[citation needed] Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941 and occupied Estonia by the end of the summer.

The Germans were perceived by most Estonians as liberators from the terror of Stalinist USSR, and hopes were raised for the restoration of the country's independence.

The initial enthusiasm that greeted the German invasion changed to disappointment, resentment, and in part even to enmity within a year.

Motivated by a desire for revenge on the Soviet Union, volunteers were plentiful, and while the original intent was for these units to serve as guards in Estonia, they were sent to the front line and acquitted themselves well.

[15] In early 1943, in response to the introduction of conscription and unhappy with German policies, some Estonians fled to Finland and enlisted in the Finnish Army.

It fought the Red Army on the Karelian Isthmus before helping form the Finnish 200th Infantry Regiment, which was made up of 310 Finns and 2,340 Estonians.

Volunteer Battalion Narwa distinguished itself fighting as part of the 5th SS Division until it returned to Estonia in July 1944.

From November the brigade had been committed to fighting partisans at Nevel near Velikiye Luki in the Soviet Union, and in December it moved further north to Staraya Russa where it joined the German 16th Army.

[22] On 7 February, the pre-war Prime minister Jüri Uluots switched his stand on mobilization when the Soviet Army reached the Estonian border.

Counting on a German debacle, Uluots considered it imperative to have large numbers of Estonians armed, through any means.

[23] Estonian officers and men in other units that fell under the conscription proclamation and had returned to Estonia had their rank prefix changed from "SS" to "Waffen" (Hauptscharführer would be referred to as a Waffen-Hauptscharführer rather than SS-Hauptscharführer).

Since the wearing of SS runes on the collar was forbidden by Augsberger on 21 April 1943, these formations wore national insignia instead.

The arrival of the I.Battalion, 1st Estonian Regiment at Tartu coincided with the prepared landing operation by the left flank of the Leningrad Front to the west coast of Lake Peipus, 120 kilometres south of Narva.

[29] On 8 February 1944, the division was attached to SS-Obergruppenführer and General of the Waffen-SS Felix Steiner's III SS (Germanic) Panzer Corps, then defending the Narva bridgehead.

The scarcity of able-bodied men forced Sturmbannführer Paul Maitla to request reinforcements from patients in the field hospital.

Twenty injured men responded, joining the remnants of other units including a part of the Kriegsmarine and supported by the single remaining Panther tank.

[32] The counterattack started from the parish cemetery south of the Tornimägi with the left flank of the assault clearing the hill of Soviet soldiers.

[24] In mid-August, the division's 45th Estland and 46th regiments were formed into Kampfgruppe Vent and sent south to help defend the Emajõgi river line, seeing heavy fighting.

[16] As their largest operation, supported by the 37th and 38th Estonian Police Battalions and a tank squadron commanded by Mauritz Freiherr von Strachwitz, they destroyed the bridgehead of two Soviet divisions and recaptured Kärevere Bridge by 30 August.

The attack of 4–6 September reached the northern outskirts of the city but was repulsed by units of the Soviet 86th, 128th, 291st and 321st Rifle Divisions.

The 287th Estonian Police Battalion had been formed in April 1943 from men who had deserted from the Estonian-recruited Red Army 249th Rifle Division the previous month.

[24] Eventually, the reformed division, which numbered roughly 11,000 Estonians and 2,500 Germans, returned to the front line in late February, just in time for the Soviet Vistula-Oder Offensive.

The men also guarded the accused Nazi war criminals held in prison during the trial, up until the day of execution.

[32][41] The Nuremberg Trials, in declaring the Waffen-SS a criminal organization, explicitly excluded conscripts in the following terms: Tribunal declares to be criminal within the meaning of the Charter the group composed of those persons who had been officially accepted as members of the SS as enumerated in the preceding paragraph who became or remained members of the organization with knowledge that it was being used for the commission of acts declared criminal by Article 6 of the Charter or who were personally implicated as members of the organization in the commission of such crimes, excluding, however, those who were drafted into membership by the State in such a way as to give them no choice in the matter, and who had committed no such crimes.

[42]The Nuremberg tribunal ruled that the 30,000 Estonians who had served in the Baltic Legions were conscripts, not volunteers, and defined them as freedom fighters protecting their homelands from a Soviet occupation and as such they were not true members of the criminal Waffen SS.

[43][need quotation to verify] Subsequently, on 13 April 1950, a message from the Allied High Commission (HICOG), signed by John J. McCloy to the Secretary of State, clarified the US position on the Baltic Legions: "they were not to be seen as 'movements', 'volunteer', or 'SS'.

[44] The US Displaced Persons Commission declared in September 1950 that: "The Baltic Waffen SS Units (Baltic Legions) are to be considered as separate and distinct in purpose, ideology, activities, and qualifications for membership from the German SS, and therefore the Commission holds them not to be a movement hostile to the government of the United States.

It was founded in 2000 and gatherings of veterans of the division are organised by the union on the anniversaries of the battle of the Tannenberg Line in the Sinimäed Hills.

On 15 October 2005 the monument was finally moved to the grounds of the Museum of Fight for Estonia's Freedom in Lagedi near the Estonian capital, Tallinn.

A gathering takes place every year that has seen veterans attending from Estonia, Norway, Denmark, Austria and Germany.