SS Division “WIKING”. Memoirs of a Dutch volunteer. The Eastern Front.

This is the memoirs of a Dutch volunteer who served in the fifth armored division of the SS “Wiking”. According to the most modest data, about forty thousand Dutch volunteers served in the elite troops of Germany. On June 21, 1940, the foundation of the SS Wiking division was created in Holland – the WESTLAND regiment. The fifth division also included volunteers from the NORDLAND and Germany regiments. The division fought in the USSR on the southern front as part of Army Group SOUTH.

#history #easternfront #worldwarII #technic #wehrmacht

Hello my dear friends, today we will read the  memoirs of a volunteer from the Netherlands,   who served in the 5th SS Panzer Division “Wiking”.  The most conservative estimates show that about   40 thousand volunteers from the Netherlands  served in the German elite troops. On June 21,  

1940 in Holland the core of the SS Division  “Wiking” was created – it was the Regiment   WESTLAND. Also, the fifth division was formed  by volunteers from the NORDLAND and Germania   regiments. The division was fighting in the USSR  on the Southern Front as part of Army Group South. 

LET’S START FROM THE BEGINNING. Years ago, when I was just a young boy,   we used to visit very good friends of my  parents who lived in the east of Holland   not far from the German border. In 1936 we went  to Germany by automobile, because my parents  

And their friends knew a little restaurant  that offered a great dish made of trout.  It was a bright summer day, and when we arrived  in a small German town, there was some sort of   festival happening. There were swastika flags  waving, banners, lights and flowers hanging  

Everywhere, and the small town looked adorable.  And I saw groups of Hitler Youth guys marching   and singing, and they looked very happy, and I  thought to myself what a wonderful thing it was,   until my father said to his friend, “Look at  those kids. That’s awful, they’re not going to  

Grow up into good people.” I simply had no way of  understanding that. My family has always tended   to be anti-Nazi, but not anti-German. The moment  my father said this about the young German guys   who were marching and singing in that happy state  of mind, delighting me, I came to have pro-Nazi  

Sympathies. These emotions grew stronger because  I was in disagreement with my father frequently,   which brought me into the Waffen SS. I became  the black sheep in my family, yet my mother,   brother and sisters kept writing me letters… TRAINING.  Most of our commanders – squad  commander, platoon commander,  

Company commander – we didn’t just like them; we  respected them. If we got wet, cold and exhausted,   then we knew that our commanders would get the  same thing. I remember only one non-commissioned   officer we disliked – it was a corporal who  mistreated the Flemings. Once on Christmas Eve,  

When he got drunk to the point of blackout, we  wrapped him in a blanket, dragged him down the   stairs feet forward, dropped him into one of the  laundry troughs, and turned on the cold water.   We gave him a good kicking, but his fellows never  reacted. Afterwards, he was much more respectable. 

The training was mostly focused on discipline. We  were taught that the commander’s orders must be   obeyed. For example, if your commander was just  an Oberschutze, who was one rank above you, it   made no difference – he was still your commander.  However, we never had to do something meaningless,  

Such as jumping out of a window without prior  checking its distance from the ground and so on.   Yet, we might have been ordered to lie down in a  water-filled ditch or in blackberry bushes, or to  

Fall into melted wet snow…. At times, it turned  into a contest between the will of one person and   the will of all the others. It didn’t mean that  they wanted to break our spirit, absolutely not,  

It only meant that the order we were given had  to be obeyed. One day we were on a training   drill in a field that was flooded during a flash  flood, then frozen, and then partially thawed   afterward – in other words, the “perfect case” for  taking shelter. Initially, we each tried to stay  

Dry by keeping our bodies weighted on our toes and  palms, but as our strength ran out, we switched   to elbows and knees. Finally, we came to realize  the uselessness of disobeying an order and began   to flop to the ground with our entire bodies. We  even began to play dabbling, attempting to get on  

