Customer Reviews

Waffen-SS: Hitler's Black Guard At War

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is a historical overview of the positive aspects of the Waffen-SS. The book is a coffee table size book that is full of both black and white and color illustrations, pictures and diagrams that cover all the major battles, campaigns, and surprisingly alleged war crimes. The book takes what some would call honist and others a bias view of their activities and accheivments. If you are interested in the Waffen SS or World War 2 this is an interesting look at the best of the German military forces. The book may even work to dispel some of the assumptions people make when talking about the Waffen SS as they were all camp gaurds - none were.

Waffen-SS Hitler's Black Guard At War by Christopher Ailsby is a fast read. The book is focused totally on the history and events of the Armed SS, the fighting branch of one of the most feared organizations of the Third Reich.
While it does touch on the other branches and duties of the SS the book itself deals with the military units, their battles and the major campaigns.
At only 176 pages it is packed full of photos and the bare facts. In most cases the facts are very bare, very straight forward, and if you don't know much about World War Two a lot of it will not make much sense. It is like a jug-saw puzzle in which you are always seeing some of the pieces. This is not a history of the Reich or the war. It is just a basic history of the Waffen-SS.

In reaction to the statement made by mr. Hilliard who wrote the review that's above this one : the 3rd Waffen SS panzerdivision "Totenkopf" (death's head) was indeed made up of former concentration camp guards.
A small number of these were men who found working in the death camps too horrible and preferred the front. Indeed, some only did the required tour of service in the camps in order to get into this division, but one did have to have done service in the camps, either as a guard, a torturer or whatever the heck these animals did there, to qualify for servive in the Totenkopf.

The commander of this division from 1940 to 1943, when he was mortally wounded, was SS-Gruppenfuehrer Theodor Eicke, the first commandant of Dachau, a pathological sadist who had set a new and frightful standard of brutality in this camp.
Had he lived and been captured by the allies he would have been tried at Nuremberg and more than probably hung.

These were not the "brave, loyal soldier who fought valiantly and very expertly against the soviet masses and who didn't commit war-crimes as the rest of the SS did" as the legend of the Waffen SS goes.

The author and Mr. Hilliard should know better than to go on spreading these myths.
The Waffen SS were not the best & toughest soldiers in history. They were the best equipped units in the german Army in WWII and more effort went into keeeping them up to strength with remounts and replacements then went into replenishing the Wehrmacht divisions, especially after 1943.
These were highly motivated, well trained and superbly equipped soldiers, but not supermen.
And quite a few were or had been concentration campguards, bullies, executioners and gas chamber operators.

Besides, Waffen SS units composed of men who hadn't served in de concentration camps also committed atrocities and war crimes. The Waffen SS should not be held up as an example of laudable military accomplishment. Their are too many tarnishes on it's shield.