Saturday, 6 December 2025

Ethnic Swedes from Finland and Estonia in the Waffen-SS During WWII

Published in „Siegrunen“ Magazine – Volume XI, Number 4, Whole Number 66,

Fall 1998

 

By S.E. Norling

 

Above: SS-Untersturmführer Ulf Ola Olin, an ethnic Swede from Finland who was decorated with the German Cross in Gold.

 

For most SIEGRUNEN readers the participation of a small group of Swedish volunteers in the Waffen-SS during WWII is well known. These men served mostly in the international SS Divisions „Wiking“ and „Nordland“ along with other European volunteers. SIEGRUNEN has dedicated several articles to these brave volunteers that left their quiet and neutral country to join the European Army of the Waffen-SS against Bolshevism. But almost nothing is known about the ethnic-Swedes that lived in Finland and Estonia who also wrote a heroic page in the history of the Waffen-SS. They have been more or less forgotten due to their status as a national minority and thus can be compared partially to the „Volksdeutsche“ in their treatment by modem history. For obvious reasons in this essay we are not going to deal with the military history per se of the Finnish or Estonian Waffen-SS units in which the ethnic- Swedes served. The reason for this is simple, as this has been covered in other SIEGRUNEN issues and readers are surely familiar with this.

 

Introduction: Swedish Settlements in the Baltic Coast, XII-XVIII Centuries.

 

Since the Middle Ages, the historical chronicles show us the settlement of Swedes along the Baltic Sea Coast, especially in Finland and Estonia, but also much further to the south in the depths of Ukraine. For centuries they kept their culture, language and religion even when those countries gained their independence at the beginning of this century. The Finland-Swedish group was the largest one, consisting of approximately 10-15% of the country’s population before WWII. This populace was concentrated along the west coast of Finland, facing Sweden, and in the capital of Helsinki. Even nowadays, Finland is a bilingual country where Swedish is the co-official language, although the Swedish-speaking group has been reduced since WWII due to its integration with the Finnish group.

 

Culturally and economically wealthy, the Swedish-speaking group represented a large percentage of the Finnish officer corps during WWII and were well represented in the administration of the country. Field Marshall Mannerheim, himself of Swedish descent, may be the best example of the importance of this group in Finland. When the Winter War (1939-1940) and the Continuation War (1941 -1944) broke out the Swedish-speaking group fought bravely in the Finnish Army, producing, thanks to the blood and brotherhood created by the battlefield, a real integration between both communities.

 

On the other side of the Baltic Sea in Estonia, the Swedish group was a smaller community, (0.7% of the population), amounting to not even 10,000 people and concentrated in the Baltic islands that faced Sweden. Their relations to mainland Estonia were more-or-less nill and in most cases they did not even speak Estonian. They even had a special agreement to serve out their military service in the islands, a privilege even Czarist Russia had respected for centuries. When the Soviet Union occupied the country in 1940, many of these rural and fishing communities were deported, (the USSR wanting to have military bases on these islands to prepare for the invasion of Europe and control the Baltic Sea), and many youths were then forced to serve in the Red Army. Therefore it was not strange that the people in these communities, as in others in Eastern Europe, saw the German soldiers as „liberators“ when they arrived in the summer of 1941 and the ethnic-Swedes were allowed to move back to their homes.

 

In August 1944, when Estonia was going to be again invaded by the Russians, a great evacuation operation was organized and thousands of Estonian-Swedes, almost the entire community, were transferred to Sweden. Thus disappeared the traditional Swedish settlements as did most of the „Volksdeutsche“ communities in Central Europe and the Balkans. But many were not so lucky. The newly opened files of the Russian KGB in Moscow give a dramatic overview of the fates of at least 106 Swedish nationals from Finland, Germany, Estonia, Latvia and even Ukraine, who died in Soviet extermination camps during and after WWII!

