question for our Norway members

[Angel Farré]

Along the years of collecting I have hear a lot of stories with more or less base (some with nothing, but simply fair tales or fakers excuses) but one always make me wonder if could be true and some proofs pointed in its direction. According to it after WW II the German soldiers in POW camps under British command and placed in Norway received his Wehrpass for I.D. purpose and that's why a lot of Soldbuch and Wehrpass combos for soldiers ending in this situation are in the market nowdays and why is common to find groups with the Wehrpass and documents to this soldiers. Myself has two of this and have seen various more, but never wonder why were so "easy" to see this combos and so rare with other theaters and/or other P.O.W. zones as under American custody. Do you know something about this or just another tale for the kids?

Angel

[Simon O.]

Hi Angel
The first thing to understand is that the Wehrmacht in Norway were in a special situation. There were really very few allied forces sent to Norway to deal with the surrender and disarming. The Germans held a very great deal of control over it's own forces including the administration. It's one of the reasons you find correct pay entries throughout the summer of 1945, promotions, decorations and even the correct entries in the soldbuch for the handing in of personal weapons and equipment.
Technically they were not even POWs, you will not to the best of my knowledge find period documents refering to them as such. They were ordered to gather in to 'reservations' by the British and (if memory serves) i have a document which states that something like 5 British soldiers were allocated to every 500 axis personnel (axis because there were many non-Germans here).

So to answer your question i think it's to do with the fact that the Wehrmacht was still functioning properly in Norway and the soldiers went through an orderly process of discharge administered by their own units who obviously still had all their records.

BTW, i'll have to look up for you how many Spaniards were serving in North Norway in the wehrmacht or one of the paramilitary organisations.


Hope this helps


Simon

[Simon O.]

Hi Angel

I just checked and there was a grand total of 1 Spanish national serving with the Germans in North Norway (north of Trondheim). He was around the area of Skibotn close to the Norwegian\Finnish\Swedish border. Unfortunately i have no idea which unit he was in but the area was mainly the 6 Geb.Div. with a few other smaller units around.



Simon

[Angel Farré]

Hi Angel

I just checked and there was a grand total of 1 Spanish national serving with the Germans in North Norway (north of Trondheim). He was around the area of Skibotn close to the Norwegian\Finnish\Swedish border. Unfortunately i have no idea which unit he was in but the area was mainly the 6 Geb.Div. with a few other smaller units around.



Simon

Thanks Simon, alongside the years I have located single volunteers in several WH and Waffen SS units incluiding a couple in GJ divisions. He probably enlisted as volunteer early in the war (1.940) or after the disband of the Spanish Blue Legion (march 1.944)

Angel