The ground closer to our non-commissioned officer  and knock him down. Eventually we succeeded, and   the other non-commissioned officers who escaped  being knocked down laughed at him with glee.  Cleaning and tidying were a kind of cult. Being  told that your room, rifle, or uniform had to  

Be clean was to be taken quite literally. The  cleaning was normally on Saturday mornings. It   started with all the guys crawling on all fours  to scrub the stone floors of the long corridors   and stairs. After it was done (and satisfying the  commanders’ requirements might mean two or three  

Times of redoing the cleaning), we would start  cleaning our rooms. We pushed beds and closets   around, scrubbing floors and washing dust off all  the slats and shelves. The windows were scrubbed   with wet newspapers. The inspection came after all  of this, and the results of the inspection would  

Determine how we would spend our weekend. Not only  rooms were inspected, but each soldier, his bunk,   his bed, and his locker contents. The only  thing that was not inspected was the soldier’s   knapsack where we kept our personal belongings,  writing paper, pictures, letters from home,  

And so on. I soon came to the conclusion that it  would be better to have two pairs of everything:   two toothbrushes, two hair combs, two razors,  two handkerchiefs, two pairs of socks. Once,   during an inspection, a match was found behind  a closet leg. Nothing was mentioned to us,  

But that night about eleven o’clock in the  evening, when we had all gone to sleep, we were   ordered to line up with full dress uniforms and  to bring out one blanket. When we were lined up,  

Four guys were ordered to hold the blanket by  the corners and put a match in the center. Then   we marched around for about an hour, and then we  were ordered to dig a hole one meter by one meter  

In size, and one meter in depth, in order to have  the match buried in it. On the next morning things   went on as before, as if nothing had happened. At the Bad Töltz training unit, we completed an   introductory course and were promoted to the rank  of Standartenoberjunker. Here there was once a  

Heated argument between one of the instructors  and our Danish comrade. The argument was over   the forced union between the European countries  and Germany. This argument grew into something   more significant than just a disagreement between  two people – we all joined the debate. It became  

Obvious that many “Teutonic” volunteers had  a negative view of the German occupation of   their countries. The feelings heated up and  gesticulation was needed. That very evening,   almost all of the foreign cadets stitched emblems  shaped like their national flags to their left  

Sleeve. Normally only a few of the cadets had  such emblems….. There was no reaction from   the instructors or officers the next day.  No one complained, no one asked anything,   but after a few days the officer who took  part in the dispute was moved to a front unit. 

Regarding the ideological cultivation, of  course, I remember it well. We were ordered   to study certain parts of Hitler’s book Mein  Kampf and prepare to answer questions for the   next class. We hated it all. We had to waste  a lot of our free time on something we had  

No particular interest in. There was also the  language barrier. It would be very difficult   for most of us to interpret what we read in this  book, even in our own language. We didn’t even   know many common words and simple expressions  in German. We knew the commands, we knew the  

German names of all the parts of our weapons and  uniforms, and we had no problems in town ordering   a beer or a meal or talking to someone local.  But our vocabulary contained no political terms.  We also studied Weltanshaung – philosophy  and politics – in the training unit. Our  

Instructor’s name was Weidemann. He also used  Mein Kampf, but looked into this book much more   deeply. Once again, we didn’t like it much, but  thanks to it some interesting moments occurred.   Among the eight cadets in our room was a Dutchman  from the town of Nijmegen named Frans Goedhart.  

