. To the embarrassment of the Germanische
Leitstelle, these scuffles had to be broken up by the Danish police.94
Schalburg, it turned out, was a better soldier than “fighting-bureaucrat,”
and he was sent back to the front. At this point, Berger and Riedweg
instead turned their attention to K.B. Martinsen. They envisioned send-
ing him home to restructure the DNSAP and the Germanic movement in
Denmark after a few more months at the front.95
In addition to the news and media campaigns discussed above, the
Copenhagen office particularly sought to gain control of the youth orga-
nization of the DNSAP, the NSU. Schalburg, who had been the NSU’s
last commander before the war, had gone a long way toward moving the
NSU closer to German interests and away from more Danish ones.96 To
the DNSAP’s chagrin, he had managed to convince a large number of his
former youth members to volunteer for the Waffen-SS at the beginning of
the war. Schalburg served as a role model for many new NSU members
while he was off at the front – in fact he was a better role model at the
front than at home – and the Germanische Leitstelle skillfully used his
image and words to move the youth toward Greater Germanic ideals.97
After Schalburg’s death in 1942, the Germanische Leitstelle took virtual
control over the NSU by making it financially dependent on the SS.98
Schalburg’s death, meanwhile, provided the Copenhagen office an excel-
lent propaganda opportunity. Schalburg was in the midst of leading an
attack to capture a Soviet position when he stepped on a landmine and

94
Renthe-Fink to Luther, 13 May 1942, in BA, NS 19/2459, 1–6.
95
Berger to Himmler, 17 October 1942, Betr.: Lage in DK, in BA, NS 19/1712 and Berger
to Himmler, Betr.: SS-Stubaf. Martinsen, FK DK, 14 October 1942, in BA, NS 19/1712.
96
Kirkebæk, Schalburg: En Patriotisk Landsforræder, 374–76.
97
Ibid.
98
Strand, Førenens Germanske Arm: SS I Danmark, 70.
142 Building a Germanic Europe

died instantly. His troops appear to have been genuinely shocked at the
death of a popular commander.99 The Copenhagen office quickly organized
a ceremony in his honor and used the event to reinforce the Germanic mes-
sage. Himmler himself participated in the planning of the ceremony and
demanded that high-ranking German and Danish officials attend.100
The Germanische Leitstelle’s efforts to separate the DNSAP from the
Waffen-SS inadvertently benefited from Clausen’s own missteps. He and
his lieutenants became increasingly suspicious of the returning Waffen-
SS veterans, in part because of their emphasis on Germanic thought. No
matter how active the volunteers had been in the DNSAP in the prewar
years, they returned from the front enthusiastic about Denmark’s role
in a future Germanic Reich.101 Although Himmler continued to hint to
Clausen that he would eventually be elevated to power, in secret commu-
nications with the SS-HA Himmler admitted that that time would never
come.102 If there were to be a coup, it would be led by the SS. Clausen, it
seems, was aware of this, and increasingly hedged his bets on collaborat-
ing with the Foreign Ministry.
Under Boysen, the Copenhagen Germanische Leitstelle also moved
to assert control over the DNSAP’s paramilitary organization, the SA.
Although Clausen guarded his SA closely, its lack of funding left it
vulnerable. In 1942, the Leitstelle built a new school for the SA  – at
which point it also appointed its own German and Germanic-oriented,
SS-loyal Danish officers to train and oversee the operation. This move
virtually shut the DNSAP out of its own organization overnight. The SS
also opened the school up to non-DNSAP members, modeling it on the
Germanic-SS organizations created in other Germanic countries.103
Even so, the SA nominally remained under the DNSAP umbrella. In
1943, the SS moved to take complete control over both it and the NSU
with the creation of the new SS-Schalburgkorps. This new paramilitary
unit, named after the deceased commander of the Freikorps Danmark,
was to be led by the Legion’s third commander, K.B. Martinsen. Riedweg

99
Martinsen, Bericht ueber das Stosstruppenunternehmen 1./2.6.42, in BA, SSO (BDC),
69B Schalburg, Christian von.
100
Gedenkefeier für SS-Obersturmbannführer, Kapitänleutnant in der Königlichen
Dänischen Leibgarde Christian Frederik von Schalburg, in KB, Acc. 2008/8, I. See also,
Kirkebæk, Schalburg: En Patriotisk Landsforræder, 350.
101
Riedweg to RF-SS, 1 February 1943, Betr.: Sammelorganisation für die Frontkämpfer in
Dänemark, in BA, NS 19/3767, 2–3.
102
See, for example, RF-SS to Berger, 25 October 1942, in BA, NS 19/1712, 9.
103
Luther to RF-SS, 15 March 1942, in RA, AA 443a. “Germanischer Ethos SS Offiziere.”
 The Germanische Leitstelle in Denmark 143

and Berger had become concerned that too many of their star neutral
volunteers were being killed in action before they could be put to use
at home. Because Martinsen was especially skilled and valuable, they
believed, he could not be squandered on the front.104 Martinsen accepted
the new appointment, seeing in it an opportunity to increase the recruit-
ment of Danes for the Waffen-SS and to inform the general Danish popu-
lation of the great work of his organization. Berger too believed that, with
Martinsen in Denmark, the country could be provoked to move toward
National Socialism. Martinsen, he and Riedweg believed, was the cata-
lyst Clausen could never be.105 When Martinsen returned to Denmark in
September, however, he was horrified to discover that the country was
virtually under German occupation and, worst of all, that his fellow
Danish officers who had remained in service had been interned by the
Wehrmacht.106 Martinsen nevertheless took up the work of building the
organization into a professional paramilitary group meant to replace the
recently interned Danish army.107 Many of the country’s residents, how-
ever, found Martinsen no more inspiring than Clausen.
The creation of the Schalburgkorps and Martinsen’s return to
Denmark was a high-water mark for the Germanische Leitstelle. Of
course, it was not a very high mark. Despite its ample funding, motivated
Germanic officers and prolific output of Germanic propaganda material,
the office failed to push the Danish people – and indeed other Germanic
populations  – toward the desired “organic solution.” There are several
explanations for this. By 1943, as we will see, Germany had squandered
much of the goodwill and admiration a great many Western Europeans
had initially felt toward it. The German occupation of Western Europe
was turning out to be harsh and arbitrary. Moreover, the pillar of the
Germanische Leitstelle’s plan, the creation of “fighting-bureaucrats,”
failed. Men such as Schalburg and Martinsen, despite their intellectual
gifts, proved unable to channel their violent experiences at the front
toward nuanced public relations work at home. Additionally, Martinsen,
too, like much of the Danish population, was becoming disillusioned
with the German regime.

104
Berger to RF-SS, 14 November 1942, in BA, NS 19/1712, 1; copy in BAMA, N 756/235.
105
Berger to Himmler, Betr.: Lage in DK, 17 October 1942, in BA, NS 19/1712, 2.
106
Bøgh, K.B. Martinsen, Officer og Landsforræder, 166.
107
K.B.  Martinsen, Tjensteforhold for Schalburg Korpset, forord, in RA, PA P.R.En.
6926/7.
144 Building a Germanic Europe

Toward the Germanic Panzer Corps

Despite its limited political success, the Germanische Leitstelle and
its allies had achieved one of its long-term goals by the summer of
1943: the integration of all Germanic volunteers into one combat unit.
Once the advocates for a Germanic force realized that it would not be
possible to turn the entire SS into a Germanic-focused, elite organiza-
tion, they came to see a separate organization of Germanics and sympa-
thetic Germans as the next best thing. This III. Germanic Panzer Corps,
was to include both the SS-Division “Wiking” and a newly created divi-
sion composed of the old Legions. The roots of this all-Germanic corps
officially went back to the summer of 1942, but even before then, the
Germanische Leitstelle and the SS-FHA had clashed over control over
the Legions.
Once again, the Danish Legion was more closely aligned to Germany
than to either the Danish government or the DNSAP. This was in part
thanks to the active and energetic involvement of several men who
had previously volunteered for the Waffen-SS, including Schalburg,
Martinsen, Worsøe-Larsen, and E[. . .]. These men not only sympathized
with the Germanic agenda, but they provided what the other national
Legions lacked: expert military leadership. In practice, then, the Freikorps
Danmark attained combat effectiveness much more quickly than either
the Norwegian or Dutch Legions, both of which suffered humiliating set-
backs during their first engagements with the Red Army. The Legion’s rel-
ative success raised the question of why it could not become a full-fledged
member of the Waffen-SS and a partner in enacting the Germanic agenda.
Only a year earlier, the SS-HA had been reluctant to assume control over
the Legions; by the fall of 1942, Riedweg and Berger openly proclaimed
that the primary purpose of the Legions was to accustom Legionnaires to
the idea of the Greater Germanic Reich, the better to incorporate them
into the Waffen-SS.108
This changing purpose of the Legion, from an independent Danish
unit to a tool in the Greater Germanic Plans of the SS-HA, had already
become evident during the Freikorps training period in the winter of
1941–1942. Its commander, Kryssing, was almost immediately drawn
in multiple directions. The DNSAP declared Kryssing (who was not a

108
Statistische Austellung über zu Waffen-SS und Legionen eingestellte, entlassense und
gefallene germanische Freiwillige, stand 30.10.1942, 14 December 1942, in BA, NS 31/
455.
42 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

THE CREATION OF THE Germanische

Leitstelle
The origins of what would later become the Germanische Leitstelle are
somewhat obscure, and there is reason to believe this was an intentional
strategy designed to deflect opposition from both the SS and the broader
regime. It is clear, however, that from the beginning the office was slated to
handle more than just coordinating Germanic volunteers. The seeds for an
office engaged in Germanic politics were planted with Riedweg’s acceptance
into the Waffen-SS. As with the Waffen-SS, historical interpretations of the
Germanische Leitstelle’s origins and original purpose have been clouded by
participants’ postwar need to justify their own participation. In the imme-
diate postwar period, former members of the office sought to portray them-
selves as military men, not ideologues, responsible solely for recruitment.
Riedweg, the director and ideological founder of the office, claimed after the
war that he had opposed including “Germanic” in the office’s name because
of the term’s association with the “blood-myth,” something he claimed
never to have believed in.61 Similarly, Dr. Heinrich Büeler, a Swiss lawyer
who headed the office’s propaganda department, acknowledged that the
office worked on “spiritual, ideological, and political” matters, but insisted
that those efforts were strictly limited to the Waffen-SS and not intended to
address “internal nor foreign political, state or volk questions.”62 He later
added that the “G[ermanische] L[eitstelle] had no policy regarding the cre-
ation of a Germanic Reich,” and that there was, “no Europe-politics within
the Waffen-SS.”63 Both men were cleared in German postwar trials, though
not in their 1947 trial in Switzerland.
Many historians followed the participants’ lead. The term’s most
frequent translation into English as the ‘Germanic Coordination’ or
‘Germanic Guidance’ office suggests a passive, administrative role.64

61
“Aus der Radio Sendung ‘Schweizer in der Waffen-SS’ von Hans-Rudolf Lehmann, DRS
I,” 15 May 1977, in AfZ, NL Benno Schäppi, ungeordneter Dossier 6. See also Riedweg’s
interrogation by his US captors:  Interrogation NO. 583, “Auf Veranlassung Von
Mr. Bobbs, SS-Section. Vernehmung von Franz Riedweg durch Mr. de Vries am 20.1.1947
von 14.00–15.00 UHR,” in IfZ, ZS 669, Riedweg, Dr. Franz.
62
Heinrich Büeler, Bemerkungen zu bewusst oder unbewusst falschen Behauptungen oder
Begriffsbildungen in der Anklageschrift der Schweizerischen Bundesanwaltschaft, p.1, in
AfZ, NL Büeler, 10.2, E11.
63
Heinrich Büeler, “Meine Stellungnahme zu den Anschuldigungen während der
Strafuntersuchung und der Anklage vor Bundesstrafgericht in der persönlichen
Einvernahme,” pp. 1–2, in AfZ, NL Heinrich Büeler, 10.2, E 9.
64
See, for example, Höhne, The Order of the Death’s Head:  The Story of Hitler’s SS,
500; Gingerich, “Toward a Brotherhood of Arms: Waffen-SS Recruitment of Germanic
146 Building a Germanic Europe

achieve a breakthrough.” Riedweg concluded, “for the actualization of a

Germanic community there remains little time. Often there is no interest,
nor will, present.”112
Berger agreed with Riedweg’s assessment. The national party leaders,
encouraged by the Foreign Ministry and the Party, were behaving as if
the Legions were their private armies. With this in mind, Berger recom-
mended that Himmler enact a solution Riedweg had long proposed:
collect all Germanic men into one of two divisions – “Wiking” and a new
one – that together would form an expanded panzer corps.113 Himmler
agreed that so doing would go a long way toward reducing the national
party leaders’ influence and approved the plan.114
The need to squash national party leaders’ aspirations was, however,
but one of several reasons for creating a Germanic Panzer Corps. The
SS-FHA had long complained of the difficulty of employing the small
Legions as independent units on the Eastern Front. Moreover, with the
exception of the Danish Legion, they had all fared poorly when pitted
in actual battle against the Red Army. “Wiking,” by contrast, a division
that had integrated Germanics into a broader German fighting force, had
proven itself one of the most capable divisions in the Wehrmacht. The
purely military rationale for dissolving the Legions and incorporating
them into a larger and mixed fighting unit was strong.115 On the point of
creating a large Germanic Corps, then, the SS-HA and the SS-FHA were
in agreement, albeit for different reasons. This explains the unusually
cooperative relationship between the two offices as the plan was put into
operation.
At the same time, the creation of the Germanic Corps was part of a
larger reorganization of the Waffen-SS. In 1942, Himmler and Berger
made yet another attempt to expand the size and fighting power of the
Waffen-SS. Creating more large and well-equipped panzer corps seemed
to be the best way to create units that could operate independently of the
Wehrmacht command, thereby furthering the Waffen-SS’s own influence.
Recruitment from the West, however, had dried to a trickle, and the men

112
Riedweg report in Berger to Himmler, 24 November 1942, BA, NS 19/1576.
113
Berger to Himmler, 24 November 1942, in BA, NS 19/1576. Berger, however, claimed
the idea as his own when writing to Himmler. See also Berger to Himmler, 24 September
1942, in BA, NS 19/1667.
114
Himmler to Jüttner, Wolff, Knoblauch, Berger, “Vorschlag für die Neuafustellung der
SS-Divisionen,” undated, in BA, NS 19/3798.
115
See Wegner, “Auf dem Wege Zur Pangermanischen Armee. Dokumente Zur
Entstehungsgeschichte des III. (“Germanischen”) SS-Panzerkorps,” 9–11.
 Toward the Germanic Panzer Corps 147

made the momentous decision to abandon the voluntary principle – and

by extension the elite nature – of the Waffen-SS.116 In the fall of 1942,
Berger initiated a large-scale conscription program of both available
Germans and Volksdeutsche, “ethnic Germans,” from the East (in par-
ticular Romania).117 This ultimately undermined the entire project, as the
Germanic Corps eventually included thousands of non-Germanics.
By February 1943 Hitler had approved the plan, and the SS-HA and
SS-FHA had worked out the details of the new corps. In addition to
“Wiking” a second division, named “Nordland,” would be created out of
the remnants of the disbanded Legions. The “Nordland” Division devi-
ated from the “Wiking” model in one important aspect. Since their incep-
tion, the Legions had been of a lower status than regular Waffen-SS units.
Their members swore a different oath, were considered Legionnaires and
not SS-men, and were not automatically members of the larger SS. This
status differential was incorporated into the new III Germanic Panzer
Corps, with the “Wiking” Division remaining a full SS-Division and the
“Nordland” Division classified as a “Freiwilligen” Division  – one not
composed of first-rate, SS eligible men.118
Berger and Riedweg counted on roughly ten thousand Germanics
and ten thousand ethnic Germans for the corps. In addition, three hun-
dred Germanic Waffen-SS officer cadets were expected to graduate from
Tölz in time for the planned summer offensive. The Corps would be
filled out with a large contingent of Finnish and Estonian volunteers.
Berger and Riedweg recommended that the Legions’ national associa-
tions be eliminated, but Himmler disagreed for reasons lost to the his-
torical record.119 The regiments of the new “Nordland” Division were
indeed national, designated as “Nederland,” “Danmark,” “Norge,” and
“Langemarck” (Flemish). Hence, although the entire Corps was, in fact,
Germanic, individual soldiers would rarely interact with men from dif-
ferent Germanic countries, thereby undermining the spirit of Germanic
community advanced at Tölz. Moreover, because of battlefield realities,
“Wiking” never came under the Corps’ command. The creation of the

116
Berger to SS-FHA, Betr.:  Freiwillige aus germanischen Ländern, 9 February 1942, in
NARA, T-175/109, 33657.
117
For more on the decisions behind this, see Wegner, The Waffen-SS:  Organization,
Ideology and Function, 307–08.
118
Estes, A European Anabasis: Western European Volunteers in the German Army and SS,
1940–1945, Chapter 3, 1.
119
Berger and Riedweg to Himmler, 10 February 1943, Betr.: Germ.Korps., in BA, NS 19/
1735, 19–30.
148 Building a Germanic Europe

Corps was at best a fleeting and incomplete victory for Riedweg and his
fellow neutral Germanic volunteers. They were more successful in rein-
forcing individual Germanic volunteers’ strong sense of Germanic unity
and their corresponding desire to unleash unrestrained violence on those
deemed racially inferior.
 5

Molding the Germanic Political Soldier

On the early morning of 12 March 1942, the men of the SS-Division

“Wiking” awoke to find two Scandinavian sentries missing. At first the
men thought that a Soviet raiding party had taken them. When it was
discovered that there were only two sets of footprints in the snow along
the front, both leading away from the German position, it became clear
what had happened. Sometime during the previous night, a Danish and
a Norwegian volunteer had walked across no-man’s land and deserted to
the Red Army. A series of disturbed and perplexed letters traveled up the
chain of command until the issue landed on Heinrich Himmler’s desk.
Himmler was furious. Although desertions would become more frequent
later in the war, this was the first case of frontline Germanic troops in this
elite division abandoning their posts. Himmler blamed the problem on a
lack of ideological conviction among foreign volunteers. He ordered the
SS-FHA and the Germanische Leitstelle to do something about what he
perceived as the low morale of foreign troops.1
The largely Germanic staff of the Germanische Leitstelle, however,
drew a different conclusion. The problem, from their perspective, was
not simply that the Germanic volunteers were not ideological enough.
Of far greater concern was their German commanders’ lack of apprecia-
tion for the Germanic objectives of the war and a corresponding lack of
respect for Germanic volunteers. Mainstream National Socialist ideology

1
Himmler to Jüttner and Berger, 14 April 1942, in BA, NS 19/1644. On this incident,
see also Stein, The Waffen SS:  Hitler’s Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945, 159. Parts of
this chapter have previously appeared in Martin Gutmann, “Creating a Transnational
Political Soldier: The SS Officer Cadet School at Tölz and the Nazi Quest for a Greater
Germanic Empire, 1943–1945.” Transnational Subjects 2/1 (2011), 85–93.

149
44 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

and had proposed numerous blueprints for the integration of Germanic

Europe.69 Similarly  – and again to the Foreign Ministry’s chagrin  – by
1944 the Germanische Leitstelle had implemented a policy whereby a
Swiss citizen, for example, wishing to travel to Germany had to apply
directly to that office, not the Foreign Ministry, for a visa.70 Most of these
jurisdictional disputes were never resolved.
Although most of the Germanische Leitstelle’s plans failed utterly,
they nevertheless speak to the scale and scope of the SS’s ambition. Much
like the Generalplan Ost, the SS’s plan for the reconstruction of the occu-
pied East as a “German” landscape – plans which ultimately failed but
resulted in the murder of millions  – the Germanische Leitstelle’s plans
for the Greater Germanic Reich in the West provides a unique window
into the Germanic project.71 To gain a better understanding of what the
Germanische Leitstelle and its Germanic volunteers hoped to accomplish
and why, we must return to the vexed question of the office’s origins.
At the end of the summer of 1940, Riedweg presented Himmler with
a memorandum in which he argued for the creation of an office to coor-
dinate the recruitment and integration of Germanic volunteers.72 One
month later, Dr.  Rudolf Jacobsen, a “racial expert” and RuS-Führer of
the Nordost district, sent a similar memo to the SS-FHA and volunteered
himself to serve as its head.73 The startling simultaneity of these sugges-
tions by both a Germanic and a German SS officer highlights the transna-
tional origins of the SS’s Germanic policies. Unfortunately for Jacobsen,

69
“Germanische Leitstelle Organisation,” in BAMA, N 756/52b.
70
See Oertle, Sollte Ich Aus Russland Nicht Zurückkehren:  Schweizer Freiwillige an
Deutscher Seite, 1939–1945., 526.
71
See, for example, Mechtild Rössler and Sabine Schleiermacher, eds., Der “Generalplan
Ost.” Hauplinien der Nationalsozialistischen Planungs und Vernichtungspolitik
(Berlin:  Akademie-Verlag, 1993); David Blackbourn, The Conquest of Nature:  Water,
Landscape and the Making of Modern Germany (New  York:  W.W. Norton &
Company, 2006).
72
See Niederschrift einer Unterredung mit Herrn Dr. Med. Franz Riedweg, München, 22
November 1955, p. 5, in IfZ, ZS669, Riedweg Franz. The memo itself has not survived,
so we cannot know exactly what functions the office Riedweg recommended should have
served. Although few scholars of the Waffen-SS attribute the creation of the office to
Riedweg, several other Germanische Leitstelle officers have confirmed that the initiative
came from Riedweg. See, for example, Fritz Ulrich’s “Die Grossgermanische/europäische
Reichsidee und die Waffen-SS,” p. 13, in WPA.
73
Though Jacobsen’s original memo appears lost, Himmler referred to it in a January 1941
letter to Berger. See Himmler to Berger, 7 January 1941, in BAMA, N 756/234c. The
Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt was founded in 1931 by Himmler to assure the “racial
purity” of the SS. Originally led by Walter Darré, the RuSHA had to approve all mar-
riages within the SS. It would also provide racial examiners in trials for infringements
against racial codes and oversee various “Germanization” projects.
 Germania’s Elite or Cannon Fodder 151

was assigned to track Swedish media and to produce appropriate media

campaigns for Swedish consumption. In all likelihood, he was also in
charge of cataloguing potential collaborators and enemies, both political
and racial, who would need to be dealt with upon Sweden’s incorpora-
tion into the Reich.3 The Dane Helweg-Larsen, as we have seen, had been
assigned to the propaganda unit SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers before return-
ing to work for the expanded Germanische Leitstelle in Copenhagen in
1943.4 After the desertions in the winter of 1942, however, Riedweg and
Berger focused additional manpower on cultivating the proper Germanic
political soldier. The Germanic and German officers at the Leitstelle set
about re-examining and designing each step of the Germanic volunteers’
Waffen-SS path, from their initial schooling, to their interactions with
German officers and their placement at the frontlines and later in admin-
istrative offices.
The Germanische Leitstelle, of course, did not hold a monopoly on
the training of soldiers. Both the Waffen-SS and the Wehrmacht invested
time and resources in the ideological training of their troops, so-called
Weltanschauliche Erziehung. German National Socialists had developed
a complex set of views on how best to motivate soldiers, centered on
the idea of the “political soldier” who would be molded through harsh
discipline and ideological indoctrination.5 The SS, however, additionally
strove to create a corps of German “fighting bureaucrats” who would
be as skilled at administrative as martial work. The SS-FHA’s training
policies therefore stressed ideologically infused office work as well as the
frontline toughness emphasized by the Wehrmacht.
The Germanic-leaning officers cultivated by the Germanische
Leitstelle developed a system for creating the “political soldier” that dif-
fered from both these models. First, the Germanische Leitstelle concluded
that, because non-Germans lacked previous exposure to German mili-
tary discipline, they would have to be treated more gently by their offi-
cers. The unrelenting discipline emphasized both by the SS-FHA and the
Wehrmacht would have to be tempered. Second, because of the centrality

3
PM Angående svenske medborgaren E[. . .] H[. . .] J[. . .] och dennes enrollering i tyska
Waffen S.S. m.m., p. 20, in MUST, FX 22:a, 198.
4
BA, SSO (BDC) 83A, Helweg-Larsen, Knud Fleming.
5
The process by which German recruits of the regular Wehrmacht as well as the Waffen-SS
were disciplined and “politicized” has been studied extensively. See, for example, Bartov,
Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis and War in the Third Reich; Manfred Messerschmidt, Die
Wehrmachtsjustiz 1933–1945 (Paderborn:  Ferdinand Schönignh, 2005); Förster, “Die
Weltanschauliche Erziehung in der Waffen-SS: ‘Kein Totes Wissen, Sondern Lebendiger
Nationalsozialismus’.”
152 Molding the Germanic Political Soldier

of Germanic volunteers in the creation of the Greater Germanic Reich, a

parallel “fighting bureaucrat” track to that of German officers would have
to be created for suitable Germanic volunteers. While the Wehrmacht had
no jurisdiction over nor interest in the schooling of Germanic Waffen-SS
volunteers, the SS-FHA competed fiercely with the Germanische Leitselle
over the purpose and implementation of ideological schooling.
With the desertion of the two Scandinavians in the winter of 1942 –
and more importantly, Himmler’s response – the staff of the SS-HA and
the Germanische Leitstelle re-examined their training methods for the
Germanic volunteers. They soon concluded that a more streamlined and
effective method for politicizing both Germanic soldiers and the officers
overseeing them was required. This was because ideological schooling
within the Waffen-SS did not end when a recruit completed his training
but in fact continued in the field. Himmler consistently emphasized a
culture in which officers should take every opportunity to reflect on the
ideological nature of the conflict, preferring authentic “one-on-one talks
in a bunker” over lectures.6 In addition to promoting more gentle German
officers, ideological schooling with a Germanic focus would have to be
strengthened across the board. The result, they hoped, would be that both
Germanic volunteers and their German officers would increasingly see
each other as racial brothers and realize that they were fighting for a
shared goal. The SS-FHA, however, resisted such Germanic-specific con-
ceptions of the political soldier and dismissed reports of ill treatment of
Germanic volunteers at the hands of Germans. Instead, they claimed, the
desertions pointed to the general inadequacies of non-German soldiers.
German officers needed to be more, rather than less, harsh with these sol-
diers if they were to develop discipline and an appreciation for German-
centric ideology. This disagreement stemmed as much from ingrained
bureaucratic rivalries as it did from fundamentally differing conceptions
of what purpose the Germanic volunteers served within the organization.
Both the SS-HA and the SS-FHA agreed that Weltanschauliche
Erziehung was essential to the forming of successful Waffen-SS soldiers.
The Waffen-SS was, after all, the organization that sought to harness the
most committed National Socialist soldiers. This insistence on ideological
training only strengthened as the Wehrmacht placed increasing impor-
tance on its own ideological guidelines and initiatives, thereby threaten-
ing the Waffen-SS’s monopoly on the “political soldier” during the later

