1
DEFEAT IN SALLA
A ‘Nord’ soldier help his wounded friend to take his way in north
Russia.
Hitler’s Northern Trouble Spot
When he launched his campaign in Russia,Hitler had worried
about the northernmost flank of that front stretched from
Arctic Norway across Finland to the northern reaches of
Russia, an area known to cartographers as Lapland. He
feared that the British would attack this place and joined
with the Russian from Murmansk to severing German
lines with northern Finland and captured Petsamo and
the Swedish iron mines just east of Narvik. To prevent it,
Hitler called for operation that would stop the Murmansk
railroad to become a dangerous spot for his position.
The German High Command created two operations
to sever the Murmansk railroad. One of them dubbed as
Polar Fox. According this plan, two division launched from
the town of Rovaniemi in central Finland would strike the
Soviet strong point at Salla, then advance on the railhead
at Kandalaksha, 220 miles south of Murmansk. As part of
the same operation, another two divisions—both of them
Finnish—would simultaneously cross the border to the
south, one to help in the attack on Salla, and the other to
cut the railroad at Loukhi.
The operation command was given to Generalleutenant
Hans Feige, a career officer with four decades’ experience,
By Nino Oktorino
In the early hours of 22 June 1941 the Germans launched
Operation Barbarossa—a code named for a massive invasion
of the Soviet Union by three million German troops along a
1,250-mile front. For the Waffen SS it was to be the beginning
of a struggle that would enhance its military reputation. But
the military record of the Waffen SS was not one of outstand-
ing bravery and operational effectiveness on every occasion. A
disaster that happened in northern Russia would make them
had swollen a first bitter defeat in Eastern Front.
and Brigadier General Hjalmar Siilasvuo, the Finnish hero
of Soumussalmi. Feige’s objective was to capture Salla—
now held by a 20,000-man Soviet garrison—then drive on
to Kandalaksha, 90 miles beyond, and cut the Murmansk
railroad. Siilasvuo, meanwhile, would cover Feige’s southern
flank while leading a Finnish advance on the railroad at
Loukhi, 70 miles inside Soviet territory. Feige had 40,600
German troops for his part of the operations, including an
elite SS-Kampfgruppe ‘Nord’. He also commanded 12,000
men of the Finnish 6th Division. Siilasvuo commanded the
Finnish III Corps, numbering another 12,000 men.
General Feige planned a four-pronged assault on Salla.
One of his German regiments was to advance along the
Kandalaksha-Salla road for a direct attack on the garrison
there; two more regiments would swing around Salla to hit
it from the north, and Kampfgruppe ‘Nord’ would attack
from the south. Meanwhile, the Finnish 6th Division would
cross the Russian front 45 miles south of Salla and try to
take the enemy from the rear.
The undertaking got off to a poor start. The only one
of Fiege’s groups that made any progress at all was the
northern group, which advanced through the forest and got
about three miles into Soviet territory. The frontal attack
2

‘Nord’ soldiers prepared before they went to the battle.

commanding general gave them a little target practice
en route to the Russian front. Their rawness was to be a
was stopped 500 yards across the border and thrown back terrible handicap.
by a Soviet counterattack. But the worst appearance comes Demelhuber requests 2-3 additional months for
from the supposed elite unit: SS-Kampfgruppe ‘Nord’. training before committing to combat. Unfortunately,
his request was denies. The SS Command, especially
The Unlikely Crack Unit Reichsfuehrer-SS Himmler, believed that ‘Nord’ men’s
SS-Kampfgruppe ‘Nord’, like all SS combat units, which were high moral and firm determination would overcome their
Hitler’s favorites, was superbly equipped. It had two infantry military shortcomings. After all, they were the master race
regiments, a machine-gun battalion, an antitank battalion,
an artillery battalion, an engineer company—all completely
motorized—and light-tank battalion. Unfortunately for
the operation, the kampfgruppe abundance of up-to-date
equipment was neutralized by a lack training.
Actually, SS-Kampgruppe ‘Nord’ was formed for security
of the Murmansk Road in Finnish Lappland. It members
mainly came from former concentration camp guards and
overage SS reservist. In June 1941, when the kampfgruppe
assigned to the Army Group North, its commander, SS-
Brigadefuehrer Karl-Maria Demelhuber, announces to
headquarters that ‘Nord’ was unfit for combat due to lack
of training: the officers had received no more than a short
course of lectures and demonstrations of combat tactics;
the artillery battalion had fired its guns but once; even the
infantrymen had scarcely tried their weapons until their

