The Viking SS: Scandinavians fighting for the deaths head

By Mark David  
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Scandinavians fighting for the deaths head

WWII: The Ambiguous European Context

The various tales of the Second World War are many and tragic, yet many stories remain relatively unknown in telling and ambiguity. One of the aims of The Elements is to bring these true to life ambiguous tales out - telling the tale from both sides.

The fight for communism was one of the motivating factors for young men of the occupied Nordic Countries to join the SS. Equally, it was the fight for freedom by the young men, older men and women of the resistance against the occupying forces the led them to forego security and risk their lives. Communities and even families were thus divided, as were the loyalties of occupied populations.

In this, the first of a series of blogs, some of the details of this ambiguity will be explored.

A brief history

On 1 October 1940, the SS established a recruitment office, SS-Ersatzkommando Dänemark, in Copenhagen. Those recruited were sent to Austria for training before they were enlisted at Regiment Nordland within the SS Division "Wiking" that also had Norwegian volunteers. 

On 28 June 1941, the establishment of Freikorps Denmark was announced. At that point, the Danish national-socialist parti (DNSAP) had taken charge of the recruitment campaign while the SS-Ersatzkommando was responsible for the actual recruitment. 

After the discontinuation of Freikorps Denmark in 1943, the SS-Ersatzkommando was in charge of everything in connection with the recruitment of Danes for the Eastern front.

The actual recruitment campaign started on 26 June 1941 with a few simple text posters. The German occupayers did not inform the Danish Nazi party, the DNSAP about imminent attack on Soviet Union but the Danish nationalsocialists didnt waste any time to prove themselves useful in the days that followed.

Within the first couple of weeks, about 500 volunteered. The first batch of volunteers embarked for Germany for training on 19 July 1941. By the end of 1941, Freikorps Denmark had reached 1,164 volunteers who were sent to the killing fields on the Eastern front the following Summer. 

Meanwhile DNSAP published a series of posters and pamphlets to support the recruitment.

Quite tellingly, the poster not only display the Russians as savage hords but also as the agressors. Also note the cornfield below the calm, tall and blonde Danish arian who is ready to defend the Danish soil. As we shall see, the early posters centered very much on the Danish peasant mythology.

The Danish peasant folklore (synonymous with Danish culture) and the fear of Communism is a common theme in most of the early posters. The poster very rarely mentioned the cause against the jews since there was almost no anti-semitism in Denmark.

Also, as we have seen the posters typically displayed the Russians as the aggressors, which of course was a blatant lie. At time, the pamphlets told a different story. For instance, the pamphlet "Denmark's future" goes as far as promising "lebensraum" in the East. It reads:

"The Scandinavian people has always had the urge to learn about other countries. Going back in history, we discover that our ancestors, the Vikings, set sail for faraway countries. As conquerers or warriors. For them to wear a weapon was the greatest honor. We know that they reached the Black Sea and that they even conquered Constantinople. HIstory further informs us that the Russian-Nordic noble houses were established by Vikings.

Our young volunteers that fight in Russia today have revealed that they have found burial mounds in great numbers. Our young soldiers have surely wondered whether they have here walked on soil where our ancestors were once fighting and bleeding. "When I saw the burial mounds", once young volunteer said, "I understood that I was standing on holy soil"

After the tough years of war, the day of peace will come and the reconstruction begins. The vast, Russian land will contribute to feed Europe with cereal and thus bread. This gives our farming youth a big chance. After the end of the war, they can settle as farmers as the black fertile Russian land only awaits being cultivated.
Every volunteer that has participated in the fight against bolchevism will, if he wishes, be given land free of charge in the East..."

After the defeat at Stalingrad and the launch of the Russian counteroffensive, the campaign started to focus entirely on threat of Russian occupation, submission and slavery. The SS-Ersatzkommando was now in full charge of all aspects of the recruiting as the cooperation between the Danish government and the German occupation forces had now completely collapsed. Also, perhaps, it has become completely clear to the Germans that the Danish nationalsocialist party was utterly unpopular among the Danes.

During 1944, the SS-Ersatzkommando stepped up its campaign with new ads every months in the leading newspapers but very few volunteers signed up. Newspapers ads reached a wider audience and unlke the posters they could not be destroyed as part of the population's civil disobedience campaign.