He was already a regular SS sergeant and had  the golden German Cross. We were unsure exactly   because of what he had received this award. Each  evening, whenever we had to do our homework,   he would find a possibility to get out into town.  He would appear just before lights out, ask us  

What we had to do for the next day, look over  his notes, and then go to bed. The following day   he would always answer all questions confidently. Our instructor could put one of us in the position   of an ideological enemy, such as a Communist,  while he himself represented a member of the NSDAP  

Ready to defend the interests of the party and of  the Fatherland. Generally, he was quick to defeat   us in an ideological argument. One day, however,  he told Goedhart to take the role of a British   newspaper reporter in the discussion. Goedhart  won the debate handily, while Weidemann totally  

Freaked out and looked like a complete fool. BATTLES AT KURSK.  The order to march was received on July 11th,  1943. We set out in the early evening, kept   moving all night, and slept during the day. We  tried to make ourselves look different every day,  

To upset the apple-cart of anyone who might track  our movements: either we flaunted all our weapons   or we hid them. One day we wore gimnasterka,  another day we wore tunics, the third day we wore   camouflage. We even changed the identification  marks of our division on the trucks. The Russian  

Partisans had to be confused, trying to  find out which units were on the march…..  Finally, we reached the place and deployed,  splitting into small groups. When you’re in   that kind of combat formation, you have no  idea what’s going on with men on your right  

Or left. Our company encountered a column  of trucks with Wehrmacht soldiers who had   apparently been pushed out of their defensive  positions by the Russians. As we moved forward,   we abandoned the trucks because of enemy  artillery fire. We jumped to the ground  

And set off on foot. It was a country road, the  ground was soft and sandy, which made our march,   particularly with a heavy machine gun on our  shoulders, very exhausting. I was out of strength   when our commander overtook me and took the  machine gun away from me to give me some time to  

Rest. All along he was urging us to move as fast  as possible because there was an absolute urgency.  Eventually we took up the positions abandoned  by someone else, and there was a respite. The   positions we occupied were very good: the trenches  and dugouts had been well prepared and equipped.  

It must be that the Russians had attacked  here with large forces and pretty suddenly,   as we found many unpacked parcels and a huge  amount of all sorts of equipment and supplies   in the dugouts. We spent a good time picking  out new socks, underwear, and other things. In  

The midst of this feast a messenger from Company  Headquarters appeared with the following message:   “Mounk and his number two, report to  headquarters immediately.” I was mad,   for I had to drop all this treasure and go to  the Company Commander’s post. When we got to him,  

He ordered us to take up a firing position in  the trench for the defense of headquarters.  This was about 3 p.m. At about 5 p.m. a prisoner  was brought in who said that the Russians,   supported by tanks, would attack in the early  morning of the nineteenth of July. And he told  

The truth! Before long it became evident  that this attack was pretty successful:   I saw Russian infantrymen moving from right to  left right in front of my trench. I had my MG-34,   an excellent machine gun, very reliable and  highly accurate. My number two was a Romanian – a  

Farmer’s son. He spoke German badly, but his  will to help me was above average, as was his   physical strength. Там, где любой другой второй  номер нес два ящика с патронами, он нес четыре и   при этом не отставал. В Германии в то время не  хватало латуни, поэтому патроны для винтовок и  

Пулеметов делали из стали, а затем лакировали,  чтобы предотвратить появление ржавчины….  While any other No. 2 could have carried two  boxes of ammunition, he carried four boxes   and still keep up. At that time there was a  shortage of brass in Germany, so rifle and  

Machine gun cartridges were made of steel and  then lacquered in order to prevent rusting….  So, I was in position. I had my great machine  gun, my excellent No. 2, and plenty of ammunition   of poor quality. Normally we tended to control  the firing and only fire short bursts. On this  

Occasion, however, the number of enemy soldiers  moving in front of us was so considerable that   firing long bursts was necessary. This  resulted in the barrel overheating,   and before I even had time to change the barrel,  the machine gun jammed. A lacquered cartridge  

Stuck in the red-hot barrel….. While trying  to fix the machine gun, I forgot to shelter,   and at that moment I felt as if someone had hit  me on the shoulder with a hammer. I felt no pain,  

But fortunately I was able to move my arm. Then I heard a noise to my right and saw my   No. 2 jumping into the trench as if he was going  to pick up another box of ammunition. In fact,  

