11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland

The 11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland was a Waffen-SS division primarily raised with Germans and ethnic Germans from Romania, but also foreign volunteers from Northern and Western Europe. It saw action, as part of Army Group North, in the Independent State of Croatia and on the Eastern Front during World War II. Formation In February 1943, Hitler ordered the creation of an SS division which would be officered by foreign volunteers. In March 1943, the SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Nordland, a Scandinavian volunteer regiment, was separated from the SS Division Wiking to be used as the nucleus for the new division. The Nordland's two Panzergrenadier regiments were also given titles that were meant to reference the countries of origin of their respective recruits, SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 23 Norge (Norway) and SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 24 Danmark (Denmark), however, at the time of the division's arrival on the Eastern Front in the autumn of 1943, almost 80% of its men were either Reichsdeutsche from Germany or Volksdeutsche from Romania. After its formation in Germany, the division was attached to the III (Germanic) SS Panzer Corps under the command of Obergruppenführer Felix Steiner and was moved to Croatia, where the SS Volunteer Legion Nederland (Netherlands) was attached to it. The division began combat operations against Yugoslav partisans in September 1943. In mid-October 1943, the division burned and looted several Serb villages in the Banija region of Croatia, and helped organize a local collaborationist Chetnik militia. 1944–1945 The division, along with the rest of the III SS Panzer Corps arrived at the front near Leningrad and was put into action against the Soviet Red Army attacks aimed at breaking the German encirclement of the city. The Red Army forced Nordland to withdraw to Oranienbaum. On 14 January 1944, the Soviet Krasnoye Selo–Ropsha Offensive succeeded in collapsing the German front. The follow-on Kingisepp–Gdov Offensive pushed the German forces to the city of Narva in northeastern Estonia to a new defensive line.