The command of the Finnish Volunteer Battalion was given to a German SS-Hauptsturmführer (Captain) Hans Collani (born in 1908 in Stettin).    

He was a former volunteer SA-man and had served in "Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler" as a company leader and adjutant. He partisipated both in Polish and French campaigns and served also in SS-Regiment "Nordland" and in the HQ of "Wiking" before he got the battalion of his own. Collani was promoted to SS-Sturmbannführer (Major) on the 20th of April 1942 and to SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel) on the 29th of April 1943. 

He was killed in action as a commander of SS-Freiwilligen-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 49 "De Ruyter" on the 29th of July 1944. He was promoted posthumously to SS-Standartenführer (Colonel) and he also got the Ritterkreutz. He was buried in Tallinn, Estonia. 
 

Former commander of the SS-Division "Wiking", Felix Steiner is talking to a volunteer Finn in Ruhpolding. Battalion  Commander Hans Collani accompanies the conversation with interpreter Kurt Tillmann on the right. German-made sleeve shields of the Volunteer Finnish SS-Battalion are clearly visible.

Felix Steiner  was born in 1886 in East-Prussia. Steiner's military career started as Officer Trainee in 1914 when the First Wolrld War began. He partisipated in campaigns both in the eastern and western fronts and continued his career in Reichswehr after the war. 

Steiner joined the Waffen-SS and became the member of the nazi-party during the 30's. When the Second World War began in 1939 he was the commander of the SS-Regiment "Deutschland". In the autumn of 1940 Steiner was promoted to SS-Gruppenführer and ordered to form a new SS-Division "Wiking" for the foreign volunteers. Under his command "Wiking" Division was involved in heavy fightings in southern sector of Russian front between 1941 - 1943. 

Steiner commanded the "Wiking" Division 'till the beginning of 1943. He was then promoted to SS-Obergruppenführer and ordered to form the III SS-Panzerkorps which consisted of the 5. SS-Panzergrenadier-Division "Wiking" and 11. Freiwilligen SS-Panzergrenadier-Division "Nordland". At the end of the war Steiner commanded a whole army near Berlin. 

During the Nurenberg trials Steiner and his Division were releaved of all indictments which concerned crimes against humanity and other similar kind of serious war crimes. After the war he wrote two books on "Wiking's" operations in Soviet-Union. Felix Steiner died at his home in Munich in 1956. 

Steiner didn't forgot his former battalion after the war. He visited in Finland only a few months before his death, when Finnish volunteers gathered to celebrate their journey to Europe. Finns remember his warm and paternal relation to Finnish Battalion and all its volunteers. 
 
 
 
 

Finnish Volunteer SS-Battalion was probably the only SS-unit which had its own military pastor! Kalervo Kurkiala was known to be the former Rector of the small Finnish rural district, Hattula. 

When Finnish Battalion was moved to the front, Jäger Major Kalervo Kurkiala was ordered to join Finnish Battalion as Liaison Officer and he got the corresponding rank of SS-Sturmbannführer. He had been in Germany during the WW I as a member of the volunteer Royal Prussian Jäger-Battalion No. 27. There he had married a German woman and thus spoke fluent German. 

Kurkiala worked in the HQ of "Wiking" and represented Finnish Battalion if problems arised between the Finns and Germans. He also took care of invaluable connections between Finns in "Wiking" Division and Finland. His presens gave strength to stand the pressure of hard military service long away from home. 

Kurkiala was promoted to the rank of SS-Obersturmbannführer (Lt. Col.) in 1942. He returned to Germany before the war ended and lived in Sweden after the war.