Finnish volunteers in the Waffen-SS
From 1941 to 1943, 1,408 Finns volunteered for service on the Eastern Front of World War II in the Waffen-SS, in units of the SS Division Wiking. Most of these volunteers served as motorized infantry in the Finnish Volunteer Battalion of the Waffen-SS. The unit was disbanded in mid-1943 as the volunteers' two-year commitment had expired and the Finnish government was unwilling to allow more men to volunteer. In 1944-1945 a company sized unit of Finnish defectors recruited to the SS continued fighting alongside Germany.
An SS representative speaking with members of the Finnish Army's TK company, August 1941
Mikko Korpijaakko served in the 10th company of the SS-Division Wiking's Westland regiment
Finnish Waffen-SS volunteers of the 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking during their homecoming parade in Hanko, Finland, 1 June 1943.
Military chaplain SS-Obersturmbannführer Kalervo Kurkiala gives a memorial speech for fallen brothers in arms in Hietaniemi in 1943
5th SS Panzer Division Wiking
The 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking or SS Division Wiking was an infantry and later an armoured division among the thirty-eight Waffen-SS divisions of Nazi Germany. During World War II, the division served on the Eastern Front. It surrendered on 9 May 1945 to the American forces in Austria.
Troops of the division in the Soviet Union in 1941.
A German SdKfz 251 armoured fighting vehicle of the Wiking Division captured by the Polish insurgents
Warsaw Uprising insurgents inspect war trophies including an armband with the Wiking name
Image: Bundesarchiv Bild 146 1973 138 14A, Felix Steiner
