According to Törni’s own interrogation report, Cellarius had also suggested to Törni and Korpela that they should go to Norway, but „they had both refused to go there because they were determined to go the German front to fight with the German forces“. According to Törni, Cellarius had agreed to this and had written a letter of recommendation for them. Movement from Flensburg to the front was really happening in those days. The remaining major bases of the German Navy were in northern Germany, and the Navy still had thousands of men fit for the front. To help his Führer, who was surrounded in the Reich’s capital, the German naval commander, Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz, sent a total of more than 10,000 naval troops armed only with small arms and infantry on 19 and 25 April towards Berlin. […] It is possible that Törni’s departure from Flensburg actually took place, as he himself had said, at the head of a detachment of „marines“ sent to battle. Törni certainly had solid infantry combat experience. But it is difficult to imagine how a man with no knowledge of the language could have led his German subordinates in any meaningful way. It seems that, although the departure may have been nominally at the head of a military unit, Törni and his men soon split up.
(Juha Pohjonen & Oula Silvennoinen: Tuntematon Lauri Törni)
Lauri Törni had been with Sonderkommando Nord since January 1945, first at Heringsdorf, then at Mürwik (home of the Naval School), a district of Flensburg. It was his second stay in Germany, after 1941 when he travelled there as part of the „Freiwilligen Nordost“ (Volunteers North-East) which were integrated into Waffen-SS Division „Wiking“, thus technically making Törni a member of the Waffen-SS, even though he never took part in any fighting with „Wiking“ and returned to Finland after only a few weeks. It is important to keep in mind, however, that he still not only got the uniform and rank to go with his Waffen-SS membership but also the telltale tattoo of his blood type on the inside of his left upper arm.
Through the connections made during that time he was able to return to Germany in 1945 and work with SS/Gestapo-run Sonderkommando Nord until operations fell apart along with Nazi reign.
That part of Törni’s second stay in Germany was uneventful and has been described fairly accurately by his biographers – though I highly recommend Pohjonen and Silvennoinen’s book for all the important background information that other authors have conveniently left out. Perry Biddiscombe’s The SS Hunter Battalions also gives a good overview of the operation (and is available in English).
However, it is Törni’s time after Sonderkommando Nord that still remains a mystery, and I am grateful to Juha Pohjonen and Oula Silvennoinen for clearing at least part of a path through the jungle of contradictory, highly imaginative accounts.
So when did Törni leave Flensburg? According to Heimo Ropponen’s account, the departure took place as early as 24 April. Niilo Lappalainen, on the other hand, says that he met Törni after his departure at Flensburg railway station on 27 April 1945. […] For a few more days there was a German-controlled corridor from Flensburg towards the capital. Western Allied troops were still behind the Elbe. In the east, Konstantin Rokossovsky’s 2nd Belorussian Front had begun its attack across the Oder on 20 April. By 27 April, the Soviet forces had only managed to capture Stettin at the mouth of the Oder and advance to the Prenzlau-Angermünde plain north-east of Berlin. On the very next morning, 28 April, Soviet armoured columns entered Neubrandenburg and the breakthrough began to expand rapidly. […] Berlin itself was surrounded, but there was still a wide corridor leading towards the city and the Red Army that surrounded it, via Lübeck, Schwerin, Ludwigslust and Pritzwalk. And it was into this corridor that Törni, Korpela and Sarasalo were now also pushed on their way to the „Eastern Front“, which was surging westwards at an accelerating rate.
Soon afterwards, the corridor closed behind Törni and his companions. On 29 April, the British attack from the bridgehead east of the Elbe quickly led to a deep breakthrough. By 2 May, Lübeck, Schwerin and Wismar were in Allied hands […].
In two different works, Kari Kallonen and Petri Sarjanen present two different accounts of the end of the war for Törni. The earlier one is based on Ali Alava’s book Erikoisosasto Pohjoinen, and on the memoirs of an eyewitness, former SS-Untersturmführer Juhani Sarasalo. The later version also relies on the memoirs of former SS volunteer Kalevi Rantanen and Niilo Lappalainen’s description of the incident, published in 1998. Rantanen has nothing new to tell us about Törni’s life. In this respect, the description is based on the work of Niilo Lappalainen, who was himself an eyewitness to the events, which in turn is also based on Sarasalo’s account. Sarasalo is apparently the last of all those interviewed for the book to have a first-hand observation of Törni, and Lappalainen’s account, based on his description, must therefore be regarded as the most authentic.
