The Himmler's SS (31 page)

Himmler inspecting Norwegian volunteers for the SS-Standarte ‘Nordland', 9 February 1941.

The other Germanic country, Denmark, had several pro-Nazi political parties before the Second World War, the main one being the Danmarks National-Socialistiske Arbejder Parti, or DNSAP, under Frits Clausen. The DNSAP was highly organised, with its own Corps of Political Leaders, Youth Section, Labour Service and SA, which it called the Storm Afdelinger. In December 1939 the Danish SA could muster only 900 men, but by the beginning of 1941 this had risen to 2,500, many of whom were later sent on training courses to the Germanic-SS camp at Sennheim. In April 1941, 200 Danes volunteered for service with the Waffen-SS ‘Nordland' Regiment, and after the invasion of Russia a further 1,200 joined the hastily raised Freikorps Danmark to fight in the east. The Freikorps was commanded by Christian Frederick Count von Schalburg, a Danish aristocrat of Baltic-German origin and one-time leader of the DNSAP Youth, who had until recently been serving as an SS-Sturmbannführer with the ‘Wiking' Division. The unit went into battle in May 1942 attached to the SS-Totenkopf-Division, and took part in the celebrated action at Demjansk where von Schalburg was killed on 2 June. He was given a state funeral by the Nazi authorities in Denmark. The Freikorps ultimately suffered over 20 per cent casualties, and was officially disbanded a year later.

Most of the Freikorps veterans were transferred, without much regard for their personal wishes, to the Waffen-SS division ‘Nordland'. A few, however, including SS-Obersturmbannführer Knud Martinsen, the last commander of the formation, returned to their homeland to set up what amounted in all but name to a Danish branch of the Allgemeine-SS. In April 1943, with German support, Martinsen established the Germansk Korpset (Germanic Corps), which he shortly thereafter renamed the Schalburg Korpset or Schalburg Corps in memory of the Freikorps hero. Several eastern front veterans formed themselves into the cadre of the new unit, which opened its ranks to all young Danes of Nordic blood. The Corps was divided into two main groups, namely the active uniformed personnel, in five companies, and the nonregular patrons who gave moral and financial support. The latter came to be known as the Dansk-Folke-Vaern, or Danish People's Defence, and practised the use of small arms.

The Schalburg Corps adopted the same techniques as the partisan groups which it fought, and responded to each resistance assassination with one of its own. It was said that every act of sabotage provoked one of ‘Schalburgtage'. A so-called ‘Schalburg Cross' bearing the Corps motto ‘Troskab vor Aere' (‘Our Honour is Loyalty') was instituted and, according to the Corps journal
Foedrelandet
, at least one posthumous award was made to a Schalburg man killed by partisans. After a general strike in Denmark in July 1944, the Schalburg Corps was moved to Ringstad outside Copenhagen and incorporated into the Waffen-SS as SS-Ausbildungsbataillon (Training Battalion) Schalburg. Members were taught to use heavy weapons, in preparation for their defence of Denmark against the impending Allied invasion. Six months later the unit became SS Vagtbataillon Sjaelland, or SS Guard Battalion Zealand. It never saw frontline combat, however, and was disbanded in February 1945.

The Efterretnings Tjenesten, or ET, the Intelligence Service of the Schalburg Corps, was withdrawn from its parent body in April 1944 and placed under the direct control of the HSSPf in Denmark, SS-Obergruppenführer Günther Pancke. On 19 September, as a consequence of what the Germans regarded as unreliable behaviour during the general strike, the traditional Danish police organisation was stood down in its entirety and Pancke ordered the ET to form a new auxiliary police force in its place. This body, known by the Germans as the Hilfspolizeikorps, or Hipo, quickly acquired an ugly reputation and was responsible for the murder of at least fifty resistance suspects and the torture of hundreds more. In effect, it became a Danish branch of the Gestapo. Some members wore a black uniform similar to that of the Schalburg Corps, but the majority operated in civilian clothes.

Initially, SS personnel from Flanders, Holland, Norway and Denmark were entitled to compete for and wear the paramilitary sports badges awarded by their domestic pro-Nazi parties, the VNV, NSB, NS and DNSAP. However, the consolidation of the Germanic-SS at the end of 1942 all but severed such links with home and consequently a new all-embracing award was called for. On 15 July 1943, SS-Obergruppenführer Berger of the SS Hauptamt drew up draft regulations introducing just such a badge for the Germanic-SS. It was to take the form of two Sig-Runes, symbolic of victory and long the emblem of the German SS, superimposed over a sunwheel swastika which was associated with the west European Nazi movements. The design was therefore representative of the union between the German SS and the Germanic-SS. Approved and instituted by Himmler on 1 August 1943, the award was named the Germanische Leistungsrune, or Germanic Proficiency Rune. It came in two grades, bronze and silver, and the tests leading to an award were on a par with those undergone by Germans in the SS to qualify for the German National Sports Badge and SA Military Sports Badge. As well as athletics and war sports such as shooting and signalling, proficiency in National Socialist theories had to be demonstrated. Over 2,000 members of the Germanic-SS presented themselves for the first tests in January 1944, but only 95 passed. The Allied invasion of France and the ensuing battles undoubtedly prevented widespread distribution, and it is believed that total awards numbered fewer than 200. As the only nationally recognised decoration instituted by Himmler, the Germanic Proficiency Rune holds a unique place in the history of the SS.

