Nazi and SS Career Up To 1945
On 22 June 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), and Sassen volunteered for the German Eastern front. He became a member of the first Netherlands PK ("Propaganda Kompanie"). Because he had been working for Radio Bremen for some time already, he could start his work as a war correspondent after a short cut training. He was a "Wort-und Funkberichter" with the SS-division "Wiking" in the southern sector of the front and in the spring of 1942 witnessed the offensive in the Caucasus. On 26 July 1942, Sassen was wounded near Rostov and during the following eight months recovered in hospitals in Kraków, Munich and Berlin. In April 1943 he was promoted to SS-Unterscharführer (the lowest rank of non-commissioned officer, comparable to a US Corporal) and assigned to an SS armoured division near Kharkov. In the summer of 1943, he followed another training course on war correspondence and propaganda together with Dutch colleagues in Villach, Austria.
From August 1943 to June 1944, together with his Flemish colleague Jef Desseyn, Sassen formed the permanent editor team of Radio Brussels (Zender Brussel). The team was also responsible for training courses for war correspondents. On 6 June 1944 (D-Day), Kriegsberichter Sassen was at the front in Normandy reporting the battles around Caen, Bayeux, Saint-Lô, Avranches, Falaise and Lisieux. On 1 September 1944, Zender Brussel was ordered to be evacuated to Germany. Sassen remained in the Netherlands, reported the airborne landings around Arnhem and became the editor of the newspaper Het Nieuws van den Dag in Amsterdam. On 23 October 1944, Sassen in his newspaper called upon the hungry and cold of Amsterdam to go robbing food and fuel in the districts of the more rich and wealthy people; this was too much even for the Germans, and on pressure of the Sicherheitsdienst police, Sassen was dismissed.
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