Europäische Freiwillige der Waffen-SS – ϟϟ-Division „Wiking“

Scandinavian Waffen-SS Volunteers

Dutch/Flemish SS-Infanterie-Regiment Westland

The SS-Division Wiking was well known not only for being a fierce and bitter fighting unit, but because a great number of its members were not German, but foreign volunteers. Danes, Dutch, Finns, Flemings, Norwegians, Swedes and Walloons made up the core of the division. One of the reasons the Wiking fought exclusively on the Eastern Front was the fact that its substantial minority of foreign volunteers - primarily from the Netherlands, Belgium and the Scandinavian countries - were enticed into German service by the promise of being able to fight Russian Bolshevism. Another reason for volunteering among the Nordic citizens was the urge many felt to help Finland in their war against the Soviets. Within a year of their home countries falling to the Germans in 1940, Belgian, Dutch and Scandinavian citizens volunteered to join the Waffen-SS and fight against dictator Joseph Stalin's Communist Soviet Union. By the end of the war tens of thousands had volunteered. Top screenshot is from a Norwegian newsreel showing Reserve battalion Holmestrand of the Norwegian SS Legion on June 14 1942 at the Royal Palace in Oslo. National Archives of Norway. Credit: Julius Backman Jääskeläinen. FU. Bottom image: Dutch and Flemish recruits to the Westland Regiment of the Wiking Division perform their morning exercises while undergoing training at a camp in München under the command of German SS-Obersturmbannführer Berthold Mack. The cult of the Germanic body was a central tenet of Nazi ideology, and physical exercise was taken seriously by the Waffen-SS. Certainly, it helped produce first-class troops able to withstand the physical rigors of campaign life. The photo was used in a poster in 1942 to recruit Dutch volunteers for the Westland. Nederlands Instituut voor Oorlogsdocumentatie. Public domain.