Geir Brenden

Featuring 1,000 unpublished photographs, this is the first book about the 4,500 Norwegian volunteers in the Waffen SS. Written by Geir Brenden and Tommy Natedal - who has researched the Norwegian volunteers since the 1980s - the book is based on Geir and Tommy's large photo archive and covers the various fronts where most Norwegian volunteers fought: the Caucasus, Leningrad and Karelia. Also covered in detail are the formations in which the Norwegian volunteers fought: Division Wiking, Freiw. Legion Norwegen, 1, 2 and 3 Police Company, The Norwegian Ski Company, Skijegerbataljonen and Regiment Norge.

Heinrich Himmler regarded the III. (Germanic) SS-Panzer-Korps under SS-Obergruppenf hre Felix Steiner as his favorite unit and general in the Waffen-SS. This SS-Panzer-Korps was supposed to ideologically unite SS volunteers from Denmark, Norway, the Netherlands, Finland, Sweden, Belgium and Switzerland into a Germanic brotherhood - intended to politically serve Himmler s plan of a Greater Germanic Empire and the colonization in the East. Battles against the Red Army in the Baltic states, Pomerania and Brandenburg-Berlin 1944 and 1945. Volume 2 deals with the retreat from Estonia in autumn 1944, the violent positional battles in Courland in 1944-45, the frantic fighting in Pomerania, but not last but not least, the desperate battles of defeat in Berlin in 1945. In addition to unique and unpublished photographs, the volume contains a wealth of unique eyewitness accounts from decades of interviews and correspondence with Waffen-SS veterans, detailed summaries of armored corps operations, short biographies of interesting personalities, facts about German and Soviet weapons and tanks, and lesser-known SS units, such as SS-Panzer-Abteilung 11 "Hermann von Salza" and schwere SS-Panzer-Abteilung 503. Distinguished WWII-researchers have contributed with essays on key aspects of the Waffen-SS.

This photographic volume depicts Himmler's favorite unit in the Waffen-SS: the III 'Germanic' SS Panzerkorps, for it fulfilled Himmler's long-time political plans of recruiting 'Germanic' volunteers for the creation of a greater Germanic Reich in the future. As such, it consisted in part of SS volunteers from western and northern European countries. Although largely forgotten today, this elite SS unit fought on a variety of battlefields ranging from Croatia and Ingermanland's snow-covered forests near Leningrad to the historic Estonian city of Narva, where it defended the Baltic countries of Estonia and Latvia against the Red Army in 1944-45. The remnants of the Panzerkorps ended up in both the hopeless defense of Pomerania and the final apocalypse at the battle for Brandenburg and Berlin in April-May 1945, when the Third Reich went down in a storm of fire and steel. Volume 1 covers the period from the creation of the III SS Panzerkorps in the summer of 1943 until the German evacuation of Estonia in September 1944. The coverage includes the unit's involvement in anti-partisan operations in Croatia (September-December 1943), the fighting at Oranienbaum-Leningrad and the battle for Ingria (January-February 1944); the defense of the Narva bridgehead and the battles for Dorpat and the Blue Hills, finishing with the German evacuation of Estonia (February-September 1944). On the Eastern Dront, a motley mix of nationalities and individuals fought under the Swastika and subsequently it was volunteers from various countries who served in the III 'Germanic' SS Panzerkorps, including Norwegians, Danes, Swedes, Swiss, Dutch, Flemings, Walloons, Estonians, Germans and ethnic Germans from Rumania. Even a handful of renegade British volunteers turned up in this unit during the final weeks of the Second World War. All of these soldiers had widely varying reasons for joining the Waffen-SS. The 2 volumes forming this series will not only include well over 1,000 mostly unpublished photographs of the III SS Panzerkorps during 1943-45, but also a large number of previously unpublished personal battle descriptions by surviving officers and soldiers of this corps from the authors' archives of personal correspondence. The photographs are also accompanied by interesting unit histories, biographies, commentaries on weapons and vehicles, as well as analyses of battlefield tactics. These volumes also destroy the myth that the Waffen-SS was purely a military phenomenon. The Waffen-SS was, and remained, in the world and in the long-term planning of Hitler, Himmler and the SS, primarily a political-ideological institution. The multinational Waffen-SS and its esprit de corps must be seen within the context of the European fascist movements of the time and of the polarization between fascism and communism during the years between the First and Second World War. This is especially true for the III 'Germanic' SS Panzerkorps as a future cadre providing SS functionaries for the creation and maintenance of a greater Germanic Reich in the West and the colonization of Lebensraum in the East. SS propaganda deliberately associated the character of the III 'Germanic' SS Panzerkorps with the medieval Teutonic Order in the East as an historic continuity. The dream of a Germanic empire and the Nazi war of extermination against Slavs and Jews were two sides of the same coin. Despite serious flaws during the hasty creation of the III 'Germanic' SS Panzerkorps in 1943, this unit achieved a remarkably successful military performance against a numerically superior opponent, the Red Army. The corps inflicted severe losses on Soviet units during all engagements. However, the losses of the III SS Panzerkorps in manpower and equipment were also extremely high. The personal battle descriptions included in the volumes provide a most powerful witness to the 'slaughterhouse' character of the Eastern Front in 1944-45.