In Lappalainen’s description, Törni, suffering from a lack of activity, began to miss the front in the late days of April 1945. The intention was to try to join the SS Division Steiner, commanded by SS-Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner, former commander of SS Division Wiking. After receiving permission, Törni and Solmu Korpela set off for the final European battle of the Second World War […]. On 3 May 1945, they succeeded in meeting Steiner’s troops and were assigned to his headquarters‘ guard. Shortly afterwards, contact was made with advancing Soviet troops and their tanks at Pritzwalk, north-west of Berlin. In the ensuing clash, the guard unit is broken up and Törni and Korpela disappear from the last witness.
(Juha Pohjonen & Oula Silvennoinen)
Six days later, at a road junction in northern Germany, Thorne, Korpela, and Sarasalo finally found Steiner. However, just as they were being assigned to a headquarters‘ guard unit, a lead party of the Soviet advance came into view. In the confusion that followed, Sarasalo was separated from Thorne and Korpela and taken prisoner. Sarasalo watched as a Russian officer demanded that a German sergeant tear off his SS emblems. The German refused, and he along with 20 other German soldiers were pulled aside and machine-gunned. Sarasalo escaped that night and eventually made his way to Hamburg and from there back to Finland.
(J. Michael Cleverley: Born a Soldier)
While I don’t think Sarasalo got the date right (we’ll come to that in a moment), it is exactly the scene after his capture that makes me pretty certain his account is all in all correct. I’ve come across incidents just like that numerous times in my past and present research.
Juhani Sarasalo
So if we take the information given by Törni himself and Niilo Lappalainen about the last military expedition of Törni, Korpela and Sarasalo as the most authentic that can be said about Törni’s movements, it seems that Törni left Flensburg only on 27 April and then headed along the still open corridor, not towards the Western Allies, but towards Berlin, which was still fighting. On the roads of northern Germany, there were masses of refugees with their packs, carts and bicycles, as well as military columns of exhausted men who had lost their will to win and their will to fight, often wounded, without weapons, ammunition or vehicles. Crushing, overwhelming numbers of foes awaited both in front and behind, the skies threatened by total Allied air superiority. […] Perhaps it was indeed, mainly by lucky chance, that Törni met the westward retreating Steiner in the early days of May in the area north-west of Berlin still under German control. […] [Törni] himself gave a very mild account of his activities in the last days of the war to a State Police interrogator: After receiving German military uniforms and arms, they had searched for a long time for General Steiner’s headquarters. The front had suddenly moved under Russian pressure and [Törni] and Korpela had decided to leave the vicinity of the front, but at [Pritzwalk] they had come into combat with Russian troops and the latter had broken through the German front, but [Törni] and his comrade had managed to escape through the woods. After walking for several days, they were captured by American paratroopers near Hagenaun […] on 3 May.
(Pohjonen & Silvennoinen)
And here we have several contradictions. Pohjonen and Silvennoinen identified two possible places as „Hagenaun“, Hagenau near Kalbe or Hagenow in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, of which they consider the latter the more likely candidate, and after looking at the map I agree. For:
[…] Törni and Korpela were taken into the custody of the British POW system. According to an interrogation report given by Törni to the Finnish State Police, they had been held in a prisoner-of-war camp of about 5,000 prisoners for two and a half weeks before being transferred to Lübeck. Fortunately, both were dressed in standard German [=Wehrmacht] uniform and could not therefore be identified as SS members.
(ibd.)
Hagenau/Kalbe lay firmly in the path of the US Army, with no British units anywhere near. Hagenow, however, was more or less situated in the territory of the British 2nd Army. So if Törni and Korpela had surrendered to US paratroopers (Pohjonen and Silvennoinen name the 82nd Airborne Division, „which by the evening of 2 May was in the Ludwigslust area“, as a possible unit), they would probably have been handed over to the British. Also, for any Finn trying the get home, the north-western route via Hagenow would make much more sense than the south-western route via Hagenau. However, there is a slight twist to that, to which I will return later.
Now. 3 May 1945 appears to have been a busy day, and that’s where I ran into problems. To recap: On 3 May, according to Sarasalo, our Finnish volunteers met Steiner, but a Soviet attack scattered them again. Sarasalo was taken prisoner but managed to escape that night. Törni himself, in the interrogation report quoted by the authors, does not say that he actually met Steiner (even though that claim was made by later biographers). Instead, after the skirmish with the Red Army, he and Korpela walked „for several days“ before being captured by US paratroopers on 3 May. This clearly does not fit together.
So, what could be easier than looking up what Steiner was doing on 3 May?
Turns out, his story of the last days of the war is just as confusing and contradictory as Törni’s!
