Customer Reviews

Goering's Grenadiers: The Luftwaffe Field Divisions, 1942-1945

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is the tragic story of how 200 000 smart and often technically gifted soldiers were squandered by the incompetence, or rather: the policies, of Goering and Hitler. Yes, as many as 200 000 men served in the almost unknown Luftwaffe field divisions, set up because Goering couldn't imagine handing over his surplus men to the army, badly in need of manpower.

What you get is 380 fact-filled pages with an unusual high amount of tactical maps, several good photos never before published and some facsimile documents. The text is to a great extent based on ground-breaking research in archives by the author himself.

Of greatest interest for armor buffs like yours truly is the photo of a TK-3 tankette pulling a 37 mm PaK in Norway 1943. Amazing!

The book is nicely bound and as far as the textual info and the research behind is concerned I'd give this book five stars. There is no question that it is a must for any serious student of the Luftwaffe ground units. I only wish there'd been more photos and personal accounts. Perhaps a follow-up will come with more photos and info on the vehicles, uniforms and with some small-scale accounts? Hopefully the author will one day produce such a book.

Finally, its pretty amazing to again learn how Hitler could meddle in small details like moving the 12th LW FeldDiv. As CINC he should have stuck to strategy. No, I correct myself - he should never have left Vienna!

There is little on this subject, at least in English, and I was hoping for a much stronger effort than this volume. Perhaps for $25-30, it might be worthwhile, albeit flawed, but for $50, definitely not. The illustrations are few, and not well reproduced, the maps are actually too numerous, yet a mix of good, and amateurish, and there is a distinct lack of personal accounts. It is a dry recounting of the eventual failure of virtually all of these poorly trained, and I surmise, poorly motivated combat formations. I applaud the author's intent, but not his results. One would be better off with the old Osprey title " Luftwaffe Field Divisions" , for much less money.

I will admit when I first received this book and paged through it I was a little disappointed. I was expecting detailed info on uniforms, high quality photos, etc. However recently I found myself needing info on a specific Luftwaffe Pioneer Battalion (after coming across period award documents relating to the particular unit). I found myself wondering how I would find more info about this unit? Searching the net I found very little to go on, looking in a popular "order of battle" book series it appeared to only cover Heer/Waffen SS units, and my Osprey military series books weren't any help either. So I picked up my copy of "Goring's Grenadiers" Luftwaffe Field Divisions book and started to page through it. To my surprise I found a wealth of info on the exact unit I was searching for and more, much more (commanding officers, specific dates and battles, complete unit organization, illustrations of two different versions of unit insignia, detailed maps of combat actions, unit timeline, etc). Without this particular book I would have been completely out of luck.

If you are seeking a book written for casual reading with exciting "Hollywood-type" accounts about the actions of various soldiers who were part of the Luftwaffe Field Divisions this is NOT that book. If you are looking for a comprehensive and accurate unit history containing detailed info on each of the Luftwaffe Field Divisions and the smaller units they were made up of, you are in luck! This book is a must for the World War II amateur/pro historian, WWII militaria collector, or anyone who is researching or needs more info about a specific Luftwaffe Field Division from an English-language source. I highly recommend it!

Not bad book about Luftwaffe Field Divisions. For most colleagues information about it is little known. Author colected materials about all WL Field Divisions. Yes, this book consist not full information, but as base-handbook in this subject it will be very good.

I excitedly bought this book since there is so little on these divisions in the English language. The author is to be commended on tackling the subject, but the end result is disappointing. Many of the photos are poorly reproduced, and many are misidentified/mis-titled. I happen to "know of" one of the individuals that provided many images for this work, and he supplied the correct ID's for the images. These were ignored. Had this book been printed on better stock, the images might have come out better.

The text is dry at best, and I do not think I have ever encountered a book on a historical subject with so many glaring grammatical errors. I realize that translation is not easy, and some things do not translate well. However, I have many books in my library from Western and Eastern Europe and Russia, and translated into English. This is the worst one in my collection.

In the end, I am glad I have this book, but I think I would have been better served to rely on some tertiary sources, along with the titles from Osprey and Concord, and saved my money. My experience with this volume makes me shy of purchasing any others from this publisher.

I was expecting a lot more from this relatively expensive book, with its count of over 300 pages. Instead I found out that Munoz has all but skipped doing any primary researches, and apparently the services of an editor is not deemed necessary. So what we have is a book full of typographical errors, lousy maps, and verbose, redundant observations (which proved to be true and obvious) that the Luftwaffen Felddivisionen was a waste of precious manpower and a futile vanity play of Göring.

What the author has missed, in his mouthing of the post war spin by the Heer that the excess Lutwaffe personnel should better be turned over for rebuilding/replenishing the Heer divisions after Stalingrad, is the fact that while, despite the opposition and discrimination by the Wehrmacht, the Waffen SS managed to build a formidable force with mostly Volksdeutche conscripts (who were supposed to be of inferior quality to the Reichdeutsche), the Luftwaffen Felddivisionen, consisted mostly of better educated, top drawer Reichdeutsche, were abject failures, even after being incorporated into the Heer in November 43.

And the gross stupidity of the Heer, after taking over the divisions as Felddivisionen (L.), in going for a 3 regiment (of 2 battailon each) organizational structure (instead of the existing, understrength 2 regiment x 3 battailon each) when it knew that the major defects of the LFD were a shortage of qualified field officers (this applies also to the regular Heer divisions) never crosses Munoz's mind, himself totally engrossed by the post war crap spinned by the few German authors who wrote on the

subject.

The crux of the matter was that not only should the LFD never be built, but that the valuable manpower should be alloted to the Waffen SS, which has proven to be much more capable, without the help of the Heer, in building an elite fighting force, even with much poorer human material, than the hidebound Heer could ever iamgine.

I'd like to report that Antonio J. Munoz is a respected author. However, he feels and exhibits the need to write unfair, demeaning and unfounded reviews about competitive historical works in order to promote his own. With those kinds of tactics, what credibility and integrity can be invested into the works he produces? Sadly, not much.