Hi everyone! If anyone is interrested in reading about the Danish legion "Frikorps Danmark" i have found a book on the internet. It´s 78 pages. Enjoy! Sverri
Hey! Just check the site above if interested in the volunteers of waffen-SS!! Seems like alot of good reading for ya!
Some facts: The "Freikorps Danmark" was announced on June 28, 1941, and was open to men between the ages of 17 and 35. The initial draft of some 480 men, most still in Danish Army uniform, left for Hamburg on July 19, where they formed the 1st Battalion of the new Freikorps, and were fitted with new Waffen-SS uniforms and gear. On 10 August the 2nd Battalion was formed from more recruits, of which some 100 were Danes extracted from the fledgling NORDLAND Regiment. By the end of 1941 the Freikorps had a strength of some 1,164 men. The first commanding officer of the Freikorps was a Danish Artillery officer, Lt.Col. P.C Kryssing. For some reason, Himmler disliked and distrusted Kryssing, and in February 1942 he appointed Count Christian Frederik von Schalburg, a Danish aristocrat of Baltic-German origin, who at the time was serving as a Sturmbannfuhrer in the WIKING Division in Russia. In May 1942, the Freikorps was sent to Heeresgruppe NORD and attached to the 3.SS-Totenkopf Division. It took part in the savage Demjansk actions, where on June 2nd, von Schalburg was killed. The next CO of the Freikorps was Hans-Albert von Lettow-Vorbeck, who had hardly even taken over command when he was killed on The first commander of the Freikorps, Von Schalbourg with the capThe Freikorps Danmark by Russ FolsomJune 11, 1942. He was succeeded by Knud Borge Martinsen. The Freikorps was returned to Denmark in September of 1943, having suffered 121 killed. It returned to the Eastern Front in October 1942, but was finally withdrawn in April of 1943. In May it was officially disbanded. At this point, the Regiment "NORDLAND" (made mostly of Scandinavians) was pulled from the 5.SS-Wiking Division OB ranks to be the cadre for the formation of a new division - the 11.SS-Freiwillige Panzer-Grenadier Division NORDLAND. The combat hardened Danes who had survived the "Freikorps", were for the most part unceremoniously merged into the ranks of the Nordland regiment to form SS-Pz.Gren. Regt. 24 "Danmark" (danisches Nr.1). The Danes in fact made up only 40% of it's strength. The rest consisted of Germans and Volksdeutsche from Romania. In December of 1943, the Regiment consisted of 193 NCO's and 1,123 soldiers. The 24.SS-Pz.Gren.Rgt. "Danmark" fought long and hard at the so-called "battle of the European SS" at Narwa from April to late August in 1944.After escape from Courland at Libau, and a further refit in March 1945, the Danes, and the rest of NORDLAND perished on the Oder and in Berlin in April 1945 (the I. Battalion of SS-Pz.Gren Rgt.24 was attached to 5.SS-Pz.Division WIKING at wars end, and perished somewhere near Vienna on the SE Ostfront.) Members of the "Freikorps Danmark" who weren't pressed into the NORDLAND were also to be found in the Kriegsmarine - there is photographic evidence of a KM recruit with the "Freikorps Danmark" cuff title on his uniform. Other former members, inlcuding the last CO Martinsen, formed what amounted to a para-military "Germanic SS" formation called The "Schalburg Korps", named in honour of their fallen leader. It is estimated that 3900 Danes gave their lives in German Service. Most of the surviving soldiers were sentenced to long prison terms when they returned home after the war. Of those Danes that fell into Russian captivity the last one returned home in 1955. http://www.milhist.dk/frikorps/frikorps.html
