In the summer of 1942, the policy of “total war” (der totale Krieg) was introduced, and Germany could no longer afford the luxury of maintaining an SS music corps.
The orchestra was dissolved, and its members were sent to the front.
Before his departure, Asger was granted one week’s leave in Austria. After that leave, he was sent to the front, where for the next year and a half he lived under constant enemy fire, being shelled or shot at virtually every day.
He was thus sent to Bobruisk (130 km southeast of Minsk in Belarus), where the remnants of Frikorps Danmark had arrived after the battles at Lake Ilmen.
About half of the Corps had fallen in these battles, and too few remained to form a unit of their own. Therefore, Regiment Danmark was established, consisting partly of the Danish volunteers, but also of Norwegians, Dutchmen, ethnic Germans from Romania, and several others.
In Russia, the lice arrived as well. Some reacted more strongly to lice than others. Asger could live with the lice, but found it irritating when they crawled around in his hair, for example in his armpits.
At first, he boiled all his clothes—with the disastrous result that all his woollen clothing shrank. It helped, but only for a couple of days.
Whenever one travelled from the front to Germany, there was always a delousing station before reaching Germany.
They did not remain in Bobruisk for long and were then transferred to Grafenwöhr in Germany, where the new Regiment Danmark was formed.
The Danish volunteers from Frikorps Danmark were very dissatisfied with this development. It was not what they had enlisted for, nor was it what they had been promised.
This dissatisfaction resulted in the unfortunate meeting with the Danish representative, Mohr.
Asger had claimed to have flat feet in order to avoid regular infantry service, and as a result he was assigned to the 12th Company—the heavy weapons company.
Regiment Danmark consisted of a total of 13 companies.
At Grafenwöhr, he finally received, together with the others, the military training that he had not received at Sennheim.
And it was extremely thorough.
He had always possessed excellent eyesight and was a skilled marksman with a rifle.