Customer Reviews

Waffen-SS KURSK 1943 Volume 3 (Archive Series)

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The series of photo journals known collectively as Waffen-SS KURSK 1943 is an excellent publishing venture rife with annoying problems, not the least of which is its percieved value to consumers. Each volume in the series is brief - this one at only 87 photos on some 110 pages; if one were to amass all 6 at the list price it would be quite an investment, probably not worth it except to diehard SS fanatics. That's really too bad, because even to the casual student of WWII there is some really worthwhile material in these, especially as regards what might be termed the "Face of Battle" in a theater of operations that has gotten relatively little coverage here in the West.

As has been already mentioned here in reviews for previous volumes, the text is sparse, and most annoying, repetative: 4 pages of identical introductory and explanatory text occurrs in each and every volume; this at least serves the purpose of allowing each individual volume to stand on its own in case you do not purchase the entire set. Whereas the immediately preceeding Vol. 2 provided mainly captions describing the photographs, Vol. 3 begins to veer from that formula by beginning a running account of the Kursk battle, which often has little to do with the specific scenes. The coverage here is from the night of July 4 - 5 through July 7, and is continued in Vol. 4, setting the stage for the subsequent great tank battle at Prochorowka.

Of course, the real reason to consider this set at all is the remarkable set of photos, taken almost in the form of snapshots by three war correspondents of the Waffen-SS. My only question with this format is the appropriateness of particular photos to actions described in the text; I feel like this is a somewhat forced and confusing fit of images to words. Nevertheless, in Vol. 3 we are treated variously to scenes of Russian prisoners; panzergrenadiers moving up; several different kinds of AFV's including Wespe and Hummell SPG's, Flakverling, Sturmgeschutze, SdKfz's, a Schwimmwagen, motorcycles, and several different types of panzers. As is to be expected, the SS photographers have again studiously avoided any shots of German casualties or destroyed equipment. SS-Sturmbannfuhrer Rudolf Sandig of LAH is the "featured" personality this time around, along with the usual good portraits of many of the nameless ( and often very young ) Landsers that made up the German army of the time.