Over 5000 nordmenn meldte seg frivillig for å kjempe på nazistenes side under annen verdenskrig. Vel 900 av dem kom aldri hjem. Motivene deres var sammensatte, men noen fellestrekk hadde de. Blant annet var behovet for å rettferdiggjøre valget sitt viktig, og i likhet med sine tyske våpenbrødre var de flinke til å dokumentere livet ved fronten. Selv om dette livet bar pregav dødens nærhet, er det likevel et annet inntrykk man får når man får se bildene de tok. Denne boken inneholder en utrolig samling fotografier som hovedsakelig stammer fra frontkjemperne selv. Her er mer enn 1000 tidligere upubliserte bilder. Fra Østfronten får vi blant annet se frontkjempere som poserer og smiler mot kameraet, skåler til fotografen, sørger i en kamerats begravelse eller kryper sammen i skyttergravene når de russiske stalinorglene spiller opp. I tillegg inneholder boken avslørende bilder fra frontkjemperkontoret i Oslo - og den gir deg et blikk inn i det ukjente livet til frontsøstrene.

Av de 5000 norske frontkjemperne ble rundt 1000 mann sendt til de russiske skoger i Karelen, i Hitlers tjeneste. Langs Karelens mange innsjøer og i de dype skogene kjempet de på finsk side mot Stalins røde hær. Mange nordmenn mistet livet i kamp her. Etter slagene om høydene Kaprolat og Hasselmann ble det sendt mange brev hjem til Norge med melding om at en sønn eller far hadde falt. For første gang fortelles det om frontlivet og om skijegernes historie i sin fulle bredde. Boken er basert på intervjuer, brev, dagbøker og annen dokumentasjon. Boken er rikt illustrert med autentiske bilder.

Under andre verdenskrig vervet rundt 5000 nordmenn seg til tjeneste i Adolf Hitlers elitestyrker, Waffen-SS. Flere hundre var offiserer. De fleste av disse fikk sin militære utdanning i Tyskland under krigen - på junkerskolen i den lille tyske byen Bad Tölz i delstaten Bayern. Denne boken forteller om disse mennene. Om de som falt i kamp og om de som overlevde. Aldri tidligere er det offentliggjort et så omfattende materiale om denne gruppen. Her gis det fakta om hver enkelt offisers bakgrunn og utdanning, om deres liv som SS-offiserer, om krigens hverdag - og om den straff de fikk under rettsoppgjøret i Norge etter krigen. Materialet i denne boken stammer fra dagbøker, intervjuer, brev, rettsdokumenter fra landssvikoppgjøret og andre dokumenter og boken inneholder mer enn 200 bilder. Boken inneholder også en spesialskrevet artikkel om svenske offiserer i Waffen-SS. skrevet av Lars Larsson.

Under andre verdenskrig vervet rundt 5000 nordmenn seg til tjeneste i Adolf Hitlers elitestyrker, Waffen-SS. Flere hundre var offiserer. De fleste av disse fikk sin militære utdanning i Tyskland under krigen . på junkerskolen i den lille tyske byen Bad Tölz i delstaten Bayern. Denne boken forteller om disse mennene. Om de som falt i kamp og om de som overlevde. Aldri tidligere er det offentliggjort et så omfattende materiale om denne gruppen. Her gis det fakta om hver enkelt offisers bakgrunn og utdanning, om deres liv som SS-offiserer, om krigens hverdag . og om den straff de fikk under rettsoppgjøret i Norge etter krigen. Materialet i denne boken stammer fra dagbøker, intervjuer, brev, rettsdokumenter fra landssvikoppgjøret og andre dokumenter og boken inneholder mer enn 200 bilder. Boken inneholder også en spesialskrevet artikkel om svenske offiserer i Waffen-SS. skrevet av Lars Larsson.