Waffen SS within Belgium and Finland

[Claire T]

HI All,

I'm working on a history series on WW2 and I'm looking into the SS factions and members outside of Germany. Specifically we are interested in Leon Degrelle and the Belgian SS and Ralf Nevanlinna and the Finnish SS, however if anyone had any info on those factions in a more wider basis, I'd love to hear it.

Does anyone knows of any experts on these 2 men and the SS within Belgium and Finland? I have a few people to contact but if anyone knew of anyone who they could recommend, I'd be very interested to talk to them.

Also if you have any good photographs or links to archive footage, again, I'd be very grateful to receive them.

Thanks so much, I look forward to hearing from you all and your expert opinions!

Kind Regards,
Claire

[Helly Angel]

Welcome to the forum Claire!

The best source about Leon Degrelle that I found are the books that he wrote: "Hitler para 100 years" (something like "Hitler to 100 years") and other long list you can found in spanish, I think is more easy found Degrelle´s books in english in internet.

Here is the link in spanish to guide your search, to help the titles in english:

http://www.quedelibros.com/libro/14911/ ... relle.html

Good luck!!

[Fennicus]

HI All,

I'm working on a history series on WW2 and I'm looking into the SS factions and members outside of Germany. Specifically we are interested in Leon Degrelle and the Belgian SS and Ralf Nevanlinna and the Finnish SS, however if anyone had any info on those factions in a more wider basis, I'd love to hear it.

Does anyone knows of any experts on these 2 men and the SS within Belgium and Finland? [...]

Hello Claire,

There was no "SS within Finland"! There was only the Finnish volunteer battalion, which was dissolved in 1943, a handful of individuals who stayed on in Germany after that and, finally, in late 1944/early 1945, a small number of individuals who joined the retreating German troops leaving Finland for Norway and eventually Germany.

Rolf Nevanlinna was a famous Finnish mathematician. He had strong sympathies for Germany (his mother was German) and right-wing political views, but was not a national socialist. He was the chairman of the committee that oversaw recruitment to the Finnish volunteer battalion and the welfare of the colunteers. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolf_Nevanlinna.

Regards
Markus

[Claire T]

Thanks Both, and thanks for the welcome Helly Angel. I am currently looking for the books written by Leon Degrelle. Some of them are actually online on the Institute for Historical Research website.

Apologies Markus, I should have been more specific, I meant the volunteer batallions of the SS within Finland. If anyone had any photographs or footage of the Belgian SS or of the Volunteer Battallions from Finland, I'd be very interested to hear from them. I have lots of pictures of general SS soldiers but it would be good to get the specific divisions we will be talking about.

Thanks All!
Claire

[John Hilly]

Hello, Claire!
Here's some sites about the subject:

http://www.feldgrau.com/articles.php?ID=19

http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=1717

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finnish_Vo ... _Waffen-SS

With best regards
Juha-Pekka

[Claire T]

Thanks John, they're really useful sites!
Claire

[SethVP]

Also Belgium hasn’t an SS because when we speak of Belgium we speak of two folks that lives in that country, the Flemish (Dutch speaking, in the North) and Walloon (French speaking, in the South) people and they had both their own SS troops. Leon Degrelle was the leader of the Walloon SS (he served also in the Wehrmacht).

Here you have some information about
The evolution of the Flemish Waffen SS
SS-Freiwilligen-Verband Flandern: http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=1910
SS-Freiwilligen Legion Flandern: http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=1911
SS-Freiwilligen-Sturmbrigade Langemarck: http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=1912
6. SS-Freiwilligen-Sturmbrigade Langemarck: http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=1913
27. SS-Freiwilligen-Grenadier-Division Langemarck (flämische Nr. 1):
http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=1914

