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. This volume follows the survivors of the bloody fighting in France into the Battle of the Bulge in December 1944, the division's last stand in Hungary, and its retreat into Austria. Stackpole publishes 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.