6
“Die Weltanschauliche Erziehung in der Waffen-SS:  ‘Kein Totes Wissen, Sondern
Lebendiger Nationalsozialismus’,” 109.
 Germania’s Elite or Cannon Fodder 153

years of the war.7 Within the SS, however, the two offices disagreed on
what that indoctrination should emphasize and accomplish. The SS-FHA
was primarily concerned with prosecuting the war. For its administrators,
from its head Hans Jüttner and down through the ranks, the purpose of
indoctrination was motivation in fighting the current war. The SS-HA, in
contrast, looked forward to creating a political elite to smooth the tran-
sition to a Greater Germanic Reich. Given the pressing concerns of the
Eastern Front, the SS-FHA regarded the SS-HA’s future-oriented stance as
disruptive and counter-productive.
These different attitudes toward the purpose of ideological training
put the two organizations in direct conflict with one another. Jüttner
and Berger were famously intolerant of one another; directives from one
office were regularly ignored, even without jurisdictional disputes.8 In the
case of Weltanschauliche Erziehung, however, the jurisdictional assign-
ments were completely muddled.9 Himmler had tasked the Germanische
Leitstelle with supervising all aspects of Germanic volunteers. The SS-
Schulungsamt, also in the SS-HA and in good standing with the Leitstelle,
held responsibility for the “education” of Waffen-SS soldiers.10 The SS-
FHA, however, was responsible for all training, including ideological
training and combat operations.11
The general result of this bureaucratic muddle was that the Germanic
volunteers were subject to the jurisdiction of whoever commanded them
at any given time. At the moments when the Germanic volunteers were
mixed with German troops and officers, such as in the field, the directives
of the SS-FHA largely prevailed. In the field, Weltanschauliche Erziehung
remained the responsibility of company commanders  – with guidelines
set by the SS-FHA.12 During the periods when the Germanic soldiers were
separated from the Germans, however, the Germanische Leitstelle and
its allies largely emphasized the Germanic take on National Socialism. It
was at the SS Officer Training School at Tölz and in the Germanic divi-
sions “Wiking” and “Nordland” that the attempts to create a political
Germanic corps came the closest to fruition. Outside of these somewhat

7
Wegner, The Waffen-SS: Organization, Ideology and Function, 213.
8
See, for example, Koehl, The Black Corps: The Structure and Power Struggles of the Nazi
SS, 202–03.
9
Förster, “Die Weltanschauliche Erziehung in der Waffen-SS,” 105.
10
“Urteil des Bundesstrafgerichts in Sache Franz Riedweg und 18 Mitangeklagte,” AfZ NL
Heinrich Büeler 9.4.
11
Förster, “Die Weltanschauliche Erziehung in der Waffen-SS,” 94.
12
Ibid. See also “Heft 8: Stoffsammlung für Weltanschauliche Erziehung der Waffen-SS,”
BA MA RS 3–5 SS.Div. “Wiking“/ 3a.
154 Molding the Germanic Political Soldier

protected areas, efforts at creating a Germanic political soldier corps went

largely unnoticed, and Germanic soldiers continued to be mistreated at
the hands of German officers.
That the treatment of Germanic volunteers was a serious problem had
been apparent to Berger and the staff of the Germanische Leitstelle and
the staff at Tölz for some time. Though desertions were rare before 1943,
complaints of German officers’ total disregard for Germanic ideas were
frequent. The Dane P.R. E[. . .] recalls frequently being met with a mocking,
“What do you want?” when reporting for duty to various German com-
manders.13 The Swede Kurt Norberg, who attended a course at Sennheim
in 1941, deserted from the Waffen-SS in 1943. During his interrogation
by the Swedish police, he told a tale of traumatic treatment at the hands
of German officers – and this at a school directly under the control of the
Germanische Leitstelle and geared specifically for Germanic volunteers.
His interrogator summarized Norberg’s statements as follows:
The command in Sennheim treated the men almost as animals and in addition
had a downright hostile attitude towards Sweden. They had no understanding
of Sweden’s precarious position and constantly uttered threats that after the war
Sweden would be “punished for a life of excess and luxury.” The officers spoke
in mocking words about the ‘Swedish tin soldier army’ and, like many other
German officers, believed that Sweden was a Jewish-Communist state.14

Two cases involving top Germanic recruits, however, enraged the

Germanic-inclined officers of the SS even more than the scattered reports
of harassment. The inability of individual German officers to compre-
hend the Germanic mission of the SS could, after all, be resolved with
more ideological schooling. More upsetting was the SS-FHA’s constant
sabotaging of attempts to create a Germanic political corps. In July
1941, the Swedish Lieutenant Colonel Carl-Olof Vrang showed up at the
Waffen-SS recruitment center in Oslo, still wearing his Swedish uniform.
Along with being a Swedish career officer, Vrang had fought with the
Swedish volunteer forces in Finland before deciding to volunteer for the
Waffen-SS. Given the standard Waffen-SS screening tests, Vrang earned
the highest score that had ever been recorded. Riedweg and Berger were
thrilled at the appearance of what seemed to be an exceptional Germanic
volunteer. After being sent to Berlin, Vrang met with both men and made
an excellent impression. As with all Germanic volunteers, Vrang’s first

13
Første Fronterfarning – 1.SS-Brig. Summer 1941, in RA, PA P.R.En. 6926/8.
14
PM Angående svenske medborgaren E[. . .] H[. . .] J[. . .] och dennes enrollering i tyska
Waffen S.S. m.m., 15, in MUST, FX 22:a.
 Germania’s Elite or Cannon Fodder 155

assignment was to be in combat; he was sent off at the end of the month
to the SS-Division “Der Führer” for training. In September, however,
Berger learned that Vrang’s new German commander was anything but
impressed. With Jüttner’s approval, the commander sent Vrang straight
back to Sweden because he “had no use for a deserter.” Stunned, Riedweg
and Berger sent an angry letter to Jüttner.15 Their appeal came too late,
however; Vrang would not volunteer a second time.
The treatment of Swiss Major Johann Corrodi similarly infuriated
Riedweg and Berger. Corrodi, like Vrang, had been a respected officer
in his native military, but decided after the invasion of the Soviet Union
that his skills could be put to better use in the Waffen-SS. The Swiss
police raids on the Sportschule in the summer of 1941 had uncovered
Corrodi’s resume among the organization’s files. He was interviewed by
the police and admitted to having submitted credentials in the hope that
he could be of service in aligning Switzerland with Germany. The last
sentence of his CV, written before the invasion of the Soviet Union had
begun, read: “Greater Germany is fighting for a new Europe, we are all
Germanic, we all have the same blood, our flag must be subordinate to
the new Europe.”16 Two days after Barbarossa began, facing an uncertain
future in the Swiss army and a strong inclination to fight for what he
saw as the creation of a Greater Germanic Reich, Corrodi crossed the
border into France. There he was immediately arrested by the border
police and sent for processing to the Gestapo.17 After Berger intervened
and assured the Gestapo that neither Corrodi nor his wife were spies – his
wife had excellent contacts with the English establishment – Corrodi was
sent to the Panoramaheim. The SS-FHA, however, was as uninterested in
Corrodi as they had been in Vrang and offered the highly qualified offi-
cer a position as a common SS-man in the Freikorps Danmark.18 Only
after Riedweg and Berger’s repeated and vocal intervention was Corrodi
given a commission as an SS-Sturmbannführer, roughly corresponding to
his Swiss rank of Major, in the SS-Division “Adolf Hitler.”19 Once there,
Corrodi managed to have a successful career in the Waffen-SS; his fluent

15
Berger to Jüttner, 22 September 1941, Betr.: Übernahme des CH Majors Corrodi und des
schwedischen Oberleutnants Vrang, in BAMA, N 756/460. Vrang is known in Swedish
sources as “Wrang.”
16
Johann Blanuer, “Der Fall Johann Eugen Corrodi,” p. 9, in BiG.
17
Berger to Jüttner, 22 September 1941, Betr.: Übernahme des CH Majors Corrodi und des
schwedischen Oberleutnants Vrang, in BAMA, N 756/460.
18
Johann Blanuer, “Der Fall Johann Eugen Corrodi,” p. 5, in BiG.
19
Riedweg to SS-FHA, Betr.: Major Corrodi, 17 September 1941, in BA, SSO (BDC) 183,
Elfenau, Johann.
156 Molding the Germanic Political Soldier

German no doubt made him easier to accept than those Germanics with
language difficulties or obvious accents. Beyond his personal success,
however, the SS-FHA’s unwillingness to make proper use of highly qual-
ified and motivated officers such as Vrang and Corrrodi was completely
incomprehensible to Berger and Riedweg.
Nor were these cases unique. Sven Ryden, an enthusiastic Swedish
officer with command experience in the Winter War, served for months
without an officer’s commission.20 Berger and Riedweg complained to the
SS-FHA that “a whole row of officers, who, even if not especially capable
in military matters, but who for political reasons should under all cir-
cumstances be kept, were sent home without us having any idea.”21 This
statement is a frank testament to the differing priorities of the two offices.
From the SS-HA’s perspective, individual Germanic officers who showed
political promise should be allowed to command troops even if they were
unsuited for front-line command. By February 1942, recruitment from
Western Europe had dried up almost completely – a situation Berger and
Riedweg blamed on the treatment of Germanic officers.22
In December of 1942, in response to the outcry over the Scandinavian
deserters, the Germanische Leitstelle issued a pamphlet aimed at the SS-
FHA on “Guidelines for the Education of Germanic Volunteers.” The
thirty-page document, published after months of work by several officers,
offers a complete outline of how the Leitstelle and its allies hoped to make
the dreams of a Germanic state a reality. It proposed a bold rereading of
history based on Germanic, not German, primacy, and it called for a
fundamental shift in the attitude of German SS officers toward Germanic
volunteers. Germanic soldiers should not be viewed as mere helpers in
the current war, but rather as the future elite of a Germanic Europe, as an
avant-garde in the making.
The document begins with a call for German officers to radically mod-
ify their treatment of Germanic volunteers. Officers should refrain from
treating these volunteers as “cannon fodder” who can “be brutally and
harshly squeezed into the straightjacket of Prussian drill without regard
to their unique circumstances.”23 It called for better personnel manage-
ment, with the experience of the British as a guide.24 It also quite notably

20
See BA, SSO (BDC) 57B, Ryden, Sven.
21
Berger to Jüttner, Betr.: Freiwillige aus germanischen Ländern, 9 February 1942, p. 2, in
NARA, T-175/20, 233657.
22
Berger to Jüttner, Betr.: Freiwillige aus germanischen Ländern, 9 February 1942, p. 2, in
NARA, T-175/20, 233657.
23
“Richtlinien zur Erziehung germanischer Freiwilliger,” p. 1, in BA, NS 31/455, 3.
24
“Richtlinien zur Erziehung germanischer Freiwilliger,” p. 4, in BA, NS 31/455, 6.
 Germania’s Elite or Cannon Fodder 157

argued that both Germanics and Germans needed to be properly “enlight-

ened” on the meaning of the war as a Germanic European mission with
long-term political goals.
The document outlined several key political points that potential SS-
officers, whether Germans or Germanic, needed to understand. First,
Waffen-SS members needed to understand that “the North” was sur-
rounded by a “plutocratic-Bolshevik” ring which could only be defeated
with the help of Germany. Furthermore:
He must become convinced that our enemies’ victory would spell the complete
enslavement and annihilation of the peoples of the North . . . he must be enlight-
ened regarding the causes of this European struggle against the East and the West
and from this conclusion emerge convinced that the peoples of Europe should
join together, so that also in the future they act as a united whole against the
outside.25

This is a rather surprising aside in what is essentially a manual for com-

bat officers. It would not be unusual to find vague and abstract goals
for what victory would bring in a pamphlet intended to address lagging
moral among volunteers. Instead, the document offers a concrete and
specific picture of a new Europe that would arise from the ashes of the
war. The Germanic peoples would have to unite in a “community . . .
where Germany under Adolf Hitler as Primus Interpares has the leader-
ship role.”26
Vague though it was, this was one of the first concrete utterance by the
SS’s Germanic lobby on what the Greater Germanic Reich would look like.
Because of their shared racial and cultural history, the Germanic coun-
tries would belong to one and the same political community of equals.
But because of Germany’s historic leadership role among Germanics and
its central location, that country would serve as the leader among equals.
The Germanic countries would not, as Mussert, Quisling, and other
National Socialist leaders advocated during the war, be equals in a loose
federation with Germany.
Although Himmler stopped short of endorsing all aspects of the
pamphlet’s vision of a Germanic future, he fully endorsed the idea that
German officers should treat their Germanic soldiers with greater respect.

25
“Richtlinien zur Erziehung germanischer Freiwilliger,” p. 19, in BA, NS 31/455, 21.
26
Ibid. A  later instructional manual from the SS-Junkerschule Tölz states explicitly as
the first of fifteen points regarding the greater Germanic Reich that, “the creation of
the Reich and the leadership of Europe is the fate-secured and inviolable right of the
Germans.” “Das Reich und Europa,” p. 1, in BAMA, RS5/310.
158 Molding the Germanic Political Soldier

After reading it, Himmler sent out an order to all SS schools and units
reiterating that:
With poor treatment and comradeship, these men will never be won over to the
idea of our Führer. This is only possible with understanding for the situation of
these volunteers, who came from outside the Reich – without German schooling
and cultural teachings – to fight bravely for Germandom [Deutschtum] or their
Germanicdom [Germanentum].27

But even with Himmler’s support, the Germanische Leitstelle’s call was
not immediately heeded. Many officers were reluctant to change their
behavior for the benefit of a small group of non-Germans. In direct oppo-
sition the Germanische Leitstelle’s central message of Germanic equality,
these German officers continued to treat their foreign soldiers as racially
inferior.28 This problem continued nearly until the last year of the war, at
which point all Germanics came to be commanded by specially selected,
Germanic-trained political officers.
The SS-FHA was, nevertheless, forced to concede to some of
Germanische Leitstelle’s demands regarding the treatment of the volun-
teers. After publication of the Leitstelle’s pamphlet, Himmler required
all German officers who worked with Germanic men to attend a special
preparatory course. Starting in April 1942, Himmler further required all
German officers in the Legions to undergo a two-week preparatory course
on properly commanding non-German troops.29 Moreover, in the same
month, the SS-FHA agreed to allow Germanic officers to keep their pre-
vious rank if they proved themselves capable by German standards.30 The
historical record is unclear, however, on whether all or even most German
officers, desperately needed at the front, attended the courses. Moreover,
the fact that Germanic officers were allowed to keep their ranks did not
necessarily impart their German comrades with greater respect for them.
Himmler had less to say about the dispute between the SS-HA and the
SS-FHA on the former’s attempt at creating Germanic political soldiers.
Throughout the war, the SS-FHA continued to issue orders that disrupted
the work of its rival office. In April of 1942, for example, the very month

27
RF-SS, 6 December 1942  “Behandlung von volksdeutschen und germanischen
Freiwilligen in der Waffen-SS,” in BAMA, RS 5/346.
28
Nearly every diary or collection of letters from Germanic volunteers recalls numerous
run-ins with arrogant and excessively critical German commanders. See also, Höhne, The
Order of the Death’s Head: The Story of Hitler’s SS, 476; Stein, The Waffen SS: Hitler’s
Elite Guard at War, 1939–1945, 159.
29
Himmler to Berger and Jüttner, 13 April 1942, in BA, NS 19/2305, 1–2.
30
SS-FHA, 9 April 1942, in BA, NS 33/213.
 Creating the Germanic Political Soldier Corps 159

that Jüttner guaranteed the equal ranks of Germanic volunteers, he also

issued an order forbidding Germanic men from speaking publicly or giv-
ing interviews when home on leave.31 Riedweg and Berger had intended
the inspiring example of Germanic Waffen-SS volunteers to be a primary
vehicle through which the Greater Germanic Reich would be accepted
and implemented in Europe. Cutting Danish, Norwegian and Dutch vol-
unteers off from the public at home essentially deprived the Germanische
Leitstelle of one of its primary vehicles for exploiting the men’s service on
the front among foreign populations.
Despite the opposition of the SS-FHA and German officers at the
front, Riedweg and his staff worked hard to implement their policies
throughout 1942 and the first half of 1943. Their work was not entirely
ineffective. Although its appeal throughout the Waffen-SS’s officer corps
remaining marginal, the Germanic take on National Socialism did take
hold in the few units and schools beyond the SS-FHA’s reach. After the
war, Germanic volunteers consistently reminisced about the Germanic
bond and community that had been forged during their time in the
Waffen-SS. In these recollections, one place stands out as the center of
this community: the idyllic Bavarian mountain town of Bad Tölz.

Creating the Germanic Political Soldier

Corps at the SS Officer Cadet School Tölz
It was above all at the SS Officer Cadet School at Tölz that the program
outlined in the Germanische Leitstelle’s pamphlet came closest to imple-
mentation. One of four Waffen-SS officer training schools, it had by 1942
become the de facto school for training Germanic officers  – Germanic
officers were only sent there, not to the other three – and the staff devel-
oped a close working relationship with the Germanische Leitstelle
and the commanders of the Germanic units of the Waffen-SS. Several
Germanic officers also became influential instructors at the school. The
Swiss officer Dr. Konrad Bergmann and the Dane Lorenz Lorenzen, for
instance, were offered teaching jobs there upon completing their training
and serving on the front lines.32 Similarly, the Swiss ideologue Dr. Alfred

31
SS-FHA, Redeverbot germanischer Freiwilliger in ihren Heimatländern, in NARA,
T-175/137, 2664421.
32
See Lorenzen to Kryssing, 28 June 1942, RA FOARK 1010/90D and Bergmann, Einsichten
und Ansichten Eines Schweizer Freiwilligen: Bericht Eines Schweizer Kriegsfreiwilligen
der Waffen-SS, 63.
160 Molding the Germanic Political Soldier

Zander became an ideological instructor and one of the key authors of

the Weltanschauliche Erziehung texts.33
As is so often the case in aspects of the Germanic volunteers, it is
necessary to sift through a layer of historical mythology before arriving
at a more authentic understanding. Some historians looking to explain
the behavior of the volunteers have depicted Tölz as a place of pure
Nazi indoctrination, where gullible Germanic men were fashioned into
willing cannon fodder.34 Apologetic authors, in contrast, have tried to
paint the school as, above all, a modern military institution that wel-
comed all (Germanic) Europeans. The apologetic reading of Tölz is usu-
ally imbued with an additional romanticized element of a “Tölz Spirit”
that filled its graduates with, in the words of its last commander, “a firm
faith in a common supranational ideology” that would form a “bridge
between the time-honored traditions of the Western World . . . and the
as-yet undreamed of achievements of the new technical age.”35 There is
undoubtedly an element of truth to the idea that the Germanics who
spent time at Tölz felt a strong bond to each other, to what they saw as
their shared culture, and to a common mission, but that bond must be
understood as part of a larger project to create a racially pure Greater
Germanic Reich.
An abundance of sources provide curious historians with ample evi-
dence on the true nature and aim of the school. Originally, Germanic offi-
cer cadets were integrated into regular classes with German cadets. By
1943, however, the Germanische Leitstelle had convinced the SS-FHA of
the merits of training Germanics in all-Germanic courses, separate from
Germans.36 Riedweg gave the explicit reason for this change as “moving
one step closer to the reality of creating a Germanic political-soldier lead-
ership corps.”37 Already by the summer of 1942, Riedweg managed to have
Gottfried Klingemann, a Germanic-oriented German officer, appointed as
the head of the school; together, the two of them set about planning for

33
See Aussage F[. . .] in Hannover, 31.3.1973, Betr Ausbildungslager Sennheim, in BAMA,
N 756/336b and Gingerich, “Toward a Brotherhood of Arms: Waffen-SS Recruitment of
Germanic Volunteers, 1940–1945,” 41.
34
Wegner, The Waffen-SS: Organization, Ideology and Function, 171.
35
Kossens, Militärischer Führernachwuchs der Waffen-SS: Die Junkerschulen, 28, 31.
36
Rundschreiben des Amtes “Führerausbildung” im SS-Führungshauptamt Betr.
“Militärische Ausbildung der germanischen Offiziere,” 3 May 1943, in BAMA, RS  5/
332.
37
Riedweg, Betr. Germanische Führerausbildung in Tölz, 24 August 1942, in BA, NS 31/
375, 4.
48 Germanic Dreams: The Waffen-SS and Foreign Recruitment

on what policies to pursue next. The Swiss government’s decision to ban

both the Nationale Front, the main fascist party in Switzerland, and
its spin-off, the NSB, in November 1940, propelled Riedweg back into
action. Through Himmler he organized to have the SS officer Dr. Wilhelm
Gröbl transferred to the German Consulate in Zurich. Gröbl, who had
been sent to Austria before the Anschluss and had been integral in pre-
paring the country for its union with the Reich, was expected to perform
a similar task in Switzerland.85 His experience in Switzerland shows the
extent to which the SS’s policies on the Germanic countries continually
received input from Germanics themselves.
Riedweg and the Swiss lawyer Dr. Heinrich Büeler decided that a nec-
essary first step in affecting an “organic solution”  – a term the Swiss
preferred over Anschluss – would be to create a small SS-like movement
in Switzerland. They managed to gain Gröbl’s blessing for the under-
taking. This new group, composed of racial and intellectual Swiss elites,
would bond through military-like training, begin cataloguing Jews and
other “foreign elements,” and be at the ready to serve the SS’s interest
once Switzerland became aligned with the Reich.86 After a trip to Berlin
in early January 1941, Büeler returned to Zurich and set to work setting
up a Sportsschule, or “Athletics School,” as cover for the new organiza-
tion. The funds for the project were funneled from Berlin through Gröbl
at the Zurich Consulate. Over the next few months, Büeler and his co-
conspirator Othmar Maag managed to attract some three hundred mem-
bers from half a dozen schools scattered throughout Switzerland.87 But
despite this early success, few members of the German regime outside of
Riedweg’s circle at the SS-HA appeared eager to affect an Anschluss with
Switzerland – although eventually, everyone agreed, this would have to
take place.88 The Sportschule continued its recruiting and training efforts
until the summer, at which point it was broken up by the Swiss police.
Designed to deter fascism, the police action ironically convinced most of

85
Urteil, 29.
86
For more on the Sportschule, see Edgar Bonjour, Geschichte der Schweizerischen
Neutralität:  Bd. 4.  Geschichte der Schweizerischen Neutralität Vom Ausbruch des
Zweiten Weltkriegs an (Basel: Schwabe, 1971), 279, 404.
87
See “Sportschule Maag – SS Schule in der Schweiz,” Tagesanzeiger (11.1.1946), 1, and
Urteil, 29–35. On Büeler’s reflections on the creation and failure of the Sportschule  –
which conform to the official report in the Urteil  – see Büeler to Otto Gloor, 14
August 1941, in AfZ, NL Heinrich Büeler, 4.1 Militärgerichtliche Untersuchung und
Untersuchungshaft 10.6.-27.10.1941 bis zur flucht am 21.11.1941.
88
Fink, Schweiz Aus der Sicht des Dritten Reiches, 69–71.
162 Molding the Germanic Political Soldier

possible. The men had to be taught, as well, the concrete skills necessary
to serve as administrators both within the SS and within the future Reich.
But these men should not be mere administrators. Rather, they would be
kämpfende Bürokraten – fighting bureaucrats. Only through joint service
at the front could the Germanic bond be solidified, only through combat
could the men gain the legitimacy to serve as an elite, and only through
fighting the Bolshevik menace could they and their nations be redeemed
and their place in the Greater Germanic Reich assured. At Tölz, military
training, ideological indoctrination, and the appreciation of Germanic
culture hence went hand-in-hand, each an integral part in the overarch-
ing goal of the Germanische Leitstelle and its allies of creating a Greater
Germanic Reich.
No mere receptacles, the earliest neutral volunteers who passed
through the courses at Tölz themselves contributed to the idea of a
Greater Germanic Reich, to the celebration of Germanic culture, and to
the spreading of these ideas to the wave of Germanic recruits that fol-
lowed them. It was only over time, as more Germanics went through
the officer training courses, fought at the front, and returned to serve as
instructors that the Germanic program took full shape. The landmark
step in this progression was the creation of all-Germanic courses, the first
of which began in February 1943.42
The coursework at Tölz emphasized military, administrative, and
political  – that is, ideological  – education. Weltanschauliche Erziehung
coursework accounted for 10 percent of the weekly hours – more than
topics such as ‘Military Organization’ [Heerswesen], ‘Physical Fitness’
[Leibeserziehung] and ‘Weapons Training’ [Waffenlehre].43 The amount
of time dedicated to ideological indoctrination was comparable to what
German Waffen-SS cadets as well as cadets of the Wehrmacht were exposed
to at the other officer training schools.44 At Tölz’s all-Germanic courses,
however, the content was different. Here, the primacy of Germanics, not
Germans, was stressed. Disparate historical epochs, events, and charac-
ters, from the Vikings to the Teutons, were all a part of the same chain of
Germanic achievements.45

42
9.Kriegsjunker Lehrgang Gesamtgermanische Inspektion 1.2.1943 – 31.7.1943, in BA,
SSO (BDC) A9, 2768. A preparatory course for Germanics took place in the fall of 1942.
See BA, SSO (BDC) A8, 2754.
43
“Lehrstoffeinteilung für den 4.Lehrgang für germanische Offiziere,” BA MA RS 5/320.
44
Sönke Neitzel, “Des Forschungs Noch Wert? Annerkenungen Zur Operationsgeschichte
der Waffen-SS,” Militärgeschichtlische Zeitschrift 61, no. 2 (2002): 415.
45
See, for example, “Germanische Wehrgedanke in der Geschichte,” BA MA RS 5/333.
 Creating the Germanic Political Soldier Corps 163

Special workshops and speakers outside of the regular schooling gave

an added emphasis on political schooling. A two-day Germanic conference
at Tölz in May 1943, jointly sponsored by the Germanische Leitstelle and
the school’s staff, is only one such example. With the theme of “Germanic
togetherness,” it featured speakers from various disciplines and national-
ities, all of whom discussed the “shared history of the Germanic peoples,
the role of National Socialism in reawakening this bond, and the com-
mon Germanic purpose in the East.”46 These Weltanschauliche Erziehung
courses and workshops appear to have been quite effective, indeed gen-
uinely popular, among the Germanic volunteers, many of whom were of
course already predisposed to a similar worldview.
A rare surviving syllabus from the fourth all-Germanic course at Tölz
affords us a direct view of sorts of material covered in the Weltanschauliche
Erziehung’s history program.47 This syllabus, for the course beginning
in March 1944, was divided into four sections. The first section, last-
ing six weeks, would cover the “basic laws of life” (Lebensgesetzliche
Grundlagen), including the standard National Socialist emphasis on
racial hygiene, the struggle of nations for survival and social Darwinism.
The following ten-week section examined “Empire and Europe” (Reich
und Europe), and sought to historically illuminate the “common roots
of all Germanic peoples and their high achievements in politics and cul-
ture, which form the glue of Europe.” After a survey of Indo-Germanic
and Germanic history, two weeks were dedicated to the near creation of
a Germanic order during the Middle Ages and the subsequent descent
of the “European union” into modern nation-states under Liberalism.
The following two weeks examined the topic of “Europe and National
Socialism” (Europa und der Nationalsozialismus), with the goals of show-
ing that, “National Socialism is the reincarnation of these old Germanic
values and proposes a new solution to the problems of the nineteenth
century. The regrowth of an empire leads simultaneously to an organic
European solution.”48 The use of the phrase “organic solution,” a concept
developed by Riedweg and other Swiss ideologues, is notable. The final
two-week section of the course on “the SS” addressed the current and
future role of the organization in a future Greater Germanic Reich.
The Germanic Weltanschauung also had a distinctly anti-American or
Western element. In a lecture for troops in the field written by a recent
46
“Germanische Gemeinsamkeit, erste germanische Tagung and der SS-Junkerschule Tölz,”
Völkischer Beobachter, 132 (12 May 1943).
47
Heinrich Büeler, “Was die SS war und was sie nicht war,” p. 23, in AfZ, NL Büeler, 10.3.
48
Lehrstoffeinteilung für den 4.Lehrgang für germanische Offiziere, in BAMA, RS 5/320.
164 Molding the Germanic Political Soldier

graduate of Tölz, an officer wrote that Bolshevism and the United States
shared “the same roots: materialism.” Inspired by the United States, this
officer explained, the Bolsheviks adopted a one-sided focus on technol-
ogy and the technical. In contrast to this, Germany and its allies repre-
sented true “culture,” evident by the construction of the Autobahn, which
“shows how technical construction and nature can exist harmoniously.”49
Similarly, in one of the opening lectures of a course in Weltanschauliche
Erziehung, an unknown instructor began by outlining the three alter-
nate Weltanschaungen – Christianity, Liberalism, and Marxism. What all
three had in common, he noted, was “internationalism, individualism,
[and] the ignorance of race and volk.”50
Volunteers were encouraged to debate and use their own knowledge
in forming their opinions of this material. This approach makes sense,
as the volunteers were themselves carriers and promoters of these ideas,
not blank slates upon which the material had to be inscribed. At the
end of their ideological and political training, students were asked to
write essays on broad questions. A  sample question was, “What were
the reasons for the downfall of the Germanic states during the period
of great migration, and what were the consequences for European
development?”51 The Swedish Waffen-SS volunteers Torken Tillman
and Wolfgang Eldh-Albiez, each of whom graduated with the Third all-
Germanic Officer Course in early 1944 – Eldh-Albiez at the top of the
class  – were asked to elaborate on why the fight in the East was “the
fulfillment of a historical mission.”52 Judging from the comments of his
instructors, it becomes clear that no single formulaic answer was antic-
ipated; rather, different formulations and even conclusions – within the
boundaries of a general Germanic National Socialist outlook, of course –
were accepted and encouraged.53 Germanic cadets received four hours
to complete this exam, rather than the three hours allotted to German
recruits, to allow for language differences.