 

Finland-Swedes in the Waffen-SS

 

For the SS-Hauptamt, Finland as a potential recruiting source did not become interested until after the Western Campaign was over in the summer of 1940 and Himmler ordered SS-Ogruf. Gottlob Berger to enlarge the ranks of the Waffen-SS with „Germanic“ volunteers. The reasons for ignoring Finland were clear; apart from the fact that Finland was an independent country, the racialist department of the SS- Hauptamt did not consider the Finns suitable at first for the SS. But they did consider the Finland-Swedish community as possibly acceptable for recruiting but no activity was carried out in this line until the spring of 1941. Then the Finns were actually invited to form a unit in the Waffen- SS. The extreme bravery of the Finnish volunteers during the first part of the Eastern Campaign and their losses in killed-in-action, which was much higher than other units, caused the SS authorities to reconsider their earlier concepts and it was decided that the Finns were indeed a European people that shared a culture and past with the Swedes and the rest of Europe. After that, the Finns were fully accepted as SS members.

 

When the German authorities reached an agreement in 1941 with the Finnish government to form a Waffen-SS battalion, the volunteers that enlisted did not really show correctly the social and ethnic distribution of the population of Finland, as only around 3% of the recruits had Swedish as their mother tongue, despite the fact that ethnic-Swedes numbered between 10-15% of the general population. Some authors have estimated that around 12% of these volunteers were Swedes but this figure has proved to have been overestimated (1). Some former volunteers still maintain that the Swedish-speaking group was at least 10%, but this would require a deeper inquiry. It is not easy to find out who had Swedish as a mother tongue as this was never asked and the fact that one may have had a Swedish name does not mean that the bearer is a member of the Swedish-language group as many Finns still keep Swedish names.

 

It is interesting to note that many of the leaders of the recruitment committee of the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS were in fact Finnish-Swedes, such as the National Bank Director Normen, Lt.Col. Lindh, (his son Holger Lindh enlisted as a volunteer), the Baronesa Munck, national president of the Finnish “Lota-Svärd“ (Red Cross/military help sisters at the front). Also many of the officers of the battalion were of Swedish stock but most of them spoke Finnish fluently as for the most part, the rank and file of the battalion were ethnic Finns.

 

The Finnish liaison group in Berlin was led by the SS-Ostuf. Kim Lindberg, (who was not a Finland-Swede despite his Swedish name), as well as by SS-Ustuf. Unto Boman, a well-known Finnish National Socialist, who was born on 28 September 1907 in Turku. He was an optician by profession and a member of the Finnish-Swedish organization Samfundet Folkgemenskap (Association for the People’s Union). He would play a key role in the relations with the SS authorities and after the war he would be deported to the Soviet Union by the new Finnish government for his anti-communist activities. He came back to Finland only after serving 10 years in the Soviet slave labor camps. He had enlisted with the first group of volunteers that left for Germany and participated in the winter campaign of 1941/1942. After being wounded he was ordered to join the liaison group in Berlin in the summer of 1942.

 

* * * * *

 

The Flemish SS volunteer Konrad Dawir from the „Langemarck“ Brigade was last heard from in a Soviet concentration camp in Odessa in 1948.

 

The Finnish SS-Volunteer Battalion (III.(finn.)/“Nordland“ (2).

 

The recruitment of the first volunteers for the Finnish W-SS battalion was done without any major problems under the leadership of the committee and the German SS-Standartenführer Paul Dahm, who led the recruitment operations in all of the Nordic countries in 1941 from Oslo, Norway (3). Around 1,400 volunteers would serve in the ranks of the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS until it was withdrawn from the front and sent home in May 1943. The Finnish-Swedes were well represented in the officer ranks of the battalion. There were no actual Swedish volunteers (from Sweden) in this unit, following the agreement made between the Finnish government and the SS authorities which was designed io avoid this possibility (4).

 

The Finnish authorities in their conversations with the Germans actually came up with a strategy that explains the low percentage of Finnish Swedes in the battalion. The Finns were trying to avoid a situation where the ethnic Swedes would get a predominate position in the unit, similar to what happened in WWI with the famous 27. Jäger Regiment. In that formation which served in Germany with Finnish volunteer personnel, it had an over-representation of ethnic Swedes in its ranks. After the war this regiment became the nucleus of the Finnish officer’s corp and it was anticipated that the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS could do the same thing after WWII. And there was a desire on the part of the Finns to keep the ethnic Swedes out so that they would not gain dominating positions in the Army later on. It was just one more example of the old power game between the two communities.

