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Showing posts with label 6 Foreign Denmark. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 6 Foreign Denmark. Show all posts
Søren Kam (2 November 1921 - 23 March 2015) received the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes on 7 February 1945 as SS-Untersturmführer and Führer 1.Kompanie / I.Bataillon / SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 9 "Germania" / 5.SS-Panzer-Division "Wiking". Kam’s Ritterkreuz recommendation reads as follows…
“During the hard defensive battle against overwhelming Soviet forces between the Vistula and Bug rivers (north of Warsaw), which began on 10 October 1944 and continues to this day, SS-Untersturmführer Kam once again distinguished himself through incredible courageous and exceptional steadfastness.
On 26 October 1944 the enemy attacked the positions of Kam’s Kompanie (which lay 2.5-3 km northwest of Wieliscew) following a heavy preparatory barrage by artillery, mortars and ground attack planes. The Soviets wished to take the decisive Hill 86 (which was of massive importance for the Division’s continuation of the defensive battle) at any cost.
The defensive positions on Hill 86 (which rose as a single sandy height above the surrounding area) were completely smashed by the enemy drumfire. Kam’s Kompanie suffered substantial losses. By attacking from the east and north, and with heavy fire support from the domineering north bank of the Bug, the enemy was eventually able to capture the hotly contested Hill 86.
Following an immediate counterthrust that Kam personally led on his own initiative, the enemy was thrown off the hill. In the meantime however the Soviets had also managed to penetrate into the forest west of the hill. A bitter fight erupted which saw the hill lost to the enemy once again.
Over a period of 6 hours Kam and the remains of his Kompanie counterattacked the hill a total of 5 times, each time taking it and then losing it shortly afterwards. This continued until 15:00, when they were able to finally gain a firm control over it. With his few remaining soldiers Kam defended this place against all enemy attacks, which by now were also coming from the hill to the west. The fire of the enemy heavy weapons, especially on the commanding north bank of the Bug, increased noticeably.
Kam stood his ground until the fighting ceased in the evening, by which time his force had been reduced to 7 men.
It was only the boldly conducted counterthrusts and the death-defying, fanatical resistance of SS-Untersturmführer Kam and his men that made it possible to prevent the Soviets from taking control of Hill 86 and from here collapse the entire defensive front of the Regiment.
Kam is a Germanic volunteer/Dane, and the student of an SS-Obersturmbannführer Von Schalburg. This dashing and brave SS leader has encouraged Germanic volunteers through his invigorating words and personal example in this time of momentary political crisis.
Indicative of his determination is that he flew into the Cherkassy pocket on 9 February 1944 despite orders to the contrary, and in the fighting which followed he continued to lead his Zug during the breakout of 17 February 1944 despite being badly wounded in the head.
The Regiment considers SS-Untersturmführer Kam as particularly worthy of being decorated with the Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes.”
Source : Steve Otis Deqa photo collection https://www.facebook.com/groups/691098008051629/user/100006306574540/ https://www.tracesofwar.com/persons/35278/Kam-S%C3%B8ren.htm
Søren Kam (2 November 1921 – 23 March 2015) was born on 2 November 1921 in Copenhagen, Denmark as the second of six children to Rasmus Hansen Kam and wife Inger née Hermansen.
The young Kam was a member of the youth faction of the DNSAP (NSU) where he was a close associate of Christian Frederik von Schalburg, one of his so called "blood boys". According to the Bovrup File, Kam's mother became a member of DNSAP in December 1940.
Kam volunteered with the SS in June 1940. He served with the 5. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division Wiking on the Eastern Front. He was transferred to SS-Junkerschule Bad Tölz and was promoted to SS-Untersturmführer.
From 1 May to 2 September 1943, Kam was heading the school at Høveltegaard responsible for the training of new members of the Schalburg Corps. The initial six week training had 50-70 recruits.
According to Efraim Zuroff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, in August 1943 Kam participated as a Waffen-SS soldier in a robbery during which the birth records of the Jewish community in Denmark were stolen. He thereby ensured that the German file on Danish Jews was as complete as possible, in preparation for the attempt to arrest and deport them in October that year. Kam denied the allegation.
From 15 July to 2 September 1943 Kam had seven meetings with Werner Best, whose service calendar describes Kam as commander of the Schalburg Corps.
During the week before Saturday August 28, 1943 Kam participated in one such meeting with among others Best, who on the morning of that Saturday met with Erik Scavenius to make the demands that the following day led the Germans to officially dissolve the Danish government and institute martial law.
