FRENCH LANGUAGE BOOK. In the spring of 1940, when Germany invaded Denmark, Norway and then the Netherlands and Belgium, the Waffen-SS opened recruitment offices there, with mixed, if not mediocre, results. But when the Third Reich embarked on the war against the Soviet Union, the crusade against Bolshevism revived the enthusiasm for this stagnating recruitment. Thus, four national legions, formed of Germanic volunteers, placed under the cut of Heinrich Himmler, are raised and engaged on the front of the East. In the spring of 1943, these legions were dissolved to give birth to new SS formations, mostly subordinated to the 3rd SS armoured corps of Germanic volunteers, whose command was entrusted to Felix Steiner, previously at the head of the Wiking division, a unit also partly made up of Germanic volunteers. This new army corps, on which Himmler pinned many political hopes, was sent to the Balkans where he had the bitter experience of fighting against the partisans of Tito, before leaving for the Eastern front which he won't leave again. Terribly tested during the retreat from Oranienbaum, he fought a heroic battle in Narva where he forged a warrior reputation that impressed throughout Europe. The propaganda services of the Reich will take advantage of its defensive exploits to make it the symbol of the struggle of the West against the barbarian hordes from Asia. Estonians, Walloons and Flemish join him during the terrible fighting in Estonia, then it will be the retreat towards the Courland pocket, the battle lost in advance in Pomerania and the hopeless struggle in and around Berlin. More than all the other volunteers who joined the Waffen-SS during the Second World War, the Germans will have served the projects of the future European army that Himmler dreamed of.