Recruited from the ranks of the Hitler Youth organization, the 12th SS Panzer Division-one of World War II's most feared and fanatical units-consisted largely of seventeen- and eighteen-year-old Nazi-indoctrinated boys. In the wake of D-Day in June 1944, the 12th SS received its baptism of fire in Normandy, where it launched a series of counter-attacks that stymied the Allies for nearly two months. Hubert Meyer follows these teenage soldiers through their first weeks of combat, based primarily on firsthand records. Stackpole publishers this work in the interest of telling the full story of World War II and especially understanding the foe the Allies fought and so many Allied young men died to defeat. Book jacket.