SS Ski Jäger Battalion " Norwegen " The SS Ski Jäger Battalion " Norway " ( , ) was a volunteer combat battalion unit within the Waffen - SS , the armed wing of the Schutzstaffel , that served alongside but was never formally part of the Wehrmacht during World War II . It consisted of a majority of volunteers from Norway , and some enlisted German soldiers . Of the officers and non - commisioned officers , most were Norwegian . It was formed in February 1942 , after it was decided to create a SS Ski company with Norwegian volunteers — attached to the 6th SS Mountain Division Nord ( although the company was formally a police unit ) . By the winter of 1943 and the newly constructed company was designated as a combat battalion , with three full infantry companies and a staff company . For almost its entire career , the battalion was part of the 6th SS Mountain Division " Nord " , fighting on the Karelian Front in Finland . Battle during 24 — 26 June 1944 , led to nearly 100 of the battalion ' s soldiers missing in action , when two of the battalion ' s positions ( with a total of 190 soldiers ) were overrun . In 1972 Frode Halle , one of its former battalion commanders wrote in his published book that the unit ' s losses in the the two battles on those two days , is " The toughest blow that a Norwegian volunteer unit has been dealt . " Background . The initiative for the establishment of the unit came from a Waffen - SS volunteer named Gust Jonassen , ( a Dane who had married a Norwegian and assumed Norwegian citizenship ) . He had passed the idea of constructing a Norwegian ski unit on to other Waffen - SS officers and the notion swiftly went up the command ladder to the SS Main Administrative Office which approved of the endeavor . History . Training . During the winter of 1942 , a Ski jäger Company , with a strength of 120 men , was formed in Finland . The first recruits were chosen for their skiing abilities , and few had had any extensive military training . Those who had attended Norwegian Army NCO schools were selected as candidates for troop leader positions . In September 1942 the embryonic company was sent to the Waffen - SS Germanic Volunteer Camp in Sennheim , Alsace for basic military training . At the same time , those chosen for command positions were shipped off to NCO schools or the SS - Junkerschule Bad Tölz in Bavaria for officers ' training . At Sennheim the Norwegian enlisted men were put in the care of a Finnish SS - Hauptsturmführer who oversaw their program of instruction . Infantry training continued until about Christmas , when it was decided that the formation of the actual Ski battalion could now commence . The formation of the new Norwegian SS Skijaeger Battalion ( which was also given the title " Norge " and a sleeve title bearing that name ) , took place at military training grounds in Oulu , Finland ( also known by its Swedish name of Uleåborg ) in the autumn of 1943 . The following Norwegian Untersturmführer ( s ) ( Ustuf . - 2nd Lt . ) were assigned to command companies in the battalion : Martin Skjefstad , Tor Holmesland Vik and Rolf Uglestad . The battalion CO and a four company commander were both Germans . A few German enlisted men were also included in each company as a " stiffening " element . For the most part the Norwegian officers were young men who had obtained front line experience with the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking or the " Frw . Legion Norwegen " before going on to the SS - JS " Tölz . " The Norwegian Ski Battalion was strictly light - weight in nature consisting only of one staff company and three ski ( or infantry / assault ) companies . Unlike the other battalions normally found in a German mountain division there was no 4th Heavy Weapons Company assigned . Each of the Norwegian ski companies contained the following sub - units : three platoons consisting of 3 squads each along with 1 machine - gun troop and 1 mortar section . The staff company contained the administrative personnel , a weapons and clothing dispersal office , an engineer platoon , a signals platoon ( communications ) , a medical section and truck and horse supply columns . The Karelian Front . In 1943 the Ski Company ( " Skikompaniet " — the predecessor of the " Ski Battalion " ) was sent to the Kiestinki Front . The battalion was formed in Germany , transported to Oulo in Finland , and later reached Kuusamo . During the winter ' 43 / ' 44 the battalion counted around 700 men - many former soldiers from the Norwegian Legion . By January 1944 the battalion and was sent to the front . Another Norwegian Unit , The 2nd police