Contrary to what my fellow countrymen like to admit, Norway was a large supplier of manpower to the German war effort. Related to the size of its population, Norway was perhaps the largest contributor per capita. At most some 150 000 people were involved, in mines, factories, construction companies, shipyards and as frontline soldiers. Most of these soldiers were sent to the Eastern Front and experienced fierce fighting. Some 900-1000 never returned home. For many of these men, their destiny was unknown. Some were reported KIA and some were reported MIA. After the Iron Curtain fell, former military restricted areas have been opened up to civilians. Among these areas are the Karelian Isthmus and the Murmanskaja Oblast in the north. Many Norwegian SS units were stationed in the Karelian area when the Soviets launched their attack at the 25th of June 1944 (see also Kai-Petri's thread about this battle): Battle of Tali-Ihantala - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The SS Schijäger Battalion Norwegen was positioned at the Kaprolat-Hasselmann heights. They were overrun by a superior Soviet force and only a few soldiers escaped. A few years ago norwegian historians were allowed to visit the area, and found the remains of the fallen soldiers. They laid in the open, on the same spot were they had fallen some 60 years ago. Now an interesting debate started: what should Norway do with the remains of these fallen soldiers? The answer seemed obvious: bring them home, and give them a funeral! However, this was not so obvious to some. The prime minister of Norway, a Christian democrat and a former reverend, said "NO!". This man, speaking so kindly about peace and reconciliation under other circumstances (he has his own Peace Center now!), refused to give these men a grave. A couple of rabbis from the jewish community(may be they were Red Rabbis, who knows...?) also showed up on TV, fuming with rage, and demanded that the remains of these war criminals should remain where they are. War criminals? These soldiers were young men in their late teens and early twenties, and they fought against communism, not the jews. Stationed at a remote outpost on the Russian taiga, they probaly never saw a jew at all during their short lives. But we aren't savages, are we? We don't have to honor them, but we can give them a grave and a decent funeral. They made a mistake, they chose the wrong side, and they paid the ultimate price for their mistake. Now we have a new secular government without religious conservatives, and it will pay for a war grave and a memorial in Karelia. Those families that want the remains of their relatives brought back to Norway, will be allowed to do so. Here's a link for more information: Kaprolat and Hasselmann revisited Regards RAM
Interesting to see what's behind those numbers RAM. The 90,000 list even included people who had passed within 3 feet of a german on good friday. Commonly accepted today that both the list and the trials was an outrage. Even worse was the "investigation" against the Nygaardsvold government that did sod all to stop the germans. Blindheim and Ulateig put the total number of volunteers (including everyone down to front nurses) in the 11-12,000 bracket. As for the people working in Norwegian industry, they were trying to put food on the table. Or do you find the forced labour in Germany to be collaborators too? As for the battle of the Kaprolat heights it is old news. The article in "Vi Menn" mag. made it seem as if it was breaking news.
Thank you for confirming my statement: "Contrary to what my fellow countrymen like to admit...."! Concerning the numbers, it sems to me that you haven't done your homework properly. This information is easily accessible in a number of books and publications. We shall look into this later in this post. As you say, this is old news, in Norway we have known about it for more than half a century. However, except for a thread by Kai-Petri, I could not find any information touching the topic. If I have overlooked some thread dealing with this, it is unintentional and in that case I apologize for repeating the topic. Norway capitulated on 10th of june 1940, after two months of fighting. By that time the King and his family, the prime minister Nygaardsvold and the cowards in his administration had fled the country, bringing with them the entire gold reserve of the Bank of Norway. Running out of fuel and ammo, abandonded by their king and looted by their government, the norwegians laid down their arms and went home. They went back to their work in the forests, in the mines and in the factories. After a while, there were business as usual with the germans. Some joined the SS and kept on fighting, this time against the communists on the East front. Some went to England and joined the Allies. Now to the numbers: Construction work started as early as May 1940. Norwegian workers, paid by the hour, constructed runways for the He 111s bombing their fellow countrymen still fighting further north. (Source: Blindheim, "We fought for Norway", 2007, page 129.) Later on they worked for the Organization Todt, constructing coastal fortifications, airfields, railways, roads, U-boat pens, barracks and so on. By the summer of 