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!
126 - The River Battles: Canada's Final Campaign in Italy
125 - Mechanisation of British Cavalry Units and Tank Doctrine
124 - Kais: Downed airmen in New Guinea
123 - Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsay
122 - Fallout: The Hiroshima Cover-up
121 - To Defeat The Few: The Luftwaffe's Battle of Britain
120 - The People's Army in the Spanish Civil War
119 - The British Army and the Anti-Locust Campaign
118 - The Codebreakers of Bletchley Park
117 - Information Hunters
116 - Clementine Churchill
115 - To VE Day Through German Eyes
114 - Airborne Chaplains in the Second World War
113 - Sighted Sub, Sank Same
112 - Four Hours of Fury: Operation Varsity
111 - An Impeccable Spy: Richard Sorge
110 - The P-47 Thunderbolt and 362nd Fighter Group
109 - The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan
108 - The Battle for Hong Kong, 1941
107 - The Battle of the Peaks and Long Stop Hill
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