The divisions of the Waffen-SS were among the elite of Hitler’s armies in the Second World War. But alongside the Germans in the Waffen-SS fought an astonishingly high number of volunteers from other countries. By the end of the Second World War these foreign volunteers comprised half of all Hitler’s Waffen-SS, and filled the ranks of over twenty-four of the nominal thirty-eight Waffen-SS divisions. So during the most brutal war that mankind has ever known, hundreds of thousands of men flocked to fight for a country that was not theirs, and for a cause that was one of the most monstrous and barbaric in history. Who were these men, and why did they fight? Hitler’s Gauls is an in-depth examination of one of these legions of foreign volunteers, the Charlemagne division, who were recruited entirely from conquered France. The men in Charlemagne, often motivated by an extreme anti-communist zeal, fought hard on the Eastern Front including battles of near annihilation in the snows of Pomerania and the final stand in the ruins of Berlin. This definitive history, illustrated with rare photographs, explores the background, training, key figures and full combat record of one of Hitler’s lesser known foreign units of the Second World War.

Motivated by anti-communist zeal and a burning desire for Flemish self-rule, the men of the SS Langemarck answered Himmler's call to arms and earned a reputation for steadfastness in battle from friend and foe alike, right through to their eventual destruction by the Soviets in 1945. the exploits of key figures such as the famous Flemish Knight's Cross winner Remy Schrijnen are covered in detail. Written by a former captain in the British Army, this is the second in Spellmount's new series on Hitler's foreign Legions, following the best-selling Hitler's Gauls.

As the West finds itself embroiled in conflict with radical Islam at home and abroad it is fascinating to hear the echoes of militant Islam from the Second World War, and the Nazis attempt to preach 'Jihad' against the British Empire and Stalin. Hitler's Jihadis tells the story of the tens of thousands of Muslims, from as far away as India who volunteered to wear the SS double lightning flashes and serve alongside their erstwhile conquerors. Jonathan Trigg gives insight into the pre-war politics that inspired these Islamic volunteers, who for the most part did not survive. Those who did survive the war and the bloody retribution that followed saw the reputation of the units in which they served in berated as militarily inept and castigated for atrocities against unarmed civilians. Using first hand accounts and official records Hitler's Jihadis peels away the propaganda to reveal the complexity that lies at the heart of the story of Hitler's most unlikely 'Aryans'.

The Nazis' dream of a world dominated by legions of Aryan 'supermen', forged in battle and absolutely loyal to Hitler, was epitomised by the Waffen-SS. Created as a supreme military élite, it grew to become Nazi Germany's 'second army', an immense force totalling almost one million men by the end of the War. An astonishing fact about the SS is that thousands of its members were not German. Men stepped forward from almost every nation in Europe — for many, sometimes complex reasons — that included hatred of Bolshevism and nationalist sentiment or even straightforward anti-Semitism. Foremost amongst them were Scandinavians from Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. Thousands were recruited from 1940 onwards and fought with distinction on the Russian Front. They served at first in national legions but were then brought together in the Wiking Panzer Division and the Nordland Panzer-grenadier Division. In Hitler's Vikings, Jonathan Trigg details the battles these men fought and what inspired them to join the Waffen-SS, based wherever possible on interviews with surviving veterans. Many of the photographs reproduced here have never before been published. Hitler's 'Vikings' were amongst the last men still fighting in the ruins of Berlin in 1945 — their story is truly remarkable. Jonathan Trigg served in the 1st Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment, reaching the rank of Captain and completing tours in Northern Ireland, Bosnia and the Middle East. He is an established writer on military history, with a particular interest in foreign volunteer formations in the Second World War. Hitler's Vikings is his fourth volume in Spellmount's Hitler's Legions series.

In Hitler's Foreign Executioners, Heinrich Himmler's secret master plan for Europe is revealed: an SS empire that would have no place for either the Nazi Party or Adolf Hitler. His astonishingly ambitious plan depended on the recruitment of tens of thousands of 'Germanic' peoples from every corner of Europe, and even parts of Asia, to build an 'SS Europa'. This revised and fully updated book, researched in archives all over Europe and using first-hand testimony, exposes Europe's dirty secret: nearly half a million Europeans and more than a million Soviet citizens enlisted in the armed forces of the Third Reich to fight a deadly crusade against a mythic foe, Jewish Bolshevism. Even today, some apologists claim that these foreign SS volunteers were merely soldiers 'like any other' and fought a decent war against Stalin's Red Army. Historian Christopher Hale demonstrates conclusively that these surprisingly common views are mistaken. By taking part in Himmler's murderous master plan, these foreign executioners hoped to prove that they were worthy of joining his future 'SS Europa'. But as the Reich collapsed in 1944, Himmler's monstrous scheme led to bitter confrontations with Hitler – and to the downfall of the man once known as 'loyal Heinrich'.

By the end of the Second World War there were soldiers of more than thirty different nationalities in the Waffen-SS, and Reich Germans themselves were in the minority. How did a regime that believed so completely in the racial superiority of its population come to welcome hundreds of thousands of foreigners into its military elite? Who were these foreign SS men, and why did they fight so long and so hard for such a murderous regime?Hitler’s Jihadis provides an analysis of some of the most intriguing and controversial of these foreign volunteers – the thousands of Muslims, from as far away as India who wore the SS double lightning flashes alongside their erstwhile conquerors. Jonathan Trigg gives an insight into the pre-war politics that inspired these Islamic volunteers, who for the most part would not survive. Those who did survive the war and the bloody retribution that followed saw the reputation of the units in which they had served berated as militarily inept and castigated for atrocities against unarmed civilians. Using first-hand accounts and official records, Hitler’s Jihadis peels away the propaganda to reveal the complexity that lies at the heart of the story of Hitler’s most unlikely ‘Aryans’.

"Imagine a book about an unnecessary war written by the ruthless general of an occupying army - a vivid and dramatic propaganda piece that forces the reader to identify with the conquerors and that is designed, like the war itself, to fuel the limitless political ambitions of the author. Could such a campaign autobiography ever be a great work of literature - perhaps even one of the greatest? It would be easy to think not, but such a book exists -and it helped transform Julius Caesar from a politician on the make into the Caesar of legend. This remarkable new translation of Caesar's famous but underappreciated War for Gaul captures, like never before in English, the gripping and powerfully concise style of the future emperor's dispatches from the front lines in what are today France, Belgium, Germany, and Switzerland. While letting Caesar tell his battle stories in his own way, distinguished classicist James O'Donnell also fills in the rest of the story in a substantial introduction and notes that together explain why Gaul is the "best bad man's book ever written"--A great book in which a genuinely bad person offers a bald-faced, amoral description of just how bad he has been. Complete with a chronology, a map of Gaul, suggestions for further reading, and an index, this feature-rich edition captures the forceful austerity of a troubling yet magnificent classic - a book that, as O'Donnell says, 'gets war exactly right and morals exactly wrong.'" -- Front jacket flap