SUNWHEELS AND SIEGRUNEN: Wiking, Nordland, Nederland and the Germanic Waffen-SS in Photograph Volume 1

1-210140

Oversized at 11.5 x 8.25, with 700+ b/w photos. First of two volumes.

Western European collaboration with the Germans is still misunderstood, nearly 70 years after the end of World War II. On the one hand, the countries involved have usually played down the number of volunteers they provided, while on the other, German propaganda often overstated the participation of foreigners, especially in the Waffen-SS.

The reality was that tens of thousands of volunteers from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland served in the Waffen-SS and the Legions it sponsored. They fought alongside other volunteers and conscripts from Estonia and Latvia in battles that are rarely mentioned in English-language literature, yet were often of decisive importance and vast scale.

The unprecedented coverage begins in this volume with the founding of the Germania Regiment in 1935, and continues with the forming of the famous Wiking Division in late 1940. Wiking is followed across Ukraine in 1941, and to the Caucasus the next year. The Dutch and Flemish Legions are shown in the hellish fighting along the Volkhov River, and the coverage extends to the Norwegian Legion that took part in the siege of Leningrad, and the Danish volunteers that were flown into the notorious Demyansk pocket. Even the little-known Norwegian ski company is portrayed during its time near the Arctic Circle in northern Russia. The photos include personalities, rare insignia, uniform details, many vehicle shots, and highly detailed captions.