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The Danish Volunteers in the Waffen SS and German Warfare at the Eastern Front

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 1999

Peter Scharff Smith ,
Niels Bo Poulsen  and
Claus Bundgård Christensen
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Abstract

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A total of 5,500 Danes joined the Waffen SS during the Second World War. They served primarily on the Eastern Front, often fighting under appalling conditions. The article follows the volunteers in action and examines in detail the Frikorps Danmark (Danish Legion), which provided a significant number of anti-Bolshevik, non-Nazi volunteers for the Waffen SS. The article analyses the behaviour of these men and focuses on the issue of ideological commitment. How did they react mentally to the context they operated in, and to the fact that they became more and more alienated in their homeland as the war progressed?

Type
Research Article
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 8 , Issue 1 , March 1999 , pp. 73 - 96
Copyright
© 1999 Cambridge University Press