Waffen SS books - which ones to buy??

In the English or the German your call, the volume(s) by Ullrich are top notch and he should know

 

If one wanted to delve deeper into "Nordland" and "Charlemagne" where could he begin? (in english preferably)

 

JJF has the Nordland book, an English copy of the German Munin work..... " Tragedy of the Faithful "

Charlemagne might be a tough nut to crack open, heaven forbid you would want the small softbound booklet by Richard Landwehr who has done up a number of small independent W-Ss projects. An unusual personality living on my Orygun Coast, I spoke with him a couple times back in the 1980's. one of his contributing gents was A. Munoz when Richard was producing his interesting Siegrunen publication

 

Hitler's Gauls - the History Of The 33rd Waffen Division Charlemagne by Jonathan Trigg (ISBN: 1-86227-293-X)

This author also has a book out in this series (Hitler's Legions) about Langemarck (Hitler's Flemish Lions) and Muslims in the SS (Hitler's Jihadis).

 

Schiffer also has a book called "The 11th SS-Freiwilligen-Panzer-Grenadier-Division “Nordland” by Rolf Michaelis.

Can you tell me who the author is? Isn't Janusz Piekakiewicz by any chance?

 

@ L-Raiser; remember ........... Sylvester Stadler for the Kursk book.

there are two French works out some years ago by members of the French contingent on their own 33rs W-Ss. Mabires work on Berlin covers some close-in fighting in the streets and many tunnels under the capital, besides AT teams and the 1th W-Ss and other ad-hoc units

 

Yes i know, but the two editions i find at amazon.uk, one is £100 and the other is "currently unavailable"

I've been looking at Rolf Michaels, but the opinions on him are not very favorable.

Oh, and "Twilight of the Gods" is ridiculously expensive for an almost 200 page book.

 

Really? £35 on Abe:

AbeBooks: Search Results - wallin and Twilight of the Gods

and even cheaper from Helion

TWILIGHT OF THE GODS A Swedish Waffen-SS Volunteer's Experiences with the 11th SS-Panzergrenadier Division 'Nordland\', Eastern Front 1944-45 --- Helion & Company Limited

Bloody good book too.

 

Abebooks.co.uk has a copy of Hitler's Gauls for £26.58, which is a bit expensive for a 175 page book.

 

Ordered!!!

 

Have a look at Helion for the book For Europe, by Robert Forbes, excellent book on French ss, £35 or try thier shop on Ebay might be cheaper.

 

Now that i'm through with Liebstandarte (with the exception of vol.2 which is unbelievable expensive), Wiking (Strassner was a very pleasant surprise) and Das Reich, i'm looking for Totenkopf titles, and since JJF isn't planning on releasing Vopersal epic any time soon, i'll probably go for the "Like a Cliff..." one, although Snydor's seems to be a lot cheaper.

 

Has anyone read Schneider's Das Reich Tigers?? s it any good?

 

I have these, and I thought they were very informative.

I also have Grenadiers (Meyer) and Armored Battles of the Waffen SS, which I thought were borderline propaganda.

I do have a question though- was Waffen-SS military culture pretty much the same as the Heer? The usual descriptions exist- relaxed atmosphere between officers and men, etc. But I'm not sure how different serving in this institution rather than the larger one was.

 

I read that it was their commadn structure. Something about if, say, their leutenant was kill or incapcitated, the Sergant is abole to take his place and perform the duties required. NCOs were trained to take over position of officers, and enlisted to take place of NCOs. It was something like that. (i'm probably totally wrong, but who knows)

 

The Heer did the exact same thing- prewar professional troops were trained to take positions two grades over their own so if their superiors fell, they could easily take their role.

 

Just a heads up for anyone interested, i posted two links to a Leibstandarte 1941 propaganda movie in the Films & TV section:

"Found this movie in a blog, if anyone is interested in it.

"Leibstandarte en Einsatz Der Weg der Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler"

Leibstandarte im Einsatz
Der Weg der Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler – Early 1941WW2 German propaganda film.
Very interesting film that follows the famous Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler division in the early campaigns in Europe. Also in day to day activity.
35 minutes approx. German language only (If you have subtitles for English please let me know)
380 mb in 2 .rar files."

Enjoy

 

so how is the book collecting coming along then ? it has been sometime in that regard that we have heard from you

E ~

 

Hello Erich!

It's going along just fine, stopped for a couple of weeks while i was in sunny Yucatán
Returned yesterday, and already ordered Zetterling's Normandy 1944, Heinze's East Front Drama 1944 and M. Jones' Stalingrad, my most wanted aquisition hasn't arrived yet (Nipe's Decision in the Ukraine) and i'm beggining to think that isn't going to arrive yet (for the 3rd or 4th time) so i'll just have to order it again.

Meanwhile i was completely blown away by Island of Fire, bought Twilight of the Gods, Moombeek's Defending the Reich (the single volume edition), a couple of books on the Normandy Campaign, Glantz's Stalingrad Trilogy vol.1, pre-ordered vol.2, wainting for D. Nash's Hells Gates (finaly!!!!!), was pleasantly surprised with Glantz Red Storm over the Balkans, bought Später Grossdeuthshland vol.2, Hill 112, a few books on the Naval Battles in the Pacific, and the Island hopping campaign, i started buying books of an author called Mark Zuehlke which chronicle the exploits of the Canadian Army in Europe, so far i have the ones on Liri Valley, Gothic Line, Juno Beach and Holding Juno, and i find them to be very good books, a few books on the Fighter War over Europe (including the two volumes of the JG26 War Diaries), and vol.2 and 3 of the Black Cross - Red Star series.
And i'm planning on buying the Fedorowicz version of Hitler Moves East, and Like a Cliff in the Ocean (since no one publishes the 8 volume series in english).
It was very nice to know that Fedorowicz it's finally planning on publishing the 5th volume of the Das Reich saga.
And finally, still considering the pros and cons of buying the P. Agte and H. Meyer versions published by Fedorowicz (i already have the Stackpole editions).

Basically Erich, in a nuttshell, that's what i've been up to.

And i'm allways open to sugestions on any good titles on WWII.

Cheers, everybody!!

 

Hinze's East Front Drama is very, very, very dry. Hinze can either be very good (19 Pz) or very bad (31 ID). East Front Drama is very thoroughly researched, but the only drama is in the title.

Zetterling's first rate (I wish, and moreover should, have made better use of him in my Normandy book...)

Not read Stalingrad, but have read Leningrad: State of Siege which is very (in)human. First-class read. He's next book, The Retreat's, out in about six weeks. It's outstanding (and very brutal). I know cos I provided a lot of the German material for it (and proofread about six chapters).

Tons of German-language Ostfront books out this year and I can't see any of them being turned into English. The most popular seems to be a Kursk memoir which I've not seen, but friends rate highly.