In addition to the Germanic-SS formations proper, the Allgemeine-SS established its own Germanische Sturmbanne or Germanic Battalions in the areas of the Reich where there were large concentrations of workers imported from the Nordic countries. These foreigners numbered several hundred thousand by the end of 1942, and posed a major problem for German internal security. To assist in their control, Flemish and Dutch SS officers and men, most of them fresh from front-line service in the east, were employed by German firms to engage upon a propaganda campaign in the factories. They succeeded in persuading such a large number of their compatriots to join the local Allgemeine-SS that seven Germanic Battalions were set up in Berlin, Brunswick, Dresden, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Nürnberg and Stuttgart. Service in the Germanische Sturmbanne was voluntary and unpaid, and was performed either during after-work hours or at weekends.

The Germanic Proficiency Rune was, in Himmler's words, intended for those who ‘distinguished themselves in sports, the use of weapons and spiritual maturity, demonstrating a voluntary desire to attain the Germanic joint destiny'.

By the end of 1944, the Germanic-SS in Germany was fully organised as an integral but distinctive part of the regular Allgemeine-SS. Membership peaked at around 7,000 and SS-Obersturmbannführer Max Kopischke held the post of Chef der Germanischen-SS in Deutschland (Chief of the Germanic-SS in Germany). Subordinated to him were several Reichsreferenten, officials for the various national groups into which the Germanische Sturmbanne were divided. Their Sonderstäbe, or special staffs, worked from the headquarters of the Oberabschnitte in which the battalions operated. The cultural centre of the Germanische Sturmbanne was the Germanische Haus, or Germanic House, in Hannover, set up by the Germanische Leitstelle of the SS Hauptamt in May 1943 and subsequently moved to Hildesheim under the title of Haus Germanien. It also served the social needs of associated Nordic workers, students and young people employed or holidaying in Germany, organising visits from their own national orchestras, singers, film stars and other celebrities. Copies of
Das Schwarze Korps
were distributed widely by the House, along with
De SS Man, Storm SS, Germaneren
and
Foedrelandet
. As the war situation worsened, the House placed more emphasis on extolling the virtues of Germanic-SS men at the front, and by the end of 1944 it had become little more than a glorified recruiting office for the Waffen-SS.

S
YMBOLISM AND
R
EGALIA OF THE
B
LACK
O
RDER

From 1934, the SS was consciously promoted as not only a racial élite but also a dark and secret Order. To that end, symbolic insignia and carefully designed uniforms were created, and these proved to be fatal attractions which drew thousands of ordinary citizens into the web-like structures of Himmler's empire.

Of all SS uniform trappings, the one emblem which endured throughout the history of the organisation and became firmly associated with it was the death's head or Totenkopf, an eerie motif comprising a skull and crossed bones. The death's head was the only badge common to all SS formations, whether Allgemeine-SS, Germanic-SS or Waffen-SS, German or non-German. It has often been assumed that the Totenkopf was adopted simply to strike terror into the hearts of those who saw it. However, that was not so. It was chosen as a direct and emotional link with the past, and in particular with the élite military units of imperial Germany.

Medieval German literature and romantic poems were filled with references to dark forces and the symbols of death and destruction, a typical example being the following short excerpt from an epic work by the fifteenth-century writer, Garnier von Susteren:

Behold the knight
In solemn black manner,
With a skull on his crest
And blood on his banner . . .

That verse could have been composed with the SS uniform in mind! In 1740, a large right-facing jawless death's head with the bones lying behind the skull, embroidered in silver bullion, adorned the black funeral trappings of the Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm I. In his memory, the Leib-Husaren Regiments Nos 1 and 2, élite Prussian Royal Bodyguard units, took black as the colour of their uniforms and wore a massive Totenkopf of similar design on their pelzmützen or busbies. The State of Brunswick followed suit in 1809 when the death's head was adopted by its Hussar Regiment No. 17 and the third battalion of Infantry Regiment No. 92. The Brunswick Totenkopf differed slightly in design from the Prussian one, with the skull facing forward and situated directly above the crossed bones. During the First World War, the death's head was chosen as a formation badge by a number of crack German army units, particularly the storm troops, flamethrower detachments and tank battalions. Several pilots of the Schutzstaffeln, including the air ace Georg von Hantelmann who had served in the Death's Head Hussars, also used variants of it as personal emblems. Almost immediately after the end of hostilities in 1918 the death's head could be seen again, this time painted on the helmets and vehicles of some of the finest and most famous Freikorps. Because of its association with these formations it became symbolic not only of wartime daring and self-sacrifice, but also of postwar traditionalism, anti-liberalism and anti-Bolshevism. Nationalist ex-servicemen even had death's head rings, cuff links, tie pins and other adornments privately made for wear with their civilian clothes.