49
“Amerikanismus-Eine Weltgefahr,” in BAMA, RS 3–1/97.
50
Unnamed, undated instructional lecture, in BAMA, RS 5/310.
51
Zwischenprüfung für den 11. Kriegs-Junker-Lehrgang, 30 November 43, in BAMA,
RS 5/314.
52
Schlussprüfung, 15 February 1944, 11.Kriegsjunker, 4 Lehrgang führerbewerber, 3. für
germanische Offiziere, in BAMA, RS 5/327. Eldh-Albiez would later be injured on the
Riga front and returned to Sweden after recovering sufficiently. Tillman, who was fluent
in several languages, was transferred to the war correspondence unit, SS-Standarte Kurt
Eggers.
53
See BAMA, RS 5/310, 314.
 Creating the Germanic Political Soldier Corps 165

To what extent did Tölz succeed at creating a leadership cadre for the
future Greater Germanic Reich? This question can best be answered by
examining the letters and diaries of those who were there. The neutral
Germanic men in question all wrote about what their training entailed,
what they were being trained for, and how they felt about it. Moreover,
many did in fact remark on the special spirit of Germanic camaraderie
instilled at the school; they spoke with great affection for its simulta-
neously modern, yet ancient, feel. The state-of-the-art facilities and the
emphasis on a new type of military leadership that valued intellect, “free
thinking,” merit, physical fitness, and above all, the ability to inspire,
spoke to the modernity of the SS. At the same time, the community fos-
tered at the school evoked something organic from the past, communal
life as it had been and should be once again.
As one of the first Germanic volunteers to arrive at the school, P.R.
E[. . .] was initially impressed by the size and architectural virtues of this
“very modern military training facility,” foreshadowing the response of
numerous volunteers who would be impressed by these features.54 Another
early volunteer used similar words, “The school is colossal. That’s the
only expression that can cover it.”55 He continued boasting of the size
and scenery over the following days.56 Several volunteers remarked on
the quality of instruction, the school’s modern feel, and the engagement
of the instructing officers. And not without reason: at one point in the
school’s history, for example, eight of the twelve sport instructors were
national champions in their discipline.57
The Swede Gösta Borg, who had previously served for two years in
the Waffen-SS, enrolled in the Third All-Germanic Officer Course in the
fall of 1943 after a brief return to Sweden. He wrote to a friend back in
Sweden that their “common plans” were now “coming to fruition.” The
rest of the letter leaves little doubt as to what these “common plans”
refer to: the incorporation of Sweden into the German Reich under the
SS’s leadership. Borg informed his friend that he was now surrounded by
a large group of battle-hardened men from all over “Europe.” Of course,
the men in this course were only from Germanic Europe – a telling sign

54
Min første Føling med Vaaben-SS, in RA, PA E[. . .], 8.
55
Sørensen to parents, 2 December 1942, Haaest, Intet Nyt Fra Østfronten: Beretningen
Om Regiment 24 Dänemarks Sidste Kommandør. Fortalt Af Ham Selv I Frontbreve, Sat
I Perspektiv Af Erik Haaest, 83–84.
56
See, for example, Sørensen to parents, 10, 17 and 22 December 1942, ibid., 84–88.
57
Schön, Hitlers Svenska Soldater, 84.
166 Molding the Germanic Political Soldier

of what Borg saw as true Europe.58 His racial and sexual understanding
of the mission of these “Europeans” was equally on display: “Here are
fathers and sons who have sworn revenge for wives and sisters.” This
reference was not to crimes already committed but rather to the per-
ceived threat posed by the very existence of Bolshevism and Judaism.
Borg continued, “it is about taking action against the [inevitable] attack
on Sweden, where people have no idea about the world as it really is.”59
The entire “feel” of the school, he wrote, was different from his expe-
rience at the Swedish war academy at Karlberg, “you have to see it to
believe it!” he wrote.60
The Dane Per Sørensen, who experienced the school much earlier as
part of a mixed German-Germanic course, nevertheless had a similar
experience. In his first letter home to his parents in December 1941,
Sørensen, too, remarked on the facilities of the school and the impres-
sive surroundings.61 When the Germans at the school returned home
for a two-week holiday, the Germanic students remained to celebrate
Christmas together in their small learning groups.62 Sørensen’s group
spent the holidays exploring the surrounding mountains on skis, an
experience which left a deep impression on the young Dane.63 It was
during this time that Sørensen’s worldview began to take concrete
shape. His letters from Tölz show that he was developing a deeper sense
of specifically Germanic (as opposed to Danish) nationalism, specific
ideas about what sort of changes Europe needed (including the murder
of unworthy peoples), and a National Socialist vocabulary for what
had previously been a vague worldview. Already during one of the first
days of the course, a general of the Waffen-SS had spoken to the cadets
about the Germanic mission of the war and specifically the role the
SS would play in this – a speech that Sørensen found captivating and
convincing.64

58
For a list of course participants, see BA, SSO (BDC) A 14, 2456.
59
Borg to unknown friend, 19 October 1943, p. 2, in WPA.
60
Borg to unknown friend, 19 October 1943, p. 1, in WPA.
61
Sørensen to parents, 2 December 1941, in Haaest, Intet Nyt Fra Østfronten: Beretningen
Om Regiment 24 Dänemarks Sidste Kommandør. Fortalt Af Ham Selv I Frontbreve, Sat
I Perspektiv Af Erik Haaest, 83–84.
62
SS-Junkerschule Tölz Tagesbefehl Nr. 110, 6 December 1941, in BAMA, RS 5/980.
63
Sørensen to parents, 22 and 29 December 1941, in Haaest, Intet Nyt Fra
Østfronten:  Beretningen Om Regiment 24 Dänemarks Sidste Kommandør. Fortalt Af
Ham Selv I Frontbreve, Sat I Perspektiv Af Erik Haaest, 86–90.
64
Sørensen to parents, 17 December 1941, in ibid., 85–86.
 Creating the Germanic Political Soldier Corps 167

The day after Sørensen wrote one of the two highest-scoring midterm
exams, his class traveled to an institution for the mentally disabled and
Dachau concentration camp. The following day he wrote to his parents
to share with them his impressions of the field trip. He wrote of his sur-
prise and disgust that such “deranged” persons as he encountered at the
institution were kept alive. The order and discipline at Dachau, however,
impressed the young Dane.65 Upon graduating from Tölz, Sørensen served
loyally in the Danish unit, first the Freikorps and then the Regiment, until
he died in the final days of the war in the street fighting of Berlin. Along
the way, there is evidence to suggest that he participated in the massacre
of several civilians. Having arrived in Germany as a DNSAP member,
Sørensen had clearly distanced himself from the nationally focused party
and had become, in every sense of the word, a Germanic political soldier,
enthusiastically educating his young soldiers of the great promise held by
the future Greater Germanic Reich.
That the officers trained at Tölz spread this message to their troops is
clear, though the extent to which it had an impact on the men is less eas-
ily determined. Although all combat units were under the auspices of the
SS-FHA, ideological indoctrination in the field fell on the individual com-
pany commanders.66 The SS-FHA instructed that their teaching should
be “lively and historically accurate.”67 An additional SS-HA directive
encouraged officers to create a dialogue and debate among their men – as
they themselves had experienced at Tölz – as this was the most effective
method at solidifying ideological conviction.68 In Germanic units, then,
the Germanic take on National Socialism was disseminated to the troops
through the Germanic and Germanic-oriented officers trained at Tölz. In
one of his first messages to the Freikorps Danmark after it had arrived at
its combat front in the East in the spring of 1942, Schalburg reminded the
men of what they were fighting for:
He also fights for higher values, that is, for the future of all Germanic peoples
and for the realization of the eternal Germanicdom, of the Reich which all great
Germanics, whether the German King Heinrich I, the Danish King Knud the
Great, or the Führer and commander Adolf Hitler, have fought for.

65
Sørensen to parents, 23 January 1942, in ibid.
66
“Divisionssonderbefehl,” Steiner, 21 March 1941, BAMA RS 3–5 / 3a.
67
“Heft 8 der Stoffsammlung für die Weltanschauliche Erziehung der Waffen-SS,” 30
Janurary 1941, BA MA RS 3–5 / 3a.
68
Die Diskussion, Unterlagen für die Weltanschauliche Führung, Ausgabe: Abt. VI/L SS-
HA, Mai 1944, in BAMA, RS 3–1/97.
168 Molding the Germanic Political Soldier

The Führer of the Germanics, Adolf Hitler, is alone to thank that neither the
castle-toped mountains of Schwabia, the Finnish marsh-lands, nor the green for-
ests of Denmark now are Soviet republics, where Jewish hate and the material
barbarism of the Jews let all that is beautiful, green, and vital wilt and die.69

As we have seen, Schalburg had been a rabid anti-Semite and anti-

Bolshevik long before he departed for Germany; his visions for the future
had always involved abolishing the strictly Liberal and sovereign state-
system. By this point, however, he had adopted a new vocabulary and a
more fully formed idea of the purpose of the war and the future it sought
to create. Nor did this former DNSAP functionary make any mention of
his old party when speaking to his Danish troops, a point that those men
who had enrolled from the DNSAP were sure to notice. Schalburg was
a committed National Socialist, but one committed to the transnational
ideals of the Germanic movement of the SS, a movement he had helped
shape and in turn had been shaped by.
Numerous German commanders, too, were receptive to redefining the
conflict as one fought on behalf of a shared, Germanic future. Steiner,
the commander of the SS-Division “Wiking,” especially promoted these
ideas and was in frequent contact with Riedweg and other high-ranking
Germanics regarding the problems and promises of a Germanic SS. In the
summer of 1941, before “Wiking” embarked on its first combat mission,
Steiner wrote that the primary purpose of the war was to “build a new and
peaceful Europe.”70 He frequently reiterated that proper “human resource
management” and “pedagogy” was necessary, especially in regards to the
Nordic volunteers.71 He furthermore instructed his German commanders
not to use the term “foreigner” when speaking of their Germanic volun-
teers. Officers should emphasize the idea that the foreign volunteers were
an avant-garde, or Vorkämpfer, for common European goals. “Blücher,
Scharnhorst, Freiherr von Stein, and so on, were all regarded as ‘foreign-
ers’ in the decisive German state of Prussia,” he reminded his officers.72
Steiner described in great detail what they were fighting for, hoping his
German officers would follow suit and spread this vision to their German
and Germanic soldiers:

69
Kommandeur des Freikorps Danmark, Tagesbefehl Nr. 70, 22 May 1942, in BAMA, N
756/235.
70
“SS-Div Wiking, Div.Gef.St.,” 12 July 1941, in Peter Strassner, Europäische Freiwillige.
Die Geschichte der 5. SS-Pz.Div. Wiking (Coburg: Nation Europa Verlag, 2000), 354.
71
Steiner, 22 January 1942, in ibid., 384.
72
“Merkblatt für die Vereidigung,” 21 January 1940, in BAMA, 3–5/3a.
 Fighting the Untermensch 169

It is especially important to point out, that the current war and war aims are
different from the goals of conquest exemplified by Napoleon; they are instead
aimed at the ideal goal of the joint creation of the greater-Germanic family of
peoples. The basis for this is the National Socialist weltanschauung which stands
in contrast to the previously dominant English, plutocratic view in Holland,
Denmark and so on. This [the National Socialist weltanschauung] of course aims
not at imperialist rape but instead at creating a commonly built European front,
in which no arbitrariness of an individual or of individual peoples reigns but the
peaceful co-existence of all peoples of the same blood is realized.73

After the war, Steiner used such statements as evidence of his benevolent
intentions – an interpretation only possible when the comments are taken
out of context. Steiner and similarly minded German and Germanic offi-
cers took the Greater Germanic Reich seriously. What had started as an
embryonic idea for Himmler had grown into an ethos and deliberate
plan, crafted and implemented by a host of Germanic volunteers and sym-
pathetic German officers. As Steiner’s description suggests, this Greater
Germanic Reich would be built on shared blood. The logical conclusion
of this fact was that those deemed racially dangerous or inferior would
have to be removed. Thus, Germanic volunteers’ unyielding belief for the
need to create and protect a racially pure Germanic Empire made them
as willing to enact horrific brutalities against civilians and soldiers on
the Eastern Front as any German soldier. Their actions in the East serve
as an indicator of how they would have behaved in the West, should the
Greater Germanic Reich have come closer to fruition.

Fighting the UNTERMENSCH

With the creation of the III. Germanic Panzer Corps in the summer of
1943, most Germanics found themselves together in one of two large
units. (Although initially slated for incorporation into the Corps,
“Wiking” remained separate.) The Germanic spirit cultivated at Tölz,
through the direction of the Germanische Leitstelle carried over into
these units. It is, of course, uncertain how many other volunteers beyond
the neutral leadership corps shared these sentiments. The wretched
conditions at the front and constant combat, no doubt, contributed as
much as National Socialist ideology to a sense of community among the
Germanics.74 As most neutral leadership corps volunteers were quick to

73
“Merkblatt für die Vereidigung,” 21 January 1940, in BAMA, 3–5/3a.
74
The formation of “primary groups” among Nazi combat troops is explored extensively
in Bartov, Hitler’s Army: Soldiers, Nazis and War in the Third Reich.
170 Molding the Germanic Political Soldier

point out, however, combat was merely a necessary prerequisite for ser-
vice in the Greater Germanic Reich. Although violence had a redeeming
and creative quality, it was not their highest ambition. Their ultimate goal
was the creation of a new Europe, and this would involve the violent
purging of those deemed racially and politically unworthy.
Postwar apologetics, as we have seen, repeatedly claimed that Germanic
volunteers fought for what they saw as an ideal and peaceful Europe, free
from Communist influence. Although this bears some truth – the Greater
Germanic Reich would of course be free of communists – the eagerness
with which these men participated in executions and other crimes when
given the chance reveals the true nature of the Reich they were envi-
sioning. Similarly, some men, most noticeably Danes, participated in
the bloody suppression of their own countrymen after 1943. These acts
highlight not only the racist and violent tendencies central to Germanic
National Socialist ideology, but also discredit once and for all the apolo-
getic reading of the men’s participation in the war.
The view the neutral Germanic leaders held of their enemy differed
little from that held by German soldiers. Soldiers throughout the ranks
believed they were fighting an Untermensch, the German collective term
for all “subhumans,” including Jews and Slavs. A diary entry by Danish
Waffen-SS officer Oluf Krabbe in the summer of 1942 is illustrative.
He recorded an incident in which a Russian soldier threw a grenade
at Krabbe and his companions from a trench. The Russian missed, but
instead of moving to a different position, as Krabbe’s entry suggested
would have been the appropriate military action, the Red Army soldier
emerged from the same position to try his luck a second time. As a result,
Krabbe’s men gunned him down. Krabbe attributes the mistake not to a
lack of training or experience but rather to his enemy’s inherent stupidity
and inferiority.75
Gösta Borg’s description of the Red Army solider in his postwar book
Det röda massanfallet contains similar characterizations. In this widely
read work, Borg attempts to explain what made the Red Army such a for-
midable foe. One of his main conclusions is that the Red Army soldier’s
“primitive” nature played a decisive role in the Soviet Union’s success in
the war. In language similar to that used to describe colonial subjects,
Borg explains to the reader that the Red Army soldier, in contrast to civ-
ilized men, is able to thrive in extreme temperatures because he grew up
“running around naked and obviously barefoot . . . and having learned to

75
Oluf Krabbe Dagsbog for Frontinsatz 1942, 22 July 1942, p. 6, in RA, PA E[. . .], 8.
 Fighting the Untermensch 171

stuff anything edible into his mouth.” Borg continues to describe them as
“primitive but effective.”76
Sørensen’s regular letters to his parents provide insight into how these
attitudes developed. As we have seen, Sørensen’s field trip to a psychiat-
ric institution and Dachau concentration camp only reinforced his per-
ceptions of Jews and political enemies. After graduating, Sørensen was
transferred to the Freikorps Danmark in February 1942. The Legion was
conducting its training at a base in what had formerly been Poland. His
letters from this period show him adopting a German view of Slavs and
their institutionalized mistreatment and brutalization. Upon seeing Red
Army soldiers for the first time as a column of prisons marched past him
one day, he wrote to his parents, describing the Red Army soldiers as
subhuman and criminal. He was convinced that any Danish Communist
who witnessed the same sight, would quickly reform their high opinion
of Communism and the Soviet Union.77 Once at the front, Sørensen again
wrote to his parents, this time describing the conditions in which the
Russians lived as not even fit for animals.78 As we will see, he did not
hesitate to translate his ideology into action when the chance arose.
That the volunteers had adopted the same radicalized, racialized view
of the populations of Eastern Europe as their German counterparts is
clear. What is harder to establish is the extent to which they participated
in the murder of Jews, other civilians, and prisoners of war. Implicit men-
tions of the murder of Jews and civilians in the East are surprisingly
prevalent among the letters, diaries, and other writings of the neutral
volunteers. The work of the Einsatzgruppen and even the death camps
of Operation Reinhard were an open secret in the Waffen-SS. Several
men referred to the “fate of the Jews” in their letters home, apparently
assuming that their family members and friends were also aware of the
ramifications of Germany’s so-called war against ‘Jewish-Bolshevism.’79
Consider, for instance, a visit that two Swedish Waffen-SS members,
Borg and Ragnar L., paid to the Swedish Embassy in Berlin in October
1941. Such visits were routine; having convinced themselves that
Sweden and Germany were on the same side, the men apparently had no

76
Gösta Borg, Det Röda Massanfallet (Stockholm: Fahlcrantz & Gumælius, 1951), 27–28.
77
Sørensen to parents, 25 February 1942, in Haaest, Intet Nyt Fra Østfronten: Beretningen
Om Regiment 24 Dänemarks Sidste Kommandør. Fortalt Af Ham Selv I Frontbreve, Sat
I Perspektiv Af Erik Haaest, 99–100.
78
Sørensen to parents, 11 May 1942, in ibid., 123–24. “. . . som vi ikke ville byde vore
husdyr.”
79
See, for example, Kryssing-Lorenzen letters, in RA, FOARK 1010/90D.
 2

Restless Youth

Prewar Biographical Sketches

When the Danish publishing house Thanning & Appel sought a trans-
lator for Ernest Hemingway’s latest book, The Torrents of Spring, they
chose the young Danish author, traveler, and Hemingway-enthusiast
Flemming Helweg-Larsen.1 Helweg-Larsen, who had written several pop-
ular books and articles in the late 1930s and early 1940s, was a worldly,
well-educated, and well-read young man.2 He spoke several languages
fluently.3 When not traveling or writing books, he worked as a journalist
and editor in Copenhagen.
With the exception of his remarkable word-crafting abilities and
passion for adventure, Helweg-Larsen was, up until 1941, an average
middle-class, stable and well-integrated member of Danish society. He
was not a member of the Danish National Socialist Party (DNSAP), nor
did he have any contact with other right-wing political groups. But later
that year, Helweg-Larsen volunteered for the Waffen-SS. He became
an influential Waffen-SS war correspondent, and, after fighting on the
Eastern Front, was posted to Denmark where he participated in the wave
of terror unleashed by the SS in the fall of 1943 to discourage further
Danish resistance and sabotage. He was arrested at the end of the war

1
The first edition appeared in 1941. A  second edition, also based on Helweg-Larsen’s
translation, appeared in 1960. Ernest Hemmingway, Lys og Mørk Latter, trans. Flemming
Helweg-Larsen (København:  Thaning og Appel, 1960); ibid. Parts of this chapter have
appeared in Martin Gutmann, “Debunking the Myth of the Volunteers:  Transnational
Volunteering in the Nazi Waffen-SS Officer Corps During the Second World War.”
Contemporary European History 22/4 (2013), 585–607.
2
Flemming Helweg-Larsen, Med 60 Pesos Til Syd-Amerika (København1941).
3
SS File, in BA, SSO (BDC) 83A, Helweg-Larsen, Flemming.

52
 Fighting the Untermensch 173

“on the Eastern Front we shoot so many Jews that my trigger finger is
numb.”83 One week into his service in the Waffen-SS, Sørensen recounted
what he termed an “amusing” story to his parents in which a group of SS
men had executed a group of three hundred Polish villagers in retribution
for the destruction of a bridge during the German invasion of 1939.84
Whether or not the story is true, it is instructive of Sørensen’s character
and worldview that he told it with such enthusiasm to his parents, and
described it as “amusing.” A  year later, he described in a similar letter,
without any hint of grief or remorse, how he had personally shot a num-
ber of surrendering Red Army soldiers.85
Sørensen was not alone in putting the “methods” of the SS to use.
Neergard-Jacobsen, a battalion commander within the “Danmark”
Regiment – the successor unit to the Freikorps Danmark – spoke openly
even after the war about how he had ordered his men to combat parti-
sans in the Balkans during their stay there in the summer of 1943:
Early one morning, one or two battalions and a guards company responded to
an area where partisans had been reported. Some 800 meters outside of a village,
one was shot at; formation, attacking, conquering the village where far and wide
not a single partisan was to be found, only peaceful peasants. They were chased
out of the village, which was then burned to the ground.86

Swedish survivors gave equally explicit testimony to the Swedish mil-

itary and state police who interrogated them upon their return. Both
police forces were, for the most part, more interested in learning how
best to fight the Red Army than in prosecuting war crimes. But because
the Swedish police rewrote their interviews in a third-person narrative,
it is unclear whether the Waffen-SS veterans originally spoke of these
murders in a passive voice without admitting a personal role. Either way,
their testimony is compelling evidence of their knowledge of these crimes.
Kurt Lundin, interviewed on Christmas Eve in 1943, explained that it
was a policy in “Wiking,” “not to take any prisoners but to kill all who
got in the Division’s way.” When asked about the Division’s treatment of
Jews and civilians, Lundin responded that one had to be cold-blooded in
dealing with these potential partisans. As an example, he recounted his

83
Schön, Hitlers Svenska Soldater, 437.
84
Sørensen to parents, 9 October 1941, in Haaest, Intet Nyt Fra Østfronten: Beretningen
Om Regiment 24 Dänemarks Sidste Kommandør. Fortalt Af Ham Selv I Frontbreve, Sat
I Perspektiv Af Erik Haaest, 68.
85
Sørensen to parents, 8 June 1942, in ibid., 125–26.
86
Stubaf. Neergard-Jacobsen, Kroatien, p. 41, in KB, Ny K.S. 4705/4, P.R. E[. . .]: Dankse
Frivillige på Ostfronten 1941–1945.
174 Molding the Germanic Political Soldier

unit’s masochistic murder of Jews recounted in this book’s introduction.87

Another Swede who fought in the Norwegian unit Regiment “Norge,”
interviewed in 1945, explained that by the time he joined the Waffen-SS
“most Jews had already been killed in the camps,” but he did have one
opportunity to partake in an execution of a so-called partisan family. We
“put them next to a tank trench, shot them and then drove a tractor over
them just to make sure they were dead.”88
After the war, most Germanic volunteers vigorously denied having had
anything to do with or even knowledge of the Holocaust – a view that
the courts upheld. Riedweg, for example, testified in a 1948 trial that
though he had slowly become aware of the “underlying anti-Semitic ori-
entation” of the SS, as “a Swiss person . . . he had no understanding for
the actions taken within the Reich.” As a matter of fact, he told the court,
“he was deeply critical of these actions.”89 Other veterans were more fan-
tastical. Thorolf Hillblad not only denied his personal involvement, but
as late as 1993 declared the Holocaust “a legend” propagated by “Jewish
Propaganda.”90
These incidents demonstrate more than just complicity. The Germanic
leadership corps not only participated in the Holocaust and other war
crimes; they appear to have done so from the moment they joined the
Waffen-SS. They saw their work on the Eastern Front as above all prepa-
ration for what they saw as their ultimate work – creating and running
the Greater Germanic Reich. There is no doubt that they would have
enthusiastically and violently purged unwanted peoples from their home
countries, had they been given the chance. This explains why Danish
Waffen-SS volunteers on leave in Copenhagen in the fall of 1943 took
time out from relaxing with their families to help round up the Danish
Jews for deportation to concentration camps. This operation, as we will
see, signaled not only a deep level of complicity among Germanic volun-
teers in the crimes of the Nazi regime, but also the fact that by 1943, the
Germanic project had failed.