SS-Brigadefuehrer Karl-Maria Demelhuber, the commander

of the ill SS formation ‘Nord’.

and theirs enemy were only sub-humans. These wrong
assumptions lead the unit into a disaster.
The Disaster
On 6 June SS-Kampfgruppe ‘Nord’ was ordered to the
Rovaniemi area of Finland for participation in the upcoming
invasion of the Soviet Union. The kampfgruppe had only
recently concentrated near Kirkenes and had to march the
length of the Arctic Ocean Highway from Kirkenes on the
Arctic Ocean to Rovaniemi not far from the Baltic Sea. By
10 June its forward elements had reached their destination
and then began moving towards the Soviet frontier near
Salla on 17 June along the single road allocated to Nord.
The order to attack didn’t arrive until 24 June, but the
actual date of the attack wasn’t set until 1 July. ‘Nord’ was
to make a frontal attack on the Soviet positions in front
of Salla while the 169. Infanterie Division attacked on their
northern flank and the 6th Finnish Infantry Division was to
drive deep behind the Soviet 122d Rifle Division toAllakurtti
from the southern flank. ‘Nord’ was reinforced with most
of Panzer Abteilung 40 while Artillerie Abteilung.496 and
520 provided indirect fire support. Stukas of IV.(St.)/LG
1 were to suppress Soviet artillery positions before the
assault.
This opening barrage had some effect on the defenders,
but more importantly set much of the forest on fire, which
severely degraded visibility for the Stukas and artillery
observers. The fire also prevented the regimental heavy
weapons from supporting the infantry with direct fire on
Soviet positions. The infantry was unable to advance very
far. At the first sight of the Russians, some of the green
troops of ‘Nord’ lost heart: they thew away their weapons
and fled in panic or surrendered. Eventually they fell off in
such numbers that the Soviets were able to leave them
3
A picture of a light-gun team of the SS ‘Nord’
passing a Red Army tank wreck during an at-
tack against Soviet positions in Salla. How-
ever, the real picture of the battle was disap-
pointed one for the Waffen-SS image.
and concentrate on the other two groups
to the north.The resulting three-day battle
set the wood aflame, and Feige and his
experience troops had all they could do to
hold their ground.
Feige finally got his center regiment
moving and broke through the first line
of defenses around Salla. Meanwhile, the
‘Nord’ regrouped during the 2nd and 3rd
in preparation for the resumption of the
attack on the 4th. However, the Soviets
struck first at 0100 on the 4th with tanks
in SS-IR 7’s sector.The SS men bolted once
more, and this time their fright led them to stampede. The
men poured down the road toward Kemijaervi, shouting
that Russian tanks were at their heels. Feige and his staffs
stationed themselves across the roadway and spent
several difficult hours getting as many careering vehicles
and panicked men halted and turned around as they could.
Some vehicles broke through their roadblock and raced all
the way to Kemijaervi, 50 miles to the west.
The flight of the ‘Nord’ men had left Feige with a gap in
his force. The situation only was being saved by the action
of the Finns and an army division. General von Falkenhorst,
German commanding general of the theater, having lost
faith in the fighting of the kampfgruppe divided its battalions
among his Finnish and German Army formations. At last,
on July 6, Feige resumed his advance on Salla and captured
it two days later.
Aftermath
SS-Kampfgruppe ‘Nord’ first taste of the combat had cost
it 73 killed and 232 wounded. Another 147 were missing.
The losses themselves were comparatively minor. But
it breakdown Himmler’s pride. Slowly and difficulty, the
Reichsfuehrer-SS faced up to facts. The Army commanders
had not been entirely wrong in saying that the Waffen SS
lacked sufficient military training and experience. He also
admitted that the Russians, inferior though they were,
fought on “like some prehistoric monster caught in a
net”.
The ‘Nord’ itself slowly and painfully had to learn
proper tactics at the front-line. Becomes a mountain
division, they spend the remaining years of war from front
to front as Hitler’s fire brigade. But as the other Fuehrer’s
fire brigade, at the end they were swallowed by Allied high
tides.