Excerpt from SS Elite, volume 3:
„…What was left of Steiner’s Army surrendered on 3rd May 1945 to the 2nd British Army, and Steiner became a prisoner-of-war.
(https://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=229298)
*****
I am researching to the question which US-troops captured SS-General Steiner ? Does anyone has a serious source for it? I am thinking that it should be elements of the Ninth Army.
[…]
Here it stated that Steiner surrendered to US-units near the river Elbe. Does anyone have more detailed informations? [=“Am 3. Mai 1945 geriet er an der Elbe in amerikanische Gefangenschaft, aus der er am 27. April 1948 entlassen wurde.“ (http://www.lexikon-der-wehrmacht.de/Personenregister/S/SteinerF-R.htm) ]
[…]
[Link to http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/people_steiner_felix.html =“Steiner surrendered to the British at Lueneburg on 3 May.“]
[…]
Well Lueneburg is near the Elbe. […]
So it may have been he negotiated with US command but the actual unit he personally surrendered to was British. […]
I may have gotten that reversed Lueneburg spelled with an umlauted u appears to be in Montgomery’s general area and Dempsey’s in particular.[…]
I am thinking you´re right. Steiner planned to become in contact with Montgomery´s post and so I guess it make sence that he tried to surrender at Lüneburg. Montgomery was at the beginning of may 1945 there.
The map is very interesting ! although I didn´t understand it completely. That´s why it makes the map so interesting: there´s a dashed arrow from the Ninth army dated 19th of April in northeast direction, crossing the river Elbe. It crossed the „British zone“ and this arrow leads just over the region of city Lüneburg. It seemed there was an assault of US-troops. It looks like 12th Army corps, right?
*****
Bezogen auf Felix Steiner – habt Ihr neuere Erkenntnisse zu seiner Gefangennahme am 3. Mai 1945? Bei welcher amerikanischen Einheit ist er in Gefangenschaft gegangen? Wo war er bis 1947 in Gefangenschaft?
Ich habe vor kurzem ein Foto entdeckt, dass kurz vor seiner Gefangennahme von Dotty Davis gemacht wurde. Dieses Bild ist aus einem privaten Fotoalbum, welches Jim Goodspeed aus Kansas abfotografiert hatte. Ich versuch nun eine besser Aufnahme zu bekommen. Auf dem Bild ist er mit seinem Adjudanten von Mecklenburg zu sehrn. Im Hintergrund sind Niedersachenhäuser zu erkennen. Es könnte eine Aufnahme im Süden Mecklenburgs sein bzw. im Wendland.[…]
Wendland schliss ich aus. Ich denke aber das er zwischen Schwerin und Wittenberge gefangengenommen wurde. Also Prignitz.
(https://www.forum-der-wehrmacht.de/index.php?thread/50369-armee-abteilung-steiner/)
So, 3 May and Lüneburg are named most often, but looking at the discussions, there’s not a single official source listed. Steiner did end up in a British prisoner-of-war camp, that much is documented. The rest might be just speculation and hearsay. Did he surrender to British or US troops? When? Where? The supposed 3 May surrender at Lüneburg was probably confused with something entirely unconnected to Steiner, the German surrender at Lüneburg on 4 May.
It seemed Steiner was a dead end, at least for the time being. Back to the map, back to Pritzwalk and to Hagenow… or was it?
Now, for the non-German speakers among my readers, I need to insert a short lesson on how to pronounce the names in question here. Please bear with me, it’s important.
If you already know how to pronounce „Lauri“ correctly (through, say, Sabaton, or because you’re Finnish), you can skip the first part. In German, as in Finnish, the combination „au“ is pronounced a long, open „ow!“ sound, like in English „now“ or „how“. -> Hagenau
The ending of quite a lot of place names, „-ow“, on the other hand, is pronounced „o“. -> Hagenow.
And this is where things get interesting. According to Törni’s interrogation report, he surrendered to US troops near „Hagenaun“. His interrogator certainly noted down the name from hearing it spoken, as in the case of „Britzvalk“. It’s highly doubtful he knew these places. So the less likely candidate for „Hagenaun“, little Hagenau near Kalbe, southwest and across the River Elbe from Pritzwalk, suddenly becomes the more likely candidate! Unless, of course, Törni never saw „Hagenow“ written and only heard it spoken by US/British troops in the English pronounciation. (This language thing gets more confusing by the minute.)
Realizing the possible importance of the au/ow endings, I looked into the end of the war at both places. There was nothing to be found on the small village of Hagenau, but the nearby town of Kalbe is a very different matter.