87
Förhör med Kurt Lundin, 24 December 1943, in RASA, Säpo PA, Kurt Lundin.
88
Ellis H[. . .], quoted in, Schön, Hitlers Svenska Soldater, 469.
89
Urteil des 20. Spruchkammer des Spruchgerichts Hiddesen im Spruchgerichtsverfahren
gegen F.R. vom 18.11.1948, p. 1, in AfZ, NL Franz Riedweg, 3. Personalakten Franz
Riedweg. Nürberger Dokumente und Akten aus Riedwegs Privatarchiv, 1938–1948
(kopien).
90
Thorolf Hillblad to Lennart Westberg, 4 May 1993, in WPA.
 6

The End of the Germanic Project

In the fall of 1943, Riedweg traveled to Tölz to give a speech to a group

of Germanic Waffen-SS officer cadets. Riedweg began by reiterating
his standard call for the promotion of the SS’s Germanic work as an
integral part of National Socialism. The SS, he said, was the primary
bearer of National Socialist ideology and had since its inception been
primarily tasked with recruiting and integrating Germanic blood within
the National Socialist sphere. “The creation of the Standarten ‘Nordland’
and ‘Westland’ will only later be recognized for their full significance.
Importance was placed not on origin but simply on racial substance,”
he said.1 The creation of these divisions represented the first step in cre-
ating the Greater Germanic Reich. He praised Tölz as a training site for
future political leaders and upheld the standard, if somewhat vague and
contradictory, SS line that Germany should play a leadership role in a
confederacy of equals in the Greater Germanic Reich.2
Soon thereafter, however, Riedweg’s speech turned bitter, as he
acknowledged the obstacles the SS faced from the Party and the Foreign
Ministry in carrying out its Germanic work. By this time, conditions
within the SS, within occupied Europe, and in the war had changed sig-
nificantly, and hopes of a Germanic Reich that would form organically
all but vanished. Riedweg’s frustration was evident. “We need to be clear
about the fact that the Germanic political questions can only be solved
by the SS, not by the state, not by the scheming of the Party.” Moreover,
1
Franz Riedweg, “Germanisch-völkisch Reichspolitik,” p. 1, in BAMA, RS 5/310.
2
Eidenstattliche Erklärung des früheren Kommandeurs der Waffen-SS Schule Tölz, Oberst
a.D. Schulze-Kossenz vor Nürnberg Gericht, 13 January 1948, in AfZ, NL Franz Riedweg,
ungeordneter Bestand.

175
176 The End of the Germanic Project

Riedweg chastised what he saw as the “imperialistic” trend among these

actors, telling the audience that “we cannot build up Europe as a police
state enforced by bayonet.”3 Here he was referring to the clampdown in
Western Europe. In Denmark in particular, where the summer months
had seen strikes, general unrest, and small-scale sabotage, conditions
had changed drastically. The Danish government was dissolved at the
end of August after it failed to respond harshly enough to the increasing
unrest.4 The German occupation forces interned the Danish officer corps
and instituted martial law. It was difficult to see these events as part of a
progression toward a naturally occurring Greater Germanic Reich.
But even with these insights, Riedweg failed to comprehend the SS’s
complicity in the clampdown. In his mind, the Party and the Foreign
Ministry’s meddling had forced a reluctant SS to resort to limited vio-
lence. But in fact, the SS and its Germanic volunteers were the driv-
ing force behind the growing campaign of terror. As Danish and other
Waffen-SS veterans were transferred from the bloody Eastern front to
administrative positions in Denmark, they were frustrated to find an
increasingly disillusioned and uncooperative population. By the end of
the year, the SS  – including the Germanische Leitstelle in Copenhagen
and its subsidiary organizations  – had become deeply involved in the
terror campaign against opposition in Denmark. Although the active
Danish opposition remained small in number, to the SS they represented
a potentially cancerous development. Thus, the SS men targeted not only
the small and elusive network of underground saboteurs, but also a host
of Nazi critics and perceived critics. Moreover, the violence of officially
sanctioned assassinations spilled over into personal acts of revenge with
both political and personal motives. At the same time, Swiss and Swedish
volunteers began planning for violent campaigns of retribution in their
own home countries. Himmler, Riedweg and their volunteers’ dream of a
Greater Germanic Reich disappeared into a spiral of violence.

3
Franz Riedweg, “Germanisch-völkisch Reichspolitik,” pp. 1–2, in BAMA, RS 5/310.
4
The so-called “Augustoprør,” the general strike and unrest of August 1943, was the
culminating event in a series of smaller strikes and sabotage actions since the spring
of 1943. Denmark’s role as the model protectorate was irreparably altered follow-
ing these events. On the specifics, see John T. Lauridsen, ed. Overstregen  – under
Besættelsen (København:  Gyldendal, 2007); Bo Lidegaard, Kampen Om Danmark,
1933–1945 (København:  Gyldendal, 2003); Hans Kirchhoff, Augustoproret 1943
(Copenhagen:  Gyldendal, 1979). For a thorough historiographical discussion, see
Lauridsen, Samarbejde og Modstand. Danmark under Den Tyske Besættelse 1940–45.
En Bibliographi., 317–24.
 The End of the Germanic Project 177

From Riedweg’s speech and related writings around the fall of 1943, it
is unclear if he was unable or simply unwilling to recognize this inevitable
development and the centrality of the SS to it. A violent purge of unwanted
peoples – most prominently among them Jews and communists – was of
course an integral part of the creation of the Greater Germanic Reich. But
deportation and murder was, in his mind, to have been paralleled by a
growing embrace of Germanic National Socialism among the remaining
racially desirable populations of Germanic Europe. By the summer of 1943,
Riedweg could not deny that the organic alignment he had spent the last
few years working on was unlikely to happen. The ultimate proof of the
project’s failure came in October 1943 when the SS, with Riedweg’s knowl-
edge, attempted to round up and deport Denmark’s nearly eight thousand
Jews. Instead of supporting this operation, the Danish population actively
undermined it. Over seven thousand Jews were warned and transported
across the sound to Sweden by the Danish resistance, police and other con-
cerned citizens.5 In his speech, Riedweg held the Party, the Foreign Ministry,
and a small group of troublemakers at the SS-FHA responsible for the
Danish population’s failure to embrace Germanic National Socialism, and,
by extension, for the violence inflicted on them by the SS.
Word of Riedweg’s speech spread quickly. While the various organs of
the Nazi state fought an incessant turf war over resources and author-
ity, direct and public accusations of malfeasance by lower ranking staff
members were rare and violated a tacit agreement to maintain an aura
of cooperation. One of Martin Bormann’s deputies witnessed the speech
and immediately informed his boss (Bormann was Head of the Party
Chancellery and Hitler’s Personal Secretary). Bormann, in turn, requested
that Himmler fire Riedweg. Himmler complied and had Riedweg sent
to the front.6 Fourteen of Riedweg’s most senior neutral Germanic staff

5
The successful rescue of nearly all of Denmark’s Jews via boat to Sweden has become
a central piece in the Danish postwar memory. For more on the events and its mythical
status, see Rasmus Kreth, Flugten Til Sverige. Aktionen Mod De Danske Jøder Oktober
1943 (Copenhagen:  Gyldendaal, 1995); Sofie Lene Bak, Jødeaktionen Oktober 1943.
Forstillninger Om Oktober 1943 I  Forskning og Offentlighed (Copenhagen:  Museum
Tasculanum, 2001). For a recent historiographical discussion, see Lauridsen, Samarbejde
og Modstand. Danmark under Den Tyske Besættelse 1940–45. En Bibliographi., 181–
90. Although Riedweg denied knowledge of the operation after the war, he had been
informed of the planned deportation of the Danish Jews and gave the operation his bless-
ing and support. See Kanstein to Berger, 16 October 1942, Betr.: Entwicklung der Lage in
Denmark, in BA, NS 19/1712, 3–4.
6
For a limited discussion of the firing of Riedweg, see Marco Wyss, “Un Suisse Au Service
De La SS. Dr.  Franz Riedweg Et Le “Travail Germanique” De La SS.,” Schweizerische
Zeitschrift für Geschichte 57, no. 4 (2007).
178 The End of the Germanic Project

members were forced out with him in what amounted to a purge of the
Germanische Leitstelle.7
Though the impulse to fire Riedweg no doubt came from Bormann,
Himmler, and Berger may have been eager to rid themselves of the Swiss
ideologue for their own reasons. By the summer of 1943, the Germanic
project had run its course, as the realities of the Eastern Front and an
increasingly insubordinate Western Europe forced even the Reichsführer
to put long-term plans that interfered with combat effectiveness on hold.
Richard Schulze-Kossens, the commander of the SS Officer Cadet School at
Tölz and one of the German architects of the Germanic program within the
SS, later testified that Himmler had been particularly angered by Riedweg’s
reference to a future Europe based on equal states at the very moment that
those states’ residents appeared to be insubordinate European subjects.8
Lorenz Lorenzen, a Danish Waffen-SS officer who had worked with
Riedweg at the Germanische Leitstelle, for his part, later recalled that Berger
had been the one most irritated with Riedweg.9 Berger and Riedweg’s con-
ceptions of the primary importance and role of the Waffen-SS had begun to
differ by 1943. Although Berger had been and remained a great proponent
of the Germanic ideas, he had become increasingly wrapped up in recruit-
ing and expanding the Waffen-SS’s size at all costs. With the hundreds of
thousands of Germanic volunteers that he had hoped for at the begin-
ning of the war not forthcoming, Berger had instead turned his attention
to Germans and so-called Volksdeutsche ethnic Germans of the East. By
1944, Berger had completely distanced himself from the Germanic ideas
of the Waffen-SS and held several more pressing posts than that of chief of
recruitment, including Deutscher General der Slovakei and the commander
of the Volkssturm.10 By 1943, it seems, all three of these men – Himmler,
Bormann, and Berger  – had their own reasons for ending the Germanic
project and dismantling the Germanische Leitstelle.
Whatever the reason, the result of Riedweg’s firing and the purging
of the Germanische Leitstelle was that from the fall of 1943 onward

7
For list of those who left, see “Gingen mit und nach Dr.  Riedweg wieder zur
Fronttruppe,” WPA.
8
Eidenstattliche Erklärung des früheren Kommandeurs der Waffen-SS Schule Tölz,
Oberst a.D. Schulze-Kossenz vor Nürnberg Gericht, 13 January 1948, in AfZ, NL Franz
Riedweg, ungeordneter Bestand.
9
Civilian Interrogation Centre British Military Mission Denmark, Alsgade Skole,
Copenhagen, in RA, RP 2476 Lorenz Lorenzen, 53.
10
Rempel, “Gottlob Berger and Waffen-SS Recruitment 1939–1945,” 54; ibid. On Berger’s
view, see Translation of two affidavits to be signed by Gottlob Berger, in AfZ, NL Franz
Riedweg, Ungeordneter Bestand.
 Desertion, Disillusionment, and Isolation 179

the Germanic movement within the SS found itself in a strange, leader-

less position. The institutions and Germanic strongholds created by the
Germanische Leitstelle within the Waffen-SS persisted:  the SS Officer
Cadet School at Tölz continued churning out Germanic officers until the
end of the war; the SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers maintained its dispropor-
tionately large neutral Germanic leadership corps membership and con-
tinued publishing its work. The Germanische Leitstelle, however, lost its
truly Germanic emphasis and its influence after the purge in the fall of
1943. From that point on, the Germanic movement was more or less rud-
derless, leaving those Germanics at Tölz or in the field increasingly iso-
lated and ignored. Some volunteers reacted to this situation with an over-
whelming desire to return home by whatever means necessary; desertions
skyrocketed after 1943. Others, while disillusioned both with Germany
and their home country, doubled down on their commitment to keeping
the Red Army out of Europe.

Desertion, Disillusionment, and Isolation

In early 1945, the Swede Gösta Stavåsen tried to work out what had
gone wrong with the Germanic Nazi revolution in a letter to a friend.
He lamented, “When I  arrived here I  had an irresistible fighting spirit.
Now it’s gone.” Had censors intercepted this letter, Stavåsen would have
undoubtedly been reported to his superiors as a defeatist. He continued
by explaining his and his friends’ feelings toward the regime and the SS.
“I can’t stand this pretend National Socialism anymore, which is being
charaded here. We find no joy fighting on the side of these people.”
Instead of rejecting National Socialist principles, however, Stavåsen con-
tinued that, “the only thing we have left in us is the Swedish National
Socialist, nothing else.”11 Stavåsen was no naïve character inculcated with
National Socialist ideology upon his arrival in Germany. He had arrived
with a predisposition to fascism, developed a Germanic National Socialist
view, and finally abandoned it in favor of a strictly nationalist Swedish
one as the war came to its bloody conclusion. He blamed German SS offi-
cers who “constantly made our lives miserable” for corrupting National
Socialist ideals and ignoring the racial unity of Germanics.12

11
Stawåson [sic] to Lindholm, copied in Hillblad to Pfefferkampf, 22 August 1945,
in WPA.
12
Stawåson [sic] to Lindholm, copied in Hillblad to Pfefferkampf, 22 August 1945,
in WPA.
180 The End of the Germanic Project

Most members of the Germanic leadership corps experienced the final

years of the war in one of two ways. Those who fought within the III.
Germanic Panzer Corps or “Wiking,” supervised by sympathetic officers
and largely isolated from the rest of the SS, retained their belief in ultimate
victory and fought until the final days of the regime. In contrast, those
who were assigned outside of the Corps suffered ever greater harassment
at the hands of German SS officers, the SS-FHA, and other offices and
became increasingly disillusioned with the regime. But whether or not
they retained their faith in the rightness of their cause, by early 1943, all
of them shared a realization that the Greater Germanic Reich would not
come to fruition in the near future. In January of that year, the German 6th
Army surrendered at Stalingrad. From that point on the German forces
in the East fought on the defensive; a Soviet victory appeared to be only
a matter of time.13 In May, Erwin Rommel’s desert corps was defeated by
an Anglo-American army in Tunis. As the Allied forces pushed first onto
Sicily and then the Italian mainland, Mussolini’s regime collapsed.14 The
Axis alliance, and with it the Nazi empire, was crumbling.
Moreover, as the fortunes of war shifted, the Nazi grip on Western
Europe was challenged, as Europeans for the first time imagined that the
New Order might not be permanent. Though armed resistance movements
remained small and somewhat irrelevant, passive resistance increased,
thereby leading to more repression by the occupying Germans – a self-
perpetuating cycle. After thousands of Danes participated in massive
strikes in the summer of 1943, the Germans instituted a terror campaign
and a full occupation. In Sweden and Switzerland, too, opinion shifted
noticeably against Germany and against the volunteers.15 This combi-
nation of events led most volunteers to be doubly disillusioned, aban-
doned by both their national cohorts and their German officers. In their
minds, they as Germanic soldiers had sacrificed greatly for both Germany
and their own nations; they deserved great respect from both. Instead,
both Germany and their home nations had turned their backs on the
volunteers.
In this context, Stavåsen’s response was increasingly typical. Obviously
the purging of all Germanics from the Germanische Leitstelle reverber-
ated through the Germanic community. Many lower-ranking Germanics

13
Antony Beevor, Stalingrad:  The Fateful Siege 1942–1943 (New  York:  Penguin, 1998),
passim.
14
Keegan, The Second World War, 336–58.
15
See, for example, Oredson, “Stormaktsdrömmar och Stridsiver. Ett Tema I  Svenks
Opinionsbildning och Politik 1910–1942,” 291.
 Desertion, Disillusionment, and Isolation 181

deserted or attempted to. Others simply abandoned their hopes for the
Greater Germanic Reich and focused on the immediate fight, sensing
either that escape was too risky or that the Russian menace had to be
stopped, no matter how many wrong turns the German regime had taken.
The 1942 leave of the Freikorps Danmark is a useful example for
gauging how the volunteers experienced changing public opinion about
the nature of the occupation. As early as August 1941, Riedweg had
reported that some Danish officer volunteers were subjected to harass-
ment from their fellow soldiers and officers before their paperwork had
been processed and the volunteer could depart for Germany.16 At that
point, however, based on the personal experiences of E[. . .], Martinsen,
Lorenzen and others, harassment appears to have been the exception
rather than the rule. By the time that the volunteers returned for leave in
September of 1942, however, public opinion had turned and the vacation
turned into a fiasco for the Waffen-SS. On their homecoming march
through Copenhagen, as many civilians jeered and booed as cheered
on the troops. A  Freikorps member responded by stabbing a bystander
with his bayonet.17 Nor was the violence wholly unexpected. The Danish
military explicitly forbade its soldiers stationed in Copenhagen from
attending the march, in uniform or in civilian attire, in an attempt to dis-
tance themselves from an organization they had originally sanctioned.18
In the four weeks that followed, countless vacationing Freikorps sol-
diers were called traitors and became involved in numerous street fights,
attacks, and even shootings.19 By the time the Freikorps left for Germany
again at the beginning of October, many of the men were no doubt begin-
ning to feel isolated from and disappointed in their countrymen. When
large-scale riots broke out in Copenhagen the following summer, Danes
serving at the front wrote deeply disappointed letters home.20
Several personal stories testify to the sense of disillusionment
and isolation the neutral leadership corps experienced. The Swedish
SS-Obersturmführer Kurt Norberg, for example, had made a good career

16
Riedweg to SS-Obstubaf. Wander, Betr.: Einstellung volksgermanischer Kriegsfreiwilliger
als Führer der Waffen-SS, 2 August 1941, in BA, SSO (BDC) 30B, Riedweg, Dr. Franz.
17
Christensen, Poulsen, and Scharff Smith, Under Hagekors og Dannebrog:  Danskere
I Waffen-SS 1940–1945, 356–58.
18
Kommandanten i København til afdelninger m.fl. I  København’s Garnison, 7 August
1942, in RA, FOARK 1010/89.
19
Werther, Dänische Freiwillige in der Waffen-SS, 91–93.
20
See, for example, Sørensen to parents, 1 July 1943, in Haaest, Intet Nyt Fra
Østfronten:  Beretningen Om Regiment 24 Dänemarks Sidste Kommandør. Fortalt Af
Ham Selv I Frontbreve, Sat I Perspektiv Af Erik Haaest, 192–93.
182 The End of the Germanic Project

in the Waffen-SS. In 1943 his luck appears to have run out, and Norberg
began having second thoughts about his life as a solider. He filed papers
requesting release from the Waffen-SS. His efforts at legally leaving the
Waffen-SS were, however, to no avail. After a bout of severe pneumonia in
January, Norberg visited the Swedish embassy in Berlin. Having worked
for the Germanische Leitstelle, Norberg was well-informed of SS plans to
invade Sweden; he offered the ambassador intelligence in exchange for a
Swedish passport. The ambassador reported to Stockholm that Norberg
had “developed a different understanding of National Socialism during
his time in Germany from that which he had held before.”21 This quote
is revealing in that it suggests that Norberg openly acknowledged having
been a National Socialist before even coming to Germany. He did not
attempt to claim that he had joined the Waffen-SS in error, or that he
signed up to avoid problems at home. He recanted German National
Socialism, not what he regarded as the concept in its purest form.
The Ambassador accepted Norber’s deal, but obtaining the passport
would take some time. Before Norberg could receive it, he was airlifted
to the fighting around Kharkov. Within twenty-four hours, Norberg
contracted a debilitating case of malaria and was sent to a hospital in
Königsberg. There were no free beds, however, and Norberg was sent on
to Berlin, where the hospitals were also full. Although details of what hap-
pened next are vague, it appears that during his recovery stay somewhere
in Berlin, Norberg issued permission for a fellow Swede to take tempo-
rary leave in Sweden, with the intent of never returning to Germany.
Unfortunately for Norberg, once in Stockholm the deserter, known only
as Jonsson, took his dubious papers to the German consulate – Norberg
had no authority to grant such a leave – which in turn passed them on to
the Gestapo in Berlin. Norberg was summoned for an interview with the
Gestapo in late March 1943. A day before he was due to be interrogated,
Norberg altered an old Sonderausweis [extraordinary order] to read that
he was being transferred to Norway. Forged document in hand, Norberg
boarded a troop transfer train from Copenhagen to Oslo via Swedish
terrain. When the train made a stop in Helsingborg, Sweden, Norberg
told his fellow officers that he was changing cabins with the hopes of
finding a better seat. With that he ran from the station and contacted the
Helsingborg police.22

21
Helsingborgs Polis Kriminalavdelning Rapport, 23 March 1943, p.  4, in MUST, FX
a:22, 267.
22
Ibid., pp. 3–5, in MUST, FX a:22, 267.
 Desertion, Disillusionment, and Isolation 183

Other volunteers stayed despite increasingly untenable positions. The

Swede Dr. Olaf Jürgenssen had joined the SS in 1936 and served in good
standing throughout his varied career, including a stint at the Buchenwald
concentration camp. In August 1944, someone at the RuSHA discov-
ered that Jürgenssen had a Japanese grandmother. Though Japan was
allied with Germany, Japanese blood, of course, disqualified Jürgenssen
for membership in the SS. Because of the great need for doctors in the
armed services and his spotless record, the RuSHA and SS-FHA agreed
that he could not be thrown out altogether. A compromise was reached
in which Jürgenssen switched places with an Army doctor of “unobjec-
tionable heritage.”23 Jürgenssen fought out the rest of the war with the
Wehrmacht.
Other neutral officers were less committed in the face of such humil-
iation. According to Swedish authors Lars Gyllenhaal and Lennart
Westberg, no less than twenty-five Swedish and at least ten Estonian-
Swedish Waffen-SS volunteers deserted during the war, five of whom
joined Tito’s partisans.24 Norberg, however, appears to have been the
only officer among this group. Although Gösta Pehrsson, the highest-
ranking Swedish officer in the Waffen-SS, never deserted, he helped a
number of Swedes escape via boat from his platoon’s position along the
Baltic coast.25
Or consider the case of the Dane Kryssing, the first commander
of the Freikorps Danmark. In August 1943, Kryssing was promoted
to SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor, the highest rank attained by
any Germanic serving in the Waffen-SS. By this point, however, he
had become increasingly disappointed with the Waffen-SS’s failure to
embrace the Germanic mission and the mistreatment that he and his
family had experienced at the hands of various German officials. After
his short stint leading the Freikorps Danmark, Kryssing had worked
in the SS-HA and SS-FHA in Berlin before being sent off to the front.
He served as an officer in the SS-Divisions “Das Reich,” “Totenkopf,”
“Wiking,” and “Nordland.”26 After helping create the new “Nordland”
Division within the III. Germanic Panzer Corps, Kryssing returned

23
Chef der Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt, 16 August 1944, Betr.:  Olaf Jürgenssen, in BA,
SSO (BDC) 142A, Jürgenssen, Dr. Olaf.
24
Westberg and Gyllenhaal, Svenskar I Krig, 296.
25
Malmö Polis, Kriminalavdelning, Rapport 26 October 1945, in RASA, Säpo PA,
Pehrsson, Hans-Gösta – HA 1386/45.
26
BA, SS0 (BDC), 222A, Kryssing, Christian Peter.
184 The End of the Germanic Project

to Berlin where he unofficially came to work for Riedweg and the

Germanische Leitstelle.27
Given his close cooperation with Riedweg in creating the III. Germanic
Panzer Corps, Kryssing must have been deeply affected by Riedweg’s fir-
ing. Had Kryssing felt merely personally betrayed, he might have been
willing to stomach this loss. In Kryssing’s case, though, the humiliation
and betrayal was a family affair. Both of Kryssing’s sons had joined him
in the Waffen-SS; one had already been killed on the Eastern Front, and,
though Kryssing could hardly know this, his second would later be killed
as well. His wife, Karen Kryssing, had also moved to Germany to contrib-
ute to the war effort. It was above all the circumstances of her treatment
that pushed Kryssing over the edge.
Karen Kryssing, a trained nurse with experience directing clinics, had
volunteered alongside many other Germanic women to serve in the vari-
ous hospitals and clinics of the expanding German Reich. She was one of
the earliest such volunteers; Riedweg arranged to have her placed within
the German Red Cross during the summer of 1942. After terminating her
contract in Denmark and packing up the family house, Kryssing moved
to Germany at the end of the summer, only to find that the German Red
Cross showed little interest in employing her services. She was eventually
placed in a nursing home where she suffered constant abuse and humili-
ation at the hands of her German comrades and commanders. Finally, in
February 1944, with Riedwegand General Steiner’s assistance, Kryssing
was transferred to the Waffen-SS medical services within the III. Germanic
Panzer Corps. Steiner sent a personal note to the commander of her medi-
cal unit ordering “Mrs. Kryssing\ [to] be placed as a head nurse in the SS
corps hospital. Mrs. Kryssing is under my personal protection.” But the
problems continued. When her medical unit was to be sent to Reval in
February, the SS-FHA sent an order specifically forbidding the local quar-
termaster from issuing winter clothing to Kryssing – a bizarre and clearly
incendiary order. Steiner managed to procure the necessary clothing, but
when she arrived at the field hospital, the German Red Cross threatened
to withdraw all of their nurses from the SS if Kryssing remained the head
nurse at Reval. Seeing little choice, the Waffen-SS conceded, and Kryssing
was demoted. In March, she suffered a severe injury in a bombing and
was sent to a hospital in Königsberg.28

27
See Kryssing’s correspondence in RA, FOARK 1010/90D.
28
See Kryssing to RF-SS, 12 April 1944, in BA, NS 19/3791, 1–8.
 Desertion, Disillusionment, and Isolation 185

In an eight-page diatribe to Himmler in April 1944 regarding his wife’s

mistreatment, Kryssing’s frustration becomes strikingly evident. He lists
one insult, humiliation, and act of indifference by German officers after
another and accuses the Waffen-SS of breaking its promise of fighting
for all Germanics. Himmler’s reaction to this letter is unknown. Whether
by Himmler’s recommendation or on his own initiative, Kryssing left
Berlin for Copenhagen at the end of the month, where he was hosted
by the chief German administrator in Denmark, the SS officer Werner
Best. Best, a strong proponent of Germanic thought within the SS, was
shocked to learn the details of Kryssing’s wife’s treatment. He wrote a
personal note to Himmler that captures the essence of the volunteers’
isolation:
Personal!
Reichsführer!
For human and political reasons I feel it is my responsibility to inform you of the
tragedy of the Kryssing family.
I don’t think in all of Europe there is a single family that has volunteered in the
same way for our fight – and it is literally the whole family.
After the now SS-Brigadeführer und Generalmajor of the Waffen-SS was the first
Danish officer to take leadership of the newly founded Freikorps, both of his sons
and his wife volunteered for war duty. Both sons  – their only children  – have
meanwhile fallen on the Eastern Front. Mrs. Kryssing has suffered a skull-base
fracture in a bombing in Reval on 10.3.1944 from which she will at her age of
56 never fully recover. The family left its home in Denmark two years ago and all
of its relatives and friends have distanced themselves for political reasons so that
we have had to take the sick Mrs. Kryssing into our home and will care for her
for the foreseeable future.
This woman, who suffered this bitter fate, has also suffered a deep disappoint-
ment through the pedantry and indifference of Germans in the face of her selfless
work. As she and her husband do not discuss these issues much, I cannot speak
to the specifics. I do know, however, that SS-Brigadeführer Kryssing, feeling that
he had to intervene for his wife, who was deeply suffering both physically and
mentally, turned to you, Reichsführer.
And this leads me to sincerely and urgently ask you, Reichsführer, to make a
decision which is justified in light of the human and political elements of this
tragic case.
On a human level it is simply self-evident that we should back these people fully
who have selflessly and completely sacrificed for us.
Politically it should be taken into consideration that here in Denmark and likely
outside of the country, too, it is being noted how this Danish officer – the first
commander of the Freikorps and the first “Germanic General” – and his wife are
treated by us.
186 The End of the Germanic Project

My plea to you is thus that – even though I am not informed of the specifics of
the case of Mrs. Kryssing – that SS-Brigadeführer Kryssing is given a redeeming
decision and that he would once again be given a worthy command.
Mrs. Kryssing, who has to pay for her attempt at helping our front with life-long
suffering, should receive a medal, just as other deserving nurses receive the thanks
and recognition of the Reich.
My wife and I will try to make up for some of this woman’s bitter experiences
over the past few years through our personal care for her.
Heil Hitler!29

Best’s note highlights the Germanic-inclined officers’ shock at the rep-

rehensible treatment of men who had sacrificed nearly everything for
the creation of a Greater Germanic Reich. But the exchange also reveals
Himmler’s changing attitude toward the Germanic cause. Just a few years
earlier, it seems inconceivable that Himmler would have ignored a situa-
tion such as this. For all of his contradictory orders, Himmler had always
offered personal protection to Germanic volunteers, such as Riedweg,
and demanded that German SS men treat them well. At this point, how-
ever, he simply remained silent.
In June, Kryssing submitted his resignation to Himmler, writing, “I
cannot see how it could be of any use for Denmark any longer to have
me here.”30 Along with Berger, Kryssing’s old adjutant, the Dane Lorenz
Lorenzen, decided not to pass this note on, hoping that Kryssing would
change his mind.31 In this, they turned out to be correct: a few days later
Kryssing wrote again to Himmler, this time to inform him that Best had
talked him out of resigning. Best, wrote Kryssing, had convinced him that, “I
don’t want to hurt Germany,” and that “I can still be of use for Denmark.”32
Although he continued to work as a staff officer for the duration of the war,
his heart was no longer in it. His friend K.B. Martinsen, having once been
one of the Nazi regime’s proudest and most skilled foreign recruits, suffered
an even greater disillusionment in his final years of service.