 

The recruitment of Finnish-Swedish volunteers for the SS battalion was led by Gunnar Lindqvist and his National Socialistic movement known as Samfundet Folkgemenskap (Association for Popular Union), which was mainly composed of Finnish-Swedes. He managed to recruit around 100 volunteers, not all of them Finnish-Swedes, and he received for his assistance a civil award in 1944 from the German government for his services. After the war, Lindqvist went to Sweden to avoid deportation to the Soviet Union. He was subsequently interrogated by the Swedish secret police and admitted that during the war there were tensions between the Finnish and Finnish ethnic-Swedish members of the recruitment committee of the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the W-SS. He stated that he and Director Norrmen had made a secret agreement to get at least 10% of the unit volunteers from the Swedish community but they failed on this and the number never rose above 3%. In his deposition, Lindqvist had to admit that the Finnish members of the committee conspired to exclude the Finnish-Swedish volunteers (5).

 

Some of the names among the Finnish-Swedish volunteers in the battalion are well known, such as SS-Oscha. Elmgren, a brave platoon leader from 9./“Nordland“ and the SS-Sturmmann Alf Silfverberg, who was decorated with the Panzer-vernichtungs-Abzeichen, (tank destruction badge). Silfverberg kep a diary during his participation in the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS that has been a unique source for many of the stories about the unit that have been written after the war.

 

Of the around 250 Finnish volunteers that were KIA during the time they served in the „Wiking“ Division, we can estimate that at least 8-10 were Finland-Swedes, which corresponds to their percentage in the ranks of the unit, (3-4%). The highest ranking ethnic-Swede to be killed in action was SS-Ostuf. Lennart Simeon Wallen, a member of a National Socialistic Finland-Swedish group, and a platoon leader in a „Wiking“ anti-tank unit that was not attached to the Finnish Volunteer Battalion. He was killed on 9 October 1942 during the heavy battles around Malgobek. His obituary appeared in „For Frihet och Rätt”, a magazine of the movement that he belonged to (6.). Of the 560 volunteers in the battalion that were wounded again the percentage of Finland Swedes in this category reflected their percentage in the unit itself. However of the 21 Finns selected to attend an officer training course at the SS-Junkerschule „Tölz“, 7 or one-third, were of Swedish ethnic background. When the Finnish Volunteer Battalion was withdrawn back to Finland, most of these men then enlisted into Finnish Army units and a large number were KIA before Finland signed its surrender agreement in September 1944.

 

Above: SS-Sturmmann Alf Silfverberg, a Finland-Swede.

 

Finland-Swedes In Other Waffen-SS Units.

 

When the Finnish SS batallion returned home in May 1943, some Finnish officers decided to remain in the Waffen-SS. There are also several cases of Finnish citizens joining the Waffen-SS after this date. Finland-Swedes were reported to also be in this group despite the difficulties the Germans found in keeping open recruitment in Finland.

 

Above: Men of the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS. The Sleeve shield is visible on several soldiers. (Rundkvist Arch.).

 

After the war, the Chief of the „Germanische Stelle“, (Germanic Recruitment Office), in Oslo, Norway, SS-Stubaf. Karl Leib, explained to British intelligence members the difficulties that they had trying to recruit Swedish and Finnish nationals for the Waffen-SS in 1943: „The last remaining possibility left open for the Amtsgruppe was to recruit Swedes and Finnish-Swedish from the Finnish Army for th Waffen-SS, this move was started in 1943, but did not have appreciable results...” (8)

 

SS-Panzer Division „Wiking“

 

Ulf Ola Olin, a Finland-Swedish SS-Untersturmführer born in Helsinki on 18 July 1917, remained with the SS-Pz.Div. „Wiking“ as a tank commander with the II.Abtelung/SS-Pz.Rgt.5. He was a Lieutenant in the Finnish Army and was one of the first to enlist when the Finnish Volunteer Battalion was formed. On 28 February 1945 he was decorated with the German Cross in Gold, one of the highest awards a soldier could receive, while commanding a platoon of 7th Company/SS- Pz.Rgt.5. He was one of the few Finnish nationals to be allowed to stay in the German Armed Forces after the return home of the Finnish Volunteer Battalion. Olin was promoted to SS-Obersturmführer on 9 November 1943 and he received the German Cross in Gold for his heroism in the heavy fighting around Warsaw in the summer of 1944. On 10 August 1944, his tank destroyed 11 Russian anti-tank guns and 2 T-34 tanks. In the weeks that followed he destroyed many more enemy tanks including 5 alone on 20 October 1944, bringing to 500 the total destroyed by his regiment since its return to the front in April 1944 (9).