On the evening of 11 April 1945, US tanks rolled into Kalbe on their way to the bridge at Tangermünde, and a POW camp was established that, from the end of April to 1 July held about 85,000 prisoners (among them actor Theo Lingen). At the end of June, most prisoners were transferred to Lower Saxony in the British occupation zone. Now this was definitely interesting. So I got in touch with the person behind the website, and he wrote:
3 km north of Kalbe was the Goliath camp, about 80 – 85 000 prisoners. It is known that various nationalities were imprisoned there, Belorussians, Poles, Czechs and Austrians. There was even a group of about 300 members of the Vlasov Army (Russians) who were there because they had fought on the German side. I know nothing about Finns.
Hagenau is a small village about 10-12 km to the north, also near the Milde River.
Kalbe was occupied by the Americans in April, then in May everything was handed over to the British, only the Goliath camp remained in the hands of the Americans. There are many reports from former prisoners, but to my knowledge no Finn has been mentioned.
So were two lonely Finns in Wehrmacht uniforms simply overlooked amidst the masses of POWs? It is quite possible, but does not really tally with Törni’s story – if the report he gave to the Valpo was basically correct. As I understand it, most prisoners at the Goliath camp were scheduled to be released, even if only into British custody, up to 1 July (when Soviet troops took over the camp). Since that schedule was impossible to keep, the aforementioned transfer to Lower Saxony began during the last days of June. By 14 June 1945, however, Törni and Korpela were already in Flensburg, at the house of Georg Hayen, as documented in his guest book.
According to an interrogation report given by Törni to the Finnish State Police, [he and Korpela] had been held in a prisoner-of-war camp of about 5,000 prisoners for two and a half weeks before being transferred to Lübeck. […] In Lübeck, „the various nationalities had been dispersed to different parts of Germany“ and Törni and Korpela had ended up in the vast assembly area of Oldenburg. „The camp area had been extremely large,“ Törni said, „almost the whole province […] had been a prison camp, and there had been 4 or 5 million prisoners of war.“ Because of the vastness of the area, leaving the camp – escaping from prison – was not difficult.
(Pohjonen & Silvennoinen)
So it appears that Hagenow is the right place, after all; unless Törni and Korpela were at Goliath camp only for a short time before being transferred to Lübeck, which seems unlikely given the general operations of the camp.
Being none the wiser, I tried Felix Steiner again – that is, his book Die Armee der Geächteten (The Army of Outcasts). The problem with it, as expected, was that he wrote a book about the Waffen-SS, not an autobiography. As much as was humanly possible, he left himself out of it. His experiences of the last days of the war are not described in any more detail than can be found on Wikipedia and in military forums. Or so I thought. At least Steiner himself, in his CV at the end of the book, noted curtly that he went into British captivity on 3 May. Nothing about his surrender, nothing where or whom to, but at least it was something. And then I went back to the passage of him being stripped of his command for his refusal to relieve Berlin (or die trying), and I did a double-take. There it was, the clue: „This didn’t stop him [=Steiner] from […] personally leading the soldiers entrusted to him back across the Elbe and Elde towards the west.“
Now, I must confess I had never heard of a river called Elde before. Doing a quick Google search, I couldn’t believe my eyes. For the little map on Google’s short summary showed a section of the Elde running right past Ludwigslust (of the 82nd’s position), with Hagenow northwest of it. Did Törni and Korpela actually go west with Steiner and his men?
As usual, the answer is not that simple. Steiner clearly stated „across the Elbe and Elde“. The only place to reasonably cross both rivers within a short span of time is Dömitz. However, the two bridges across the Elbe had been destroyed on 20 April 1945. Either Steiner found a way to cross the Elbe there anyway, or his unit would have first crossed the Elde probably somewhere between Ludwigslust and Dömitz (if we take Pritzwalk as their starting point) and then crossed the Elbe further west of Dömitz. Which, if they made it far enough without running into Allied troops, actually put them right on course for Lüneburg.
So, if Törni and Korpela did accompany Steiner’s ragtag unit, they would most likely have left them after crossing the Elde and attempted to make their way north, towards home. Sarasalo managed it, after all. But they ran into US paratroopers, possibly of the 82nd, near Hagenow and were captured.
Of course, there’s always another possibility. What that is and how the wildest legends surrounding Törni’s last days of WW2 turned out to be surprisingly accurate in places, you’ll learn in Part 2!
The Lauri Törni in Germany 1945 series:
Outtake: Riikka Ojanperä, and a visit from the beyond
More Törni-related blog content:
„Alles, was ich getan habe, geschah zum Wohle meines Landes.“
Clarissa Schnabel 