K.B. Martinsen and the Failure of the

“Fighting Bureaucrat”
The idea of sending the Germanic Waffen-SS officers home to enact and
secure the Nazi revolution had been central to the SS’s Germanic project.

29
Best to RF-SS, 9 April 1944, in BA, NS 19/3791, 19–21.
30
Kryssing to RF-SS, 11 June 1944, in BA, SSO (BDC) 222A, Kryssing, C.P.
31
SS-HA to Dr. Brandt, 16 June 1944, in BA, NS 19/3791, 25–29.
32
Kyssing to Klumm, 14 June 1944, in BA, SSO (BDC) 222A, Kryssing, C.P.
 K.B. Martinsen and the Failure of the “Fighting Bureaucrat” 187

For a variety of reasons, these failed to materialize in either Sweden or

Switzerland. In Switzerland’s case, the planned invasion never took place,
and the volunteers trained for the mission were sent instead back to the
Eastern Front.33 A group sent to Sweden on the Germanische Leitstelle’s
orders without coordination or approval of higher authorities within
the SS failed when its leader, Kurt Lundin, was arrested by the Swedish
police.34 It was only in Denmark that a group of Waffen-SS combat veter-
ans and politically trained officers were sent home to conduct such work.
The results were disastrous.
By the time that the SS-Schalburgkorps was officially formed in April
1943, sixty men had already begun training for the paramilitary force
on grounds that the Germanische Leitstelle had inherited from the now-
defunct DNSAP in Copenhagen. Long before the specifics of this group
had been decided, Martinsen had been slotted to return to Denmark for
some form of political work. His performance as the Freikorps Danmark’s
commander after the death of both Schalburg and Schalburg’s German
replacement had been exemplary.35 Martinsen arrived in Copenhagen at
the end of the summer of 1943 to begin his new political work.
As should by now be clear, conditions in Denmark changed dramat-
ically between April, when the Schalburgkorps was announced, and
August, when Martinsen arrived to direct it. Like his fellow Danes,
Martinsen, too, had lost much of the enthusiasm he had shown for
the Germanic cause in the first few years of the war. Both Martinson
and most Danish Legionnaires had expected that Martinson would be
the commander of the “Danmark” regiment within the reconstituted
SS-Division “Nordland” after the Freikorps Danmark was dissolved
in the spring of 1943. The SS-FHA, however, decided that a German,
SS-Obersturmbannführer Graf von Westphalen, a man of equal rank but
of lesser military abilities, would command the Danish regiment. After the
war, the second-in-command of the III. Germanic Panzer Corps claimed
that Martinsen’s general demeanor was not becoming of a German offi-
cer and that he was “prone to womanizing and drinking.” This despite
the fact that his reviews had always been positive.36 Whatever the reason

33
Schweizerische Bundesanwaltschaft, Polizeidienst, Abschrift, Schaffhausen den 19. Febr.
1942, Auszug aus dem Abhörprotokoll betreffend A.[. . .], Otto Alfons, BAR E 2001
(E) 1968/78/Band 158.
34
Reichel to RF-SS, 2 June 1943, in BAMA, N 756/52b.
35
Kanstein to RF-SS, 16 October 1942, Betr.: Abrücken des FK DK, in BA, NS 19/1712.
36
BA, SSO (BDC) 298A, Martinsen, Knud Borge and Bøgh, K.B. Martinsen, Officer og
Landsforræder, 163.
188 The End of the Germanic Project

behind this decision, Martinsen and a majority of the Danish volunteers

were shocked by it.37
At least Martinsen did not have to suffer the humiliation of com-
manding a battalion within the regiment he felt he should lead. Instead
of heading the Regiment “Danmark” as it departed for the Balkans,
Martinsen was sent home to begin work on the Schalburgkorps. For all
of his military leadership qualities, Martinsen was politically naïve and
wholly unable to navigate the turbulent political waters between the
increasingly desperate but irrelevant DNSAP, the SS, Danish politicians,
and the German occupation authorities.38 Complicating matters further,
the German occupation forces interned the Danish officer corps the same
week that Martinsen arrived in Copenhagen. Martinsen, who still saw
himself as a Danish officer, demanded that Best intern him, too.39 Best,
however, managed to dissuade him from this, and Martinsen soon set
about his work building up the Schalburgkorps.
By winter, Martinsen had built up the group to a paramilitary force
of one thousand men commanded by some two dozen Danish Waffen-SS
officers.40 Many of these were veterans, while others were brand-new
recruits. Although the group was too new to assist with the failed oper-
ation to deport the Danish Jews in October 1943, Himmler, Best, and
Martinsen wasted no time in planning a large-scale terror operation
against the growing Danish resistance and the occupation-weary Danish
population.41 Any pretense or illusions of Germanic unity and coopera-
tion were a thing of the past.
By January, a group of German SD and RSHA operatives had arrived
in Copenhagen and organized a clandestine group composed of selected
Schalburgkorps men for their operations. The Petergruppen, or Peter’s
Group, as it was known, set about murdering oppositional figures
and bombing buildings with suspected links to the Resistance, includ-
ing student unions and newspaper offices. Although officially lead by
the Germans Otto Skorzeny (SD) and Alfred Najocks (RSHA), several
Danish Waffen-SS officers, including Svend Birkedal-Hansen, Hennig
Brøndum and Poul Neergard-Jacobsen, played leading roles in planning

37
Ibid., 162.
38
Ibid., 154.
39
Ibid., 166–67.
40
See list of Danish Waffen-SS officers in Copenhagen in BAMA, N756/52b.
41
For an excellent summary of the parallel growing terror occupations and resistance
movements and opposition see Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe,
508–09.
 K.B. Martinsen and the Failure of the “Fighting Bureaucrat” 189

and executing its operations. By the end of the war, the group had assas-
sinated some ninety persons and killed another fifty in bombings.42 The
most notorious murder was that of the pastor and playwright Kai Munk
in January 1944.43 The Danish public, unaware of the clandestine group
and its German commanders, blamed the Schalburgkorps for the violence.
Meanwhile, Martinsen and other Danish officers not involved in the
Peter’s Group became complicit in a series of unsanctioned murders, both
of fellow volunteers and of suspected Danish resistance members. These
violent outbursts seem to have been fueled by alcohol, personal grudges,
and disillusionment rather than any particular political agenda. One eve-
ning in March 1944, Martinsen executed a Schalburgkorps deserter in
the basement of the Korps building. Martinsen accused the man – a dec-
orated Eastern Front veteran and an old friend – of having an affair with
his wife and of “working against the spirit of the Schalburgkorps.”44 By
that point, Martinsen was drinking heavily on a regular basis and was
himself having affairs with the wives of several Danish volunteers serving
at the front, including the wife of his old friend Per Sørensen.45

42
See files (1)  Tatverzeichnis der Ib Birkedal Hansen-Gruppe; (2)  Tätigkeit der Peter
Gruppe; (3)  Terror und Gegenterrormassnahmen in DK, Bovensiepen; (4)  Protest
des Dänischen Aussenministeriums gegen Festnahme von Geiseld 12. April 194;
(5)  Erklärung Reinhardt, 18.March 1948; (6)  Erklärung Prof.Dr.Müller 18 February
1949, in BAL, B 162/30082. For a recent historiographical discussion of the German
terror actions in Denmark, see Lauridsen, Samarbejde og Modstand. Danmark under
Den Tyske Besættelse 1940–45. En Bibliographi., 193–95. See also relevant BA, SSO
(BDC) files and Andreas Monrad Pedersen, Schalburg-Korpset og Dets Medlemmer
1943–1945 (Odense:  Odense Universitetsforlag, 2000), persongallerie. See also Frank
Bøgh, Peter-Gruppen:  Tysk Terror I  Danmark, 2nd ed. (København:  Documentas,
2006). A somewhat sensationalized account of one of the Danish SS-men in the group is
Rauer Bergstøm, Hellere Hertug I Helvede, Hennig Brøndum – SS-Mand I Russland og
Jugoslavien – Besættelsetidens Største Terrorist I Danmark (Lynge: Bogan, 1977).
43
Bøgh, Peter-Gruppen: Tysk Terror I Danmark, 23–30. Interestingly Munk, though con-
sistently opposed to the German occupation, favored a “Nordic dictatorship” (“fælles-
nordisk dictator”) as an alternative to the failed democratic nation states of Scandinavia.
See, Bjarne Nielsen Brovst, Kaj Munk – Krigen och Mordet (Aarhus:  Centrum, 1993),
485; Marc Auchet et  al., eds., Kaj Munk  – Dansk Rebel og International Inspirator
(Kopenhagen: Akademisk Forlog, 1995).
44
SS- und Polizeigericht z.b.V.  beim Hauptamt SS-Gericht to RF-SS, 2 November 1944,
Betr.:  SS-Obersturmbannführer Martinsen, in BA, SSO (BDC) 298A, Martinsen, K.B.
The case was investigated by the SS courts but never concluded before Martinsen was
tried for treason in the fall of 1944.
45
Berger to RF-SS, Berlin 26 November 1944, in BAMA, N 756/235. See also letters to
parents 17 and 20 May 1944, in Haaest, Intet Nyt Fra Østfronten:  Beretningen Om
Regiment 24 Dänemarks Sidste Kommandør. Fortalt Af Ham Selv I  Frontbreve, Sat
I Perspektiv Af Erik Haaest, 227–39.
190 The End of the Germanic Project

Having proven himself an effective leader at the front, Martinsen was

unable to control the Schalburgkorps. Some months earlier, Flemming
Helweg-Larsen, the head of German propaganda in Denmark, and two
other veterans now working for the Schalburgkorps had decided to enact
“selvjustiz” against a newspaper editor who had slandered family mem-
bers of the Waffen-SS. Late one evening, they drove out to his apartment
wearing German uniforms and informed the man, in German, that he
was being arrested by the Gestapo. They then drove him out to a forested
area where all three men emptied their clips into the man.46 A  similar
private assassination occurred in April 1944, this time undertaken by
three Danish Waffen-SS officers. It is unclear who instigated the murder
of the teacher and politician Jens Ibsen, though some evidence points
to Leo Madsen, a veteran working for the Germanische Leitstelle in
Copenhagen who had joined the Schalburgkorps. After a night of drink-
ing, Madsen and two officers on leave decided to vent their frustration.
They borrowed Martinsen’s car, drove to Ibsen’s home, abducted him at
three in the morning, drove him to a side road, and shot him. But because
Ibsen was a well-known man with political connections, both the Danish
and German police opened investigations that immediately connected the
murder to Martinsen’s car. When Best called in Martinsen for question-
ing, the latter lied about having any knowledge or involvement in the
case.47 This would, however, soon be the least of Martinsen’s troubles.
Martinsen had grown increasingly agitated for two reasons during the
spring of 1944. First, he resented the fact that the Petergruppen, though
theoretically part of the Schalburgkorps, was completely out of his con-
trol. Moreover, he was deeply concerned by the fact that the Danish pub-
lic held the Schalburgkorps responsible for the brutal turn the occupation
had taken. Martinsen, it seems, held out hope as late as the spring of 1944
that the population-at-large might come to hold the Schalburgkorps in
high esteem as an elite group of Danish men. While he did not believe
that the Petergruppen’s actions were inherently wrong – although he did

46
Udskrift af retsbogen for straffesager i Københavns amts nordre birk – retskreds nr. 2 – År
1945 den 10. September, in BAL 162/30081. Helweg-Larsen discussed the event exten-
sively in his memoir and claimed that their intention had only been to scare Clemmensen.
He wrote that one of the men fired accidently, after which they all shot so as to be
equally guilty. See Henrik Skov Kristensen and Ditlev Tamm, eds., Dødsdømt: Flemming
Helweg-Larsens Beretning (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 2008), 170–75.
47
See Rapport, Køpenhavns Opdagelsepoliti, 17 February 1965; K.B. Martinsen interro-
gation 11 June 1945; Leo Anton Madsen interrogation, 15 June 1945, in BAL, B 162/
30079.
 K.B. Martinsen and the Failure of the “Fighting Bureaucrat” 191

think they had gone too far – he was more bothered by the idea that they
were sullying the Korps’ image. In an interview for a National Socialist
newspaper in April, Martinsen tried to distance his Korps from the mur-
ders and criticized the German occupation authorities and their penchant
for violence, stating, “we can’t win over the nation through hate, nor with
lies and terror, but only by admitting to past mistakes and embracing the
truth and life.”48 This was too much for Best, who inquired of Himmler
whether Martinsen might be either moved back to the front or tried for
the shooting of the Schalburg man earlier in that year.49
At roughly the same time, Martinsen sent Himmler his letter of res-
ignation. The Petergruppen had been officially moved under the control
of the German occupation authorities; this, for Martinsen, was the last
straw.50 Martinsen’s letter outlined the series of disappointments that
had collectively led to his complete disillusionment with German pol-
icy. He wrote, “Through my experience as commander of the Freikorps
Danmark and chief of the Schalburgkorps, I have increasingly gained the
impression that, as a Danish volunteer, one fights not for the creation of
a Germanic Reich with Danish equality but for strictly German inter-
ests.”51 His resignation was refused. Himmler, it appears, was content
letting the conflict between Best and Martinsen play out.
As violence in Denmark escalated throughout the summer of 1944,
the German leadership decided in September to arrest the entire Danish
police force. At the police headquarters in Denmark, the SD found a letter
from Martinsen’s personal adjutant informing them of the nature of the
clandestine Petergruppen. The letter represented a clear act of treason,
and Best and others assumed that Martinsen had ordered the informa-
tion leaked to the police. In response, Martinsen and his adjutant were
ordered to Berlin for what they were told would be an important meeting
with Berger. Upon their arrival, they were arrested and imprisoned by the
Gestapo. After countless interrogations throughout the fall, Berger and
Himmler, not wishing to make a scene with such a well-known Germanic
officer, decided to place Martinsen in Ehrenhaft, incarceration with
honor, without a trial for the remainder of the war.52
48
“Vore Frivillige kæmper og dør som sande Vikinger,” Paa godt dansk, March 1944, 12–
13. Copy in RA, FOARK, 1010/90D.
49
Best to RF-SS, 3 May 1944, Betr.: Den SS-Oberstrurmbannführer K.B. Martisen, in BA,
SSO (BDC) 298A, Martinsen, K.B.
50
Bøgh, K.B. Martinsen, Officer og Landsforræder, 208–09.
51
Martinsen to RF-SS, Betr.:  Entlassung von der Waffen-SS, 18 April 1944, in KB, Acc.
2008/8, II.
52
See, Berger to RF-SS, Berlin 26 November 1944, in BAMA, N 756/235.
192 The End of the Germanic Project

The accusations crushed whatever belief Martinsen still had in the

German commitment to Germanic National Socialism. During his incar-
ceration in Denmark after the war, he recalled his feelings after being
arrested by the Gestapo:
Even a bomb would have struck me less forcefully. It wasn’t just this sentence,
which was totally unexpected. It was now that there was a definitive rupture
in my belief in [Himmler] who up until that point I had had limitless trust in.
I had of course seen much that was certainly in contradiction to pure National
Socialism, but found solace in the fact that the movement’s leaders, once the war
was over and their powers freed, would build on the Danish-German coopera-
tion. At that point all the men who abused the teachings of our holy idea – the
Greater Germanic idea – would be replaced with decent fighters. In this reorder-
ing work I always regarded the Reichsführer as a leading power. But what has
happened now?53

In March 1945, the prison Martinsen was held in was damaged by an

air raid. In the confusion that followed, Martinsen escaped and made his
way back to Denmark, where he went into hiding until his arrest by the
resistance in the summer of 1945. He was later executed for his role as
the commander of the Schalburgkorps. Until the end, he believed that he
had been serving Denmark and that he, and not the Danish population at
large and especially not the resistance, had the best interests of Denmark
at heart.54

The Funeral Pyre of European Fascism

In January 1944, the III. Germanic Panzer Corps was assigned the task
of holding the Estonian city of Narva. As wave after wave of Soviet units
sought to establish a bridgehead across the town’s namesake river, the
“Wiking” and “Nordland” Divisions were being bled dry. By the summer,
the Red Army had broken through, and the Germanics began a year-long
retreat that would end in the ruins of Berlin. In September the German
forces briefly attempted to halt the Red Army at Riga, but the retreat
continued. By October the entire German Army Group North, of which
the Germanic Corps was a part, was trapped on the Courland peninsula,
with the Baltic at their backs and the Red Army all around. The Corps
was transferred by sea to Pomerania in February 1945, where it fought
retreating battles until the Red Army pushed them into the heart of Berlin.

53
Martinsen, Arrestation (Tyskland 1944), in KB, Acc. 2008/8, III.
54
Martinsen, Arrestation (Tyskland 1944), in KB, Acc. 2008/8, III.
 The Funeral Pyre of European Fascism 193

In an ironic twist then, among the Reich’s last and staunchest defend-
ers were large groups of Germanic volunteers. Even in these final weeks
before being pushed into the city center, many neutral Germanic vol-
unteers refused to give up their ideological convictions. By this point,
however, their decision to fight on had more to do with location than con-
viction. Like the majority of German soldiers and officers, those engaged
with the Allies were quicker to surrender than those facing the Red
Army who, as was well known, did not take Waffen-SS prisoners alive.
Those who found a way to flee the fighting in the city did.
Nonetheless, their dogged loyalty to the Germanic dream is evident
in a memoir that Thorolf Hillblad wrote on the final months of the war.
In between horrific scenes of carnage, the author expresses his disgust at
freed Eastern forced laborers who joined in the attack against the retreat-
ing Waffen-SS.
Our spirit had sunk steadily during the last days, and had come dangerously
close to zero. Here in the forests of Brandenburg, we now met a new enemy.
Roving armed gangs of Polish and Russian civilians began to show up at night,
to rob and plunder. Frequently they attacked smaller units of our Division. They
were beginning to escape from their camps, find weapons, and were now try-
ing to correct their personal records for a proper alibi at the prospect of the
approaching Red Army. These individuals had been transferred from a miserable
existence in Belorussian and Ukrainian hovels, filthy, stinking, lice- and flea-
filled mud huts, and had been hired to work in the German war industry. For
the first time in their grey hopeless lives they had encountered well-organized
workplaces and humane living conditions. Their dirty and flea-infested clothes
had been replaced by clean overalls and real underwear from the already scarce
supplies of their host country. . . . Now they called themselves sklaven arbeiter
[slave laborers].55

Though the war was all but over, the myths of National Socialist benevo-
lence and Germanic superiority were alive and well as the men made their
final retreat into the smoldering remains of the Reich’s capital.
Many Germanic Waffen-SS soldiers lost their lives in the final, apoca-
lyptic battle in Berlin – an event that Antony Beevor memorably described
as the “unsurprising pyre for the remnants of the European extreme
right.”56 The Battle for Berlin, which began on 16 April 1945 with a Red
Army advance across the Oder River, represents one of the largest con-
centrations of force in history:  the Soviet forces numbered 2.5  million

55
Hillblad, Twilight of the Gods: A Swedish Waffen-SS Volunteer’s Experiences with 11th
SS Panzergrenadier Division ‘Nordland’, Eastern Front 1944–45, 77.
56
Antony Beevor, The Fall of Berlin, 1945 (New York: Viking, 2002), 323.
194 The End of the Germanic Project

men, 41,600 guns and 6,250 tanks.57 Unorganized and increasingly des-
perate German units and severely undermanned divisions retreated into
the center of the city over the following days under constant artillery
fire. Steiner’s Division “Wiking” found itself in the forested areas west
of Berlin. Although ordered to counterattack to relieve the surrounded
capital, Steiner made a run for the West and surrendered to the Western
Allies.58 Most Scandinavian volunteers, however, were by this point in
the SS-Division “Nordland,” which found itself trapped in the belea-
guered city. By the last days of April, when the German position was less
than a few square kilometers around the government district, the 10,000
remaining defenders were disproportionately foreign SS men.59
The Swede Alfons W[. . .] recalled the final grueling days of battle:
Our group took part in the defense of Reinickendorf [neighborhood in northern
Berlin] on 21 April 1945. It was hopeless. It was all one giant mess. Everyone was
trying to get away into Berlin. After a few hours I suddenly heard an exchange
of fire between anti-tank guns, then a giant ball of flame shot out around one of
our cannons. Then I heard a load detonation. I realized something had happened
and tried to calmly find my way over there. It was as I feared: where the cannon
had stood there was now only smoking wreckage with some charred corpses
around.60

W.  was captured by the Red Army shortly thereafter; he survived a

year in Soviet captivity before returning to Sweden.61 Per Sørensen wrote
a final note to his parents on 13 April 1945, just before Berlin was com-
pletely sealed off.62 A  few days later he was made commander of the
Regiment “Danmark,” but he was killed sometime around 28 April.63
Meanwhile, a few blocks away in the neighborhood of Neu Köln, the Swiss
Heinrich Büeler commanded a regiment within the Waffen-SS Division
“Charlemagne.” Having been fired from his job at the Germanische
Leitstelle, Büeler’s fluent French made him a natural choice as an officer
for this French unit. He had served as an instructional officer at Sennheim
until he had been forced into a combat role by the approaching armies.

57
Ibid., 206.
58
Ibid., 268.
59
Ibid., 356.
60
Alfons W.[. . .], “Fången hos ryssarna,” in WPA.
61
Ibid.
62
Sørensen to father, 13 April 1945, in Haaest, Intet Nyt Fra Østfronten:  Beretningen
Om Regiment 24 Dänemarks Sidste Kommandør. Fortalt Af Ham Selv I Frontbreve, Sat
I Perspektiv Af Erik Haaest, 300.
63
Christensen, Poulsen, and Scharff Smith, Under Hagekors og Dannebrog:  Danskere
I Waffen-SS 1940–1945, 241.
 The Funeral Pyre of European Fascism 195

He managed to escape Soviet captivity by sheer luck and was instead

captured by the British in early May.
The biographies of the neutral Waffen-SS leadership corps offer count-
less tales of near or temporary capture by the Red Army in the fight
for Berlin. A  surprising number of these officers, however, managed
to escape, either back to Switzerland or Scandinavia or, in some cases,
toward American or British troops. Gösta Pehrsson, for example, was
one of the last defenders of the Reichstag and the Chancellery before lead-
ing the now famous breakout attempt across the Weidendammer Bridge
after learning of Hitler’s suicide.64 After the failed attempt, Pehrsson
and other surviving Swedes  – among them Thorolf Hillblad and Erik
Wallin – hid among the ruined cellars of the city before making their way
to the Swedish embassy bunker. They, pretending to be Swedish students
caught up in the turmoil of war, obtained Swedish passports with which
they traveled home.65 Several Swiss men broke off from their units in the
final days and made their way toward the Swiss border, where they were
arrested by the border police.
Others were captured by the Red Army, only to escape. Kurt Brüderlin,
the Swiss academic, had been serving in the SS-Division “Nord” in Finland
when he was captured. After a month of captivity, he fled to Germany,
where he was caught by French soldiers who in turn handed him over
to the Swiss police. Like most other Swiss and Danes, Brüderlin found
incarceration at the hands of his national police force a great alternative
to Soviet captivity.66
In fact, among the core group of neutral leaders followed in this study,
only Sørensen was killed in the Battle of Berlin. All of the others man-
aged to escape the Red Army with their lives intact. It is, of course, highly
unlikely that this fate is representative of neutral volunteers in general;
the majority of the volunteers most likely did not survive either the final
days of the war or Soviet captivity. One author, for example, estimates
that as many as one thousand Danes lost their lives in the Battle of Berlin

64
Beevor, The Fall of Berlin, 1945, 358. For Pehrsson’s recollections of the event, see
Malmö Polis, Kriminalavdelning, Rapport, 26 October 1945, in RASA, Säpo PA, Hans-
Gösta Pehrsson.
65
See Auszüge aus den Aufzeichnungen des ehem. SS-Obersturmführer Hans-Gösta
Pehrsson, 1944–45 Kompaniechef in der SS-Pz.Aufklärungsabteilung 11  “Nordland”
in Estland und Pommern, in AfZ, NL Franz Riedweg, ungeordneter Bestand. See also
Hillblad, Twilight of the Gods: A Swedish Waffen-SS Volunteer’s Experiences with 11th
SS Panzergrenadier Division ‘Nordland’, Eastern Front 1944–45, 110–20.
66
Bergmann, Einsichten und Ansichten Eines Schweizer Freiwilligen:  Bericht Eines
Schweizer Kriegsfreiwilligen der Waffen-SS, 80–83.
60 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

If Germany represented the cultural pillar for young Swedes, Danes,

and Swiss, the Soviet Union was its antithesis. For example, during the
brief Winter War of 1939–1940 following the Soviet Union’s attack on
Finland, private Swedish donations for their beleaguered Scandinavian
neighbor topped 145  million Swedish Kroner. When Germany invaded
and subsequently occupied Sweden’s other neighbor Norway a few
months later, Swedes were much more ambivalent: only 8 million Swedish
Kroner trickled in.24 For Swedes, with the exception of those in the com-
munist movement, the Soviet Union was the danger to world stability
whereas Germany was the cultural pillar.25
An excerpt from a Swedish article that broke the news of the German
invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 shows a similar urge:
Surrounded by the Western powers, Germany has burst through its shackles and
is moving with freedom and increased strength toward its European, its world-
historical mission to crush the red regime which has been a constant threat
against the very principle of freedom . . . Under Germany’s leadership, Europe is
embarking on a war of the people against the red menace.26

These words did not appear in a National Socialist or right-wing paper.