 

Above: SS-Ostuf. Ulf Ola Olin being congratulated by SS-Hstuf. Otto Schneider, (Knight’s Cross holder) 1944

 

SS-Ostuf. Olin was nominated for the German Cross in Gold by his regimental commander, SS-Ostubaf. Fritz Darges on 12 December 1944 for his brave actions in the previous months, and the award was finally made on 28 February 1945. Olin also held many other combat decorations including the Iron Cross, 1st Class. After the war, Ulf Ola Olin remained in Germany and married a German woman. He died in Germany on 11 January 1995.

 

Ostuf. Olin’s cousin, Lars Erik Ekerot, another Finland-Swede, also remained in the „Wiking1 Division. As an SS-Rottenführer he was captured in Graz, Austria by the Americans at the end of the war. Despite being badly wounded, (an explosive bullet had destroyed his foot), he spent several months incarcerated at the Dachau concentration camp after the war. Here he was severely tortured by his American captors. He died shortly after returning to Finland, not from his war wounds, but from injuries received during this torture!

 

SS-Division „Nord“

 

Finland-Swedes have also been reported in the 6th SS Mountain Division „Nord“. Kenneth Henriksson, from Helsinki, joined the Waffen- SS in 1943 and was sent to 3rd Company/SS-Signals Detachment 6. Henriksson, together with another Finnish volunteer SS-Mann Olavi Koistinen, served with the division in Finland and followed it when it was shipped back to Germany in 1945, after having been withdrawn from Finland in the autumn of 1944 and sent first to Norway. In Germany, Henriksson participated in heavy fighting against the advancing American troops after having been sent to the newly formed 38.SS- Pz.Gr.Div. „Nibelungen“. Both Henriksson and Koistinen survived the war and returned home to Finland.

 

Also serving in the „Nord“ Division were some volunteers with Swedish or Finnish nationality but with German ancestry. These men cannot be classified as Finland-Swedes, but they were certainly closer to that group as they all spoke Swedish. Karl Naus, Erich Tomeur and Kurt Klaus were all in this category, and they served as translators with the SS- Mnt.Div. „Nord“ with the rank of SS-Rottenfiihrer.

 

Another Finland-Swede, Bror Holm, has been reported as serving with SS-Ostubaf. Otto Skorzeny’s SS-Sonderkommando „Nord“, (a commando unit, separate from the „Nord“ Division), where a specific platoon filled with Finnish nationals was set up in 1944-1945.

 

Estonian-Swedes in the Waffen-SS

 

The Estonian-Swedes did not as a rule join their home-country units of the Waffen-SS as the Finland-Swedes did in the Finnish Volunteer Battalion. Obviously some Estonian-Swedes did serve in the 20.Waf.Gr.Div.d.SS (Estonia Nr.1) and other German-led units, but they acted as Estonian nationals despite their Swedish ethnic background (10). It has proved to be quite difficult to trace the path of the Estonian- Swedes due to the lack of documentation, the extinction of their community after the war and the fact that they were a small volunteer group. We can only guess that they did not reach more than 50-60 volunteers. An official figure has never been published as the SS authorities never mentioned them as a separate category except in individual cases.

 

Their story began when the recruitment of Estonian nationals to the Waffen-SS started in the spring of 1942. The SS-Amtsgruppe D, led by the Swiss Stubaf. Dr. Riedweg (11), realized that the Estonian-Swedes could not be recruited for pure Estonian units, therefore another idea had to be considered. As a result, the Swedish SS-Obersturmführer Sven Ryden, a former officer in the Swedish Army and a veteran of the „Winter War“, was sent to Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, in order to coordinate the voluntary recruitment of these Estonian-Swedes. He was attached to the recruitment office of the Estonian SS Legion and worked from there making tours of the Estonian-Swedish communities, promoting the idea of a „Swedish SS Legion“ (12). A German-Swedish SS officer, Dr. Lienhard, has also been reported to have been connected with the recruitment of these volunteers.

 

In his monthly report of October 1942, SS-Stubaf. Dr. Riedwig could tell the Reichsführer-SS that: „In Sennheim there is a (training) course of 30 Estonian-Swedes...“ (13). They had been grouped together with the other purely Swedish volunteers who were there at that time. It has been reported that the Finnish SS-Hstuf. Jouko Ittäla, who spoke Swedish fluently, commanded them during their stay at the international Germanic W-SS Training Camp at Sennheim, Alsace (Elsass), which was dose to the French border. The SS-Hauptamt considered these Estonian- Swedes to be suitable for the Waffen-SS and the propaganda brochures of the SS organization depicted them as part of the Germanic world (14).

