The 5th SS 'Wiking' Division was originally formed as a motorized infantry division just prior to the invasion of the USSR. It was composed of not only Germans but also ethnic Germans from conquered countries, as well as members from Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, and the Netherlands.  Though it started late in the invasion of Russia, in 1942 the division became an integral part of Army Group South as it pushed towards the oil fields near the Caucasus Mountains.  As Stalingrad started to become a disaster for the German Army in 1943, Wiking was redeployed out of the south, and put in the position to stop a Soviet breakthrough. It eventually went on to take part in the Battles for Kharkov, and were put on flank duty for Kursk.  Wiking's shining moment in the war came in early 1944 at the Korsun-Cherkassy Pocket, where the soldiers of Wiking broke out of an attempted Soviet encirclement of Army Group South, and later at the town of Kovel, where the division once more held out against a Soviet advance despite being encircled.  The division spent the rest of the war in several major engagements in Poland and later Hungary as a part of IV SS Panzer Corps. As the end grew near, the battered men of the once proud division made their way west and surrendered to American forces in April of 1945. Despite having fought in the most brutal theater of the war, Wiking ended the war as a highly-decorated panzer division while keeping their honor clean (at Nuremberg no war crimes were proven to have been committed by this division).