Finnish volunteers in the Waffen-SS
From 1941 to 1943, 1,408 Finns volunteered for service on the Eastern Front of World War II in the Waffen-SS, in units of the SS Division Wiking. Most served as motorized infantry in the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS. The unit was disbanded in mid-1943 as the volunteers' two-year commitment had expired and the Finnish government was unwilling to allow more men to volunteer. In 1944-1945 a company-sized unit of Finnish defectors recruited to the SS continued fighting alongside Germany.
The battalion was formed following the Winter War, as Finland grew closer to Germany with recruitment beginning in 1941. Negotiations took place between the Finnish and German governments to reach compromises over certain sensitive issues for the battalion such as an oath of allegiance. Eventually, the volunteers were transported to Germany and split into two groups – experienced men who went straight to the Eastern Front to join Wiking, and one group that stayed in Germany for training, later becoming the Finnish Volunteer Battalion. In late 1941 and early 1942, the battalion completed their training and was sent to the Front. They participated in Case Blue, and were pulled back for the Battle of Stalingrad in late 1942. In April 1943, the battalion was withdrawn because of the two-year service agreement, and Finnish authorities such as Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Commander in Chief of the Finnish Defense Forces, proposed their agreements not be renewed. The battalion was finally disbanded on 11 July 1943.
Within historiography, the Finnish SS volunteers have been seen within Finland as an apolitical group, often connected to the Jäger Movement and the idea that the battalion was an elite unit. Finnish historiography has not mentioned many of the atrocities committed by SS Division Wiking, and only hinted at participation in atrocities. A series of high-publicity publications since 2017, however, have changed this. For example, a 2019 report by the National Archives of Finland concluded that "at least some of the cases show that Finnish volunteers did participate in carrying out atrocities against Jews and civilians". International sources say that the Finnish soldiers were likely involved in atrocities.
Background
By June 1941, when Nazi Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union, Finland had come to regard the latter as a threat to its independence and the former as its best and only ally against the USSR. Following the Finnish Civil War of 1918, during which the German Empire and USSR intervened to support the White and Red factions respectively, anti-communism and ethnic hatred of Russians became popular sentiments in Finland. Then, in 1939–40, the USSR attacked and defeated Finland in the Winter War, which cost Finland 25,000 casualties and 10% of its territory. Despite receiving no aid from Germany during the Winter War, and the German invasions and occupations of Norway and Denmark in mid-1940, Finland grew closer diplomatically to Germany. Finally, by early 1941, the Finnish government expected a military conflict between Germany and the USSR, and the Finnish public expected Finland would go to war again with the USSR with German assistance.In December 1940, the Schutzstaffel established the SS Division Wiking, a division-strength unit of the Waffen-SS, the SS's military wing. The division was to be composed of volunteers from Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, but into mid-1940 recruitment disappointed the SS. In November 1940, Gottlob Berger, chief of the SS Main Office, began exploring the possibility of expanding recruitment for Nordland in Finland. Meanwhile, Finnish officers such as generals and Paavo Talvela, who had served in the Imperial German Army as volunteers of the Jäger Movement, began seeking a Finnish volunteer force within the regular German armed forces.
In January 1941, Swedish businessman Ola Vinberg made a visit to Helsinki on a secret assignment with the German Foreign Office and reported to Berger his belief that around 700 Finns would join the SS. Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, approved expanding recruitment into Finland on 30 January, as did Adolf Hitler on 20 February. On 1 March 1941, Berger presented a request to recruit Finns for the Waffen-SS to the Finnish ambassador to Germany Toivo Mikael Kivimäki, who forwarded the request to Helsinki and to the German Foreign Office. The German Foreign Office sent Wipert von Blücher, the German ambassador in Helsinki, to obtain the Finnish government's consent on 9 March. Negotiations began 11 March and were concluded the following day with the unanimous approval the heads of the civilian Finnish government and Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, Commander in Chief of the Finnish military.
