Sweden, the Swastika and Stalin (2010) is the first modern book in English to cover just about all major aspects of Sweden during WWII. It should become required reading for all students of 20th century Scandinavian history.
Good title - it captures the main concerns of the wartime Swedish government, Hitler AND Stalin. Never just one of them. The subtitle is also natural: The Swedish Experience in the Second World War.
The contents are also pleasing as the author has correctly recognized the major influence of events in Finland upon Swedish wartime policy and decision-making.
The following quote from the book, made by the British ambassador to Sweden, Sir Victor Mallet, sums up a sober view of Sweden during WWII: "Swedish neutrality was of far greater value to us than a Swedish act of suicide in 1940 would have been."
John Gilmour seems to agree with Sir Mallet and himself states "Swedish options were in practice heavily circumscribed".
With satisfaction I noted that the author has made some use of having read my book about WWII and northernmost Sweden, Slaget om Nordkalotten (with James F. Gebhardt).
However, Gilmour writes very little about the major Swedish volunteer movements of the war, the two for Finland in 1939 and 1941, and writes nothing about the Swedish citizens in Allied and German war service, nor about conclusions that can be drawn from Swedes at War. Well, I guess I should be grateful, as this means that students of 20th century Scandinavian history must also get the latter book...
What Sweden, the Swastika and Stalin is also lacking is a good cover and more photographs, better reproduced. Still, it is certainly an important and useful book. A second edition with a better cover ought to sell more than OK.
The book Luftwaffe Fighters and Fighter-Bombers over the Far North (2008) by the Norwegian authors Andreas Brekken and Kjetil Åkra contains good historic summaries re. the Luftwaffe fighter and fighter-bomber units in the Arctic regions of Finland, Norway and the Soviet Union in 1940-1945. The many illustrations are just amazingly good.
Luftwaffe Fighters and Fighter-Bombers over the Far North (2008)
This book above all delivers many fantastic b/w photos, superb color plates and also some color photographs.
I find it hard to write something negative about this book as it is not only comprehensive given the scope of the title, it is also quite simply a very beautiful book.
Some might wonder about the number of pages: 160. Well, its a large format book so thats just fine.
In short a must-have if you are interested of the Luftwaffe in this extreme geographic area during WWII or just into painting Luftwaffe scale models.
A beautiful Russian ballerina working as a German Abwehr spy "helped to turn the course" of the battle of Narvik, several newspapers now state. The basis for this story being newly released files from MI5.
Did General Eduard Dietl "win" the battle of Narvik thanks to a Russian ballerina? Hardly. To begin with he did not defeat the Allies. But could the glamorous Marina Lie/Lee have helped him to hold out until the Allied withdrawal? This photo of Dietl was taken in 1943, on his left arm he is wearing his Narvik shield.
I am still skeptical about the value of the secrets delivered by Marina Lie/Lee to General Dietl. However, I have looked through that Norwegian book bout her and will look deeper into this whole thing in a year or two when I can get down to completing my English-language book about WWII in the Arctic.
US Special Forces legend Larry Thorne, born as Lauri Törni, is the most famous warrior from Finland after Marshal Mannerheim. But soon six more highly decorated American soldiers from Finland will be presented to the general public.
Lauri Törni among some of his rangers in the Finnish Army. Originally a black &
white photo.
In the book The Green Berets by Robin Moore, the Swedish-sounding "Sven Kornie" was based on the very real Larry Thorne, born in Finland as Lauri Törni. The book was made into a movie with the same name ("The Green Berets") starring John Wayne as "Mike Kirby", a character based on Törni/Thorne. In my latest book in Swedish, Elitförband i Norden, about the elite units of the Nordic countries, I of course write about him. However, that man deserves much more space, a biography. There is more than one and the best is no doubt Born a Soldier by the Finnish-speaking US diplomat J. Michael Cleverley.