 

Due to the fall off in the recruitment of Swedish volunteers, the idea for an independent unit for them did not develop. Also failing was the idea of attaching them to the 5.SS-Div. „Wiking“ in a new regiment to be named „Narwa“. The plans for this regiment had been formulated by the Reichsführer-SS Himmler, who, in March 1943, sent the following order to SS-Gruppenführer Felix Steiner: „The new Panzer-Grenadier-Regiment for the SS-Division „Wiking“, in substitution for the leaving Regiment „Nordland“, has received the name „Narwa“. In this will be German, Estonian and Swedish volunteers integrated together... (15) Despite these proposals, the Swedish and Estonian-Swedish volunteers were sent to the newly formed 11.SS-Pz.Gr.Div. „Nordland“ and attached to the „Swedish“ 3rd Platoon of the 3rd Company/SS- Armored Recce Detachment 11, that was led by the Swedish SS- Oberscharführer Walter Nilsson, who was KIA in January 1944 during the Oranienbaum offensive. Following Nilsson, the Swedish SS-Ostuf., later Hstuf., Hans-Goesta Perhsson took command of the platoon and later the entire company.

Above: SS-Hstuf. Hans-Goesta Perhsson, (here an Ustuf.).

 

During the heavy battles at the Oranienbaum Front and later at Narva and in the Baltic countries, the Estonian-Swedes followed their unit all the way to the end with the encirclement of the capital of the Reich: Berlin. Many of them wouid be KIA or MIA before it was over. Among the killed Estonian-Swedes we can report that SS-Rttfhr. Sigurd Mohlin who fell on 25 September 1944. may have been one, although this is not an absolute certainty since some other sources say that he may have been born in Sweden. In regards to the Estonian-Swedes captured by the Red Army, at least one individual is reported to have died in captivity, although the number of these deaths is surely higher. This is the fate of SS-Pz. Grenadier Artur Brandt who was captured in Berlin on 2 May 1945 and died in a Soviet extermination camp (16). Others were more fortunate and were able to gain Swedish soil where they became Swedish citizens after the war (17)

 

The SS-Hauptamt in Berlin did not set up a liaison office for these Estonian-Swedes as they were considered attached to the Swedish volunteer liaison official. As many of the Swedish volunteers were members of the Swedish National Socialist Party, (SSS – Svensk Socialistsk Sämling), that was led by Olof Lindholm and had a branch in Berlin led by the former Swedish SS War Reporter Thorolf Hillblad, many of the Estonian-Swedes also requested membership in the party. They were fully accepted as members and could also serve in the „Sveaborg“, (the Party’s equivalent of the SA or stormtroopers, which had been formed mainly by veterans of the Finnish war) (18).

 

It is an interesting fact that among the Estonian-Swedish volunteers were many brothers and cousins that joined the Waffen-SS, such as the brothers Brandt and Söderholm. In these cases they were truly serving voluntarily as it has been reported that many of them had their families already safely in Sweden and their enlistments into the Waffen-SS were done on a purely idealistic basis (19).

 

It has not been reported that any of these Estonian-Swedes were sent to the SS Junkerschule at Bad Tölz or were ever promoted to ranks higher than NCO, or had ever received any higher military decorations. The explanation for this can be found in the fact that these volunteers had no military background and their knowledge of the German language was limited and they also somewhat of a cultural disparity in this regards.


Footnotes

 

1) Stein/Krosby, „Das Finnische Freiwilligen-Bataillon der Waffen-SS - Eine Studie zur SS-Diplomatie und zur ausländischen Freiwilligen- Bewegung“ in „Vierteljarheshette für Zeitgeschichte“, 1966 Nr.4, p.422.

 

2) For more information about this unit, see Wilhelm Tieke’s work: DAS FINNISCHE FREIWILLIGEN-BATAILLON DER WAFFEN-SS, (Osnabrück: Munin-Verlag), 1979 and the recent work WIKINGIN SUOMALMSET by Kari Kuusela and Olli Wikberg, (Helsinki: Wiking- Divisioona Oy), 1996.

