Twilight of the Gods: A Swedish Waffen-SS Volunteer's Experiences with the 11th SS-Panzergrenadier Division Nordland, Eastern Front 1944-45

If you like war memoirs that have a lot of fighting and get straight to the point, you will love Twilight. In most memoirs authors begin with an introduction on where they came from, what kind of life they had prior to joining the army, why they joined the army, etc. No here. From what we are told (and there is not much of it), the author was a young Swedish man with deep and genuine fascist convictions. Around 1942 or 1943 he left his country and traveled to Germany to fight for Nazism, which he regarded as a good and noble cause. He joined Waffen SS and was sent to serve in the Nordland division, which took volunteers from Scandinavia and other northern countries.The book starts in January 1st 1945. The author is in Courland (present day Latvia) where he is celebrating New Year’s Eve. After some heavy fighting he is evacuated by the sea to Prussia where he fights Russians some more. The fighting eventually moves to the city of Stetin that guards a large bridge over the Oder (a river between Poland and Germany). After a lot of fighting his unit is one of the last ones to leave Stetin before the bridge is blown up. The Russian invasion stops briefly on the Oder, but the respite is short. Soon the Soviets manage to cross the river and the author (along with the rest of the German army, of course) spends his time trying to stop them from reaching Berlin. Once they get to Berlin, Nordland is pulled back inside the city where the author is engaged in very hard street-to-street, house-to-house fighting before being wounded. He spends the last few days of the war in a hospital. The last chapter is about him and a friend of his trying to escape to the Allied controlled part of Germany. All this time the author must hide his SS identity because if the Russians were to discover it, he would have been killed on the spot.The book is great to read for two reasons. Most of the book, about 80%, is about combat. The rest is about the author talking about his comrades (mostly), a little bit about himself (very little) and about soldiers goofing around. Some of the events described here read like something straight from an action movie. For example, at one point he and three other soldiers attack a Russian position and they chase away all the Russians hiding there. There is close to a hundred Russians there.It sounds hard to believe. Four men against one hundred? However, I have read historically confirmed accounts of even stranger things happening in war, so I am willing to grant the author the benefit of the doubt and assume that everything he says is true according to the best of his recollections. There are a couple of other events in the book that are hard to believe, but nothing that would be totally impossible.A second aspect of the book that I find fascinating is the insight it gives into the mind of a Nazi. I have read a number of German World War II memoirs, and in all of them the writer takes pains to explain that he was never a Nazi and that he fought not for Hitler but for Germany and out of soldier’s duty.Not so in Twilight. The author is a Nazi and he makes no attempt to hide it. He has very low opinion of the Russians. The impression I got from reading his words is that he regards them as inferior because of their (in his opinion) crude culture, lack of education and political views (he hates Communism). But he does not seem to regard them as biologically inferior, which marks him as different from the “mainstream” Nazism, which regards Russians (and other Slavic peoples) as being subhuman even on the biological level.Of the Holocaust and the concentration camps, he says not a word. Could it be that he didn’t know? Maybe. At one point he talks about escaped slave laborers who had armed themselves and formed into bandit groups. When talking about them, he rambles on about how ungrateful they are because they’ve been hired, paid good wages, treated fairly and introduced to such modern marvels as soap.Either he is lying, or he does not know what he is talking about. It is true that some slave laborers were treated better than others, but overall their treatment was an atrocity. They were “recruited” at gun point (that is why we call them “slave” laborers) and sent to work insane hours with little food and next to no medical attention. Many of them dropped dead while working or were killed once they could no longer work. The numbers are disputed, but it is estimated that hundreds of thousands of them died, maybe even millions. My own grandfather was a slave laborer in Germany. One night German soldiers surrounded his village, threw all the people out of their homes at gunpoint, forced all the young men on trucks and transported them to Germany for work. He spent two years there working at the railroads helping run locomotives. That was how he was “recruited.” Compared to others, he was quite lucky. Oh, and in case you wonder, he knew what soap was long before his captivity. (Not that he was given much soap during his “stay” in Germany.)But I am willing to assume that the author was ignorant of all these things because he was a frontline soldier. With all those bullets flying by and shells exploding around them, frontline soldiers have other things to worry about than what is happening back home. And in any case, they are cut off from the world. The only news they get is from the army newspapers, official announcements and radio broadcasts, which, needless to say, are heavily censored and stuffed with propaganda.But the author is delusion about other things—things he should know. At one point he refers to the war between Germany and the Allies as a civil war between brotherly nations which the Bolsheviks are using to attack Germany and spread Communism to Europe. Does he not remember that it was Hitler who started it all? Has he already forgotten that it was Hitler who attacked Russia and not the other way around? Is he really unaware of these things, or did he arrange and rearrange facts in his head until he came to believe what he wanted to believe?This book was written in late 1945. The author’s biography (which is short and gives very little information) says that he eventually left Sweden and travelled a lot around the world. It would have been interesting to get an afterword from him written decades later. How did he change with age? What did his travels taught him? Was he still a Nazi? If not, what would he have said about his younger self?Unfortunately, we will never know. Twilight was rereleased years after his death. I find this regrettable.