A bullet hit him in the left temple and killed  him. The shot seemed to come from somewhere to   the left. While looking over there, I recognized  the Russians in brown uniforms. As my machine gun   failed, I fired my pistol several times in  that direction and then ran away along the  

Trench bottom. Shortly I ran into several SS  soldiers, who I recognized as staff soldiers,   cooks, and intendants. They weren’t true war  fighters, so I shouldn’t have been surprised   to see that none of them had any idea what to do.  Our company commander was on the ground. The guys  

Said he was dead, but I decided to have a closer  look at him. The bullet had entered his head near   his left ear. It looked fatal and I thought he was  actually dead, but he moved. The guys pointed to  

Some trench and told me they intended to use  it to get to Battalion Headquarters. I picked   up my commander and was going to follow them, but  then he managed to tell me not to go after them,  

But forward, toward the anti-tank unit next to  us. The guys told me that the officer was feverish   and paid no attention to his words. I and another  Dutchman thought he was making a point. I put his  

Arm around my shoulders and moved on, but every  time he heard a gunshot, he made an effort to go   himself and stepped on my heels, and finally we  fell to the ground. My Dutch comrade was wounded  

In the thigh and could hardly move on his own.  The easier way was to just carry my commander,   slinging him over my shoulder. It wasn’t  good, as my injured shoulder started to hurt,   but we continued on our way. My comrade followed  me, and at the same time there were several  

Russians following him at some distance, who were  holding him at gunpoint! They were as frightened   and confused as we were, and eventually a single  shot was sufficient to force them to hide….  At a certain moment I stopped to catch my  breath. This allowed my commander to pull  

Open his clipboard and show me the direction we  were headed. I wanted to trust he was correct,   though except for the three of us and the few  Russians following us, there was nobody else in  

Sight at all. We came to the end of a trench and  continued our way along the top of it until I saw   some trees where our commander said our anti-tank  unit was. Just beyond that we jumped into a large  

Crater and sheltered in it. I told the Dutch guy  to help me, for I was totally exhausted. Now he   carried the commander, and half an hour later  a Volkswagen pulled up to get us. I was taken  

To a dressing station, my wound was treated  and I was told, to my relief, that the wound   wasn’t deep and there was no serious damage.  Here I met my Platoon Commander once again,   who told me a sad story: almost the entire  company was lost when its positions were crushed  

By Russian tanks in the early morning. Afterwards  I was transported to a hospital in Dnepropetrovsk.  By August 23, 1943, I had recovered and was given  a leave of absence home. When I arrived home,   I found there a parcel with the Iron Cross 2nd  Class. My embarrassed mother gave me my award,  

Along with a cover letter from my company… BATTLES ON THE DNIEPER LINE.  By this time, many of the guys in our unit were  foreigners – mostly Romanians. Our defensive line   was along the Dnieper. The terrain was wide open,  covered with bushes and small woods with sparse  

Small groves. The Russians attempted several  attacks through this area which was favorable   from their viewpoint, but each time we managed to  repel their attacks. They couldn’t move at night   without noise, so we didn’t have much trouble. On November 2, 1943, we had a feeling that  

Something must happen, because we heard the  Russians singing songs and in general being   noisy. In other words, they had drunk their  vodka ration, which should have given them   courage before the attack. Of course, at 6 p.m.  we were informed that the attack was about to  

Begin. I commanded the squad at that time and I  immediately sent everyone out of the dugout to   the trenches. Everyone left except one Romanian  man who told me that someone had grabbed his   helmet and the one that remained was too small  for him. He wanted to stay behind and guard  

The dugout. I told him everything I thought about  it, handed him my helmet and left the dugout with   only a kepi on my head. Then I joined my No.  2, who was already close to the machine gun.  The attack began, more ferocious than  usual, but we repulsed it again. As always,  

At that moment our artillery began to fire,  cutting off the Russians under machine-gun   fire from retreating. This time the shells fell  quite close to us. I heard the explosions on our   left – one distant from us, another one quite  close at all. The third one “hit the spot.”  

