Martin Mansson wrote
I think that Johan Westrin was an Oberscharführer at the time.Other soldiers that I'm aware of who served in Gross are:
SS-Unterscharführer Johan Westrin (AA Gross)
SS-Rottenführer John-Erik Eriksson (Einheit Runge - Kompanie Stenglin)
Source: http://www.geocities.com/~orion47/SWEDEN/Waffen-SS.htmlWESTRIN, Johan Theodor Herje
SS-Oberscharführer
Born:-17 September 1916 in Stockholm, Sweden
Fate:-K.I.A. 18 September 1944
History:- He was apparently a career soldier, serving in both the Swedish and Finnish armies between 1936 and 1943. Specifically he served in the Finnish Army during the Winter War of 1939 - 1940, and again from August 1941 until April 1942. He evidently served in Finland as a Sergeant , with the permission of the Swedish Army. It would appear that Westrin went AWOL from his Finnsih unit in 1942. After being apprehended he was jailed and courtmartialed. He was first sentenced to three months imprisonment but this was reduced to an 18 day sentence of only bread and water. After being released he deserted permanently and was "dismissed" from the roster of his Finnish unit.
Westrinthen went back to the Swedish Army, "officially" serving from 18 April 1942 to 13 May 1943. However on the 14th April 1942, Westrin left Sweden for Norway and on 18th April he enlisted in the Waffen-SS in Oslo, stating that he wanted "to live the soldier's life above all else". the Swedish Army listed him as AWOL on 13th May 1943. Westrin was accepted into the Waffen-SS with the rank od SS-Unterscharführer and evidently served first with the 5th SS-Panzer-Division "Wiking" and then in the 11th SS-Panzergrenadier-Division "Nordland".
At some point in time he was sent to an NCO training class in Latvia after which he became an SS-Oberscharführer. He was then assigned to the SS-Panzer Reconnaissance Training and Replacement Detachment stationed in Riga-Strand training Camp, Latvia, where he served with the "stamm" company, which was the cadre formation for the unit. On 17th May 1944, while serving at Riga-Strand, Westrin applied to the SS Race and Resettlement Branch Office in Oslo for permission to marry a Lolo Eckhoff. Soon afterwards, SS-Oberscharführer Westrin's training unit was mobilised as part of the "ad hoc" SS-Panzer-Brigade "Gross". which was sent to the defence of eastern Latvia. Westrin was apparently killed with his whole squad of five men by a landmine on the 18th September 1944 near Saukenai, Lithuania. Other sources state that he also died on the 8 September 1944 and the 5 October 1944.
(Side note:- In 1987, the district court in Sveg in the western part of Sweden declared Johan Westrin officially dead. Westrin had been listed as a MIA (missing-in-action) since autumn 1944. The court somehow manage to locate a former German SS-Unterscharführer who had served with Westrin, testified that Westrin was killed when his car that he was traveling in ran over a landmine during a counter attack against the town of Saukenai, Lithuania, killing all occupants.)
Best,
Abel