SS Ski Jäger Battalion "Norwegen"

The SS Ski Jäger Battalion "Norway" (SS-Jäg.Schi-Btl. "Norge", SS Schijägerbattalion "Norwegen", SS-Skijegerbattalion "Norge") was a volunteer combat battalion unit within the Waffen-SS,  the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel, that served alongside but was never formally part of the Wehrmacht during World War II. It consisted of a majority of volunteers from Norway, and some enlisted German soldiers. Of the officers and non-commisioned officers, most were Norwegian.

It was formed in February 1942, after it was decided to create a SS Ski company with Norwegian volunteers—attached to the 6th SS Mountain Division Nord (although the company was formally a police unit). By the winter of 1943 and the newly constructed company was designated as a combat battalion, with three full infantry companies and a staff company. For almost its entire career, the battalion was part of the 6th SS Mountain Division "Nord", fighting on the Karelian Front in Finland.

Battle during 24 —26 June 1944, led to nearly 100 of the battalion's soldiers missing in action, when two of the battalion's positions (with a total of 190 soldiers) were overrun. In 1972 Frode Halle, one of its former battalion commanders wrote in his published book that the unit's losses in the the two battles on those two days, is "The toughest blow that a Norwegian volunteer unit has been dealt. "

Background
The initiative for the establishment of the unit came from a Waffen-SS volunteer named Gust Jonassen, (a Dane who had married a Norwegian and assumed Norwegian citizenship). He had passed the idea of constructing a Norwegian ski unit on to other Waffen-SS officers and the notion swiftly went up the command ladder to the SS Main Administrative Office which approved of the endeavor.

Training
During the winter of 1942, a Ski jäger Company, with a strength of 120 men, was formed in Finland. The first recruits were chosen for their skiing abilities, and few had had any extensive military training. Those who had attended Norwegian Army NCO schools were selected as candidates for troop leader positions. In September 1942 the embryonic company was sent to the Waffen-SS Germanic Volunteer Camp in Sennheim, Alsace for basic military training.

At the same time, those chosen for command positions were shipped off to NCO schools or the SS-Junkerschule Bad Tölz in Bavaria for officers' training. At Sennheim the Norwegian enlisted men were put in the care of a Finnish SS- Hauptsturmführer who oversaw their program of instruction. Infantry training continued until about Christmas, when it was decided that the formation of the actual Ski battalion could now commence.

The formation of the new Norwegian SS Skijaeger Battalion (which was also given the title "Norge" and a sleeve title bearing that name), took place at military training grounds in Oulu, Finland (also known by its Swedish name of Uleåborg) in the autumn of 1943. The following Norwegian Untersturmführer(s) (Ustuf. - 2nd Lt.) were assigned to command companies in the battalion: Martin Skjefstad, Tor Holmesland Vik and Rolf Uglestad. The battalion CO and a four company commander were both Germans. A few German enlisted men were also included in each company as a "stiffening" element. For the most part the Norwegian officers were young men who had obtained front line experience with the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking or the "Frw. Legion Norwegen" before going on to the SS-JS "Tölz."

The Norwegian Ski Battalion was strictly light-weight in nature consisting only of one staff company and three ski (or infantry/assault) companies. Unlike the other battalions normally found in a German mountain division there was no 4th Heavy Weapons Company assigned. Each of the Norwegian ski companies contained the following sub-units: three platoons consisting of 3 squads each along with 1 machine-gun troop and 1 mortar section. The staff company contained the administrative personnel, a weapons and clothing dispersal office, an engineer platoon, a signals platoon (communications), a medical section and truck and horse supply columns.

The Karelian Front
In 1943 the Ski Company(Skikompaniet—the predecessor of the "Ski Battalion") was sent to the Kiestinki Front.

The battalion was formed in Germany, transported to Oulo in Finland, and later reached Kuusamo.

