12th Hitlerjugend SS Panzer Division in Normandy

The history of the armored division comprised of German teenagers in the Normandy campaign, drawing on new materials from former Eastern Bloc archives. Raised in 1943 with seventeen-year-olds from the Hitler Youth movement, and following the twin disasters of Stalingrad and ‘Tunisgrad,’ the Hitlerjugend Panzer Division emerged as the most effective German division fighting in the West. The core of the division was a cadre of officers and NCOs provided by Hitler’s bodyguard division, the elite Le