Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti - 23.sējums

Dr. Matthew Kott. What Does the Holocaust in the Baltic States Have to Do with the SS’ Plans?
in Norway. The German SS leadership, too, wished for Norwegians after their front
service to return home and take up key positions as the vanguard of the pan-Germanic
SS idea in Norwegian society. 88
Hence, both Lie and Himmler sought the same things, namely, the creation of a
Norwegian cohort of an SSified pan-Germanic Staatsschutzkorps, from which an elite
could be chosen for appointments in kämpfende Verwaltung. The question is: did they
want these for the same reasons?
On the part of the SS, the goal appears to be the same as it was in 1940: namely,
to gain more or less total control of Norway by neutralising the influence of all its
competitors for power. When the SS had been outflanked in September 1940 with the
appointment of Quiling as head of government, the plans for trying to rule Norway by
hijacking the Nasjonal Samling party were abandoned. Instead, the SS shifted its focus
to the police. Just as he had gained inordinate power in Germany by remoulding the
former police forces to fit the SS’ ideological and operational purposes, so, too, was
winning the Norwegian police for the SS the key to winning control of Norway. When
wedded to front service in units of the Orpo or the Waffen-SS, the police would become
a fifth column for the SS, bringing the principles of Staatsschutzkorps and kämpfende
Verwaltung into the core institutions of the Norwegian polity. Norway was important to
Himmler not only for the fact that it was racially so purely Nordic, but also because it
would hopefully become the model of an SS state, which could be applied in extending
SS control over other Germanic territories, and ultimately even Germany proper. 89
Some evidence for this interest in tightening SS control over Norway, and the
occupied Germanic countries, can be found in the directive formulated by Himmler
in mid-March 1942 concerning Berger’s increased powers with regard to Germanic
volunteers. Berger and Heydrich had requested this directive in order to better coordinate
the activities of the SS-Hauptamt and the RSHA in this policy area. Himmler’s order not
only entrusted new tasks to Berger’s Germanische Freiwilligen-Leitstelle, but devolved
these powers to the HSSPFs in the various territories. Recruitment of volunteers to
frontline police units (Polizeiverbände) was specifically mentioned in conjunction with
recruitment to the Waffen-SS and the national Legions. The building up of Germanic SS
organisations in occupied countries and in Germany proper was to take place according
to centralised guidelines. Finally, all youth and student organisations in the Germanic
countries were to become recruitment bodies for the SS.
A link between these intensified plans for the SSification of Norway and the
Germanic countries can be found in the recipients’ list for this order. It was specifically
addressed to six recipients: Redieß, Hans Albin Rauter, Theodor Berkelmann, Kurt
Kaul, Rudolf Querner, and Stahlecker. 90 The first five were all HSSPFs for territories
where Germanic SS, Waffen-SS, and police volunteers were recruited, trained, or both.
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