Recruitment and composition
As the recruitment of volunteers for the Waffen-SS violated Finnish neutrality, recruitment was carried out discreetly and without the official involvement of the Finnish government. To form a committee to manage recruitment in Finland,, the SS representative for recruitment in Finland, approached Lieutenant Colonel, who declined. In Nordström's stead,, former chief of the state police, was selected to form the committee. Riekki's committee started organizing recruitment on 25 March and opened an office in Helsinki on 7 April 1941. The office was dubbed the Engineering Agency Ratas, ostensibly to recruit workers for the Reichswerke Hermann Göring industrial conglomerate.Further negotiations delayed the beginning of recruiting to mid-April, as the Finnish government had certain concerns to settle with the SS. Helsinki first wanted Finnish volunteers to serve in the German Army, but eventually consented to the formation of an all-Finnish unit in the Waffen-SS. Helsinki also desired that Finnish volunteers not swear an oath of loyalty to Hitler or be deployed against any country other than the USSR and, in case Finland found itself at war with the USSR alone, that Germany would repatriate its volunteers. Germany accepted these requests on 28 April, in particular changing the oath to be sworn by the Finnish recruits to not mention Hitler. Recruits were to serve in the Waffen-SS until June 1943 and would be sent to Germany for training.
From March 1941, Germany desired the expansion of what became the Finnish Volunteer Battalion into a regiment-strength unit of 2,000 to 2,400 men, which the Finnish government rejected in May 1941. After entering the war on Germany's side, Finland sought the transfer of the Finnish volunteers into the German Army, back to Finland, or to the SS Division Nord alongside Finnish forces. Germany denied these requests.
A second round of recruiting was held from 3 to 27 July 1942 and was limited to 200 men of the Finnish Army under the direction of the pro-German mathematician Rolf Nevanlinna, who replaced Riekki. 239 soldiers were recruited and signed the same agreement as the first wave of volunteers and would be returned to Finland at the same time.
Composition
1,408 Finns were recruited into the Waffen-SS. Although recruitment had initially focused on the Swedish-speaking population of Finland, only about 12% of volunteers were Swedish-speaking. On average, the recruits were 21 years old, and held a collective ideology of Finnish nationalism, revanchism, and a Finnish form of Lutheran revivalism. The recruits' motives included a desire for German training, which implied possible economic advancement immediately through the SS and in the future through the Finnish Army, and pro-German, anti-Russian sentiment. In a report for the National Archives of Finland, Finnish historian Lars Westerlund found that antisemitism was not among the primary motives for the Finnish volunteers.As the goal of the Finnish government with regard to the volunteer unit was to confirm Finland's alliance with Germany and create a group of Finnish soldiers with German training rather than confirm Finnish allegiance to Germany or to Nazism, the Finnish government supervised recruitment. Helsinki and Riekki, seeking to diminish the influence of Finnish far-right groups in the unit and Finnish politics, recruited in all areas of Finland and carried out background checks on all applicants. Communists and members of far-right groups were excluded, and Riekki broke up attempts by far-right Finnish groups such as the Organisation of National Socialists and Front Soldier League to interfere in recruitment. Nevertheless, about two thirds of recruits came from those groups; according to Finnish historian, at least 45.1% of the recruits belonged to fascist groups. Reliable Finnish officers were also weeded into the volunteer unit to inform Finnish high command of activities within it.
Formation and training
From 6 May to 5 June 1941, 1,197 Finnish recruits traveled to Germany in five ships – four from Turku to Danzig and one from Vaasa to Stettin – for training and without passports. Upon arrival in Germany, each group of volunteers spent a few days with the SS garrison at the city of Stralsund. The 429 men aboard the first three ships, known in post-war Finnish historiography as the "division men" as opposed to the "battalion boys" that followed them, were sent to the Heuberg Training Area and the Vienna-Schönbrunn training center for a brief training period. Afterwards they joined various units of the SS Division Wiking in Silesia, ahead of Operation Barbarossa. Unfamiliarity with German tactics and weapons and a language barrier complicated the cohesion of the division men with the rest of SS Division Wiking.The 768 "battalion boys", meanwhile, were all sent to the Schönbrunn training center where, on 15 June they were formed into the SS-Volunteer Battalion Northeast , under the command of German Waffen-SS officer Hans Collani. The battalion returned to Stralsund in July and then in August was moved to the training grounds at Gross Born, where on 13 September, it was renamed the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS. The unit's training was complicated by a lack of Finnish trainers and the battalion's training being reduced in August to 10 October. The battalion's members were sworn in on 15 October, but was two more weeks of training and was not deemed ready for transfer to the Eastern Front until November.