1942 110 000 norwegians were employed on construction work alone in Norway. We exported 15 000 tons of aluminum annually to the german war industry. The export of herring (a fish) rose from 10 000 tons in 1939 to 54 000 tons in 1944. We exported 30 000 tons of codfish annually. More than half the amount of the fish consumed by the germans came from Norway. (Source Aschehoug: " History of Norway", volume 11, page 87.) In all, 150 000 norwegians were involved in the war effort, paid by the germans. (Source: Blindheim, "We fought for Norway", page 179.) Some norwegian companies used forced labour , mainly russian and yugoslavian POWs, supplied by the germans. Many norwegians made a small fortune on working for the germans. And you are right! People need food on the table. In our climate they also need houses and heating. Now, let us imagine a different scenario. What if the norwegians had burnt down their cities, towns, houses, barns, factories and fled into the woods and the mountains? Without houses and shelter, the situation would clearly have been more difficult for the germans. What about the norwegians? A large number of them would surely have perished from cold and starvation during the following winters. Would a scenario like this had been likely? I don't think so, and it didn't happen either. But this is what the russians did! They practiced the tactics of the "scorched earth", burning down everything that could be useful for the invading german forces. The following winters, thousands of germans and russians froze to death. Mother Russia has always sacrificed her children, Norway has not. We found it more comfortable to submit to Nazi rule. May be the germans weren't so bad after all. They were polite, unlike most norwegian men at the time. They said "Sie" (a polite form of "you"), "mein Herr", "gnädige Frau" and so on. The officers were well educated, many of them learned norwegian quickly. This according to my mother, she was 17 years old in 1940. In some cases, they also paid for the damage they did. One house owner received 394,60 Norwegian Kroners in compensation from Luftwaffe, after a Bf 109 had damaged his house during a forced landing! Bf 109 Røros As time went by, Norway became a steady supplier of commodities to the german war industry. We had firewood in the forests, there were a lot of fish in the ocean an in the lakes. There were game in the forests and people grew vegetables in their gardens. Unlike some other european countires, nobody really starved. (Except for the russian and yugoslavian POWs, they were treated badly.) But of course, not everybody was happy with the Nazi rule. Like many other occupied countries, we had resitance groups. The communists had their own, but the "official" group was the Milorg supported by the exile government in London. This was a left wing government, responsible for the arms reduction of the norwegian forces in the 1930s. Now these leftists, without any significant military background, would build a military style resistance group to fight the germans. To lead the group they chose a former lawyer named Jens C. Hauge, a man without any military education, military training or military experience whatsoever. With him he had a ragtag bunch of drifters, dropouts and criminals, most of them without any military experience as well. They called themselves "The Boys in the Forest"! It sounds like like a boy scout story and that is what it was too. On the orders of the exile government, sitting safely in London, this ragtag bunch would bring the fighting to the german occupation force, probably the best trained and most disciplined army in the world at the time. The result was as one could expect; they made no difference at all. They sunk a couple of transport vessels and blew up a couple of warehouses and a chocolate factory, but other than that, they had no impact on the german war machine. They were more annoying to the civilians than to the germans. These men were supplied by air. RAF and US aircraft dropped supplies in the mountains and in the forests. The RAF paid a high price to keep these boy scouts happy in their war games. Quite a few aircraft and aircrew were lost during these flights, shot down by german fighters and Flak. RAF lost 23 planes, the US lost 6 planes. Because of the distance and the payload, the planes were mainly four engine bombers. (Source: Hafsten/Olsen/Stenersen, 1991/2005) 200 aircrew were killed, some were captured by the germans and some made it to Sweden. The question is, was it worth the price? In Norway we have what we call "The Freedom Fighters of 8th of May 1945". Telling tales of daring actions against the german occupants, they claimed to be war heroes. Why hadn't anyone noticed? They had been undercover, of course. And the missions were secret! The leader of Milorg, Jens C. Hauge, was one of these men who claimed to have won the war. He and his men had kept the germans at bay the last year of the war and prevented them from harming the people. By the end of the war, the germans had 350 000 heavily armed troops in Norway, among them battle hardened units from the East Front. They also had 540 operational Luftwaffe aircraft of all types, armoured vehicles, destroyers, U-boats, E-boats, guns and fortifications. In Milorg there were 7000 lightly armed men with little or no military training. (Source: Hafsten/Olsen/Stenersen, 1991/2005.) The germans could have "ausradiert" (a german word for "obliterated") the entire population of Norway in a very short time, had they wanted to, and nobody could have stopped them. Writing the history of WWII in Norway, these impostors and bullshitters have changed the past to make it suit their own images. Now we have a new generation of historians coming up, and they don't buy the crap written by these old men. Wanting to find out what really happened, they have interviewed "the other side" too. Time is running out for these veterans, who have been forced to silence by their former opponents. Regards RAM