Thorne was much appreciated and decorated in the United States and was buried in the Arlington National Cemetary, being the only Waffen-SS veteran there, I believe. He did not, though, receive the Medal of Honor. This decoration, the highest US military decoration, has however been bestowed on no less than six men born in Finland. For some reason though, very little has been written about them in any language. One can guess it has to do with that they served prior to WWII and the interest in WWI and other wars is not as great as that in WWII. Still, their feats should interest a rather wide audience not least Swedes and Swedish Americans, as five of the six portrayed men were ethnic Swedes.
Well, in October the first book about these men will appear, in Swedish, under the title Ärans medalj, meaning Medal of Honor. Understandably, I have not yet read the book but I do know the author, K-G Olin and can vouch for his high standard in researching and writing. Here is the cover of the book:
The cover of Ärans medalj, meaning Medal of Honor, by K-G Olin.
If you are interested in Finnish history and especially Finnish American history, and can read Swedish, you REALLY should check out Olin´s books. Here is his website.
I thought it was pretty amazing when German author Günter Grass in 2006 disclosed that he had been a soldier of the Waffen-SS. But perhaps one could consider Gereon Goldmann an even more unlikely Waffen-SS soldier?
Before WWII the early Waffen-SS (then basically the SS-VT) was purely a volunteer formation. After the war broke out it became increasingly based on conscription, which was how even some persons strongly opposed to the SS ended up in the Waffen-SS.
There used to be a website devoted to his life, but it is now down, so I have removed the link to it. However, please comment here if you know of any other sources about Gereon Goldmann, both books and on the web.
In a previous post I displayed an image from 1916 of the first pattern of the now iconic German Stahlhelm, the classic German helmet. But perhaps its history should be traced back to medieval times? I am equally fascinated by how the design survived 1945. So, lets examine the Stahlhelm from Albrecht Dürer to Darth Vader…
Detail from Albrecht Dürer´s painting "The Knight, death and the devil".
WWI model German Stahlhelm with futuristic camouflage pattern, worn by Swedish volunteer Konrad Hallgren. Detail from a photo in Swedes at War.
"When John Mollo needed to create a rough mock-up for Darth Vader [...] he grabbed a German helmet from the military room". The photo depicts not the mock-up but the end result. PHOTO: Andres Rueda Lopez
Somewhere in the back of my head was a memory of having read about how the basic Stahlhelm shape had medieval origins. Then the other day I was reading a German officer´s memoir that has yet not been translated into English, but ought to be: Zwei Brüder im Hitlerkrieg by Karl Wand. The English title would be Two Brothers in Hitler´s War.
Karl Wand served in the German Army in Greece and then on the Eastern Front. In France he served as an officer in Sicherungs-Regiment 1, stationed in Paris. Under the Valkyrie (Walküre) orders this regiment was to arrest the members of Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and Gestapo in Paris. This they did on the evening of July 20th 1944, without any great problems.
Regarding the Stahlhelm design Wand writes: "The origins of this type of helmets can be seen in Albrecht Dürer´s painting The Knight, death and the devil".
Because of its knightly origins, Karl Wand wanted to make a ceremony out of the first time he put on the helmet, as an infantry recruit in 1938. Wand: "a kind of crowning".
Thus it seems clear to me that German soldiers before WWII at least believed that their helmet had medieval origins.
But is there more direct proof that Friedrich Schwerd, the designer of the first Stahlhelm, actually was inspired by medieval sallet helmets, in German Schaller.
This article says this about Schwerd being inspired: "He knew his military history, citing the German sallet (Schallernhelm) as his model".
So, is it a fact then, that the Stahlhelm is a 20th century Schaller? I would like very much to hear from readers of this blog about this. Please use the comments function of the blog. But before you write, let me say that I do have the book World War One German Army by Stephen Bull. It does not state that the Schallernhelm was the model. It does say (p. 81) that "The resultant contour was, as Schwerd himself observed, something like the Schallernhelm of the Middle Ages [...]". In my opinion this quote does not fully match the previous one. So, more quotes and sources are very welcome.