Instead, this reference to Germany’s invasion as fulfilling a “world-
historical mission” fought on behalf of Europe’s people appeared on the
front page of one of Sweden’s largest and thoroughly middle-of-the-road
papers, Aftonbladet. While, in hindsight, Germany’s attempt to char-
acterize its invasion as a Schicksaalskampf on Europe’s behalf appears
completely hollow, it did not necessarily appear so to all Europeans at
the time.
Many prominent and well-known Scandinavian authors heaped
praise on Hitler and his many “accomplishments” throughout the 1930s.
Knut Hamsun, the Norwegian Nobel Laureate, wrote in 1944 that “all
the nations ought now to stand up as one man to help Germany to
save us all from Bolshevism. . . . For no country and no people will avoid
the embrace of the Russian octopus if Germany should succumb in the
gigantic struggle it finds itself in today.”27 Of course, by then, his son
Arhild was serving in the Waffen-SS. Johannes Jensen, a Danish Nobel

24
Sverker Oredson, “Stormaktsdrömmar och Stridsiver. Ett Tema I Svenks Opinionsbildning
och Politik 1910–1942,” Scandia 59, no. 2 (1993): 291.
25
Ibid.
26
“Europas Frihetskrig,” in Aftonbladet 22 June 1941, 1.
27
Knut Hamsun, Selected Letters, ed. Harald and James McFarlane Næss, vol. II
(Norwich: Norvik Press, 1998), 227–28.
 After the War 197

Helweg-Larsen, as this excerpt shows, was aware of and deeply perturbed

by the emerging myth of the volunteers. Awaiting his death sentence, he
argued that he had not served for money, even though feigning economic
motives would have lessened his treachery. He remained adamant that he
and most of his fellow volunteers had served out of conviction.
Of course it mattered little what Helweg-Larsen or any of his cohort
in Switzerland or Denmark wrote in their cells. Their complicity in the
murderous Nazi regime could not be whitewashed with an appeal to the
Germanic sentiments most Swedes, Swiss and Danes wanted nothing to
do with anymore. Büeler, Lorenzen, Kryssing, Corrodi, and Martinsen,
to name only a few, all wrote self-justifying memoirs. Each, like Helweg-
Larsen’s, highlighted the author’s conviction that he had acted on behalf
of his country and asked readers not to write him and his fellow vol-
unteers off as money-seeking adventurers, traitors, or lunatics.69 Those
who did not publish such thoughts uttered similar sentiments in their
interviews with the police.70
In Denmark, the judicial proceedings followed the emerging popu-
lar narrative of the volunteers as venal traitors. The cases against them
largely ignored their ideological commitments and emphasized the spe-
cific legal infraction of having served in the Germany armed forces. They
were traitors, albeit traitors who had been duped by a conniving enemy.
Although evidence of war crimes frequently emerged in the course of an
investigation, it was ignored unless the crimes had been committed on
Danish soil against Danish nationals.71 In fact the most damning variable
from the point of view of the Danish courts was not length or type of
service but whether the man had worn his German uniform and side arm
while on Danish soil.72

69
See, Dagborg fra mai 1945, in KB, Acc. 2008/8, K.B. Martinsen, III, Vestre Fængsel
Udlv. 22–3–46, in KB, Utilg. 842, C.P. Kryssing, II/3, Heinrich Büeler, “Gedanken
einer Verteidigungsschrift gemäss Schreiben der Schwez. Bundesanwaltschaft vom
15.1.1947,” in AfZ, NL Heinrich Büeler, 8.1, Exzerpte, in AfZ, NL Heinrich Büeler,
11.5 Inhaftierung Strafanstalt Regensdorf 1947–1954, Exzerpte und Bibliographien,
Rechtfertigungsschriften, in AfZ, NL Max Keller, 4.1.4, Blauner, “Der Fall Johann
Corrodi,” in BiG.
70
See, for example, RA, RP/2476 Lorenz Lorenzen, RASA, SÄPO files.
71
Christensen, Poulsen, and Scharff Smith, Under Hagekors og Dannebrog:  Danskere
I Waffen-SS 1940–1945, 399.
72
See cases in Domsudskrifter vedr. Regiment Danmark, SS-Division Wiking m.m., in RA,
RIAD 1349/11. The exception is Carl Peter Værnet, a Danish doctor who worked on
human experiments at Buchenwald concentration camp. His story came to the atten-
tion of a Danish court, but he managed to slip away to Argentina before he could be
prosecuted.
198 The End of the Germanic Project

Whether intentional or not, the Danish legal proceedings suggested

that all of the volunteers were monolithic, naïve, criminally inclined,
greedy, or mentally ill. Their convictions suggested an aberrant personal-
ity profile for collaborators. By this logic, the “normal” Dane had to be
an anti-Nazi democrat. This narrow definition of collaboration – through
voluntary service to the Waffen-SS – began even before the war ended.
In early May 1945, the Danish Resistance carried out a large opera-
tion to hunt down and arrest persons suspected of collaboration with
the enemy. The action, however, was limited specifically to Waffen-SS,
Schalburgkorps, and DNSAP members. Over the summer, the Resistance
imprisoned some forty thousand persons.73 On 26 May 1945, the tran-
sition government in Denmark passed a “traitor’s decree” which crimi-
nalized collaboration with the enemy. While the law was retroactive to
9 April 1940, it distinguished between acts committed before and after
August 1943. Politicians and others who had acted with the Danish gov-
ernment’s approval before the full occupation began were excused. This
exception did not, however, cover Waffen-SS members. The decree held
that Danish members of the German armed forces were to be punished
with death or a minimum of four years in prison. The few decisions that
acquitted Waffen-SS members on the premise that they had sought and
received permission from Danish military supervisors were quickly over-
turned by the higher courts. Forty-six Danes, including Martinsen and
Helweg-Larsen, were executed, while other officers were sentenced to
well over four years in prison.74
The surviving Danish volunteers’ postwar experiences contrasted dra-
matically with that of their Swedish peers. Sweden, recall, had attempted
to legally prevent is citizens from joining the German side through most
of the war. In Denmark, in contrast, the government and military had
given its blessing for citizens who wished to serve in the Waffen-SS, at
least until 1943. Whereas Denmark needed a scapegoat for its govern-
ment’s open collaboration with the Nazi regime, Sweden chose to forgive
and forget. Having no need for a national cleansing ritual, the image of
the good, anti-fascist Swede was preserved by simply ignoring the volun-
teers. Only those men who had deserted from Swedish military units, sto-
len military property (some had left for Germany wearing their Swedish
army uniforms), or leaked sensitive information to German intelligence
73
Ditlev Tamm, Retsopgøret Efter Besættelsen (Viborg:  Jurist-og Økonomforbundet,
1985), 157.
74
See ibid.; Werther, Dänische Freiwillige in der Waffen-SS, 158–59. Many sentences were
reduced in the coming years.
 After the War 199

services were prosecuted.75 The rest of the men were free to transition
back into society – as many of them did, flawlessly. As in the Danish case,
war crimes were ignored.76
In Switzerland, service in the German armed forces had been criminal-
ized from the start. This not only because Switzerland, as a neutral coun-
try, had established laws prohibiting military service abroad; from the
start, the Swiss government had actively sought to especially prohibit ser-
vice in the German armed forces and had issued warrants for the arrest
of known Waffen-SS members even during the war. In the final year of the
war, starting with Riedweg in October 1944, the government revoked the
citizenship of the most senior Swiss Waffen-SS members – an act clearly
meant to label the behavior of these men as un-Swiss.77 In the final days of
the war, Swiss volunteers who were fleeing Allied captivity were refused
entry upon reaching the border. When the British internment authori-
ties tried to have Benno Schäppi returned to Switzerland for prosecution,
the Swiss embassy in Germany repeatedly rebuffed the requests, writing,
“the return of Benno Heinrich Schäppi to Switzerland is naturally out of
the question. The Swiss authorities are neither [sic] interested in the
future fate of BHS and leave it to the Occupation Authorities what to do
with him.”78 The government was similarly disinterested in repatriating
other volunteers.
The Swiss government had little interest in the volunteers’ presence in
Switzerland because this would complicate the government’s efforts at
creating a narrow interpretation of collaboration.79 Already in June 1945,
the Swiss Parliament passed a motion enabling a committee to investigate
and make public the “anti-democratic activities of persons and organiza-
tions of foreign origin or dependent on foreign support during the war.”80

75
Hillblad, Twilight of the Gods: A Swedish Waffen-SS Volunteer’s Experiences with 11th
SS Panzergrenadier Division ‘Nordland’, Eastern Front 1944–45, 5.
76
As a matter of fact, one Swedish journalist recently uncovered that some Estonian-
Swedes who had been directly responsible for the rounding up and execution of Jews
in the Baltic area were to this day employed by the Swedish national archive  – the
very place where I examined the SÄPO interview files used in this book. Schön, Hitlers
Svenska Soldater, 311.
77
BA, SSO (BDC) 30B, Riedweg, Dr. Franz.
78
Consulate of Switzerland, Stuttgart to Civilian Internment Camp No. 91, Darmstadt, 22
January 1947, in AfZ, NL Benno Schaeppi, I.3.4.
79
Näf, “Alfred Zander, 1905–1997: Pädagoge, Frontist, Landesverätter,” 152–54.
80
Bericht des Bundesrates an die Bundesversammlung über die antidemokratische Tätigkeit
von Schweizern und Ausländern im Zusammenhang mit dem Kriegsgeschehen 1939–
1945 (Motion Boerlin), Bundesblatt No. 1/4919, 4 January 1946, in BAR Online, 1.
200 The End of the Germanic Project

The phrasing of the mandate is suggestive of the government’s interpre-

tation that any “anti-democratic” activity was not fully Swiss; even those
organizations led by Swiss citizens, the motion suggests, were integrally
supported by Germany. The detailed report was published in January
1946, and, in the words of one Swiss historian, “gave the public mem-
ory its moral and ideological tone and also its clear conscience.”81 The
image of Switzerland having resisted Nazi aggression through military
preparedness and intransigent politics  – that is a memory emphasizing
armed neutrality – was beginning to emerge.
The report’s findings also served as the backbone of six trials against
the 102 most complicit Swiss National Socialists, including the 1947
trial of Riedweg and nineteen of his Germanische Leitstelle staff mem-
bers. This trial’s proceedings recount in great detail the ways in which
Switzerland’s national integrity had been threatened by the Germanische
Leitstelle’s plans. The country’s survival and, by extension, the sacrifices
of ordinary Swiss, became all the more noteworthy. The trial dominated
the news for several months; newspapers editors and other commenta-
tors used it as an opportunity to reflect on the war, the danger it had
posed for Switzerland, and, ultimately, what they saw as the reasons for
their country’s survival.82 Riedweg remained in Germany and was tried
in abstentia. Schäppi, who had been cleared of charges by the British
in Germany, snuck across the border to Switzerland to voluntarily par-
ticipate in his own trial – his conviction that he had primarily acted in
Switzerland’s interest had apparently not subsided. All nineteen defen-
dants were convicted, with Schäppi and Riedweg receiving a sentence
of sixteen years, Büeler eight years, and the rest between one and six
years.83 On the one hand, Switzerland was the only country to fully
engage with the true ideological dimensions of the Germanic movement
within the SS; on the other hand, the Swiss establishment used the tri-
als to strengthen a convenient and simplistic myth regarding its recent
wartime past.

81
Van Dongen, “Swiss Memory of the Second World War in the Immediate Post-War
Period, 1945–48,” 271.
82
See coverage in the Neue Zürcher Zeitung and the TagesAnzeiger, for example, “Die
‘Germanische Leitstelle’ der S.S. Der Landesverräterprozess vor Bundesstrafgericht,”
in Neue Zürcher Zeitung (12 December 1947), 1, “Die ‘Germanische Leitstelle’ der
S.S. Anklagebegründund vor Bundesstrafgericht gegen die 19 Landesverräter,” in
Neue Zürcher Zeitung (15 December 1947), 3, “Untreue Eidgenossen. Der zweite
Verhandlungstag vor Bundesstrafgericht,” in TagesAnzeiger (6 December 1947), 1,
“Vorkämpfer für ein antikommunistisches Europa. Das Hauptargument der Angeklagten
im Luzerner Prozess,” in TagesAnzeiger (16 December 1947), 1.
83
Urteil, pp. 184–85.
 After the War 201

Convictions, jail time, and social isolation did not dissuade a majority
of the surviving volunteers from continuing to advance their Germanic
ideas. Through their writings and their actions, they attempted to ‘cor-
rect’ what they perceived to be a misrepresentation of the Waffen-SS,
the Germanic volunteers, and the war against the Soviet Union. In 1951,
Waffen-SS veterans in the Federal Republic of Germany founded the
HIAG (Hilfsgemeinschaft auf Gegenseitigkeit der Angehörigen der ehe-
maligen Waffen-SS, or the “Mutual Aid Community of Former Waffen-
SS Members”), initially to secure the pensions for its members that had
been rescinded when Nuremberg Trials labeled the organization criminal.
The organization quickly began to commemorate the Waffen-SS and to
produce writing on the organization’s history. Both Hausser and Steiner
became influential members of this group, as did several foreign volun-
teers, including Riedweg and Schäppi.84 Riedweg and Schäppi’s involve-
ment is somewhat surprising, as both men began to distance themselves
from the Nazi regime and its excesses immediately after the war. Riedweg
insisted to his American interrogators that he belonged to no “political
organization” and that he had not been a member of the Nazi “leader-
ship corps.”85 The Danish volunteers, meanwhile, worked hard to rewrite
the history of the Freikorps as an independent unit thoroughly commit-
ted to defending Danish interests in the face of German pressure. These
accounts omitted the more troubling and brutal aspects of the Legion’s
conduct at the front and in Denmark.86 The sole exception was Kryssing,
who wished nothing more than to be left alone.87
The HIAG files at the German military archive include an abundance
of correspondence between various Waffen-SS veterans, including the
neutral volunteers. These letters make clear that the men continued to
believe in the preeminence of the Germanic culture and race over Liberal
nation states. One veteran wrote in 1962:
I am still proud to this day to have voluntarily worn the soldier’s coat of the
German nation in the great war regardless of the lies, misinformation, and schem-
ing these days. We volunteers from all of Europe can at least be happy about

84
See Karsten Wilke, Die Hilfsgemeinschaft Auf Gegenseitigkeit (HIAG) 1950–1990:
Veteranen der Waffen-SS in der Bundesrepublik (Paderborn:  Schöningh, 2011). Both
men continued prolific writing careers; see, for example, Franz Riedweg, Konservative
Evolution: Das Ende des Saekularismus (München:  Bogen, 1968); Ende des
Materialismus: Der Weg Ins Dritte Jahrtausend (Bietigheim:  Schriftenreihe der Liga
Europa, 1982).
85
Copy of Office of U.S. Chief of Counsel Personalities Register Unit Personal Data Sheet,
in BAL, Riedweg Karteikarte.
86
For example, Krabbe, Danske Soldater I Kamp På Østfronten 1941–1945.
87
Kryssing to F[. . .], 11 March 1969, in RA, PA P.R.En. 6926/9.
202 The End of the Germanic Project

having a good conscience. We fought on the right side and history proves us right,
even if the so-called Western world in its spiritual vacuum can’t realize or admit
this. I live here, in my otherwise beautiful home, often as a stranger.88

This study has focused on a limited number of volunteers to facili-

tate an in-depth examination of their personalities and experiences. They
were, however, far from alone. Besides the thousands of similar personal
tales lost to history, the volunteers were surrounded by countrymen who,
to various degrees, believed in some tenets of National Socialism and
sympathized with the New Order. We will never know how many men
and women quietly sympathized with the aims of the Germanic Waffen-
SS volunteers. It is entirely possible that many more would have actu-
ally volunteered, had they not been bound by ties of honor or a desire
to follow local laws. This, coupled with the general widespread support
for various components of the Nazi project across Europe, means that
a radical reorganization of the continent with local support was not an
impossibility. Had the war progressed differently, had the occupation
of Western Europe been run differently, and had German officers and
administrators been more willing to accept non-German collaboration,
many more might have followed the lead of the neutral Germanic volun-
teers and their dream of a Greater Germanic Reich might have come true.

88
Karl U[. . .] to Vopersaal, 7 November 1962, in BAMA, N 756/238.
 Conclusion

The participation of third-party nationals – whether willing or coerced –

is not unusual in the history of wars between great powers. Hessians
fought in the American War of Independence; ANZAC troops stormed
Gallipoli. What, then, makes the sixty thousand or so Germanic Western
Europeans – and the eight thousand neutrals among them – who fought
under the banner of the Waffen-SS unique? Several things. For one,
unlike imperial powers of the past, the Third Reich under Adolf Hitler
was utterly hostile to accommodating outsiders. Driven by its racist and
nationalist ideology, the Nazi regime approached its Empire as an area
to be ruthlessly exploited, with Western Europeans spared plans for
outright extermination only because of their supposed racial value. The
nuanced skills of empire building, which include adopting local customs
and vocabularies were completely foreign to Hitler, Himmler, and the
Nazi regime. Hegemony was to be won by brute force. Collaboration is
more difficult to understand with this sort of regime.
The Waffen-SS volunteers’ story is made more unique by their omission
from postwar narratives. Postwar national memory and historiography
in Western European countries emphasize a collective aversion and oppo-
sition to the ideology and policies of the Third Reich, but this version of
the story is irreconcilable with the voluntary participation of thousands
of men in the SS’s work. The few works that acknowledge the size of the
foreign volunteers’ movement downplay its significance by arguing that
the volunteers were not ‘normal’ representatives of their countries. As
we have seen, this powerful postwar myth bears little weight. “Normal”
Swedes, Swiss, and Danes, or at least men who had been ‘normal’ before

203
204 Conclusion

their induction into the Waffen-SS and their experience on the Eastern
Front, fought for Germany willingly and enthusiastically.
But perhaps the most unsettling and unique aspect of the neutral
Germanic SS volunteers’ service was their ideological objective:  a rad-
ical reorganization of the continent based on a Germanic strain of the
National Socialist ideology. Their desired goals included the end of
Liberal European political traditions and the murder and oppression of
large parts of the population. And, what’s more, many of their country-
men seem to have been sympathetic toward their larger goals, at least
during the initial stages of the war.
This book has primarily focused on these two latter issues: who these
neutral volunteers were, and what they hoped to accomplish. Whereas
previous accounts often treat the neutral volunteers as nonactors, I have
sought to treat them as real historical actors; as persons imbued with
opinions, emotions, and agency, interwoven in a larger, complex histor-
ical context. Far from naïve or rudderless subjects pulled along by the
stream of history, these men were consciously engaged in conceptualiz-
ing and creating a particular brand of National Socialism. Even before
the war, these men had developed an ideological inclination toward a
transnational reordering of northwestern Europe based on authoritarian
and communal impulses. During the war, the neutral volunteers to the
Waffen-SS were active and committed soldiers and bureaucrats who were
integral to the regime’s efforts at reaching out to Western Europeans.
Nor were they one-dimensional, as caricatures of collaborationists often
appear. They wrote loving letters to their parents while condemning oth-
ers to death, saw themselves primarily as soldiers of their home country
while fighting under a foreign flag, and acted as committed fascists often
without a party affiliation.
Since its inception, the SS  – and by extension, the Waffen-SS  – was
meant to be the breeding ground for a new elite, the carriers and imple-
menters of a National Socialist revolutionary spirit. Himmler and his
cohort wished to collect men they deemed racially, physically, and intel-
lectually superior; inculcate them with National Socialist ideology; and
brand them with a lasting respect for the ideal Germanic community of
the past in order for them to usher in its future. Hence the Germanic vol-
unteers saw themselves not as mercenaries or opportunists, but rather as
men who were being groomed to lead Europe toward a glorious future.
Their actions and experiences cannot be understood without an appreci-
ation for their conviction. And indeed, they needed their strong faith in
the benefits and inevitability of a Greater Germanic Reich to sustain them
 Conclusion 205

in a fight for a regime that was largely opposed to accommodating any

outsider’s needs or wishes.
Recent research has highlighted the brutal and megalomaniacal nature
of the SS’s Generalplan Ost for the occupied territories of the East and
the extensive academic support that was mobilized in its conceptualiza-
tion and implementation. The Greater Germanic Reich and the neutral
volunteers to the SS form an understudied parallel to these German plans
for the East. Their plans for a Greater Germanic Reich must be taken
seriously. Although it is tempting to treat the New Order as a largely the-
oretical concept – what the Nazis would have done in Europe had they
won – the Germanic project within the SS was an attempt to enact one
such New Order, a Greater Germanic Reich. This plan would not begin at
the end of the current war; instead, the war itself was an integral method
to forming the bond between the Reich’s future elite. Their service during
the war would provide them with the necessary combat and administra-
tive experience to implement and lead the future Reich. Moreover, their
example would serve as inspiration to reluctant countrymen. This sort of
talk among the Germanic lobby was not mere propaganda for the con-
sumption of skeptical Europeans and unmotivated Germanic volunteers.
For a large segment within the SS centered at the Germanische Leitstelle,
this was the very reason the SS had been formed in the first place.
This was not a unanimous view at the SS. The Germanic project failed.
Its failure is nevertheless indicative of the contradictions inherent in the
neutral volunteers, the SS, Himmler, and, indeed, National Socialism. It
remains an unresolved question of whether nation or race took primacy
under German National Socialist ideology  – the question busied some
contemporaries as much as it does historians today. Despite its professed
predilection for race over artificial Liberal notions of states and citizen-
ship, National Socialism as practiced and understood by a majority of
German SS officers centered on Germany. On the one hand, racial crite-
ria, even among German recruits, were foremost in determining a man’s
suitability for the organization. On the other hand, a great many German
officers proved unwilling to swallow the idea that a Scandinavian or
Swiss man, regardless of his claims to racial “purity,” could be equal to
a German.
The fact that these Germanic men were allowed to join the SS in the
first place, and that their plans for a Greater Germanic Reich received
some support, must be credited to Himmler, the SS’s enigmatic leader.
Previous studies have emphasized certain fundamental contradic-
tions in Himmler’s character; his hot-and-cold advocacy for a Greater
206 Conclusion

Germanic Reich is in keeping with his reputation. In addition to his well-

documented penchant for issuing contradictory orders, Himmler seems
to have actively encouraged drastically divergent paths for the Waffen-
SS’s evolution. The organization that was originally intended to be the
standard-bearer for a German racial and ideological elite had, by the end
of the war, opened its ranks to hundreds of thousands of non-Germanic –
that is, “racially inferior”  – volunteers. Nor were Germanic volunteers
able to penetrate the ranks of such SS organs as the RSHA, the SD, the
Gestapo, the HPuSSF, or the SS-FHA.
Nor was the nation-state question any clearer for the neutral volun-
teers or their sympathetic German officers. Through their wartime service,
they sought both to promote the interests of their home countries and to
achieve their dissolution. Eventually the volunteers would feel alienated
from both their home countries and the SS. The more the neutral volun-
teers’ German Waffen-SS officers discriminated against them, the more
disillusioned they grew with German National Socialism. As practiced
by the SS-FHA and other institutions, they believed, German National
Socialism had gone astray in its strict adherence to German nationalism.
Meanwhile, their countrymen had failed to embrace the prospects of a
Greater Germanic Reich. Thus the neutral volunteers came to resent both
the German regime and the countries they professed to be fighting for.
From the perspective of the neutral volunteers, the war’s reality moved
increasingly away from what they had believed was an inevitable tide of
history. Despite this, most of them remained committed to both the fight
and National Socialism until the bitter end.
These men’s stories make the most sense when we approach them
with insights from new scholarship on the Third Reich, including new
perspectives on fascism, transnationalism, and so-called Täterforschung.
Integrating them into the broader narrative of the Third Reich moreover
suggests new avenues of research. Fascism, an ideology closely associ-
ated with nationalism and hence usually examined from a closed national
framework, may deserve more attention from a transnational perspective.
The fact that these highly educated and well-integrated men developed
an affinity for fascism is significant to how we understand the phenome-
non, as is their preference for a transnational reordering of the European
political system. Their experience suggests that an allegiance to a mass
party and to overt, single-state nationalism may not be paramount to the
development of fascist beliefs or actions. The volunteers were more typ-
ical, however, in their belief in the regenerative qualities of violence and
their fear of the racial and cultural degradation of European civilization.
 Conclusion 207

These men, I believe, can best be labeled transnational fascists – a par-

adigm that may be worth applying to other movements within modern
European history.
It is also important to acknowledge that these neutral volunteers par-
ticipated in the Holocaust. This fact, pursued only peripherally in this
study, has serious implications for our understanding of the Holocaust
and National Socialism. Interpretations of National Socialism, the New
Order, and the Holocaust that lean too heavily on German-specific
cultural traits or a Sonderweg fall apart in the face of non-German
complicity. If anything, the neutral men who became influential in the
Waffen-SS and engaged in these crimes against humanity bear an eerie
resemblance to their German counterparts in leadership positions of the
SS:  the preponderance of PhDs leading Einsatzgruppen has been well-
documented. If decisive cultural or intellectual trends, such as elimina-
tionist anti-Semitism, were responsible for the Holocaust, these existed at
a European, not a specifically German, level. Whatever the mechanisms
that led soldiers to murder Jews may have been, they did not discriminate
along national lines.
The Danish, Swedish, and Swiss volunteers examined here were part
of a European-wide fascist wave. They worked closely in the SS and
Waffen-SS not only with Germans but also with Dutchmen, Belgians,
and Norwegians whose stories are more difficult to uncover. Without
more biographical information, it is difficult to tell to what extent
these other Germanic volunteers shared the sentiments of their neutral
cohorts. Despite their far larger numbers of volunteers, fewer of them
worked for the Germanische Leitstelle and its related offices. While many
of these other Germanics were likely sympathetic to the creation of a
Greater Germanic Reich, the unyielding desire to personally partake in
its creation seems to have been particularly pervasive among the ranks
of neutral volunteers. Of course the idea had German support, too. That
Germans such as Berger, Steiner, and Jacobsen were wholly committed to
creating a Greater Germanic Reich and promoting the SS as a Germanic
(and not particularly German) organization is clear. That the SS-FHA and
numerous German SS officers opposed this is equally indisputable.
But what are we to make of the testimony of Johann Voss, for exam-
ple, a young German who joined the Waffen-SS at the age of seventeen in
1943? In his memoirs, written during his captivity immediately following
the war – and hence less influenced by the mythologizing that emerged
from the HIAG’s work in the 1950s and beyond – he described the war
as one “between European civilization and Bolshevism” and added that it
208 Conclusion

was “time for a new beginning, one built by European youth.”1 Here, then,
is a case of a German Waffen-SS soldier, serving outside of the Germanic-
dominated “Wiking” or “Nordland” Divisions, who seems to have fully
embraced the message of the Germanische Leitstelle. He appears to have
held no resentment for the Western European, non-Germans serving next
to him. How many other German Waffen-SS men shared this belief?
Beyond institutional squabbling, the extent of the tension within the SS
between German and Germanic National Socialism remains unclear. It is
my hope that future studies will further investigate this.
Beyond the specific claims this book makes regarding the SS and the
nature of National Socialism and fascism, its simplest implication is also
the most profound. It is tempting, given Europe’s current embrace of
Liberal, democratic, and peaceful sentiments, to read such choices back
onto history. Authoritarian and violent impulses, especially those that
culminated in National Socialism, are by contrast seen as exceptions or
detours on an otherwise clear path of progress. This study unsettles such
a simplistic reading of European history. The Germanic project within
the SS and the men who tried to implement it were as much a part of
larger and long-term European cultural trends as the institutions they
sought to replace. Some of Switzerland, Sweden, and Denmark’s bright-
est, most ambitious, and well-traveled men committed themselves to
establishing a National Socialist empire and executed Jewish and other
“undesirable” civilians in the trenches of the Eastern Front and on the
streets of Copenhagen. Had they been given the opportunity to do so,
they undoubtedly would have continued to do so in the rest of Western
Europe. Although an uncomfortable notion, this is a fact.

