Together with Paul Hausser, he contributed significantly to the development and transformation of the Waffen-SS into a combat force made up of volunteers and conscripts from both occupied and un-occupied lands.

[3] However, as his unit was outnumbered ten to one, Steiner made it clear that he did not have the capacity for a counter-attack on 22 April during the daily situation conference in the Führerbunker.

[5] In 1919, Steiner joined the paramilitary Freikorps in the East Prussian city of Memel during the German Revolution and was later incorporated into the Reichswehr in 1921.

At the outbreak of World War II, he was SS-Oberführer (senior leader) in charge of the Waffen-SS regiment SS-Deutschland.

[6] At the time of its creation, the division consisted mostly of non-German volunteers (Dutch, Flemish, Finns and Scandinavians), including the Danish regiment Frikorps Danmark.

In January 1945, Steiner along with the III SS Panzer Corps was transferred by ship from the Courland Pocket to help with the defence of the German homeland.

By 21 April, Soviet Marshal Georgi Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front had broken through the German lines on the Seelow Heights.

Hitler ordered Steiner to attack the northern flank of the huge salient that had been created by the 1st Belorussian Front's breakout.

General Helmuth Weidling's LVI Panzer Corps, which was still east of Berlin with its northern flank just below Werneuchen, was also ordered to participate in the attack.

The three divisions from CI Army Corps were 24 kilometres (about 15 miles) east of Berlin, and the attack to the south would cut the 1st Belorussian Front's salient into two.

Hitler finally declared that the war was lost, blamed the generals for the Reich's defeat and announced that he would remain in Berlin until the end and then kill himself.

[4] On the same day, General Rudolf Holste was given the few mobile forces that Steiner commanded so that he could participate in a new plan to relieve Berlin.

Steiner's books and memoirs have been characterised by historian Charles Sydnor as one of the "most important works of apologist literature," together with warfare analyses Grenadiere by Kurt Meyer and Waffen-SS in Action by Paul Hausser.