It blew up right in front of us and shattered  our machine gun. We were moments too late to   rush to the bottom of the trench. Some huge weight  seemed to push me down. My No. 2 started swearing,  

Shouting that the scumbags had torn his nose off.  Things weren’t that bad – a tiny shrapnel had   pierced his nose across, and the blood was pouring  out of it as from a slaughtered pig. We decided  

To move to the dugout so I could bandage him up. Unfortunately, I found to my surprise that I was   unable to move. I thought my legs had simply  fallen asleep while I was squatting. When the  

Next shell hit, I was hurled to the bottom of the  trench so hard that I scratched my face against   the ground. I shouted to my comrade not to be  stupid and to calm down. He helped me to get  

To the dugout, but, already there, he said that  he didn’t help me and, in any case, didn’t push   me. Something seemed to be wrong. I couldn’t  feel my legs beneath, so I unbuckled my belt,   unbuttoned my tunic’s bottom buttons and began  to examine my back. Nothing seemed to be wrong.  

I pulled down my pants, examined my legs, but  again nothing. I started bandaging my comrade.   Then we had a cigarette and I felt hot – I was  pouring sweat. I took off my kepi, and blood  

Ran down my face. I felt the wound on my head and  realized the reason my legs didn’t function…..  After a while I was dragged along the trench  to a place where the trench was wide enough to   accommodate a stretcher. Then they took me to  the collection point for the wounded, where I  

Stayed to wait for transportation to the rear.  There were plenty of wounded….. The Russians   went on the attack again, and all the wounded men  able to bear weapons returned to the trenches. The   ones who remained had to take care of themselves.  We were given hand grenades, automatic rifles and  

Were wished good luck. We realized everything.  It would have required a lot of men to take   us to the rear, but we had no manpower. The Russians fired at us – we started to   shoot back. They threw grenades at us – we also  threw grenades at them. Fortunately, the Wehrmacht  

Units, supported by light tanks, launched an  attack. We didn’t lose a single wounded man,   though some including me got new wounds, thank  God, quite light. After that I was dragged to   some dugout occupied by Wehrmacht soldiers. The  bunker was deep, with a well-protected doorway  

And a very thick cover. There were tables  and light chairs inside. A radio sounded,   and it looked almost like a propaganda picture … Several prisoners were captured during our   counterattack. As always, they were used to carry  ammunition and to transport the wounded. We had to  

Cross a pretty flat and open field to reach the  dressing station. The enemy fired on this area,   and after each burst the captured Russians  dropped the stretcher on which I was lying   and looked for shelter. The guy who was on the  side of my head showed more care and lowered  

The stretcher carefully. By this time, I had a bad  headache and the fact that they were dropping the   stretcher on the ground didn’t make my condition  any better. I told the guy who was on the side  

Of my legs that if he dropped me again, I would  shoot him. I gave him a couple warnings. He became   more careful after each warning, but before  long he dropped the stretcher again. Finally,   I pulled out my pistol and fired it over  his head. Things went well after that.  

A spirit of camaraderie. I arrived in the town of Ellwangen   from the Kraków hospital on June 4, 1944. I guess  the time I lived in this town was the best time of   my entire Waffen SS service thanks to the unit  I was assigned to. I found myself in the 3rd  

Company of the 5th Training Reserve Battalion. The officers were all afraid of our company   commander. If something occurred between him and  another officer, he waited until Saturday. We   went to the cinema on Saturday nights. After  the cinema he would wait until the company,  

Whose commander had displeased him in some way,  would leave the cinema. We waited for a while   and then followed them. While marching, all the  companies used to sing something. The moment we   started to overtake the company ahead of us,  marching faster than the guys in that company  