1
Voss is a pseudonym. Johann Voss, Black Edelweiss. A Memoir of Combat and Conscience
by a Soldier of the Waffen-SS (Bedford: Aberjona Press, 2002), 43.
 Bibliography

Unpublished Sources
Denmark

Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen (KB)

NKS 4705 4to  – P.R. E[. . .]:  Dankse Frivillige på Ostfronten
1941–1945
E.Ark.Nr.Tilg. 474 – Breve fra frivillige i SS
Acc. 2008/08 – K.B. Martinsen, 1905–1949, officer
Acc. 1997/73  – Martinsen, K.B., 1905–1949, officer, national
socialist
Acc. 1996/9 – Lorenz Lorenzen, officer
Utilg. 842 – Kryssing, C.P., 1891–1976, generalmajor
Rigsarkivet, Copenhagen (RA)
FOARK 1010 – Besættelsestidens Arkiv 1940–1945
PA 6926 – P.R. En., Officer, Ingeniør
RIAD 1349 – Rigsadvokaten, Domsudskrifter vdr. Rgt. Danmark,
SS-Div. Wiking m.m. 1945–1947
RP 2476 – Rigspoliti, Lorenz Lorenzen
AA 443a – Auswärtiges Amt, SS-Personalakter

Germany

Bundesarchiv, Berlin-Lichterfelde (BA)
NS 19 – Persönlicher Stab Reichsführer-SS
NS 21 – Ahnenerbe
NS 31 – SS-Hauptamt
NS 33 – SS-Führungshauptamt

209
210 Bibliography

R 58 – Reichssicherheitshauptamt
BA (former Berlin Document Center)
SSO – SS-Führerpersonalakten
PK – Parteikartei
RuS – Rasse und Siedlungsakten
Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin (STABI)
Germanische Gemeinschaft
Stiftung Archiv der Parteien und Massenorganisationen der DDR im
Bundesarchiv, Berlin (BA)
NSD 41 – Amtsdrucksachen SS
Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freiburg (BAMA)
MSG – Nachlass Felix Steiner
N 756 – Nachlass Wolfgang Vopersaal
RS 2–3 – Generalkommando III.SS-Pz.Korps (germanische)
RS 3-1 – SS.Pz.Div. Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler
RS 3–2 – 2.SS.Pz.Div. “Das Reich”
RS 3–5 – 5.SS-Pz.Division “Wiking“
RS 3–11 – 11.SS-Freiwilligen Pz.Division “Nordland“
RS 4 – KTB der Freikorps Danmark 7.5–11.8.1942, KTB Regiment
“Westland“
RS 5 – SS-Junkerschule Bad Tölz
RSD – Amtsdrucksachen W-SS
Bundesarchiv Aussenstelle Ludwigsburg (BAL)
B 162 – Unterlagen der Zentrallen Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen
zur Aufklärung Nationalsozialistischer Verbrechen
Antifaschistisches Pressearchiv, Berlin (APABIZ)
Der Freiwillige
Der Kammerad
Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich (IfZ)
ZS 669 – Riedweg, Dr. Franz
ZY 2372 – Thesen über das Grossgermanische Reich

Liechtenstein

Liechtensteinisches Landesarchiv, Vaduz (LLA)

RF 229/392  – Liechtensteiner Frewillige im Militärdienst
Deutschland
RF 213/201 – Kriegsfreiwillige – Versorgungsgespräche
J 7 / S 72 / 64 – Wiederaufnahme des sistierten Prozesses 1925
 Bibliography 211

RE 1925/3259 – RE 1930/3006 Wohlwend, Viktor

RF 124/185 – RF 232/484 Goop, Alfons

Sweden

Riksarkivet, Stockholm-Arninge (RASA)
SÄPO Personakter (PA):
Baecklund, Sigurd
Borg, Sam Gösta
Eklöf, Gunnar
Hillblad, Erik Gösta Thorolf
Kretz, Bernt Åke Valdemar
Meyer, Heino
Pehrsson, Hans-Gösta
Rosen, Nils Ture Ivar
Stenberg, Curt Erik
Wallin, Erik Stig
SÄPO Sakakter (SA)
Radiocentralen i Königsberg
Nazismen
Sveaborg
Militära underrättelse- och säkerhetstjänsten, Stockholm (MUST)
F VIII k:4 – Uppgifter ang Tyskland
F X a:22 – Frivillig tjänstgöring utomlands
Lennart Westberg’s Private Archive, Sundsvall (WPA)
Diverse Correspondence, PMs and Articles

Switzerland

Archiv für Zeitgeschichte, ETH, Zurich (AfZ)

NL Benno Schaeppi
NL Franz Riedweg
NL Heinrich Büeler
NL Max Leo Keller
C3 – Schweizer Freiwillige der Waffen-SS
JUNA 5 – Abwehr und Aufklärung
Bibliothek am Guisanplatz (former Eidgenösische Militärbibliothek),
Bern (BiG)
Various Swiss Army “Reglemente” and Dossiers
Bundesarchiv, Bern, Switzerland (BAR)
212 Bibliography

E 27 – Landesverteidigung 1848–1950

E 2001  – Eidgenössisches Politisches Departement:  Abteilung für
Auswärtiges 1940–1942
E 4265 – Eidgenössische Zentralstelle für Auslandschweizerfragen
E 4320 – Schweizerische Bundesanwaltschaft
Bundesarchiv, Online Database (BAR Online)
Available at: www.amtsdruckschriften.bar.admin.ch/showHome.do
Bundesblatt
Amtliches Bulletin der Bundesversammlung
Diplomatische Dokumente der Schweiz
Protokolle des Bundesrates

United States of America

US National Archive, College Park, Maryland (NARA)

RG 242, T-175  – Records of SS, Reichsführer-SS und Chef der
deutschen Polizei
RG 242, T-120 – Records of the German Foreign Office received by
the Department of State
Online Archive of the Trial of the Major War Criminals before the
International Military Tribunal (IMT)
Accessed at:  http://heinonline.org between April 2007 and
December 2009

Bibliography
Ahtola Nielsen, Jan. I Orkanens Øje  – Det Danske Finlandskorps 1939–40.
København: Gyldendal, 2006.
Aly, Götz, and Susanne Heim. Architects of Annihilation:  Auschwitz and the
Logic of Destruction. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002.
Arendt, Hannah. Eichmann in Jerusalem:  A  Report on the Banality of Evil.
New York: Penguin Books, 1994.
Aschheim, Steven E. “Introduction.” In What History Tells: George L. Mosse and
the Culture of Modern Europe, edited by Stanley G. Payne, David J. Sorkin,
and John S. Tortorice. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2004.
Åselius, Gunnar. “Sweden and Nazi Germany.” In Sweden’s Relations with
Nazism, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust, edited by Stig Ekman,
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Forlog, 1995.
 Profiles of Transnational Fascists 71

by the Swedish government and attracted some 8,600 volunteers.78 The

Swedish volunteers were the only of the some eleven thousand foreigners
to arrive in time to see heavy combat.79 Of the Swedes who would later
become influential Waffen-SS members, nearly half had fought in Finland
(and many of those who had not had been too young to do so). The
Danish government, too, sanctioned a force to serve in Finland.80 Several
of the one thousand volunteers, including Schalburg, would later join the
Waffen-SS. Interestingly, most of those who did not join the Waffen-SS
instead joined the Danish resistance.81 This is perhaps not surprising, as
men who have learned the art of organized violence are more prone to
use it again. Yet their initial instinct to join the fight in Finland speaks
to a certain personality trait – that of a person not afraid to take action,
with great ambition and confidence, and perhaps with an adventurous
and violent inclination.
Swiss citizens, in contrast, were not given the opportunity to aid
Finland in its struggle against the Soviet Union, owing to that country’s
policy of strict neutrality and the laws against foreign military service.82
The Fremdendienstverbot, or prohibition on service in foreign armies
(still in effect today), was first adopted in 1859 to reduce the tradition
of Swiss mercenaries. It gradually became intertwined with the idea of
armed neutrality and universal male conscription.83 It was, however,
exactly this ‘misguided’ policy of neutrality that many Swiss Waffen-SS
volunteers lamented; many of them took inspiration from the legacy of
Swiss mercenaries. Benno Schäppi remarked repeatedly that Switzerland
had lost its martial spirit and that he had a personal “affinity with

78
See Neulen, An Deutscher Seite: Internationale Freiwillige Von Wehrmacht und Waffen-
SS, 162. The Swedish government also donated some “100 machine guns, 89 artil-
lery pieces, 77,000 rifles, and 18 anti-tank guns.” See William R. Trotter, Den Finske
Vinterkrig 1939–1940 (Copenhagen: Borgens Forlag, 2004), 254.
79
Den Finske Vinterkrig 1939–1940, 255.
80
The most recent work on the Danish volunteer force is Jan Ahtola Nielsen, I Orkanens
Øje – Det Danske Finlandskorps 1939–40 (København: Gyldendal, 2006).
81
Christensen, Poulsen, and Scharff Smith, Under Hagekors og Dannebrog:  Danskere
I Waffen-SS 1940–1945, 48.
82
A handful of Swiss did manage to volunteer in the Winter War and the Spanish Civil War,
though these, for the most part, lived abroad. None of these, it appears, later volunteered
for the Waffen-SS. See Schweizerische Freiwillige nach Finland während des Kreiges
1939/40, B.37.21.Fi.1, in BAR, E 2001 (D), Eidg. Politisches Departement: Abteilung für
Auswertiges 1940–1942, 3/Band 248.
83
Beat Fenner, “Der Tatbestand des Eintritts in Fremden Militärdienst” (Dissertation,
Universität Zürich, 1973), 34–36.
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Browning, Christopher. Ordinary Men:  Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the
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78 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

internationalism separated them both from their governments and, more

strikingly, from the members of right-wing and national socialist parties
who would not join the Waffen-SS. Keller, for example, a long-term mem-
ber of the Swiss nationalist movement National Front, professed a hatred
only for the type of internationalism which ignored the cultural-relations
of peoples (“den volksfremden Internationalismus”) – a view that earned
him considerable criticism from his Frontist brethren who eschewed all
forms of internationalism.112
The pervasive tension in the interwar dialogue between advocates of
Pan-Europeanism – a union based on equality of the various states – and
the Mitteleuropa idea – a union of north-central states under some form
of German tutelage – would similarly color the ‘internationalism’ of the
volunteers once they arrived in Germany.113 During their university years,
some of the volunteers had interacted with Liberal internationalist move-
ments, and some even gravitated toward international socialism, but the
majority found German völkisch thinkers and movements most attrac-
tive.114 An embryonic völkisches Denken (racial-cultural thinking) per-
vaded the German universities in the late 1920s and early 1930s, though
this had a decidedly German-centric tinge.115 The volunteers exposed
to this, however, took from the völkisch impulse not an exaggerated
love of the specifically German peoples but the idea that the Germanic
volk, seen in a broader, northern-European context, were related. One
Swede’s Waffen-SS officer file mentions his application to join a right-
wing student organization when he was studying at the University of
Nuremberg.116 Riedweg, too, interacted with German völkisch students
and carried this experience with him to Switzerland after his studies
in Berlin.117 The University of Innsbruck in Austria, where two future
neutral officers received their doctorates, had a particularly pronounced

112
Dr. Max Leo Keller to Dr. H. K[. . .], 25 April 1939, “Betr. Meine Strafklage gegen die
Herausgeber der “S.Z. am Sonntag,” Eduard Behrens und Fritz Lieb,” p. 4, in AfZ, NL
Max Leo Keller, 3. Frontistische Tätigkeit.
113
See Peter M.R. Stirk, “Between Pan-Europa and Mitteleuropa:  1919–39,” in A
History of European Integration since 1914 (New York:  Pinter, 1996), 18–50; Jürgen
Elvert, Mitteleuropa! Deutsche Pläne Zur Europäischen Neuordnung, 1918–1945
(Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1999).
114
Most noticeably Riedweg; see Niederschrift einer Unterredung mit Herrn Dr.  Med.
Franz Riedweg, 22 November 1955, in IfZ, ZS669, Riedweg Franz.
115
Herbert, Best:  Biographische Studien Über Radikalismus, Weltanschauung und
Vernunft, 1903–1989, 87, 95. See also Martin Brozat, “Die Völkische Ideologie und der
Nationalsozialismus,” Deutsche Rundschau 84 (1958).
116
BA, PK (BDC) C50, 389, Ekström, Gustaf.
117
Urteil des 20. Spruchkammer des Spruchgerichts Hiddesen 18.11.1948, p.  3, in AfZ,
NL Franz Riedweg, 3. Privatakten Franz Riedweg. Riedweg, interestingly, is the only
 Index

Action Suisse contre le Communisme, 34 conscription of ethnic Germans, 147

Adolf Hitler, SS-Division, 155, 209 Corrodi and, 155
Arbeitsgemeinschaft für den germanischen Denmark, 140
Raum, 128, 129n38 on desertion, 150
Arendt, Hannah, 12 Dutch fascists, 114
Auschwitz, 120 early life, 32
Austria, 48, 78, 127 Foreign Ministry and, 126
Anschluss, 98 on Germanic mistreatment, 101, 154
Germanics on homefront, 159
Baecklund, Sigurd, 67n59, 211 Heydrich and, 125, 129
languages spoken, 68 Himmler and, 32, 146
travels, 67 idea of Germanic corps, 146
Bakke, Jørgen, 114 idea of Swiss legion, 115
Balkans increasing Leitstelle’s budget, 122
Waffen-SS soldiers, 31 integrating volunteers, 100
Basel, 80 Jüttner and, 153
Belgium, 2n4, 70 Kanstein and, 139
Flemish volunteers, 101 Kryssing’s resignation, 186
legions, 112, 114 legions, 113–14, 144, 147
Berger, Gottlob, 29, 32n25, 32n26, 32n29, Martinsen and, 141, 143, 191
32–34, 38–41, 44n73, 45n77, 45n78, mistreatment of officers, 156
44–46, 47n82, 50, 50n93, 64n40, 67, on NSDAP, 125
67n58, 90, 101n42, 104n55, 115n107, on Scandinavian recruits, 101
115n108, 115n109, 119, 121n6, on SS infighting, 121
123n12, 123n13, 123n14, 124n18, on Swedish officers, 109
124n19, 125n20, 125n24, 126n26, Rauter and, 124
126n27, 126n28, 126n29, 127n34, recruitment, 32, 39, 51, 147
128n38, 140n90, 140n93, 141n95, recruitment 1942, 156
142n102, 143n104, 143n105, report on Wiking, 145
146n112, 146n113, 146n114, Ribbentrop and, 127
147n116, 147n119, 149n1, 151, Riedweg and, 33, 121, 127
155n15, 155n17, 154–56, 156n21, Riedweg’s firing, 178
156n22, 158n29, 177n5, 178n10, Scandinavian visit, 126
189n45, 191n52, 207 Schalburgkorps, 143

225
226 Index

Berger, Gottlob (cont.) in Swedish Army, 65–66

Schwarz and, 122–23 at Tölz, 165
Sennheim and, 100 war reporting, 136
Steiner and, 102 Warsaw Uprising, 137
Vrang and, 155 worldview, 166
Waffen-SS expansion (1943), 178 Bormann, Martin, 127, 127n32,
Waffen-SS reorganization 127n37, 178
(1942), 146 Heydrich and, 35
Western Europe and, 122–23 Himmler and, 125–26
worldview, 32 Riedweg’s firing, 177
Bergmann, Konrad, 80n126, 159 Boysen, Bruno, 140n90, 140–42
Berlin, 33–35, 48–49, 50n95, 67n58, Brandenburg, 193
68n69, 78, 102, 111n83, 114n105, Brandt, Dr. Rudolf, 124
125, 127n33, 136, 136n75, 139n87, British India, 68
145n110, 154, 183, 185, 189n45, Brøndum, Henning, 188
191n52, 209–10 Brüderlin, Kurt, 80n126, 195
battle of, 2, 25, 167, 193 dissertation, 80
Danish embassy, 111 worldview, 80
Document Center, 172, 209 Büeler, Heinrich, 19n46, 42, 42n62,
Humboldt University, 105 42n63, 48, 48n87, 48n87, 65n46,
military hospital, 182 67n61, 68n63, 70n76, 77n108,
SS court, 57, 191 77n110, 79n121, 79n122, 80n123,
SS offices, 18, 131 81n128, 134n63, 153n10, 163n47,
Swedish embassy, 171, 182 194, 197, 197n69, 210
visiting Swiss fascists, 98 early life, 65
Bern, 33, 62, 93n10, 114n105, postwar, 200
115n106, 210 socialist beliefs, 79
German embassy, 114 travels, 68
University of, 62 worldview, 70, 77, 80
Best, Dr. Werner, 13n34, 138, 140n93, Bulgaria, 67
191 Burri, Franz, 127
Kryssing and, 185
Martinsen and, 191 Cernay. See Sennheim
as Reich Plenipotentiary Chaco War, 69
Denmark, 140 Charlemagne, SS-Division, 194
Bircher, Eugen, 109 Chicago, 62
Birkedal-Hansen, Svend, 188 Clausen, Fritz, 84n136, 114
Blomberg, Sibylle von, 34 Foreign Ministry and, 126, 142
Blomberg, Werner von, 30, 34n35, 36, Freikorps Danmark, 112
36n46 Himmler and, 142
Riedweg and, 34 on Waffen-SS veterans, 142
Bolivia, 69 Clemmensen, Carl Henrik, 57, 190n46
Borg, Gösta, 65n50, 65n52, 66n53, Concentration camp, 38n50, 57,
106n65, 136n73, 136n75, 166n59, 197n72
166n60, 172n81, 211 Buchenwald, 183
author, 170 Dachau, 38, 38n50, 167, 171
early life, 65–66 experiments on inmates, 130
on Greater Germanic Reich, 137 Germanics working at, 124
knowledge of Holocaust, 171–72 historiography, 12
in Kurt Eggers, 135 Oranienburg, 69
reports on Sweden, 136 praise abroad, 61
 Index 227

Copenhagen, 16, 52, 103, 151, 178n9, 182, intelligence service, 17

185, 187–88, 188n40, 190, 208, 211 interwar, 61, 65, 67
Freikorps in, 141, 174, 181 invasion of, 32, 39, 90, 93–94, 97
Germanische Leitstelle, 124 military academy, 65
Germanische Leitstelle branch, 140 number of volunteers, 2, 20
in invasion of Denmark, 93 policy on Waffen-SS enlistment, 89
SS recruitment center, 41 postwar, 8, 54–55, 196–99
Corrodi, Johann, 93n9, 155, 155n15, recruitment, 115
155n16, 155n17, 155n18, 155n19, response to Freikorps, 113
197, 197n69 returning SS veterans, 142
joining SS, 155 Riedweg visit, 126
in Swiss Army, 93, 155 royal family, 8, 65
Courland peninsula, 72, 192 Schalburg and, 168
Criminal Orders, 108 SS and, 139
Czechoslovakia, 67 SS plans for, 141
unrest 1943, 176
D’Alquen, Gunther, 135 volunteers, 53
Damson, William, 123 war-time government, 22, 110, 122
Danish Legion. See Freikorps Danmark Winter War, 71
Danish National Socialist Party (DNSAP), Der Führer, SS-Division, 155
52–53, 81, 84, 84n136, 84n137, Deutschland, SS-Division, 37
113n92, 126, 140, 167–68, 187–88 Dolezalek, Dr. Alexander, 130, 130n45
anti-Semitism, 81 Dörffler-Schuband, Werner, 102, 102n46
election results, 84 Dutch Legion, 114, 114n101
ethnic Germans, 86
Freikorps and, 113, 144 E.{…}, P.R., 81n129, 84, 94n15, 95n17,
Freikorps members, 113, 145 95n18, 104n53, 111n84, 143n107,
Germanische Leitstelle and, 142 143–44, 165n54, 170n75, 173n86,
NSU youth organization, 57, 141 181, 201n87, 211
postwar, 198 contact with Danish War Ministry, 111
SS and, 112, 139 in Danish Army, 94
SA paramilitary organization, 142 DNSAP and, 81
SS plans to restructure, 141 during invasion of Denmark, 94
Waffen-SS and, 84–85 joining SS, 95
Darmstadt, 199n78 Kryssing and, 145
Darmstadt, University of, 62 mistreatment by German officers, 154
Das Reich, SS-Division, 183, 209 at Tölz, 103, 165
Den Haag, Germanische Leitstelle, 124 worldview, 95
Denmark, 3, 3n5, 14, 20n50, 20–22, 22n55, Einsatzgruppen, 31, 108, 172, 207
25, 38, 41, 52, 55, 57, 70n77, 85, Germanics knowledge of, 171
85n139, 87n152, 91, 110n80, 139–40, Eklöf, Gunnar, 211
176n4, 177n5, 178n9, 185–87, 189n42, atrocities, 172
189–92, 197, 201, 208 at Germanische Leitstelle, 150
affinity for German culture, 59 worldview, 55
Best and, 185 Eldh-Albiez, Wolfgang, 164, 164n52
deportation of Jews, 57, 177 England, 59, 96
disillusionment among officer corps, 95 interwar, 67
fascist movements, 81, 85–87 Eriksson, Stig, 135
German propaganda in, 132 Estonia, 2n4, 67, 123n11
in Germanic Europe, 169 fighting in, 192
Germanische Leitstelle and, 119 volunteers, 147
228 Index

Federal Republic of Germany, 57, 201 120, 121n6, 133n61, 144, 150,

Finland, 60, 64, 70–72, 97, 154, 195 163, 169, 180, 190, 194, 200n82,
interwar, 67 205, 207–08
Swedish volunteers and, 90 area of responsibility, 118, 153
volunteers, 147 Best and, 140
Winter War, 57, 102 control of Ahnenerbe, 131
1st SS Brigade cooperation with Kurt Eggers, 135
Danish volunteers, 104 Copenhagen branch, 124
First World War, 70 creating all-Germanic courses, 160
Flanders, 41 creating Germanic political leadership
legion, 112 corps, 159–61
Foreign Ministry, 98, 105, 118, Denmark, 119, 140, 187–91
128, 175–77 on desertion, 149
Clausen and, 142 DNSAP and, 142
Denmark and, 139–40 expansion, 118, 121–22
Germanische Leitstelle and, 43–50, 125 Foreign Ministry and, 43, 125
legions, 146 Freikorps propaganda tour, 141
Norway, 122 funding, 23
publications, 134 Germanic conference, 138
tension with Germanische Leitstelle, on Germanic mistreatment, 102, 154
126–27, 139 Germanic National Socialism, 153
tension with SS-HA, 134 on Germanic populations, 128
work in West, 122 Germanische Gemeinschaft, 134
France, 59, 70, 73n91 on Greater Germanic Reich, 137
interwar, 67, 73 guidelines for ideological training, 156
invasion of, 89 historiography, 42
Swiss volunteers crossing into, 155 increased budget, 122–23
war-time government, 110 Kryssing and, 184
Frank, Hans, 122 legions, 112, 115–16
Freikorps Danmark, 8, 96, 111–12, 144, letters from troops, 133
155, 210 in Luzern trial, 200
atrocities, 171 mandate for Germanic work, 127
combat effectiveness, 146 NSU and, 141
leave, 181 origins, 35, 42–51
postwar, 201 placement in SS-HA, 45
successor ”Danmark” regiment, plans for Sweden, 187
173, 188 on political soldierdom, 150–51
Freikorps Norge, 114 publications, 131–32, 134
successor regiment “Norge,” 174 purging of office staff (1943), 178
restructuring Germanic training, 152
Generalplan Ost, 44, 120, 120n3, 205 RSHA and, 125
historiography, 19 RuSHA and, 130
German Swedish-language Schalburgkorps, 143
broadcast, 105–06 Sennheim and, 100
Germania, SS regiment, 102 sources, 18–19, 119
origins, 39 staff nationalities, 21
Germanische Leithefte, 132–34, 132n54, on Swedish and Swiss legions, 114
133n55, 133n56, 133n57 Swiss academics, 116
Germanische Leitstelle, 13, 18, 19n46, Tölz and, 24, 104
21n54, 22n55, 22–24, 28–29, 33, training, 151
43n68, 44n69, 44n72, 44–46, 100n37, volunteers, 5
 Index 229

Western Europe and, 139 136n74, 174n90, 179n11, 179n12,

Wiking magazine, 134 193, 195, 211
Germanischen Freiwilligen Leitstelle. See on Holocaust, 174
Germanische Leitstelle in Kurt Eggers, 135
Gestapo, 30n15, 34, 36n46, 49, 155, 182, studies, 105
190–92, 206 on Swedish-German cultural ties, 106
Goebbels, Joseph, 34, 34n37 travels, 69
Goop, Dr. Alfons, 136n73, 212 war reporting, 136
Gothenburg, 63 worldview, 105
Great Depression, 62 Himmler, Heinrich, 1, 5, 11, 28n10,
Greater Germanic Reich, 3, 11, 18, 31n22, 32n25, 33n30, 33n33, 31–34,
138n81, 150 34n35, 34n37, 36n46, 38n50, 39n55,
Gröbl, Wilhelm, 48 40n56, 42n61, 44n73, 45n78, 46n80,
Gürtler, Dr. Josef, 129, 129n40, 129n43 47n82, 38–48, 48n87, 50n96, 50–52,
52n1, 60–63, 64n40, 64–65, 68–70,
Hallas, Erling 72–73, 73n92, 74n94, 74–75, 79n121,
anti-Semitic writing, 82 80n126, 86, 90–91, 93–94, 98n28,
worldview, 81 96–101, 102n43, 102n44, 103n51,
Hamburg, 68 104n55, 103–06, 106n63, 110n80,
Hamsun, Arhild, 60 110–13, 114n102, 115n107,
Hamsun, Knut, 60 115–16, 121n6, 123n12, 123n14,
Hasushofer, Karl, 28 125n24, 126n26, 126n27, 126n28,
Hausser, Paul, 6 127n36, 127n37, 119–30, 133–34,
postwar, 201 140n93, 141n95, 136–43, 143n105,
Hedin, Sven, 61 145n111, 145–46, 146n112, 146n113,
Helsingborg, 182 146n114, 147n119, 149, 149n1,
Helweg-Larsen, Flemming, 52n1, 52n3, 151–52, 154–56, 158n29, 161,
52–53, 64, 69n73, 151n4, 190n46, 169–70, 176n4, 177n5, 176–78,
196n68, 198 178n10, 180, 183–84, 184n27,
author, 65, 69, 135 186–87, 191, 194–95, 195n64,
as head of propaganda Denmark, 190 196n68, 203–06, 208
in Kurt Eggers, 135, 151 and academics, 27
joining SS, 52 asserting SS predominance, 126
postwar recollections, 196–97 Berger and, 32
prewar, 52 Best and, 140
travels, 67, 69 Bormann and, 125–26
Hemingway, Ernest, 52 build-up of SS, 26
Heydrich, Reinhard, 27, 34–35, 125n24 Clausen and, 142
assassination, 125 complaints about Germanic work, 123
Berger and, 125, 129 creation of Ahnenerbe, 130
Bormann and, 35 Denmark, 188
as Deputy Protector of Bohemia and on desertion, 149
Moravia, 34 Dutch fascists, 114
Germanische Leitstelle and, 45–46 expansion of Waffen-SS, 116
germanization of Czech territories, on Germanic conference, 139
125 Germanic preparatory courses, 158
plans for East, 121 Germanische Leitstelle, 45–47, 118
Riedweg and, 34–35 guidelines for ideological training, 157
HIAG, 201 Hitler and, 127
Hillblad, Thorolf, 21n52, 21n52, 105n59, idea of Germanic corps, 146
105–06, 106n62, 106n63, 106n65, ideological training, 152
82 Restless Youth: Prewar Biographical Sketches

