Latvijas Vēsturnieku komisijas raksti - 23.sējums

142 Konferences “Baltija Otrajā pasaules karā (1939–1945)” referāti par holokausta tematiku
of the key figures representing the interests of the SS in the drawn-out negotiations
over the composition of the collaborationist cabinet throughout the summer of 1940.
Himmler and the SS would have preferred another candidate than Quisling, namely, the
policeman Jonas Lie, as leader of the collaborationist movement in Norway. 11
In the meantime, however, the German occupation administration was consolidating
around Reichskommisar Terboven, who at this point still had good standing with powerful
friends in Berlin, including Hitler and Hermann Göring. Terboven managed to get people
he considered his friends and allies appointed Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer (HSSPF)
in Norway: initially Fritz Weitzel, who suddenly died already in June 1940; and Wilhelm
Redieß for the rest part of the war. Terboven hoped that by having such men appointed,
the office of HSSPF could be used in strengthening his own control as Reichskommissar
over the SS and police forces, instead of its functioning as a tool for Himmler to meddle
in Norway. 12
In the face of these machinations by Terboven, Stahlecker – who as BdS was
formally subordinate to the HSSPF – was restricted in his ability to fulfil the ambitions
of his true master, Himmler. The decision of Hitler to appoint Quisling as the head of the
collaborationist government in September 1940 came as a serious blow to Stahlecker,
Himmler, and the SS. 13
In November 1940, Stahlecker was transferred back to Berlin to a posting in
the German Foreign Office (Auswärtiges Amt). In June 1941, he was promoted to
SS-Brigadeführer and given command of EG A. His successor as BdS for Norway was
Heinrich Fehlis, who had previously been head of Einsatzkommando 1 and Kommandeur
der Sipo und des SD (KdS) in Oslo. 14
The general nature of Stahlecker’s command of EG A until his death near Krasnogvardeisk
(Gatchina) in March 1942 is assumed to be relatively common knowledge,
and this will not be repeated here.
A similar story to Stahlecker’s can be told about Erich Ehrlinger. An official of the
Reichssicherheitshauptamt (RSHA), he served in one of the Einsatzkommados during
the Polish campaign. After a brief interim assignment within the Waffen-SS, in August
1940 he was sent as a Himmler’s personal envoy to Oslo to oversee the creation of a
Waffen-SS organisation in Scandinavia, in which capacity he also acted as a Berater
to Quisling. Ehrlinger returned to the RSHA in Berlin in February 1941, after the first
Norwegian recruits had been inducted into the “Germanic” Waffen-SS regiment Nordland
(later part of SS-Division Wiking during Operation Barbarossa). 15
Himmler had secured consent from Hitler for the creation of Regiment Nordland
already on 20 April 1940, just ten days after the occupation of Denmark and Norway.
Covertly, however, Gottlob Berger’s Ergänzungsamt der Waffen-SS (Waffen-SS
Recruitment Office) had already been headhunting Scandinavian recruits since 13 April. 16