On the evening of 30 August 1943 or after midnight in Lundtofte, next to Lundtofte Airfield Søren Kam and two others killed newspaper editor Carl Henrik Clemmensen, who was struck while standing by eight bullets fired from three different pistols. Kam later gave different explanations for his participation, lastly that the three shot the unarmed newspaper editor in self-defense.
The September 1943 issue of De frie Danske proclaimed Kam and Flemming Helweg-Larsen as Schalburg-bandits and the murderers of Clemmensen. The June 1944 issue denounced a female member of the Nazi Party, along with Carl Henrik Clemmensen's murderers, namely Flemming Helweg-Larsen and Søren Kam.
On 15 February 1945 the newspaper Politiken brought an official statement from Berlin via Reuters that on 7 February Adolf Hitler had awarded Kam, a company Commander of the SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment "Germania", the Knight's Cross for "especially decisive action in the battle against the enemy" making Kam the third Dane to receive this award. The statement proceeded to mention that Kam had been wounded in battle several times and for battlefield bravery been awarded the Iron Cross Second and First Class, the Infantry Assault Badge, Close Combat Clasp and the silver Wound Badge and that he had seen combat in the battles of Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Kovel and Warsaw.
While in 1946 the Danish authorities presumed Kam to be dead they executed Helweg-Larsen for his part in the murder of Clemmensen. According to the evidence presented in the trial, Clemmensen had been killed using three different pistols firing eight bullets all impacting him while he was standing. A third accomplice in the murder the SS-man Jørgen Valdemar Bitsch was held in the Frøslev Prison Camp after the liberation, but managed to escape and his whereabouts remain unknown.
In 1956 Kam lived in West Germany under the name Peter Müller as stateless and he was therefore at risk of being extradited to Denmark on a murder charge. The same year Kam applied for and obtained West German citizenship. In 1968 the public prosecutor in Munich investigated the murder. Kam admitted to have fired at Clemmensen but only as an "act of solidarity" after Helweg-Larsen had shot and killed Clemmensen who was lying dead on the ground. The case against Kam was dropped in 1971 on the principle of in dubio pro reo.
In 1985 Minister of Justice of Denmark Erik Ninn-Hansen confirmed that there was still a warrant for the arrest of Kam. The statement formed part of a response to a question from member of parliament Jørgen Lenger, who had been informed via telephone by Kam personally that Kam had visited his family in Denmark several times. In 1986 Kam and the two other Danish bearers of the Knight's Cross posed for a photograph together with Christian Frederik von Schalburg's widow Helga Schalburg in Ulrichsberg in the Austrian state Kärnten.
In 1998 Kam was interrogated again because his explanation that he shot Clemmensen as he was lying dead on the ground was contradicted by the autopsy report which shows that Clemmensen received all eight shots while standing. Kam changed his explanation and stated that although unarmed, Clemmensen attacked Kam and his two associates who thus fired the eight shots in self-defence. In 1999 Danish Minister of Justice Frank Jensen requested an extradition of Kam. This was refused by Germany. This request was later repeated by Jensen's successor Lene Espersen.
In 2004 a grandson of Clemmensen, Søren Fauli, produced the documentary Min morfars morder (My grandfather's murderer) in which he himself interviewed Kam. During the interview Fauli forgives Kam, but asks him to admit his guilt. The documentary was aired on Danish television in 2004 and 2005. On 21 September 2006 Kam was detained in Kempten, Bavaria in accordance with a European arrest warrant issued by Denmark. On 4 February 2007 Germany denied his extradition to Denmark, after a German court claimed that the killing of Clemmensen was not murder but manslaughter, thus falling under the statute of limitations, which had expired. Kam had stated that he admits having taken part in the abduction and killing of Clemmensen, but that he considers the case to be under the statute of limitations and the killing an accident.
In February 2008 BBC World Service presented a radio program titled The Danish Nazi. This included a recorded statement by Kam in which he says in English, "I am a good man, I never did anything wrong." According to the London Daily Telegraph, while in Germany, Kam "has regularly attended veterans' rallies of SS men. He has also been closely associated with Heinrich Himmler's daughter Gudrun Burwitz and her network Stille Hilfe (Silent Aid), set up to support arrested, condemned or fugitive former SS men." As of 1 April 2014, he was number five on Simon Wiesenthal Center's list of most wanted Nazi war criminals.
Kam wrote his memoirs and had a middle man hand them over to head of research at the Royal Library, Denmark John T. Lauridsen and Danish historian Mikkel Kirkebæk, so they could publish them after his death. The 400 page book The memoirs of Søren Kam (Danish: Søren Kams erindringer) is prefaced and commented by Lauridsen and published in Danish from September 2015.
On 23 March 2015 Kam died in Kempten at the age of 93, two weeks after his wife.
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