company was also serving at the front at this time and was in severe skirmishes with the Russians , before they returned to Norway in May 1944 . The battalion was placed in position in the northern flank of the " Nord " Division , which was about 30 kilo meters north of the division HQ . The battalion had the job of patrolling the division ' s left wing up to Tiksje Lake . This part of the Eastern Front had long since lapsed into static warfare apd the idea was to prevent Soviet infiltration through no - man ' s - land . Battalion soldier Sverre Kjelstrup has described battle at Mayweg ( outside Kiestinki ) and patterns of warfare by local Soviet forces : " The Norwegians [ in the Battalion and other units ] lost 4 men , and 92 dead Russians were counted in front of the fortifications — these are conditions that we witnessed many times . . . that they kept heaping ( on with more ) people . And the ones charging first knew that if they tried to turn around and flee , they would be shot by the " politruk " s who were in tow . And these are reasons for the [ relative size of ] losses that the Russians had on several occasions . " Late in March 1944 Russian forces began building up positions in a previously unoccupied area between the lines . This threat led the " Nord " Division staff to constuct a battalion - sized battle - group to deal with these new fortifications . ( Two companies from the Ski Battalion were assigned to protect the left flank of the task force . ) Frode Halle said after the war that " Tough fighting led to relatively great losses on both sides . The Russians probably had the better outcome . " Until March 1944 the unit had military advisors ( " Beratere " ) from Germany . By April , the stationing of the battalion was spread onto three peaks , which were known to them as Peak 200 , Kaprolat and Hasselmann — replacing other German forces . Early in June 1944 , battalion commander Halle departed for a trip to Norway , and a German assumed command of the battalion . Battle at " Stützpunkt " Kaprolat . In June 1944 Soviet forces ( in front of the Ski Battalions position at the Kiestinki Front ' s northern flank , around 120 kilometers East of Kuusamo ) were building roads forwards , from the Soviets ' most forward positions . The staff of the German division thought that the roadbuilding was merely a demonstration of power , without expecting a new attack where the Soviets had failed two years earlier . The battalion had fortified positions : the Hasselmann Position related to Peak 331 ( as designated by German military — which rose from the north shore of Lake Kapanets ( " копанец " ) ; and " Stützpunkt " Kaprolat — related to Peak 328 , around one kilometer north of the other peak — and separated by a lake that the battalion called " Støvlevann " ( " boot lake " ) . In the weeks before the battle at Kaprolat and Hasselmann , " 120 Norwegian soldiers were pulled out of the area and sent home " on leave . Unbeknown to the battalion ' s soldiers , there was a full sized Soviet brigade of 4 - 5000 men moving slowly towards them , while making roads of timber through the wetlands . By late June , scouts on reconnaissance had made observations of Soviets digging out mortar positions . Cpt Axel Steen , company commander of the 3rd Company on " Kaprolat " , reported to the deputy battalion commander Major Sophus Kahrs , who commanded the 1st and 2nd companies at the Hasselmann Position , that a Soviet attack could be expected shortly . On 24 June 1944 , the patrols of 3rd Company were unable to distance itself 300 meters " in any direction " from the Hasselmann Position — without encountering Soviet soldiers . [ On 24 June ] early in the morning after St John ' s Eve , a sharpshooter at " Kaprolat " was ordered to fire at a Russian soldier who was looking at " Kaprolat " thru binoculars , from a distance of about 130 meters . In the middle of the day , Soviet soldiers fired machine gun s and Soviet soldiers attacked " Kaprolat " and its 56 soldiers , resulting in several Soviet soldiers falling to the ground in No man ' s land . In the next attack Soviet soldiers advance within around 15 or 20 meters [ of the battalion ] , before that attack is stopped . When artillery rounds later hit " Kaprolat " , then one entrenchment was destroyed , thereafter another , followed by a retreat to the main bunker s ( at " Kaprolat " ) . During the next Soviet attack , a [ battalion ] machinegun jammed , and battalion soldiers retreated : Norwegian website Digital okkupasjon cites a survivor ( Wolfgang Windingstad ) , " Then there was something like a panic . We ran