And singing a different song louder than them,  our opponents would interrupt the rhythm and   start singing out of sync. This meant that their  commander would get in trouble for that kind of   thing. In most cases, such measures were taken if  there was some tension between company commanders  

Or soldiers of different companies. There was a  positive aspect to it. After such incident the   other company began to approach the training with  more enthusiasm, they marched and sang better,   but none of the companies was able to beat the  one I served in. It is a unique experience to  

March in line all as one, to take part in  drill training on the platz, when all the   movements are so synchronized that each of  them goes off with a single clear sound…   RELATIONS WITH CIVILIANS. Basically, when people mention the SS,  

They have in mind the concentration camps,  the brutal murder of prisoners of war and   civilians. We all know about the military  police who treated people extremely badly.   We know about those who killed and tortured,  we know about armies that committed war crimes,  

But all of this doesn’t mean that everyone  who put on a military uniform was a beast…  What makes it horrible is that when speaking about  the SS, everyone is considered a scumbag – both   Algemeine-SS and Waffen-SS. Waffen-SS forces  were made up of volunteers. They were soldiers  

With minimal political preferences, whereas  the SS-Algemeine was made up of many Nazi   party members, not soldiers. Most of those  who talk about the SS are actually meaning   the Algemeine specifically. We, soldiers, who  fought in the Waffen SS were just soldiers,  

Perhaps a little above the level of the  average Wehrmacht soldier, but that was   probably because we were all volunteers. For example, in the village of “Apolinovka”,   to the north of Dnepropetrovsk, the Russian  civilians were treated by our Dutch physician,  

An SS Hauptsturmführer, absolutely for free. On  another occasion we were standing near the village   of “Lozovaya” and a rumor circulated that we would  be moved to France or Italy. After a while we got   orders to build wooden sleds to help ourselves  with means of transportation. We had planned  

Ahead: our squad had to make four large sleds. We  knew that an old man who lived in a local village   was going to build a house for his daughter,  and having only an axe he had managed to make  

An ideal rectangular beam from a fallen tree  trunk. We haggled with him and bought the beam   for two army blankets, twenty rubles, cigarettes,  and some sewing needles and flints. We had a saw,   and in a moment, we had made four sledges,  and sold the rest of the beam to other squads. 

Another day, however, a Romanian, who could  speak a little bit of Russian and was used   by our company as an interpreter, chuckling  at us, said that the old woman who lived with   that old man had come to have a talk with  the company commander. According to him,  

She complained that her old man had been  working for weeks to plane the beam, and now   some soldiers from our company had taken it away. If our Untersturmführer had belonged to the type   of SS officers usually depicted, he would  have simply shot the old woman. Instead, we  

Got orders to report to the commander and explain  our behavior. We said nothing about the blankets,   as they were army property, but confessed to  everything else. The commander decided that   we could keep the sledge, since the beam had  already been sawn anyway, but he ordered us to  

Give the old couple forty additional cigarettes  and ten rubles. Here you can see the inhuman   treatment of the locals by Waffen SS soldiers! We often exchanged food with the locals for their   eggs, fried potatoes and pickles. It was allowed  to communicate with the locals at this level, but  

Any sexual contact with Russian women was strictly  forbidden. Following this order was not difficult,   as I did not see any attractive women. As for the  stature, we could only guess what was hidden under   all those multiple skirts. ABOUT THE RUSSIANS. 