Sadly RAM I don't: All the effort that happened in Norwegian economy during the war benefitted the Germans. As it did in the other occupied countries. Don't get the number of volunteers, and the people drafted/forced into work service mixed up. The resistance in Norway was never ONE resistance. The ones that worked for the government had "masked meetings" and did sod all spare helping the police troops to shave women who consorted the germans come May 8th. SOE operations have been attempted to ascribed to the resistance. The Oswald group (communists) had plenty of active operations. They were treated even worse than the traitors working for Hitler. Not until the 90ies did the King offer a sort of apology. As for the new breed of historians... Blinheim started interviewing "frontkjempere" in the 70ies. And the debate over the "landssvik oppgjøret" (the trials against the traitors) has existed since they happened. The only more controversial than those trials was the investigation on the governments actions during Weserubung, and the events before. They all came out smelling as roses. I have no trouble admitting to anything as long as it is correct. But presenting the information the way you did in the first mail, where the Voulunteers swearing oaths to Hitler and people forced to do labour, are presented equally as supporting the third reich...
If you question the numbers, I suggest you contact Blindheim and the other historians I mentioned. I'm sure they will help you with some in-depth information. And I'm not talking about people forced to do labour. I'm talking about people who chose to work for the germans because the germans paid well, and who made a good living on this. Others chose not to work for the germans, for example some teachers. They were sent to labour camps and had to do forced labour. Regards RAM
One thing I agree with RAM is that the remaints of these Norwegians deserve a funeral. There is no need to make this a big thing, but give them a decent grave, do not leave them as dogs. Call them enemies, traitors, whatever you want , they may haven chosen the wrong side , but they are human beings and depriving them from a last rest place wouldn't be the best thing to do.
RAM Read what I wrote before posting again. You title the post as "Norwegian Volunteers in the Waffen SS". The next thing you do is to give the total number of people payed by the germans. If you were to give a number corresponding to the title of your thread the logical number would have been 4-6000 persons. That is how many volunteers we had in the Waffen SS. If you add the front nurses and the volunteers in the Legion the number grows to 10-12000 persons. Your casualty rate is too low aswell. The best estimates of Norwegians that died in sevice of the 3rd reich is from 1700-2100. Jaeger
This is what I wrote: This was an introduction to the topic, I never said that all these people were in the Waffen SS. The title of the thread also refers to the website linked to the post. As for the casualties, the numbers are from my sources (books), and I rely on them. If you have different information, I would be glad if you could share the sources with me. Regards RAM
This is about men who died for their believes. They did what they thought best at THAT time. Resistance, Waffen SS, do nothing or colaborate. Come on guy's. However horrible it's been, it was 60 years ago. They have the right to be burried in a proper way. Got a question for you. What side would you have been fighting on? My parents asked me that same question. I´m a royalist, love my country deeply and I Served the better part of my life with pride. But I can´t answer that question without my prejudice. Can you? Let them rest in peace.
I'll agree that these are humans, they fought for what they believed in, however mis-guided, they deserve a proper burial.
an 85 year old lady who fought in the Resistance and saved three allied airmen during the war. When I asked her about the (French) volunteers who joined the Eastfront: ( It also fits for volunteeers from other countries): "Had you asked this in 1945, I would have said kill them all. Today I have more understanding for those who went astray and made the wrong choice. At least they don't have the blood of our comrades on their hands, unlike the collaborators who betrayed their own brothers. Therefore I am more willing to forgive those who fought for their convictions in foreign trenches than those who gave their neigbours for pay".