Erziehung [ideological indoctrination] instructor  – wrote some four-

teen books and a plethora of articles in the years before the war. His
writing made abundantly clear that he saw Jews and Bolsheviks – often
conflated as one corrupting entity – as the primary threat to Swiss and
European existence.130 Hallas, too, wrote and spoke of the “Jewish prob-
lem” as all-encompassing, responsible for every ill. Both men called for
decisive action against the Jews. In one of many such utterances, Hallas
explained, “Jews have not sat directly on the farmers’ plow but they have
planted themselves on our monetary system, our press, our literature.
Unemployment, crisis, and impoverishment are the results of the collec-
tive Danish indifference to racial laws.”131
To see these men as simple anti-Semites is, however, only half of the
picture. In addition to hate-filled anti-Jewish accusations and threats,
Zander’s writings contain most of the same ideological elements found
among the other volunteers. In 1934, for example, he edited and published
a collection of writings on Erziehung, Schule und Volksgemeinschaft
(Education, Schools, and Volksgemeinschaft). Zander begins his own
contribution to the volume by outlining the dangerous decay threatening
the Swiss nation and Europe at large, caused, he claimed, by the historical
“mis-development” of the French Revolution:
Should European culture be overwhelmed by the chaos (cultural Bolshevism)?
Should we label Switzerland as a dying, powerless state-structure with a grand
past but unworthy present? Are these foreign voices correct who label the Swiss
Volk as a futureless Volk of traders, bankers and hoteliers?
No, no a thousand times over! Where danger is large – the economic is but the
least of it – a solution grows. We are standing at the end of a mis-development, at
the end of an age of individualism. This epoch began with the French Revolution,
[it] built millions of machines and laboratories, conquered the farthest corners of
the world with unquenchable greed.132

130
He wrote several pieces dedicated to such arguments, see, for example, Alfred Zander,
Dokumente Zur Judenfrage in der Schweiz (Zurich:  Verlag Eidgenössische schrifte,
1935). For an indepth examination of Zander’s life, see Martin Näf, “Alfred Zander,
1905–1997: Pädagoge, Frontist, Landesverätter,” Traverse 3 (2003); Martin Gutmann,
“Engineering the European Volksgemeinschaft:  Social Engineering, Pedagogy and
Fascism in the Case of the Swiss Alfred Zander,” Contemporary History (2015).
131
Erling Hallas, Racekamp:  Vejladning Til Forsaaelse Af Jødeproblemet (Bovrup:
D.N.S.A.P.s Forlag, 1941), 145.
132
Alfred Zander, “Erziehung Zur Volksgemeinschaft,” in Erziehung, Schule und
Volksgemeinschaft, ed. Alfred Zander and Wilhelm Brenner, Schriften der “Nationalen
Front,” Sonderdruck Aus “Schweizer Monats-Hefte, Heft 12,13. Jahrg., März 1934
(Zürich: Front Verlag, 1934), 6–7.
 Index 231

libel suit, 80 Lithuania, 67

travels, 62, 67 Lorenzen, Lorenz, 145n109, 159, 159n32,
work at Reimahg, 62 171n79, 178n9, 181, 186, 197,
worldview, 62, 78, 80 197n70, 211
Kiev pocket, 107 Riedweg and, 178
King Christian X, 65, 94, 110 Lundin, Kurt, 1n2, 1–2, 5, 17n45,
contact with volunteers, 111 174n87, 187
King Heinrich I, 135 atrocities, 173
Kjellen, Rudolf, 28 Luther, Martin, 126n29, 140, 141n94,
Klagenfurt 142n103
SS officer cadet school, 103 Luzern Trial (1947), 19, 42, 70
staging area Nordland, 101
Klaus, Karl, 49–50 Maag, Othmar, 48, 48n87, 81n128
Klingemann, Gottfried, 160–61 worldview, 81
Knapp, Dr. Wilhelm, 73, 73n92 Magdeburg, 134
Königsberg, 182, 184, 211 Martinsen, K.B., 24, 65n47, 73n91, 74n94,
radio transmitter, 106 110n82, 111n83, 141n95, 142n99,
Konservative Ungdom, 86 143n107, 142–44, 181, 186–87,
Krabbe, Oluf, 170 187n36, 189n44, 190n47, 190–91,
Kretz, Åke, 63–64, 63n35, 63n39, 64n40, 191n49, 191n51, 192n53, 192n54,
64n41, 64n42, 64n43, 211 197n69, 197–98, 211
travels, 67 atrocities, 172
Kreuger, Hans-Caspar, xiii, 92n7, author, 135
137n76 contact with Danish War Ministry, 110
on Greater Germanic Reich, 137 in Danish Army, 96
joining SS, 92 disillusionment, 192
in Kurt Eggers, 135 early life, 65–66
languages spoken, 67 joining SS, 110
war reporting, 136 Kryssing and, 145
Kristallnacht, 37 languages spoken, 67
Kryssing, Christian, 70n75, 95n19, 96n21, as leader of Schalburgkorps, 187–91
113, 113n93, 113n94, 113n97, resignation, 191
145n109, 145n110, 145n111, return to Denmark, 143
159n32, 171n79, 183n26, 184n27, Schalburgkorps, 143
184n28, 186n30, 186n32, 197, Spanish Civil War, 73
197n69, 201n87, 211 at Tölz, 103
appointed to Freikorps, 96, 113 work in Denmark, 141, 187–91
contact with Danish War worldview, 111
Ministry, 113 Mein Kampf, 108
death of sons, 184 Meyer, Heino, 92n8, 104n56, 105n57,
disillusionment with SS, 183–86 105n58, 211
dismissed from Freikorps, 145 joining SS, 92, 104
leadership of Freikorps, 144–45 Swedish-language broadcast,
postwar, 201 105–06
trial, 95 Munich, 37, 38n50, 210
worldview, 70, 96 meeting of Swiss exiles, 47
Kryssing, Karen, 184 Wiking staging ground, 102
Munk, Kaj, 61, 189n43
Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, 29 murder of, 189
Liechtenstein, 20 Mussert, Anton, 114, 157
Lindholmare, 85, 86n146, 86–87, 105 Mussolini, Benito, 79n120, 180
232 Index

Najocks, Alfred, 188 Paraguay, 69

Narva, 192 Paris, 68
Narvik, 93 Pehrsson, Gösta, 2n3, 68n67, 183, 183n25,
Nationale Front, 48, 62, 81, 114 195, 195n64, 195n65, 211
academic foundings, 87 Petergruppen, 188, 190–91
election results, 84 Petersen, Olaf, 135
referendum (1935), 87, 97 Philadelphia, 62
Waffen-SS volunteers, 85 Poland
NATO, 7 invasion of, 37
Nazi Party (NSDAP), 46, 58, 76, 128 Prague, 125
Germanische Leitstelle and, 125 SS officer cadet school, 103
Nationale Front and, 98 Propaganda Ministry, 105
work in West, 122
Neergard-Jacobsen, Poul, 173, 188 Quisling, Vidkun, 122, 126, 157
New Order, 8–9, 54–55, 180, 202,
205, 207 Racial “sciences,” 27
foreign involvement, 22 Raeder, Erich, 93
historiography, 4, 13–14 Rauter, Hans Albin, 124, 124n17, 124n18,
Night of the Long Knives, 29 124n19
Nikles, Alfred, 49 Red Army, 2, 72, 116, 144, 179, 192,
Norberg, Kurt, 161n41 195
desertion, 181–83 atrocities against, 171
on political soldierdom, 161 in Battle of Berlin, 193
post desertion interrogation, 154 desertion to, 149
Nord, SS-Division, 195 executing surrendering Waffen-SS, 193
Nordland, SS-Division, 2n3, 13, 41, 72, in Finland, 64
101–02, 112, 147, 153, 161, 161n38, Germanics view of, 170
175, 183, 187, 192, 194, 195n65, invasion of Soviet Union, 107
208, 210 legions, 146
origins, 39 prisoners, 107, 173
Tölz and, 104 Swedish interest in, 17, 172–73
Nordwest, SS-Division, 116 Reichsministerium für die besetzten
Norway, 38, 41, 64, 64n40, 105, 114, Ostgebiete, 123
122, 182 Reichssicherheithauptamt (RSHA), 13n34,
German occupation, 60 34, 43, 45–46, 121, 125, 129n40,
interwar, 62, 67 135n72, 139, 139n86, 206
invasion of, 32, 39, 93 cooperation with Germanische
legion, 112 Leitstelle, 125
NSDAP and, 127, 140 Denmark, 188
Riedweg visit, 126 on Germanic conference, 138
Swedish volunteers and, 90 origins, 27
war-time government, 122 publications, 135
Nuremberg trials, 6 Riedweg and, 129
Nystrand, Folke, 65 role in Holocaust, 125
sources, 18
Operation Barbarossa. See Soviet Union: SS-HA and, 125
invasion of surveillance, 129
Oslo, SS recruitment center, 41 Reimahg, 62
Renthe-Fink, Cécil von, 109–10, 112,
Pan-Europeanism, 34, 78 134n66, 139–40, 141n94
Panoramaheim. See Stuttgart Reval, 184
 Index 233

Ribbentrop, Joachim von, 34, 127 idea of Swedish and Swiss

Berger and, 127 legions, 115
creation of Swedish-language incorporating volunteers, 90
broadcast, 106 increasing Leitstelle’s budget, 122
Hillblad and, 105 interwar, 34
Riedweg and, 34 Jacobsen, Rudolf and, 130
Riedweg, Dr. Franz, 19n46, 24, 28, 33n30, joining SS, 33, 35–38, 41, 99
33n32, 33n33, 33n34, 33–34, 34n36, Kryssing, Karen and, 184
35n40, 35n41, 35n42, 36n43, 36n45, knowledge of Holocaust, 174
37n47, 37n48, 37n49, 38n50, 35–41, Kristallnacht, 37
41n58, 42n61, 42–43, 43n68, 44n72, Kryssing and, 184
45n74, 45n79, 49n92, 44–50, 73n90, legions, 114, 144, 147
78n114, 78n117, 90, 104n55, 109n77, letters to, 133
115n107, 119, 121n7, 122n10, 126, Martinsen and, 141, 143
127n35, 128n38, 127–29, 129n38, mistreatment of Danish officers, 181
129n41, 129n42, 131n50, 131n52, mistreatment of officers, 156
133n59, 134n62, 134n63, 134n64, in 1940 campaign, 37
134–35, 135n68, 140n92, 142n101, pan-Europeanism, 34
145n110, 145–46, 146n112, 147n119, plans for West, 108
150n2, 150–51, 153n10, 155n19, on political soldiers, 160
153–56, 159, 160n37, 160–61, postwar, 35, 42, 200–01
161n38, 161n39, 161n40, 163, as publisher, 134
174n89, 175n1, 175n2, 176n3, 177n5, Rauter and, 124
177n6, 176–78, 178n10, 178n7, recruitment, 39, 147
178n8, 181n16, 186, 195n65, 199, recruitment 1942, 156
199n77, 201n85, 210 report on Wiking, 145
Blomberg and, 34, 36 Ribbentrop and, 34
Burri and, 127 Scandinavian visit, 126
conceptualizing Germanic Schalburgkorps, 142
corps, 145 Six and, 129
condemnation in Switzerland, 37 on SS racial standards, 101
Corrodi and, 155 SS rotation, 45
D’Alquen and, 135 on Swedish officers to East, 109
Denmark and, 141 on Swiss incorporation into
deportation of Danish Jews, 177 Reich, 99
on desertion, 150 Steiner and, 102, 168
disillusionment with Germanic subordinates, 23, 45
populations, 122 Swiss Anschluss, 98
early Germanic ideas, 128 Vrang and, 155
early life, 33–34 Wiking field visit, 145
as editor, 134 Wiking magazine, 134
employing injured Germanics, 161 working group on Germanic
engaging authors, 118 area, 128
firing of, 175–77 worldview, 78
frontline experience, 73 Riga, 192
Germanics on homefront, 159 Romania, 147
Germanische Leitstelle and, 22–23, 42, Rommel, Erwin, 180
44, 121, 127 Rosen, Nils, 211
Heydrich and, 35 Rosenberg, Alfred, 122
Himmler and, 35, 178 Russia. See Soviet Union
idea of Germanic corps, 146 Ryden, Sven, 156, 156n20
234 Index
SA (Schutzstaffel), 26
SÄPO, 17, 17n45, 19n49, 21n52, 63n35,
63n38, 63n39, 64n40, 64n41, 64n43,
65n50, 65n52, 68n67, 69n71, 72n86,
72n87, 85n138, 92n8, 105n57,
105n58, 105n59, 106n62, 106n63,
136n74, 197n70, 199n76, 211
Schaffner, Jacob, 135
Schalburg, Christian, 8, 24, 65n48,
68n65, 74n94, 74n94, 84, 102n45,
102n46, 102n47, 102–03, 103n49,
103n50, 142n100, 142n99,
143n107, 142–44
as commander Freikorps, 167
in Danish Army, 65
death, 141, 187
early life, 68
influence on Waffen-SS doctrines, 103
joining SS, 102
leadership of Freikorps, 145
mistreatment of, 103
NSU, 141
propaganda tour in Denmark, 141
as role model, 141
Royal Family, 65
on Steiner’s divisional staff, 102
Winter War, 71, 96–97
worldview, 77, 168
Schalburgkorps, 56, 143, 191–92
build up and terror, 187–91
origins, 142, 187
postwar, 198
Schäppi, Benno, 42n61, 49n92, 72n84,
92n5, 98n28, 99n34, 135n69,
199, 210
author, 135
joining SS, 91, 99
in Kurt Eggers, 135
postwar, 200–01
worldview, 71–73
Schulze-Kossens, Richard, 178
Schwarz, Franz, 122–23
Sennheim, 100, 100n36, 100n37, 105, 119,
160n33, 194
mistreatment of Germanics, 154
Seyss-Inquardt, Arthur, 122, 127
Sicherheitsdienst (SD), 34, 45, 45n74,
98n28, 98–99, 130n44, 139, 188,
191, 206
assessment of Switzerland, 99
contact with Swiss fascists, 98
Denmark, 188
Six, Dr. Franz, 129
Riedweg and, 135
6e roteln
intelligence service, 63n38
Skorzeny, Otto, 188
Sørensen, Per, 53n5, 73n92, 91n2, 91n3,
91n4, 165n55, 165n56, 166n61,
166n63, 166n64, 167n65, 171n78,
173, 173n84, 173n85, 181n20, 189,
194n62, 194–95
atrocities, 171, 173
Dachau, 167
death, 167, 194
joining SS, 53, 91
at Tölz, 166
worldview, 91
South America, 69, 130
Soviet Union, 50, 70, 118, 170, 201
interwar, 67
invasion of, 1, 24, 60, 75, 89, 91, 101,
107–09
SS expeditions, 130
in SS propaganda, 133
Winter War, 60, 71
Spain, 63
interwar, 67
Spanish Civil War, 63, 67n62, 71n82, 73
Spanish Legion, 114
SS, 2n3, 2n4, 2–3, 6n13, 6n14, 13n34,
20n50, 22, 24, 26n1, 29n13, 30n15,
33n30, 33n31, 33–35, 35n41, 35n42,
36n45, 37n47, 37n49, 37–38, 39n54,
41, 41n58, 42n61, 43n68, 44n72,
44n73, 45n74, 45n77, 46n80, 46n81,
47n82, 47–48, 48n87, 49n91, 49n92,
49–51, 52n3, 57n17, 57n18, 57n19,
58n20, 64n40, 64n42, 66n55, 66n56,
68n69, 68n70, 71n82, 72n84, 73n90,
73n92, 74n95, 79n122, 92n8, 93n9,
100, 100n36, 100n37, 101n38,
102n46, 102–03, 103n49, 103n51,
104n52, 104n53, 104n55, 106,
106n65, 109n78, 111, 115n109,
121n5, 123n11, 123n13, 124n16,
124n17, 127n32, 127n33, 127n34,
128n38, 129n39, 130n44, 131n50,
133n58, 134n62, 134n65, 136n75,
137n76, 141, 141n95, 142n100,
142n101, 142n102, 142n103,
143n104, 144n108, 146n114,
147n116, 151n5, 153n12, 154n13,
155n19, 157n26, 158n27, 158n30,
 Index
159n31, 160n36, 160–61, 161n38,
163n46, 163n47, 163–64, 164n52,
165n54, 166n62, 167n67, 167n68,
168n70, 173, 175n2, 178, 178n8,
181n16, 184n28, 186n29, 186n30,
186n31, 187n34, 187n35, 188n40,
189n42, 189n44, 189n45, 191n49,
191n51, 191n52, 195n65, 197n72,
204–05, 211
admission standards, 26
Ahnenerbe, 128n38, 130n47, 130–31,
131n50, 138, 209
clampdown in Denmark, 176
and communism, 79
Crusade against Bolshevism, 75
Denmark and, 119, 140
disillusionment with, 5
expansion in Western Europe, 122,
127, 139
funding, 23
funding from Reich Treasury, 123
in Germanic countries, 47, 122, 124
historiography, 4, 12–13
ideological impulses from abroad, 91
infighting, 28, 41–43, 118, 121, 123,
126, 129, 153
legions, 111, 145
main offices, 40, 130
medical service, 68
as modern organization, 165
Norway, 114
occupation plans, 3
origins, 26
plans for East, 108, 120–21
political soldiers, 24
postwar, 25
publications, 132–35
Rasse und Siedlungshauptamt, 34,
183n23
Reichskommissar für die Festigung
deutschen Volkstums, 121
restructuring, 40
RuSHA, 130
Schulungsamt, 153
sources, 16, 18, 133
Switzerland, 47
volunteers, 20, 37, 53, 56, 60, 62, 70
Western Europe and, 32, 36, 39, 46
SS Officer Cadet School Braunschweig,
74, 103
SS Officer Cadet School Tölz, 13, 24, 66,
66n56, 67n59, 68n70, 102–03, 117,
235
119, 132–33, 145, 147, 153, 157n26,
159, 160n37, 160–61, 161n38,
161n39, 161n40, 163n46, 166n62,
169, 175n2, 178n8, 178–79, 210
curriculum, 162–65
on Germanic mistreatment, 154
Germanic political leadership
corps, 159–61
Germanische Leitstelle and, 104
graduates in field, 167–69
about in letters, 165
on political soldierdom, 150
Riedweg speech at, 175
school spirit, 160
SS-Ergänzungsamt, 32
SS-Führungshauptamt (SS-FHA), 40–41,
45–46, 64n40, 66n55, 101n38,
103n49, 118, 144–45, 150, 155–56,
177, 206–07
area of responsibility, 100, 104, 153
on desertion, 149
dismissal of Jürgenssen, 183
dismissal of Swedish officer, 154
field manuals, 153
Freikorps and, 145
Freikorps Danmark, 187
idea of Germanic corps, 146–47
ideological training, 152, 167
Kryssing and, 183–84
legions, 114, 116
mistreatment of Germanics, 101, 103,
150, 180
policy on concentration camp duty, 124
purpose of ideological training, 153
recognition of Germanic officers’
ranks, 158
SS-HA and, 51, 158
tension with SS-HA, 101, 132, 152
training, 151
SS-Hauptamt (SS-HA), 18, 29, 32, 40–41,
45n77, 45–46, 46n81, 48–49, 101n38,
128n38, 129n39, 130n44, 131n50,
139, 145, 167n68, 186n31, 209
complaints about Germanische
Leitstelle, 123
departments, 122
on Germanics’ ranks, 103
idea of Germanic corps, 146–47
ideological training, 152, 167
integrating volunteers, 100
Kryssing and, 183
legions, 144
236 Index
SS-Hauptamt (SS-HA) (cont.)
mandate for Germanic work, 127
1941 expansion, 45
policy on concentration camp
duty, 124
posting Germanic officers, 156
purpose of ideological training), 153
recruitment, 100
reorganization 1941, 46
restructuring Germanic training, 152
Schulungsamt, 153
sources, 133
SS-FHA and, 51, 158
Switzerland, 50
tension with SS-FHA, 101, 132
SS-Standarte Kurt Eggers, 118–19, 133,
137, 151, 164n52, 179
staff nationalities, 21
SS-Verfügungstruppe. See SS, Waffen-SS
Stalingrad, 107, 180
Stauning, Thorvald, 94
Stavåsen, Gösta, 179–80
Steiner, Felix, 6, 102n43, 102n44, 102n47,
167n66, 168n71, 194, 207, 209
appointed to Wiking, 102
early career, 102
on Germanic Europe, 168
Kryssing and, 184
postwar, 169, 201
Riedweg and, 102
Schalburg and, 102
Stenberg, Curt, 211
Stockholm, 63, 65, 65n50, 109, 172n80,
182, 211
German embassy, 104, 182
Stuckart, Dr. Wilhelm, 138
Stuttgart, 20n50, 49, 49n91, 49n92,
50n94, 98n28, 199n78
Panoramaheim, 49–50
Sudetenland, 98
Supreme Command of the Armed Forces
(OKW), 43
Svenska Frivilligakåren (Swedish volunteer
force), 70
Sweden, 3, 3n5, 14, 22, 22n55, 25, 41, 55,
60, 64–65, 69, 70n77, 73, 85, 87n152,
92n8, 105, 155, 164n52, 164–65, 172,
177n5, 182, 187, 194, 208
affinity for German culture, 59, 61
deportation of Danish Jews, 177
difficult geography, 90
fascism at universities, 79
fascist movements, 84–87
German catalogue of political
enemies, 151
German hostile attitude toward, 154
German propaganda in, 106, 136
Germans invasion plans for, 182
intelligence service, 17, 63
interwar, 61, 63
iron ore, 93
knowledge of Holocaust, 171
legion, 114
number of volunteers, 2, 20
offer of sending Swedish officers to
East, 109
perception of volunteers, 180
postwar, 54, 56, 198
troop trains, 105
Winter War, 71
Swedish Communist Party, 105
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology
(ETH), xv, 62, 210
Switzerland, 2n4, 2–3, 3n5, 9, 14, 21–22,
22n55, 25, 41, 55, 58, 62, 65, 70,
104n55, 155, 187, 195, 197, 199,
199n78, 208, 210
affinity for German culture, 59
Anschluss with Germany, 47–48, 98
ban on foreign service, 37, 71
clampdown on Frontists, 97
ease of illegal border crossing, 90
fascist movements, 48, 62, 81, 84, 87
Germanische Leitstelle, 47
intelligence service, 17
interwar, 34, 61, 67–68, 86
legion, 114
medical personnel to East, 110
mercenaries, 71
number of volunteers, 2, 20
perception of volunteers, 180
postwar, 42, 54, 56, 199–200
referendum (1935), 87, 97
sources, 19
volunteers, 49, 53
Winter War, 71
Terboven, Josef, 122, 127
Tibet, 130
Tillman, Torken, 164
Tito, 183
Totenkopf, SS-Division, 145, 183
Treaty of Versailles, 59, 76
Tunis, 180
 Index 237

Ulrich, Fritz, 135 Criminal Orders, 108

United States, 164
interwar, 62, 67
in SS propaganda, 133
Vienna, 136
Volksgemeinschaft, 82
volunteers’ belief in, 79–80, 83
von Westphalen, Graf Hermenengild, 187
Voss, Johann, 207
Vrang, Carl-Olof, 154
Waffen-SS, 1, 4, 23, 25, 53, 97
admissions standards, 31, 66
Battle of Berlin, 2
DNSAP and, 81, 84
early development, 29–30, 37, 39
expansion (1940), 39
on foreign officers, 109
historiography, 4, 7
ideological training, 81, 151
integrating volunteers, 100
legions, 111
link to SS, 31
number volunteers (1940), 99
Nuremberg trials, 6
officer corps, 15, 19, 62, 70
origins, 1, 29
postwar, 23, 56
recruitment, 32, 104
recruitment in Denmark, 110
recruitment quota, 32
reorganization (1942), 146
role in Germanic project, 3, 118
Sweden and Switzerland forbid
enlistment, 110
Tölz and, 66, 68
unit groupings, 31
volunteers, 64, 74
Western Europe and, 55
Wallin, Erik, 72n86, 72n87, 72n88,
195, 211
joining SS, 72
Winter War, 72
worldview, 72
Wannsee Conference, 35, 125
Warsaw Uprising (1944), 137
Wehrmacht, 2n4, 29, 29n13, 38–39, 66,
67n57, 120, 151n5, 183
branch quotas, 30
command of Waffen-SS units, 146
in Denmark, 140
emphasis on discipline, 151
historiography, 7
ideological training, 151–52, 162
ideology, 31
internment of Danish officers, 143
in 1940 Western campaign, 89
Red Army prisoners, 107
SS and, 26
Swiss medical personnel, 109
Waffen-SS and, 30–31, 40
Wiking and, 146
Weichlin, Heinrich, 67n61, 77n108
travels, 67, 77
worldview, 77
Weilenmann, Friedrich, 68, 98n28
work with SD, 98
West Germany. See Federal Republic of
Germany
Westland, SS regiment, 41, 74, 102,
175, 210
origins, 39
Wiking, SS-Division, 1, 13, 45, 102,
134n62, 147, 153, 153n12, 161, 168,
168n70, 180, 183, 192, 194, 197n72,
208–09, 211
atrocities, 1, 173
combat effectiveness, 146
desertion, 149
early staging, 102–03
origins, 39
as part of III. Germanic Panzer Corps,
144, 146, 169
publications, 133, 135
Riedweg visit, 145
role in Barbarossa, 107
Tölz and, 104
Winter War, 57, 60, 70, 71n82, 93, 156
Winterthur, 62
Wipf, Eugen, 56–57
postwar, 58
Wohlwend, Viktor, 212
Wolff, Karl, 34n37, 47
Riedweg and, 34
Worsøe-Larsen, Bent, 144
at Tölz, 103
Zander, Dr. Alfred, 81–83, 160
Zurich, 16, 48, 62, 65, 210
University of, 87