From our viewpoint, the Russian soldiers were  considered a little more valuable than livestock   to be slaughtered. They went into battle  regardless of casualties. Here’s an example:  Once we were at the edge of a forest. Then we  saw the Russians pulling some sort of anti-tank  

Gun out from behind the trees. It wasn’t a large  caliber gun, but it was definitely possible to   fire it. There were about five Russians next  to it – we saw them turning the gun around,   loading it and preparing to fire. We fired and  shot them down. Another group stepped out from  

Behind the trees. They came out in no hurry, as  if it was a Sunday walk, they approached the gun.   Everything was the same again: we shot them too.  Another crew appeared – we shot these guys too,  

And then they left the gun alone. We could  not make any sense of it. These men seemed   to be deliberately committing suicide….. The thing we were most afraid of wasn’t being   killed, or wounded, but being captured. The  Russians could behave simply like beasts. One  

Day we got a young Russian deserter, whom we kept  in our unit, as he was intelligent, he helped us   and knew a lot of German words. Briefly, he was  the extra pair of hands we needed. Sometimes at  

Night he went to the other side of the front and  came back with a few of his fellow countrymen whom   he had managed to convince to desert. Then one  morning he didn’t return. We decided that he had  

Simply rejoined his men. A few days later we beat  the Russians back from some village. There was a   tree growing in the middle of the village, where  we came across our “Ivan”. Someone well acquainted  

With medicine pulled his guts out of him – all  of them – and wrapped them around the tree…   ATTITUDE OF COMPATRIOTS. During my first leave in Holland,   upon arriving at the station in my hometown of  Leiden, I said goodbye to another Dutchman I  

Had spent a lot of time with on the train. He was  headed for Alkmaar, a city sixty-five kilometers   north of Leiden. A few months later I heard the  following story. When he arrived in Alkmaar,   his first thing to do was to go to the hairdresser  to get himself cleaned up before meeting his  

Parents. While he sat in the hairdresser’s chair,  the rebels shot him in the back with a Sten   submachine gun. But I tried to avoid taking any  risks. If I took a train or a bus, I always leaned  

My back against a wall or a window, for otherwise  the passengers would burn through my uniform with   their cigarettes or cut it with a razor. On that first leave I wanted to visit the   family of a Dutch fellow who had died at the  front. As his house was not far from Leiden,  

I went there by bicycle. The weather was cool  and I put on my old motorcycle jacket – a great,   made-to-measure black leather jacket. I imagine  I looked like one of those ominous-looking   Gestapo men like they are shown in war movies. I made the long way, and then I had to carry my  

Bicycle on my shoulder across the streetcar  bridge. I was halfway across the bridge,   and then someone shot at me. I dropped the bike  to the ground and pulled out my pistol (usually   on vacation we only took a bayonet with us, but  after listening to various stories, I decided  

That something more serious would be sensible).  The second shot rang out. I couldn’t actually   see who was shooting at me or from where, so it  made no sense for me to shoot back at him. Anyway,   there were no more shots… LAST DAYS OF THE WAR. 

In early April 1945, the entire Junkerschule was  relocated to the district of Todnau to join the   formation of the Nibelungen Division (that’s the  38th SS Grenadier Division). I was assigned to   command a company of Volkssturm men – young boys  and old men who were mostly trained in the use  

Of Faustpatrons. But this new division never got  into service. There were no weapons and the unit’s   combat morale were very low. Nevertheless,  I was still sincerely believing that Germany   would win the war. Only a few days later we  sent the men from the Volkssturm back home,  

And the Nibelungen Division was defunct…. We returned to Bad Töltz. There we got orders to   find our divisions and return to service. I served  in the Wiking Division, which was fighting heavy   battles in the area around the Graz city at this  time. The effort (I was with three other Dutchmen  

In the rank of SS-Stardantenoberjunker) to reach  our units was not without great danger. Sure,   we had passes, but traveling at that moment  in time was a risky thing to do. The Allies   dominated the air, firing at anything that moved  – even at cyclists. The expiration date of our  

Pass documents was quickly approaching, and  bands of SS maniacs – not from the Waffen SS,   but from the Algemeine – were sweeping the  streets, hanging and executing anyone they   considered to be a deserter. I saw Waffen SS  soldiers hanging on trees and lampposts myself. 

