Søren Kam: A Life Without Fatherland [EN SUB]

The story of Hitler's elite soldier who became one of the most hated men in Denmark. The privileged son of a merchant from Charlottenlund volunteers for the SS already at 18 years-old. He becomes a Nazi celebrity and meets both Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler, but in Denmark he is despised and hated for his participation in a brutal murder on a newspaper editor in 1943.

Note that not all footage is of the units being mentioned at the time *

Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
03:25 Upbringing and National Socialist Youth
06:23 Schalburg and the Blood Boys
08:14 Joining the Waffen-SS
09:26 Operation Barbarossa and world view
11:20 Fascination with war
13:00 War crimes
15:24 Crossing the Dnieper with Regiment Nordland
16:57 Recovering in Denmark and correspondence with Schalburg
18:32 SS Junker School in Bad Tölz
20:54 Meeting with Himmler and visiting Dachau
23:42 Formation of the Schalburg Corps
25:06 Hostility with the Danish population
28:47 Murder of editor Clemmensen
30:36 Investigation of the murder and consequences
33:23 Flying into the Cherkasy Cauldron
37:48 Fighting in Poland and winning the Knight's Cross
42:21 End of the war and hiding in the Alps
47:55 Fugitive in Germany and gaining German citizenship
52:58 Later court case and activity in the SS veteran community
57:33 Final remarks by Søren Kam

Søren Kam volunteered for the Waffen-SS in June 1940 and served with SS Division Wiking, like the other Danes who joined early in the war. Kam remained in Wiking for the rest of his service, while most Danes served in Free Corps Denmark and later SS Panzergrenadier Regiment 24 "Danmark" of SS Division Nordland. As such, it seems like Kam mostly served with Germans, and he commonly describes conversations he had during the war in German. On 30th January 1943, Kam became an Untersturmführer (Lieutenant) in the Waffen-SS. In summer 1943, Kam was selected to form the Schalburg Corps in Denmark, originally intended to be a Danish variant of the Waffen-SS in regards to military training and ideological schooling, but was mostly known for its anti-partizan activities in Denmark. In 1945, he won the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, as Obersturmführer (First Lieutenant) and company chief in Regiment Germania of Division Wiking, for defending a hill in Poland against all odds, allowing many friendly troops to escape. While Kam is overwhelmingly known in Denmark for the murder on editor Clemmensen, it seems like he is most famous internationally for being awarded the Knight's Cross. This makes him one of only three Danish Knight's Cross recipients. The Danish Waffen-SS volunteers were never punished for war crimes or other activities outside of Denmark, and as such only spent a few years in prison following the war for treason. However, an accomplice in the murder, Flemming Helweg-Larsen, was executed for it in 1946, and Kam would never officially return to Denmark after the war. Kam obtained German citizenship and was protected by Germany when Denmark later sought his extradition for punishment in Denmark. Kam lived in Bavaria to the end of his life and was very active in the post-war Waffen-SS veteran community to his death in 2015.

Kam used a lot of German words and incorrect direct translations when speaking Danish. I have left a lot of German words in the English subtitles, as is usually the case when dealing with this period, and added the translation in brackets when necessary.

Per usual, the official subtitles are horrible, so I made the German sections to the best of my ability. If there are any mistakes or inaccuracies, please correct them in the comments.

The German march playing in the background of much of the video, and that Kam is listening to in the car, is "Durch deutsches Land marschieren wir".

Published by the Danish Broadcasting Corporation in 2017