Customer Reviews

TO BATTLE: The Formation and History of the 14. Gallician SS Volunteer Division

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There are a number of historical accounts of the Ukrainians that served in the German Waffen-SS from 1943 to 1945. Michael James Melnyk's "To Battle: The Formation and History of the 14th Galician Waffen-Ss Division" is by far the best and most accurate history to date.
He gives a balanced account of the reasons behind the Nazi creation of the division and the motivations of the Ukrainians that eventually joined and fought for the Third Reich. It is a complex tale that Melnyk relates. Hopefully, it it will help dispell the misinformation about the Ukrainian division that are spread by those sympathetic or hostile to those that served in the division.

Lastly, the book contains many never before seen photographs of the division during training and combat.

This book is a must for anyone that is at all fascinated by the foreign volunteer formations that fought for the Germans during world war 2.

I had a chance to read "The Battle" and basically it is one of the best books about Ukrainian 14 SS Galicia Division. From years of extensive research the author has developed an amazing collection of facts about this famous Hitler's foreign SS division. There are tons of new information, battle facts, biographies of the combatants and history of the division itself. However, the most appealing and unforgetting for me were the illustrations of this book. Mr Melnyk collected thousands of never seen photos of Galicia Division fighters. From my own research on foreign divisions, I have never seen those photographs and never have come across to such an interesting and informative book.

Mr Melnyk sheds a new light on the history of this division.

I highly recommend it to anyone of is interested in Ukrainian military studies and history of world war II.

5 stars!

Michael Melnyk has done an outstanding job in his composition of this magnificent book, only those who are ill-informed or ill-intentioned can possibly criticize its substance. His comprehensive research regarding this topic is unparalleled, so if you really want to understand and know the truth then buy this book, it is worth every penny. Correct reading leads to correct knowledge which leads to correct understanding.

This book about the 14th Galician Division of the Waffen-SS by Michael James Melnyk is just simply a must for all people interested in the foreign soldiers serving within the german ranks during WW2. It is a precisly and objective researched work on that subject. This is the first book worth to be announced "serious"! There is so much crap, referring to easteuropean veterans fighting together with the germans, on the market that it was really about time a book came out that would satisfy any reader interested in the history and fate of those soldiers from Galicia/Ukraine. And not only in reading but also in finding new and never before seen photomaterial. This author did more than just a great job and I'm very happy to own a copy myself. There is no more to say... This book is highly recommanded!!!
I'd give the book a five +!!!!

It is about time that a serious history of the Ukrainian Division Galcia was published and this is certainly that. Much rubbish has been circulated about these men as "war criminals" when, in fact, as Melnyk demonstrates, they were an armed force that was raised to fight against the reimposition of Soviet rule over Ukraine. That they failed to secure a free Ukraine is not the point, they tried. For their valour and defiance they were denigrated by Soviet spokesmen and their fellow travellers in the West until 1991, and, in some cases, even after the USSR's collapse. Melnyk has done a great service to the truth with this book, an antidote to the hatemongers and propagandists who have tended to attract media interest. My only quibble with this book is that Mr Melnyk did not include a chapter on the post-war disinformation campaign waged against the Division's veterans, for that is truly a fascinating story in and of itself, yet to be told. This is a must have book for any serious student of Ukraine and eastern Europe in the Second World War.

Hey, Devil's advocate. I think you can see that Mr Marsh doesn't actually state that the Riga murders were made by the Galician Division and that you are the fool for thinking this. The Galician division was a bunch of murderous butchers like the rest of the SS. This book tries to make a positive case for them and it is unsurprising as it was written by the son of one of their members. Members of the Galician Division were not charged with any war crimes after the war and many of them settled in the United Kingdom, as did Michael Melnyk's father, but this does not mean that they didn't commit any atrocities. At the end of the Second World War many people escaped prosecution in an attempt to merely move onwards much like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa after the fall of apartheid. No-one would would assume that certain white South African police officers were not responsible for brutal crimes merely because they weren't charged.

It's no surprise to find out that Michael Melnyk's father was in the Galician Division of the Waffen SS. Anyone who knows and understands anything at all about the SS, whether the Allgemeine(general) SS or the Waffen(weapons bearing) SS will know about the mindless, evil brutality they meted out wherever they were based.

We've all seen the torture and massacre of innocent civilians by the SS throughout the second world war - jews beaten to death on the streets of Riga with iron bars, the massare at Oradour Sur Glane in France, the massacre at Sant'anna in Tuscany - and the Galician Division were no different to any other Waffen SS unit.

That no member of this division was ever convicted for war crimes doesn't mean that they didn't happen. There are many eye witness accounts of murders perpetrated by the Galician Division and this book should not be allowed to obfuscate that - DO NOT BE FOOLED BY THIS BOOK