At the beginning of WWII Germany invaded and occupied Denmark and Norway, but left neutral Sweden alone. Less than a year later citizens from all three of those Scandinavian nations were volunteering to join the Waffen-SS. By the end of the war in 1945 the number of Scandinavians who had fought in the Waffen-SS had reached the thousands. Casualties were high, but there were survivors and they returned home, often to face retribution and condemnation.
In episode 55, I discussed the Flemish Waffen SS, with Jonathan Trigg. Since then he’s been busy tracking down the few surviving veterans of the SS who were from Scandinavia, for his new book Voices of the Scandinavian Waffen SS: The Final Testament of Hitler's Vikings.
Being a fellow Yorkshireman, with a new book, on a very interesting topic, I thought it rude not to ask him back!
146 - Stop Lines
145 - Bomb Aimers
144 - Alan Brooke: Churchill's Right-Hand Critic
143 - The Battle for Madagascar
142 - Mackenzie King
141 - Eighth Army versus Rommel
140 - How to kill a Panther tank
139 - German Uniforms of WWII
138 - Hang Tough: Major Dick Winters
137 - Operation Lena and Hitler's Plots to Blow up Britain
136 - The Defeat of Army Group South, 1944
135 - Spaniards in the British Army
134 - The Original Jeeps
133 - Rome
132 - The 746th Far East Air Force Band
131 - Economists at War
130 - The Texel Uprising: Night of Bayonets
129 - The Guadalcanal-Solomons Campaign, November 1942–March 1943
128 - The Doolittle Raiders and their Fight for Justice
127 - The Longest Campaign
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