SS-Wiking Division Ring

Here is the genuine Wiking Division ring. We have all seen the “fantasy Viking ring,” that ugly, grimacing Norseman with the evil, clenched teeth, and the round shields with sun wheel swastika and ‘SS’ on the sides. This was first produced in Taiwan and marketed by a company known as Delta International in California as early as the 1960s and still, people get stuck with them for good money. Today, you could even get a high-officer’s version in 14-karat gold (no SS ring was even made in gold). Our Wiking ring also has a Viking chief as the central design, but he has a kinder, gentler countenance. The sides bear the SS runes; one to each side. The ring is in genuine silver, of course, and the detail is great. The Wiking Division goes down in the annals of WWII as one of the finest of the Waffen-SS elite groups. It took part in most of the bloody battles that raged in the east. It was an SS Panzer grenadier division under the command of its own officers. It fought on the eastern front until July 1943, when it returned to Finland and was disbanded, but reinstated and in July 1944, the German summer offensive against Russia was launched in the Kursk-Kharkov sector with the Viking Division making one the deepest penetrations. It was eventually caught in the Cherkassy pocket. Wiking was the only armored division in the trap and therefore was the spearhead of the assault to break out. Although many German troops did escape because of Viking’s brave and noble action, including the Belgian Knight’s Cross winner, the famous Léon Degrelle, the Wiking Division lost all its armor, all its equipment, and half of the personnel, as the savage Russian troops advanced. Some survivors of the bloodied Wiking Division were formed into a 4,000-man Kampfgruppe and sent back to the straining, horrible front. It put up a hell of a fight. Even though the fighters had no heavy weapons and not even enough rifles to arm all the soldiers. The remainder of the survivors was transferred to Poland where they served as a nucleus for a completely refitted division on February 18, 1944. For further information on this illustrious battle group you can put in “SS Wiking Div” on Google or other search engines. It was the crème de la crème of elite warriors. Wiking was at all times composed of various foreign volunteers fighting alongside their German brothers for Europe. The division contained full regiments of Dutch, Flemings, Norwegians, and Danes, as well as Swiss, Finns, Swedes, Estonians, Wallonians, and divisional replacement were drawn from Volksdeutsche in the Balkans and elsewhere. They were some of the best of the best and they fought and died for the European heartland and surely they did not die in vain as they stopped the communist onslaught from completely overrunning Europe. The ring is a meaningful remembrance of this epic struggle.