down the peak and down on the other side , where the others were laying . We were surrounded . " . Six of these men completed the retreat to the Hasselmann Position . ( Among the soldiers who were injured and captured before reaching the Hasselmann Position , was a German citizen . ) Sometime before the retreat from " Kaprolat " , soldiers had spread the word amongst themselves that the company commander had fallen . ( He had been injured by shrapnel delivered by Soviets , and later committed suicide . ) Battle at the Hasselmann Position . Norwegian website " Historieformidlerne " says that the Soviet attack on the Hasselmann Position started on 25 June around 3 or 4 AM . It was manned by 1st - and 2nd Company . A total of 128 - 130 men . These soldiers as well as those at nearby Peak 200 , were intended as reserve forces in the event of a Soviet assault at " Kaprolat " . On 26 June a force of soldiers from two different German battalions ( including SS Mountain Regiment 11 " Reinhard Heydrich " ) tried to link up with the soldiers at " Kaprolat " , but they were hindered . They thereafter manned the position ( that already was fortified ) underneath a ridge to the West of " Hasselmann " , until they were forced up the peak towards " Hasselmann " . On the peak they link up with remaining soldiers from " Hasselmann " , and their combined resources consists of 34 men and 7 machine guns and 11 sub - machineguns . When the group is reduced to 12 men , they make a dash thru the Soviets ' encirclement — towards Lake Kapanets , less than 200 meters at a distance . Of the 6 who reached the shoreline of the lake , 3 crossed the lake . In 2013 Norwegian daily Dagbladet ' s then correspondent in Germany said that " The Norwegian company commander failed — and fled the combat zone , while many were killed or captured " . Sophus Kahrs ( company commander at the Hasselmann Position ) disappears early in the battle — later reappearing uninjured in the rear echelon s , where he in his own report puts himself in a positive ligth ; he is not court - martial ed because battalion commander Halle protects him . " Nearly 100 soldiers were [ still ] missing in action " ( out of the battalion ' s 190 soldiers from the Kaprolat - and Hasselmann positions ) , after the reappearance of a group of 5 soldiers who hid in the forest ( on the same peak as the Kaprolat Position ) during the retreat from the Kaprolat Position , and later sneaked their way to the North , and two weeks later reached a position manned by Finns , 30 kilometers to West of " Kaprolat " . 117 of the battalion ' s soldiers were killed , around 50 were captured ( Most of whom would later die in Gulag ) and around 40 escaped alive . After the retreat from Finland . As a consequence of an armistice in September 1944 , the German Lapland Army retreated — joined by the battalion — through North Finland into Norway . The Norwegian daily " Dagbladet " wrote that the unit ' s soldiers were at the front in Finland until the autumn of 1944 , adding that " several [ soldiers ] were sent to the endfighting in Germany and Austria . Alleged war crimes . Alleged desecration of dead enemy soldiers . A 2013 book , " Hitlers norske skijegere . Norske SS - frivillige i Karelen 1941 - 1944 " says that some of the battalion ' s soldiers took heads from the corpses of Russian soldiers , and boiled skulls that " Then they became clean but brown . Some — such as NN — brought one of those to Norway . In the company bunker we had a skull as a candle holder . " Alleged killing of battalion soldiers who had surrendered . Battalion soldier Ulf Windingstad ( the last one who is still alive , and one of the survivors of battle on 26 July 1944 ) has said that another soldier and himself — who both had surrendered to Soviet forces — were asked at gunpoint if they could walk . Windingstad said that he could walk , and his fellow soldier communicated that he can not walk . Windingstad has said : " I walk along , suddenly there ' s a gunshot . . . I see the officer return the revolver — and my buddy lying on the ground . It is he who gets shot . " Organization and equipment . Each company consisted of three troop s — each with three squad s that each had a machine gun . The standard issue weapon for the battalion was the MP - 40 machine - pistol , which was deemed the best type of armament for the unit ' s mode of operations . An " ahkio " — a type of pulk — were used by soldiers to reduce the load of equipment ( on individuals ' backs and shoulders ) while skiing The soldiers had " Knippfelbindinger " ( a particular interface between a boot and a ski ) .