Finnish Freiwillingen Battalion?

I'm planning on building a campaign based around the Finnish Waffen Battalion that was part of the Nordland Regiment of Waffen SS Division Wiking.  From what I've read thus far, they had a short (23 May 1942- 23 May 1943) career with the Wehrmacht, but an interesting one: they were the "fire battalion" (reserve/shock troops) for Wiking in  Operation Edelweiss, the attempt to seize the Baku oil fields.
 
I've scoured the internet for research, and come up with all I think I can.  I've ordered some books, but it seems most of the really good data is all in Finnish (which I don't read at all) or German (which I read at a kindergarten level).  Anyone know of any solid English sources for this battalion?
 
LostLT

Is this one of the books you've ordered?

Just remember kids, when you need something wholesome and innocent like Sesame Street twisted into something sick and perverted - I'm just a phone call away.

-HR

There's a brief item of note in a clip from the below reference.

“The German Foreign Ministry…was reluctant to embark on a project which would give open evidence of German-Finnish collaboration. At the same time, it was forced to save face for the SS. During the remainder of March [1942] it worked out an agreement whereby the Finns undertook to recruit about 1,000 men through an ostensibly private committee. The recruiting was completed in two months, and the battalion subsequently formed served in the SS-Panzer Grenadier Division “Wiking” on the Eastern Front, mostly in the Ukraine, until July 1943 when it returned to Finland and was disbanded.²⁷”

²⁷ Bleucher, Nr. 193, 24.3.41 and Bleucher, Nr. 204, 29.3.41. U.S. Department of State, German Foreign Ministry Records, B 19/B004098 and B 19/B004105. Mannerheim, op cit., p. 433.

-- Zeimke, Earl F., The German Northern Theater of Operations 1940-1945, DA Pamphlet 20-271, 1959, p. 120.

You can probably rustle up the cited German Foreign Ministry Records from the National Archives at:
[link=http://www.archives.gov/research/captured-german-records/foreign-records-seized.html]http://www.archives.gov...eign-records-seized.html[/link]
but as to whether you'll find them translated, I don't know.

Another possibility is:

Kuusela, Kari. Finnish Volunteers of SS-Division Wiking, Wiking-Divisioona, Finland, 1996. (ISBN 9519750606)

Guys,

Thanks for the input.  I have ordered the Waffen SS Encyclopedia from Amazon and I'm consulting with some afficionados.   If anyone else has anything, I'd be happy to hear it.

LostLT

The German Foreign Ministry…was reluctant to embark on a project which would give open evidence of German-Finnish collaboration. At the same time, it was forced to save face for the SS. During the remainder of March [1942]

I don't get it why would they care? Finland and Germany already at war with Soviets. I'm kind of thinking cat out of bag, no?

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Nope.  The Finns considered that they were at war with the USSR, but not an Axis country.  They were simply using the German invasion to right the wrongs done to them after the Winter War.  They worked very hard to maintain an appearance of minimal collusion.

Nope. The Finns considered that they were at war with the USSR, but not an Axis country. They were simply using the German invasion to right the wrongs done to them after the Winter War. They worked very hard to maintain an appearance of minimal collusion.

Given that there were German troops operating on Finnish soil especially in the north as early as 1941, I'm thinking that ship had already kind of sailed. Though the Finns did not allow Germans to make attacks from Finnish soil(except air attacks). Every place there was a Kraut in a foxhole on the Finnish frontier that was one more Finn That could be elsewhere. At any rate the question was why the Germans would care, not the Finns.
I am still amazed that Finland did not wind up part of the Soviet Block Post War. By the time the Finns negotiated peace The Nazis were already on the ropes. I'm Surprised Uncle Joe took 'em up on it. 

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I think Uncle Joe got what he wanted - the best 10% of their agricultural land, 20% of their industry, and realized that Finns would fight him at least as hard as the Germans.  Why continue to fight when you've already got what you want, and there's still a fairly large German army in Courland to fight?  Furthermore, the Finns were reluctant adversaries, and I think Joe knew it - they never really attacked Leningrad, though they could have, and never really threw their weight in the north.  Had they done it, who knows what might have happened.

Joe was the aggressor, the Finns just picked the wrong friend to help them get their land back from the Winter War.  But then, what choice did they have?  The Western Allies certainly weren't interested in helping them.

I think Uncle Joe got what he wanted

Still seems strange he wanted so little.  Especially given that Finland had been part of the pre WW1 Russian empire. But guess we can leave it at that It happened the way it happened and that really is in the end all there is to it.

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Joe wasn't really an expansionist power (since Finland wasn't useful as a buffer) so allowed the Finnish to remain independent but did take some land (Karelia), forced them to pay "damages" and sign several pro-Russian trade deals.
Pretty good deal if you ask me.

War is sell!