A diary is published here that reflects the activity of a unit of Estonian volunteers that was part of the German Army in the Second World War. The unit in question is the 184th Security Group (Estnische Sicherungsgruppe 184) formed in the summer of 1941, which was unofficially known as an Eastern Battalion. Its mission was to maintain security in the rear area of the German 18th Army, which was fighting in the vicinity of Leningrad. The unit’s mission was primarily to protect communications lines and to fight against Red Army reconnaissance detachments, sabotage squads, and partisans.

There is little personal data on Bernhard Juursalu, the diary’s author. All that is known for certain is that Bernhard Jürgenson (Juursalu starting from 1936) was born on 16 (29 N.S.) May 1906 in Kambja Parish, Tartu County. He lived in Tallinn in the 1930s. He was married and had a son and daughter. According to unconfirmed information, Bernhard Juursalu worked as a book distributor for the Loodus publishing house before the Second World War. He joined the 184th Security Group in October of 1941 and was appointed a corporal of the 2nd Platoon of the group’s 18th Company. A year later, he transferred to the Estonian SS Legion, which was in the process of being formed. There he underwent SS non-commissioned officer training. SS-Oberscharführer (SS senior section leader) Bernhard Juursalu was killed on the Narva Front on 5 March 1944.

The diary covers the period from 14 October 1941 to 2 November 1942. It appears as if the author rewrote his initial observations that he had hastily jotted down in operational areas later in a peaceful situation. Yet they did not all fit into a single notebook. Temporally later sheets of notes have been pasted into the notebook. During the second Soviet occupation, the diary was hidden from unwanted eyes, but at the end of 1951, the Soviet state security organs became interested in Bernhard Juursalu’s son Uldo and his mother Vilhelmine. The diary came to light as the result of repeated searches. Initially, the Chekists apparently used the diary to gather ‘operational data’, but it later found its way into the present-day Estonian National Archives (ERA.R-75.1.16).

The diary records the activity of the 184th Security Group, but first and foremost of its 18th Company. Since there is relatively little information in historical literature and also in the memoirs of veterans on these units, Bernhard Juursalu’s diary has to be considered a very valuable historical source. In it the reader will find descriptions of the moods of the volunteers and of everyday life as well as information on military action – sentry duty, the pursuit of partisans, armed skirmishes, etc. Lengthy and comprehensive overviews of a reconnaissance mission carried out on 26 and 27 March 1942 to the Russian Baltic Fleet’s stronghold at Lavassaare, and of the so-called Tütarsaare operation (2 to 9 April 1942) might be the most interesting passages.

The diary is published with a few deletions (primarily, articles that had appeared in the press, which the author copied out into the diary, have been left out) but its main content is brought to the reader in unaltered form. Commentary and two maps-diagrams have been added in the interests of better understanding the events described (Bernhard Juursalu himself apparently drew one of them – the diagram of the Lavassaare mission).