The evolution of the Walloon Waffen SS
Wallonische-Infanterie Bataillon 373 (Heer): http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=9573
SS-Sturmbrigade Wallonien: http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=1906
5. SS-Freiwilligen-Sturmbrigade Wallonien: http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=1907
28. SS-Freiwilligen-Grenadier-Division Wallonien: http://www.axishistory.com/index.php?id=1908

Leon Degrelle
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Degrelle

Of course you find also a lot of information about the Walloon/Flemish SS on wikipedia

Leon Degrelle (Heer)

2912516026_469ac737e4[1].jpg (46.08 KiB) Viewed 1578 times

Leon Degrelle in Heer uniform,
You see very clear the shield for Walloon volunteers (a Belgian flag) on his arm (The Flemish volunteers hadn’t the Belgium flag but the Flemish lion).

Leon Degrelle (SS)

degrellehitler[1].jpg (14.22 KiB) Viewed 1578 times

Leon Degrelle in SS uniform when he met Hitler.

Leon Degrelle (in Spain)

DegrelleSpainuniform[1].jpg (17.61 KiB) Viewed 1578 times

Leon Degrelle after the war in his house in Spain.

Groeten,
Seth

[Panzermahn]

By the way, Degrelle did not speak a word of German so I believed Hitler did understood some French or a sprachmittler was present

[Rob - wssob2]

Thanks Both, and thanks for the welcome Helly Angel. I am currently looking for the books written by Leon Degrelle. Some of them are actually online on the Institute for Historical Research website.

Don't bother. His book is Revisionist pro-Nazi rebob that's historically inaccurate. IHR is BTW a holocaust-denial website.

David Littlejohn's The Patriotic Traitors or Estes' A European Anabasis - Western European Volunteers in the German Army and SS, 1940-1945 are better.

Degrelle was the leader of the "Rex" party- the primary Walloonish collaborationist party in Belgium. He was first and foremost a political leader and his military reputation was in many respects a sham.

Postwar, he was an unrepentant Nazi, whose anti-Semitic views led to several lawsuits and eventually to Spain passing it holocaust denial laws.

Having read multiple works on collaboration in general and Degrelle in particular, IMO he was a particularly odorous, slimy man and a traitor to his country.

[John Hilly]

I'd like to say "Dear Claire", but then I supposedly would be called a "Shovinist Pig"!
That is not my intention.
If You can read German or have translated it for You, I could try to find a scholarly-written article by Prof. Mauno Jokipii, where he examines the build-up of the Finnish Battalion.
I had it once, but now I don't remember its place.
I had original photos of the Finnish SS-Battalion in my old computer, but - as You can guess - they ended up in recycling with the rotten computer!
But I try to find this paper I metioned above. Hope I have better luck with this than the Photos!
Good luck for Your research!
With best
J-P

[John Hilly]

I found the site. Watch the pages 2 and 3.
http://forum.panzer-archiv.de/viewtopic ... d&start=15

With best
J-P

[-Michael]

If you want to make something about the Belgians that served in the Waffen-SS, you have to study the very complicated political history of the country. This is probably very hard to understand for an outsider, and even harder to understand if you live in the UK, where the press gives a very wrong view on the political landscape of Belgian in the past and the present...

[ljadw]

because the press was and IS taking her informations from only one side:most foreign correspondents are lazy and ignorant and do not leave Brussels

[Claire T]

Hi All,

Yes, don't worry we will certainly be making mention of both the Flemish and the Walloon SS divisions. I simply said Belgium as I am eager for any information at all that people on this forum might have. I am looking for contacts, photographs and recommendations for websites, books and historians.

Thanks Rob, I have already been reading Estes book but the other suggestion is new and I will certainly try to get a copy. The main reason I have been reading Degrelles writings on IHR is because it's always good to have a sense of the man you are talking about and what better way than to read his writings.

But please, if anyone has any further information for me, that would be great.

Thanks,
Claire

[Bart V.]

See the new PM for arrangement interviews. I already gave my webadress in private to you but for other people www.vlaamslegioen.com