Incredible what a person can endure in a war and not be ruined mentally. I admire him as a soldier but no as an SS soldier. Aren't they the ones who orchestrated the murder of six million Jews along with other crimes against humanity? At times it was hard to read when the author bragged on the greatness of the SS pigs. Pray their kind will never reappear.

I have read several books about the life of volunteer SS from other countries than Germany. They all go along the same lines. About how brave. Strong and moral the SS soldiers were and how terrible the allies were. They never talk about the destruction and brutality the SS brought to every part of the European theater of war. I do agree the British and Americans should have been fighting the Russians.

So I enjoyed reading the author's numerous war stories, which are some of the most vivid and detailed I've read in any book. However as others have mentioned the author was fighting for the Nazis and fully believed in their vision, at least that's the impression I got. It was frustrating at times to read about the author's views on how Germany was innocent and the Russians were the aggressor. However overall if you read this book with a detached curious viewpoint it is an interesting book that gives an interesting perspective.

A book that covers the last year of the war. Very informative and unlike the usual personal stories you read. He doesn't toot his own horn, but tells a straightforward story of what it was like.

The narrative blurs into a repetitive series of anecdotes about close combat and harried retreats. A reader could scan the first chapter or two and skip the rest. The narrative voice acts as an apologist for the Waffen SS and is blinded to the heinous acts committed by the SS as an organization. I can never accept the idea of the Waffen SS as some noble band of warriors defending Europe’s heartland from Communism.

The Waffen S.S. became a "foriegn legion" for Nazi Germany, as World War II combat decimated the ranks of the German personnel.Like Switzerland, Sweden was one of a very small number of European nations to remain neutral during the Second World War. Unlike their neighbors in Norway and Denmark, they possessed a military that was better-trained, and just large enough and well-equipped to make a German invasion too costly, ...at least for a time. Sweden has long held certain mutually beneficial economic, political, and cultural ties with Germany, that both nations maintained. However, there was a German contingency plan to eventually absorb Sweden into the Reich, when the time was right.Many Scandinavians, gravely concerned about the Soviet invasion of their Finnish neighbors, went forth to fight for Finland or Germany. Realizing that if Finland fell, the Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians knew full-well that they would be next on the Soviet Union's list of potential conquests.Erik Wallin was a Swedish anti-aircraft soldier who had already volunteered twice for Finland, when he deserted in 1943 to join the Waffen S.S. in Germany. He served in the 11th S.S. Panzergrenadiers, "Nordland" Division, as a member of the Reconaissance battalion. This unit, largely composed of fellow Scandinavians, served with great distinction in battle. Wallin's accout describes his experience in the last year of the war, fighting from the Baltic to Berlin, ...where the Nordland Division was decimated.

Very detailed account of the last months and days of the war fighting the Russians. Survival and comradeship are foremost and presented in a very readable style. I recommend this book for those who want a more personal account of those final days.

Another excellent first-hand account of WW2 on the eastern front. The author volunteered to fight with the German army against Russian Bolshevism and, as a foreign national, he was recruited to the elite Waffen SS, rather than to the Germany Army (which only accepted German nationals). He became one of those few who, through a blend of military skill and luck, not only survived but also managed to avoid Russian captivity after the war (though he was subsequently imprisoned by the Swedish authorities!). It's an easy and enjoyable read. There are detailed accounts of the fighting, and an informed commentary on many wider aspects of the war. A valuable contribution to history.

One of the most dramatic accounts of the WWII autobiographies I've read. Additionally, it allowed a real insight into the views of the German soldier of the time, instead of trying to whitewash it out with apologetics. The only negative is that it only really takes place over the last year of WWII, so it's unfortunately limited and relatively short by comparison to some other autobiographies.

Very interesting account of a Swedish Waffen SS man in the Nordland Division. Ended up fighting in Berlin, being injured, and then being captured by the Russians. A great read for anyone interested in personnel survival story's of the Eastern Front.

It's unusual to read an unashamedly proud Pro-German account of the war so that made it interesting. I don't have enough in depth knowledge of the topic to judge the historical accuracy of the account but I've no reason to doubt it either.

All action,last man standing description of battles going 3 steps backwards and one step forwards.Fascinating look at Nordic Nazism.Still left with the question Why did he fight to the end? ,Hitler didn't.