Germanische Officer Courses at Bad Tölz

[John P. Moore]

The list below of the graduates from the 3.germanische Offiziere Lehrgang at Bad Tölz assigns them to specialty schools for further training prior to joining field units. Most men were promoted to Untersturmführer in June 1944, although some were already recognized with officer rank.

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[John P. Moore]

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[Jan-Hendrik]

Dear John, thank you very much for this inpit



Jan-Hendrik

[camp upshur]

Yes, I second the thanks!

I am quite surprised by the rather advanced age of some of these Junkers, perhaps they were formally officers of other militaries and given laterals ?

[ghp95134]

John,

Do you have any paper on Lauri Törni attending one of the Junkerschulen?

I don't know if I told you, but as Larry Thorne he was a private (or private first class) in the Special Forces and on my father's team ca 1956 (I don't remember the exact date but have verified it earlier). All my father remembers about PFC Thorne is that (1) he held two Mannerheim Crosses [a misunderstanding as he held "only" one Knight's Cross of the Mannerheim Cross which is the "equivalent to the Medal of Honor"]; (2) he was a Finnish captain who also served in the German Army; (3) could not return to Finland because of the Communists [we didn't know then that he was W-SS]; (4) he could speak only a few words in English (my father said he was almost the only one on his team who spoke English as a native language); and (5) he was friends with my father's immediate supervisor (in 1966-68) LTC Aito Keravuori; whom I think was Torni's superior in the Finish Army. LTC Keravuori was the Executive Officer of Training Group when my father was the S4. My father knew about Larry Thorne's helecopter going down in RVN when he was there -- I told him recently about the crash finally being verified, etc.

According to this post, Törni was "...among the early volunteers for what became the Finnisches Freiwilligen SS-Bataillon "Nordost" - and Lauri became an SS Untersturmführer (2/LT; 8 May 1941) ...." Didn't know that, but I did know he was sent to Junkerschule but returned early because of Finnish national emergency (as I recall, all Finnish candidates were returned before course completion); and, that he served as Hauptsturmführer in the last stages of the war.

[off topic] This link tells more about LTC Keravuori. He pinned on his colonel's eagles on the day he retired. My father, the Special Forces Training Group S4, jumped with Keravuori on his last jump. Have photos of them looking at the baton that the Golden Knights jumped and presented him. He also promoted my father to major.[/off topic]

Regards,
--Guy Power

[John P. Moore]

Guy - I do know about the interesting military career of Larry Thorne. However, his service in the Waffen-SS was very brief. There is no Personalakte for Larry Thorne and I have not seen his name turn up in any W-SS documents. The Finns in the "Wiking" division performed very well.

Steve - I believe that after successfuly completing a Junkerschule course that a man could receive an officer's commisssion in the Waffen-SS at an equivalent rank that he held in his nation's military.

John

[Regiment Norge]

Hi folks!

John has right when he wrote that "a man could receive an officer's commisssion in the Waffen-SS at an equivalent rank that he held in his nation's military". These officers courses was much shorter than the Kriegs-Junker-Lehrgang and the attendees were officers in their national army. The "Lehrgang für germanische Offiziere" was made to let those national officers go through the Junkerschule in 3 months because they had the military education before. I got a letter from Dr. Franz Riedweg who wrote this to me. When the Freikorps Danmark and the Fre.Legion Flandern/Nederland/Norwegen was bulid in 1941 the officers who joined these units was given the equal rank in the W-SS he had from his national army. In 1942 all education of officers in the W-SS must go through Junkerschule, there is an order from Himmer to this. I know from a norwegian point of view and several german documents points out that the SS-Hauptamt, and also RFSS were diasapointed on many Legions-Offiziere and you can read in the documents that they (the germans) must do something about the education of officers.

So after the summer of 1942 these national officers must go throug a course at Tölz. The first course started in november/december 1942 for "Norwegische und Estnische Offiziere". But on the other hand, here in Norway you can find individual norwegian officers that were given the equalt rank in the W-SS without this course anyway. The reason to that is not possible to explain, but within the 3 SS- und Polizeikompanie Norwegen there were tt2 or 3 who were promoted to Ustuf without attending JS. The famous Egil HOEL, who became an SS-Ostubaf and in the spring of 1943 was the Kp.-Chef of the 2. SS- und Polizeikompanie Norwegen did get his SS-Hstuf rank without any course at JST.

Regards

[ghp95134]

[quote="John P. Moore"]The list below of the graduates from the 3.germanische Offiziere Lehrgang at Bad Tölz.....

download/file.php?id=303

Hey John!!!! In the first paragraph, last person.....I just noticed Auke Pattist. Our HaEn served under him when he became a "panzerjaeger".

--Guy

[John P. Moore]

Regiment Norge - Thank you for providing that very good explanation.

Guy - I don't believe that Haen will ever forget Auke Pattist and his "Himmelfahrtkommando"

Here is the graduating class of the 1.germanic Lehrgang at Bad Tölz

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[Regiment Norge]

Hi!

To John: thanks for posting those interesting documents. There exists even two other separate document to this course (1 lehrgang für germ. Offz.).

I know that some norwegian officers was transferred from the Lehrgang für germanische Offiziere to the paralell ongoing Kriegs-Junker-Lehrgang (see SS-PA Harald SÖDAHL). The reason to this one can only speculate i.e. the individual need to have more training????

One of the biggest problems the norwegian officers met at Tölz was language. They had to learn german, and many norwegian participants at these courses complained about this, also told in conversation after the war. Like their fellow countrymen at Kriegs-Junker-Lehrgang who had at least 1 year of combat experience at the front as within the WIKING division and 6 months within the Frw. Legion Norwegen these officers had NO war combat experience at the eastern front. Maybe they had participated in the campaign and war against the germans in April-June 1940. But the combat experience in this campaign was little compairing what took place on the eastern front.

All of the first "wave" of former norwegian officers came from within the ranks of the norwegian Arbeidstjeneste (Organisation Todt equal). Nobody had combat experience on the eastern front. There is a letter in the SS-PA of Gottfried KLINGENMANN to SS-Hauptamt and Gottlob BERGER complaining about the big troubles at this first germanic course and there seems to be a rather disappointing results at the Zwischenprüfung. Sadly any documents relating to Tölz about candidates who failed at Zwischenprüfung and were dismissed from the school are not present in the archives. It not anybody at feldgrau can shred some lights to this........

The deutch officer Georg STROINK who attended the 1 course wrote in his diary that he was very disapointed to several norwegian officers attending the same course as he. STROINK wrote that they compained on everything but also remarks that some german NCOs at the school had a poor psychologial view and threated these germanic officers rather poorly, naming them "Sumpf- or Beute-Germanern". Many norwegians DID not want to fill out the form SS-Verplichtungsschein, were they must write their statements to Hitler, and you can see in several norwegian SS-PA that they have not signed these documents because of the text. How the germans reachted to this I do not know, but I can imagine a rather angry attitude against those norwegians.

[Stormman]

Thank you very much! Very interesting documents!
What's the difference between a SS-Ustuf. or a SS-Frw.Ustuf.?
And could it be that SS-Ustuf.d.Germanische SS also where allowed for this course? Because Alfons Wachtelaer was also SS-Ustuf. in the Germanische SS, Sturmführer of the Germanische SS-Sturmbanne in Berlin.