11th SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division Nordland - Concept and Formation

Concept and Formation

By 1943, the foreign formations of the Waffen SS had an established record in combat. The 5th SS Panzer Division Wiking, a volunteer division, had been in action since 1940. The 5 SS Wiking, however, was composed of enlisted men who were predominantly Nordic volunteers, commanded by German officers. In February 1943, Hitler ordered the creation of an SS Division which would be officered by foreign volunteers. The Wiking's SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment Nordland, a Scandinavian volunteer regiment, was pulled out of the line to be used as a cadre for the new division. The division was originally to receive the name Waräger (Varangians) but the name was rejected by Hitler himself. It was decided that the division was to continue using the already-existing regiment’s name, Nordland. The Nordland's two Panzergrenadier regiments were also given honour titles, with reference to the location where the majority of the regiment's recruits were from, SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 23 Norge (Norwegians) and SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 24 Danmark (Danes).
Despite most volunteers hailing from Scandinavia, the Nordland carried the widest range of nationalities found in any single division. By the end of the war, Danish, Hungarian, Dutch, Norwegian, Finnish, French, Romanian, Spanish, Swedish, Swiss and British volunteers and Estonian conscripts had either served in the division or been attached to it.
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 for training and to complete its formation. Soon after its arrival, the SS Volunteer Legion Netherlands was attached to the division and it began combat operations against Josip Broz Tito's partisans. In late November, the Danmark regiment was involved in heavy fighting with a force of 5,000 partisans near Glina. During this period, the Nordland's Panzer Battalion, SS Panzer Battalion 11, was given the honour title Hermann von Salza in honour of the fourth Grand Master of the Teutonic Knights (b.1179-d.1239).
In January 1944, orders were received to move the division to the Oranienbaum front near Leningrad, under the command of Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model's Army Group North.