ϟϟ-Division „Wiking“ Advance Toward Maykop in the North Caucasus

The Prussian Wiking Commander Felix Steiner
SS-Division Wiking
SS-Division Wiking moved off to the Southwest in the direction of Maykop at the head of the LVII.Panzerkorps. Under the command of the East Prussian officer SS-Gruppenführer und Generalleutnant der Waffen-SS Felix Steiner, the Dutch, Scandinavian and German SS volunteers assembled in the division penetrated to the Northwest and Southwest parts of the Maykop oil region. The enemy offered resistance wherever he could. Top clip: the commander of the Wiking Division, Felix Steiner, talks to his men in the summer of 1942. Before the end of the war he had been awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross with Oakleaves and Swords. Together with SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer und Generaloberst der Waffen-SS Paul Hausser, he contributed significantly to the development and transformation of the Waffen-SS into a combat force made up of volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and un-occupied lands. By nature of that act alone, he became one with his men. Die Deutsche Wochenschau - the official Nazi German war newsreel from 1940 until production discontinued in March 1945. It received film stock from special Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht war reporting units. Bottom image: SS-Panzergrenadiers and Kradschützen of the Wiking in the Caucasus in 1942. Photo by war correspondent SS-Kriegsberichter Willi Altstadt. U.S. National Archives. 

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