But luck was with us, and on the fourth of April  we came across an SS Standartenführer who put   us to good use. This officer had order forms  personally signed by Himmler. They allowed him   to do anything he wanted. During the following  two weeks we seized all possible equipment from  

Those military units that crossed our path  and stored it on farms to be used later in   partisan warfare by Werwolf units. This period of  comparative safety ended on April twenty-ninth.   Our Standartenführer reassigned us to the town  of Landshut, where we met with the Gauleiter,  

The local Nazi leader. I was assigned to  command a group of boys from the Labor Corps,   all aged between sixteen and seventeen, who  were eager to join the fight, so that I could   train them in the use of the Faustpatrons. On May  1st, in the area of Eggenfelden, near Vilsbiberg,  

I went out with my guys to the edge of the forest.  We had to hold a defensive position there. Before   long we spotted a dozen American tanks moving  toward us in a single column alongside a narrow   road. I managed to hit the head tank, but as  I realized that our situation was hopeless,  

I dispatched all the guys to find their way home.  They cried because of the failure of their hopes:   they never had a chance to taste gunpowder. ATTITUDE TO THE LEADERS.  What I can say about the political leaders is that  we believed everything Hitler said, and I believed  

That Germany would win the war, until March of the  year one thousand nine hundred and forty-five. I   became finally certain that the war was lost  when we heard that Hitler was dead. As for   Hitler himself, I considered him a true man. He  was just a corporal when he earned the Iron Cross  

1st Class in World War I. That was a considerable  honor back in those days. When he delivered his   speeches at congresses and meetings, he had the  ability to captivate his audience. He had the   power to make us believe everything he said and  we were filled with enthusiasm. All the people I  

Met respected Hitler and believed him, and I  myself agreed with this opinion and feeling.  What I can say about Himmler is that he was not a  real man. He had an appearance of a man who could   not be trusted, and he was certainly not a bright  representative of the Aryan race of gentlemen  

Either in appearance or in his personality. We had  the opinion that Himmler was too miserable to be   in command of the Waffen SS… CLOSING WORD.  I regret deeply that I was part of a regime that  set up the concentration camps and ordered the  

Massacres. But I, my comrades and the Germans  I talked to were unaware of this. It may sound   like a flimsy argument, but it is the truth… During my last leave, my father told me that he   believed the news about the extermination of  Jews in concentration camps. I told him that  

There were many prisoners from Dachau working at  the Junkerschule in Bad Töltz. They wore black and   blue striped labor uniforms, worked as gardeners  and cleaned the roads. When we passed by, they   had to stand to the side and take off their caps,  and nothing more. If any of us dared even try and  

Touch one of them, they had the right to complain  to their kapo and it would be a penalty for one   of us. They were provided with three cigarettes  a day; we were provided with only two. Moreover,   they started work later than we did in  the morning and didn’t seem exhausted.  

Should I have believed my father or my own eyes?  Sure, now I know it was all an unspeakable lie,   but at the time none of us had any clue. The Soviets and the Western Allies united   and won. All things badly done, all things  done improperly, were blamed on the defeated.  

I entirely accept that Nazi Germany had to  disappear, as the atrocities committed with   the sanction of a government that was aware of  everything cannot be forgiven. But I remember the   indignation of the civilized world when Germany  bombed Warsaw and Rotterdam at the beginning of  

The war – they called it barbarity. Nonetheless,  just a few years later, the Allies used the same   practice when they dropped bombs on German cities. I have no regrets about joining the Waffen SS. I   feel grateful to fate for having experienced  this sense of camaraderie and I am proud to  

Have belonged to a people for whom loyalty to  each other was inviolable. I remember the days   when every European believed that communism  was evil. Everyone knew about the Siberian   camps for the political prisoners and the  systematic cleansing that Stalin practiced  

On those communists who didn’t fall in line. And  I believed it at that time, and I believe it now,   that I was right to strive against that system. That is all for today. If you enjoyed the video,   please like it and support the channel by  subscribing! Bye everyone, and see you soon!