Regarding how Stahlhelms were actually made there is this German WWII news reel I think you will want to see if you have not already seen it:
Unlike the Third Reich the Stahlhelm survived. In East Germany (GDR/DDR) by the introduction of the Wehrmacht´s last helmet prototype, the Thale B-II. This design was used, just slightly modified, by the East German Armed Forces until the demise of the Berlin Wall, and with it East Germany itself. But perhaps there are still some in service in the Third World - as several were handed out there as military aid. Has anyone seen it in recent years in Africa or Asia I wonder?
In the west the design was not used within the West German Army, but instead within the Bundesgrenzschutz, the Federal Border Force. The manufacturer of these postwar helmets had been producing M1940 helmets for the Wehrmacht. The name of the company, Quist, makes one wonder if not the founding family had Swedish roots. The Swedish word kvist/quist means small branch or twig. Here is a web page about the company, but it says nothing about the family itself. Does someone know more?
During the final years of East Germany the basic Stahlhelm design was adopted by the US Armed Forces. The result was the PASGT.
Finally there is the Stahlhelm in outer space... Surely, the helmet of Darth Vader can be considered as some sort of cosmic Stahlhelm? Well, it seems as if it was not that Teutonic to start with. This is what Mary Henderson wrote about the Vader helmet in her beautiful book Star Wars: The Magic of Myth on page 189: "Lucas told McQuarrie that he wanted [...] a large helmet like that of the Japanese samurai". Furthermore: "Vader´s mask and helmet evoke the armor of the Japanese feudal period: the kabuto, or helmet, had many different designs, but most featured a bowl-like crown that flared out at the back of the neck, often in overlapping metal plates. Vader´s one-piece helmet follows the same basic shape".
However, there is one more source one should examine about Vader´s helmet: the most comprehensive book I know about the original "Star Wars": The Making of Star Wars by J.W. Rinzler. In this book, on page 34, the helmet starts out like this, according to artist Ralph McQuarrie´s own words: "He [George Lucas] liked the idea of Vader having a big hat, like a fisherman´s hat, a big long metal thing that came down". So, there was no Germanic origin? Well, at a later stage uniform expert John Mollo was to finalize the design and this is what Rinzler writes about this stage on page 112 of his book, in Mollo´s own words "For Darth Vader, we put on a black motorcycle suit, a Nazi helmet, a gas mask, and a monk´s cloak we found in the Middle Ages department".
Mary Henderson basically states the same thing on page 164 of her book: "When John Mollo needed to create a rough mock-up for Darth Vader from the costume stock on hand at a costume warehouse in England, he grabbed a German helmet from the "military room" [...]".
So, at least in the last stages the Stahlhelm did indeed play a role in the evolution of the Vader helmet.
On a side note the "Star Wars" universe includes many more items from the Wehrmacht, less inspired and more Third Reich original than Vader´s helmet. Vader´s stormtroopers use both MG 34 and MG 42 machine guns; Han Solo has a blaster that is based on the Mauser C96 semi-automatic pistol of WWI vintage; some Jawas on the planet Tatooine (my favourite name for an alien planet) wear K98 Mauser rifle ammo packs.
So, to summarize: both Dürer and Darth are part of the Stahlhelm story - but perhaps not as much as I thought. Feedback most welcome!
Without looking below the image, can you guess which year the following drawing was published, and the nationality of the two soldiers?
Had I not known better I would have said Germans on the Eastern front in 1941.
Well, are you ready for the correct answer? This drawing (based on a photo?) was published in the Swedish weekly Vecko-Journalen on July 30, 1916. The caption is just "PROTECTIVE DISGUISE" (my translation). No kind of source. My guess is that they are Germans or possibly Austrians - judging by the boots and the large hand grenade pouch. Does anyone know more or can guess more?