During the winter '43 / '44 the battalion counted around 700 men - many former soldiers from the Norwegian Legion. By January 1944 the battalion and was sent to the front. Another Norwegian Unit, The 2nd police company was also serving at the front at this time and was in severe skirmishes with the Russians, before they returned to Norway in May 1944.

The battalion was placed in position in the northern flank of the "Nord" Division, which was about 30 kilo meters north of the division HQ. The battalion had the job of patrolling the division's left wing up to Tiksje Lake. This part of the Eastern Front had long since lapsed into static warfare apd the idea was to prevent Soviet infiltration through no-man's-land.

Battalion soldier Sverre Kjelstrup has described battle at Mayweg (outside Kiestinki) and patterns of warfare by local Soviet forces: "The Norwegians [in the Battalion and other units] lost 4 men, and 92 dead Russians were counted in front of the fortifications—these are conditions that we witnessed many times ... that they kept heaping (on with more) people. And the ones charging first knew that if they tried to turn around and flee, they would be shot by the politruks who were in tow. And these are reasons for the [relative size of] losses that the Russians had on several occasions."

Late in March 1944 Russian forces began building up positions in a previously unoccupied area between the lines. This threat led the "Nord" Division staff to constuct a battalion-sized battle-group to deal with these new fortifications. (Two companies from the Ski Battalion were assigned to protect the left flank of the task force. ) Frode Halle said after the war that "Tough fighting led to relatively great losses on both sides. The Russians probably had the better outcome."

Until March 1944 the unit had military advisors (Beratere) from Germany.

By April, the stationing of the battalion was spread onto three peaks, which were known to them as Peak 200, Kaprolat and Hasselmann—replacing other German forces.

Early in June 1944, battalion commander Halle departed for a trip to Norway, and a German assumed command of the battalion.

Battle at Stützpunkt Kaprolat
In June 1944 Soviet forces (in front of the Ski Battalions position at the Kiestinki Front's northern flank, around 120 kilometers East of Kuusamo) were building roads forwards, from the Soviets' most forward positions. The staff of the German division thought that the roadbuilding was merely a demonstration of power, without expecting a new attack where the Soviets had failed two years earlier.

The battalion had fortified positions: the Hasselmann Position related to Peak 331 (as designated by German military—which rose from the north shore of Lake Kapanets(копанец ); and Stützpunkt Kaprolat—related to Peak 328, around one kilometer north of the other peak—and separated by a lake that the battalion called Støvlevann ("boot lake"). In the weeks before the battle at Kaprolat and Hasselmann, "120 Norwegian soldiers were pulled out of the area and sent home" on leave.

Unbeknown to the battalion's soldiers, there was a full sized Soviet brigade of 4-5000 men moving slowly towards them, while making roads of timber through the wetlands. By late June, scouts on reconnaissance had made observations of Soviets digging out mortar positions. Cpt Axel Steen, company commander of the 3rd Company on "Kaprolat", reported to the deputy battalion commander Major Sophus Kahrs, who commanded the 1st and 2nd companies at the Hasselmann Position, that a Soviet attack could be expected shortly. On 24 June 1944, the patrols of 3rd Company were unable to distance itself 300 meters "in any direction" from the Hasselmann Position—without encountering Soviet soldiers. [On 24 June] early in the morning after St John's Eve, a sharpshooter at "Kaprolat" was ordered to fire at a Russian soldier who was looking at "Kaprolat" thru binoculars, from a distance of about 130 meters.

In the middle of the day, Soviet soldiers fired machine guns and Soviet soldiers attacked "Kaprolat" and its 56 soldiers, resulting in several Soviet soldiers falling to the ground in No man's land. In the next attack Soviet soldiers advance within around 15 or 20 meters [of the battalion], before that attack is stopped. When artillery rounds later hit "Kaprolat", then one entrenchment was destroyed, thereafter another, followed by a retreat to the main bunkers (at "Kaprolat"). During the next Soviet attack, a [battalion] machinegun jammed, and battalion soldiers retreated: Norwegian website Digital okkupasjon cites a survivor (Wolfgang Windingstad), "Then there was something like a panic. We ran down the peak and down on the other side, where the others were laying. We were surrounded.". Six of these men completed the retreat to the Hasselmann Position. (Among the soldiers who were injured and captured before reaching the Hasselmann Position, was a German citizen. ) Sometime before the retreat from "Kaprolat", soldiers had spread the word amongst themselves that the company commander had fallen. (He had been injured by shrapnel delivered by Soviets, and later committed suicide .)

