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Nico
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Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2016 5:22 am

Hello!

Post by Nico »

Hi!

Year-long forum lurker from Norway here. I've been trying to register for a good while but I believe forum registration was closed for a period, but as you can see I'm finally here now.

Being from Norway I'm mainly interested in the Norwegian Legion, SS Division Wiking, Waffen-SS Regiment Nordland, Germanic SS Norway and so on, but lately I've been expanding into the Legion of French Volunteers, La Légion Tricolore, SS Charlemagne and also the Lettische SS-Freiwilligen-Division (later Brigade) and the Estonian SS Volunteer Division to a lesser degree. I also have a great interest in the Heer of Wehrmacht.

I'd like to send a huge thank you to the participants of this forum (too many to name) that have been of tremendous help through posts with quotes, book reviews, unit histories among other things. Also a huge respect to SS veterans that despite their age (my mother's parents are younger than you but wouldn't touch a computer with a stick) continues to contribute to this community and can do so without judgement or stigmatisation that too many (specially foreign volunteers) veterans have been subjected to for the past 70 years.

Finally, a suggestion. It would be really nice to have an own sub-forum dedicated for new members to introduce themselves like I have just done. I see that this has been mainly done in this 'Comments and Suggestions' sub-forum but a lot of it gets drowned in technical help questions, suggestions and other things.

Really looking forward to be an actual part of this outstanding community.

Thanks!

Nico
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Tom Houlihan
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Re: Hello!

Post by Tom Houlihan »

Wilkommen, Nico!

Where in Norway are you? I've been to Trondheim, a little camp near there, then operating up around Narvik and points east! Beautiful country.

The one unit you left out of your list was Schi-Bataillon Norge, attached to 6.SS-Nord, which I'm researching. I can recommend a couple of books, but you probably have them already!

Enjoy!
TLH3
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Feldgrau für alle und alle für Feldgrau!
Nico
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Posts: 6
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2016 5:22 am

Re: Hello!

Post by Nico »

Ah, yes, you are absolutely right. I also omitted/forgot to mention a 2. Police Company which participated alongside the Schibatallion in the bloody battles around the Kaprolat and Hasselmann hills in Karelia where out of 200 men, 120 soldiers were killed while 23 died in Soviet prison camps - only around 15 POW veterans of the battle returned to Norway between the fall of 1945 and 1953. I actually have no idea how I forgot to mention the Schibatallion in my initial post because I've read several Norwegian books on the subject.

In 2004 and 2005 a Norwegian-Russian research team traveled to Kaprolat and found a lot of items and remains of Norwegian soldiers - pictures of their findings can be seen here: http://home.hib.no/mediesenter/nordiki/kaprolat2.htm

A documentary was also made about Wolfgang Windingstad's experiences on Kaprolat. He managed to escape from the battle after losing most of his comrades and decided to commit suicide with his Mauser rifle, but the bullet missed his heart and he was soon after captured by Soviet forces. He was released from Gulag in 1953.

The documentary is available on https://tv.nrk.no/serie/brennpunkt/oaua ... 24-02-2009# but it's only in Norwegian and I have no idea if it even works outside of Norway. Plenty of interesting footage. A short clip from the documentary can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlh4UMXxzFg - He describes where his foxhole was and where the first mortar shells landed.

Interesting! I live near Oslo. My aunt lives in Trondheim (and my father was born there) and there are some German barracks around 15 minutes of walking from her house. There are actually plenty of German barracks still standing in Norway and are commonly used for gatherings such as birthday parties, wedding parties etc. I celebrated my girlfriend's aunt's 50th birthday in old Heer barracks in Kongsvinger!
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