Ian Baxter - SS Foreign Divisions & Volunteers of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, 1941–1945: Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives

RARE PHOTOGRAPHS FROM WARTIME ARCHIVES

Ian Baxter

First published in Great Britain in 2021 by

PEN & SWORD MILITARY

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Copyright Ian Baxter, 2021

ISBN 978-1-39901-298-0

eISBN 9-781-399-012-997

The right of Ian Baxter to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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I an Baxter is a military historian who specialises in German twentieth-century military history. He has written more than fifty books including Poland The Eighteen Day Victory March, Panzers In North Africa, The Ardennes Offensive, The Western Campaign, The 12th SS Panzer-Division Hitlerjugend, The Waffen-SS on the Western Front, The Waffen-SS on the Eastern Front, The Red Army at Stalingrad, Elite German Forces of World War II, Armoured Warfare, German Tanks of War, Blitzkrieg, Panzer-Divisions at War, Hitlers Panzers, German Armoured Vehicles of World War Two, Last Two Years of the Waffen-SS at War, German Soldier Uniforms and Insignia, German Guns of the Third Reich, Defeat to Retreat: The Last Years of the German Army At War 194345, Operation Bagration the Destruction of Army Group Centre, German Guns of the Third Reich, Rommel and the Afrika Korps, U-Boat War, and most recently The Sixth Army and the Road to Stalingrad. He has written over a hundred articles including Last days of Hitler, Wolf s Lair, The Story of the V1 and V2 Rocket Programme, Secret Aircraft of World War Two, Rommel at Tobruk, Hitlers War With his Generals, Secret British Plans to Assassinate Hitler, The SS at Arnhem, Hitlerjugend, Battle of Caen 1944, Gebirgsjager at War, Panzer Crews, Hitlerjugend Guerrillas, Last Battles in the East, The Battle of Berlin, and many more. He has also reviewed numerous military studies for publication, supplied thousands of photographs and important documents to various publishers and film production companies worldwide, and lectures to various schools, colleges and universities throughout the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.

D rawing on a collection of rare and unpublished photographs, SS Foreign Divisions and Volunteers of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia 194245 tells how the Germans recruited conscripts into the Waffen-SS from those countries. It describes how Lithuania, unlike her Latvian neighbour, had no plans to provide Germany with a national legion of volunteers. Although many volunteers came forward, most were absorbed into German-sponsored units. As for Latvia and Estonia, thousands were recruited into their own foreign legion Waffen grenadier SS divisions where they saw action around Leningrad, in the Ukraine, and in defensive operations in the Baltic States as the Red Army smashed its way through them in 1944.

A t dawn on 22 June 1941 approximately 3 million German soldiers on the frontier of the Soviet Union embarked on one of the most brutal conflicts of the twentieth century: Operation BARBAROSSA. Directing this invasion of Russia were Field Marshal Ritter von Leeb, commander of Army Group North, Field Marshal Fedor von Bock in the centre, and Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt in the south.

Army Group North was tasked with destroying the Red Army in the Baltic region. Hitler stipulated on the eve of the invasion that the objective was to thrust across East Prussia, smashing Soviet positions along the Baltic, liquidating the bases of the Baltic Fleet, destroying what was left of Russian naval power and capturing Kronstadt and Leningrad.