Battle at the Hasselmann Position
Norwegian website Historieformidlerne says that the Soviet attack on the Hasselmann Position started on 25 June around 3 or 4 AM.

It was manned by 1st- and 2nd Company. A total of 128-130 men. These soldiers as well as those at nearby Peak 200, were intended as reserve forces in the event of a Soviet assault at "Kaprolat".

On 26 June a force of soldiers from two different German battalions (including SS Mountain Regiment 11 "Reinhard Heydrich") tried to link up with the soldiers at "Kaprolat", but they were hindered. They thereafter manned the position (that already was fortified) underneath a ridge to the West of "Hasselmann", until they were forced up the peak towards "Hasselmann". On the peak they link up with remaining soldiers from "Hasselmann", and their combined resources consists of 34 men and 7 machine guns and 11 sub-machineguns. When the group is reduced to 12 men, they make a dash thru the Soviets' encirclement—towards Lake Kapanets, less than 200 meters at a distance. Of the 6 who reached the shoreline of the lake, 3 crossed the lake.

In 2013 Norwegian daily Dagbladet's then correspondent in Germany said that "The Norwegian company commander failed—and fled the combat zone, while many were killed or captured". Sophus Kahrs (company commander at the Hasselmann Position) disappears early in the battle—later reappearing uninjured in the rear echelons, where he in his own report puts himself in a positive ligth; he is not court-martialed because battalion commander Halle protects him.

"Nearly 100 soldiers were [still] missing in action" (out of the battalion's 190 soldiers from the Kaprolat- and Hasselmann positions), after the reappearance of a group of 5 soldiers who hid in the forest (on the same peak as the Kaprolat Position) during the retreat from the Kaprolat Position, and later sneaked their way to the North, and two weeks later reached a position manned by Finns, 30 kilometers to West of "Kaprolat". 117 of the battalion's soldiers were killed, around 50 were captured (Most of whom would later die in Gulag) and around 40 escaped alive.

After the retreat from Finland
As a consequence of an armistice in September 1944, the German Lapland Army retreated—joined by the battalion—through North Finland into Norway. The Norwegian daily Dagbladet wrote that the unit's soldiers were at the front in Finland until the autumn of 1944, adding that "several [soldiers] were sent to the endfighting in Germany and Austria.

Alleged desecration of dead enemy soldiers
A 2013 book, ''Hitlers norske skijegere. Norske SS-frivillige i Karelen 1941-1944'' says that some of the battalion's soldiers took heads from the corpses of Russian soldiers, and boiled skulls that "Then they became clean but brown. Some—such as NN—brought one of those to Norway. In the company bunker we had a skull as a candle holder."

Alleged killing of battalion soldiers who had surrendered
Battalion soldier Ulf Windingstad (the last one who is still alive, and one of the survivors of battle on 26 July 1944) has said that another soldier and himself—who both had surrendered to Soviet forces—were asked at gunpoint if they could walk. Windingstad said that he could walk, and his fellow soldier communicated that he can not walk. Windingstad has said: "I walk along, suddenly there's a gunshot ... I see the officer return the revolver—and my buddy lying on the ground. It is he who gets shot."

Organization and equipment
Each company consisted of three troops—each with three squads that each had a machine gun. The standard issue weapon for the battalion was the MP-40 machine-pistol, which was deemed the best type of armament for the unit's mode of operations.

An ahkio—a type of pulk—were used by soldiers to reduce the load of equipment (on individuals' backs and shoulders) while skiing

The soldiers had Knippfelbindinger (a particular interface between a boot and a ski).