The SS Cavalry Brigade was a unit of the Waffen-SS that differed from other German military formations as it developed a 'dual role': SS cavalrymen both helped to initiate the Holocaust in the Soviet Union and experienced combat at the front.

Henning Pieper was educated at the Universities of Freiburg, Germany, Nottingham and Sheffield, UK. His research focuses on the Waffen-SS and Germany's difficult process of coming to terms with the Nazi past.