 

3) Paul Dahm was an NSDAP and SS member long before the takeover of power in Germany who had the SS Nr.5792 and the Party Nr. 25.343. He was born on 6 June 1904. See his unpublished memiors, „Werbung germanishche Freiwilligen“, 1969, INO (Oslo) Archives Doc.Nr.100744.

 

4) Paul Dahm, Op.Cit. p.14.

 

5) Henrik Berg, FÜHRENS TROGNA FÖUESLAGARE. DEN FINLÄNSKA NAZISMEN 1932-1944, (Ekenäs: Schildts), 1991.

 

6) „SS-Obersturmführer Lennart Simeon Wallen har stupat (Berlin 10.11.42)“, n.7-8 1942, signe by SS-Ustuf. Unto Boman.

 

7) For a complete list of the names of the Finnish nationals that enlisted see Dr. Mauno Jokipii’s book: PANTTIPATALJAAMA, (Helsinki: Weilen and Goos), 1968. 1996 edition by Veljesapu R.Y., Helsinki. It is surely the best source to follow the story of this military unit.

 

8) Report on the interrogation of Stubaf. Karl Leib, Akershus Prison, Oslo, 16 Nov. 1945. Report No.PWIS (Norway)/36, INO Archives doc.No. 101873.

 

9) Ewald Klapdor: MIT DEM PANZERREGIMTN 5 WIKING IM OSTEN, (Privately printed in Siek, Germany), 1981, p.288. Also Patrick Agte’s article „Zum Tode des finnischen SS-Obersturmführer Ola Odin, finnischer Träger des Deutsches Kruezes in Gold“ in „Der Freiwillige“, January 1997. The misspelling of the surname, Odin for Olin, was a typographical error as the correct name appears in the article.

 

10) For more references about these pure Estonian units see ESTONIAN FREEDOMFIGHTERS IN WWII published by the Voitleju Relief Foundation Book Committee in Toronto, undated.

 

11) Medical Doctor Franz Riedweg was born in Lucerne, Switzerland on 10 April 1997. He joined the SS well before the war and became the head of the „Germanische Leitstelle“ in Berlin, which was in charge of the recruitment and coordination of the Germanic volunteers in the Waffen- SS.

 

12) Interview with the Estonian-Swede, Felix Sedman in „Fran skuggornas värld-ater till Uvet“, Tallinn 1994, p.53. He was one of the many Estonian-Swedes that were recruited by force by the Red Army in 1940 who later escaped to join the German Army when Operation „Barbarossa“ began. Ryden’s activities in Estonia have also been verified by Lennart Westberg, the foremost Swedish historian on the Swedish W-SS. Letter to the author dated 19 November 1992.

 

13) Monatsbericht/Oktober 1942, 20.11.1942.VS-Tgb. Nr. 4624/42 geh. Classified as a secret document. Dr. Riedwig to Reichsführer Himmler.

 

14) Germansk Budstikke, nr. 3/4 1942, „En times tid med fly fra Stockholm“ by SS-KB Dr. Lienhard.

 

15) Reichsführer Himmler to Steiner, 18.03.1943, National Archives, Washington, T-175/74/2592296.

 

16) Expressen,12.04.1993.

 

17) Recorded case of the SS-Pz.Grenadier Axel Ahlberg.

 

18) A report from the Party official at Bedin, dated 12 November 1943, which lists the name of 13 Estonian-Swedes. Many of these names will also appear in the Christmas salutation published in the Party newspaper, Den Svenske folksocialisten, December 1943.

 

19) These Christmas salutes of 1943 were mostly sent to their families in Sweden.

 

Editor’s note: There are actually 20 footnotes to this article. I missed the first one when I was retyping this article for publication. It should have been at the end of paragraph four on page 30. It goes as follows: „Expressen“, a journal from Stockholm, Sweden, 12.4.1993. The KGB even had these men filed as Swedish nationals, therefore it was possible to find their names. The Swedish Foreign Ministry’s records (File HP:39) also contains information about this situation that showed that the Swedish government was fully aware of this.

 

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Hans Schön, born 1926, transferred from the Navy into the W-SS on 24 Oct. 1944. He was sent to 4th Co. of the SS-Sharpshooters Training and Replacement Btl. at Kienschlag. He fought in Hungary in 1945.

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