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Book Waffen SS

    Book Details:
  • Author : Adrian Gilbert
  • Publisher : Da Capo Press
  • Release : 2019-06-25
  • ISBN : 0306824663
  • Pages : 512 pages

Download or read book Waffen SS written by Adrian Gilbert and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2019-06-25 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From an award-winning and bestselling historian, the first comprehensive military history in over fifty years of Hitler's famous and infamous personal army: the Waffen-SS The Waffen-SS was one of the most feared combat organizations of the twentieth century. Originally formed as a protection squad for Adolf Hitler it became the military wing of Heinrich Himmler's SS and a key part of the Nazi state, with nearly 900,000 men passing through its ranks. The Waffen-SS played a crucial role in furthering the aims of the Third Reich which made its soldiers Hitler's political operatives. During its short history, the elite military divisions of the Waffen-SS acquired a reputation for excellence, but their famous battlefield record of success was matched by their repeated and infamous atrocities against both soldiers and civilians. Waffen-SS is the first definitive single-volume military history of the Waffen-SS in more than 50 years. In considering the actions of its leading personalities, including Himmler, Sepp Dietrich, and Otto Skorzeny, and analyzing its specialist training and ideological outlook, eminent historian Adrian Gilbert chronicles the battles and campaigns that brought the Waffen-SS both fame and infamy.

Book The Waffen SS

    Book Details:
  • Author : George H. Stein
  • Publisher : Cornell University Press
  • Release : 1966
  • ISBN : 9780801492754
  • Pages : 388 pages

Download or read book The Waffen SS written by George H. Stein and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 1966 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This landmark study, first published by Cornell University Press in 1966, shows how Hitler's elite army grew from a praetorian guard of barely 28,000 men at the beginning of the Second World War to a combat-hardened army of more than 500,000 in 1945. George H. Stein examines in detail the structure and organization of the Waffen SS and describes the rigid personnel selection and intensive physical, military, and ideological training that helped to create the tough and dedicated cadre around which the larger force of the later war years was built.

Book Hitler s Commanders

    Book Details:
  • Author : Samuel W. Mitcham (Jr.)
  • Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
  • Release : 2012
  • ISBN : 1442211520
  • Pages : 381 pages

Download or read book Hitler s Commanders written by Samuel W. Mitcham (Jr.) and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2012 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in an expanded edition that includes biographies of the generals of Stalingrad and a new chapter on the panzer commanders, this book offers rare insight into the men who ran Nazi Germany's war machine. Going beyond common stereotypes, Samuel W. Mitcham and Gene Mueller recount the compelling lives of a varied group of army, navy, Luftwaffe, and SS men. Weaving in dramatic stories of tank commanders, fighter pilots in aerial combat, and U-Boat aces, the authors bring the battlefields of World War II to life.

Book Hitler s Bandit Hunters

    Book Details:
  • Author : Philip W. Blood
  • Publisher : Potomac Books, Inc.
  • Release : 2011-03
  • ISBN : 1597974455
  • Pages : 761 pages

Download or read book Hitler s Bandit Hunters written by Philip W. Blood and published by Potomac Books, Inc.. This book was released on 2011-03 with total page 761 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In August 1942, Hitler directed all German state institutions to assist Heinrich Himmler, the chief of the SS and the German police, in eradicating armed resistance in the newly occupied territories of Eastern Europe and Russia. The directive for "combating banditry" (Bandenbekämpfung), became the third component of the Nazi regime's three-part strategy for German national security, with genocide (Endlösung der Judenfrage, or "the Final Solution of the Jewish Question") and slave labor (Erfassung, or "Registration of Persons to Hard Labor") being the better-known others. An original and thought-provoking work grounded in extensive research in German archives, Hitler's Bandit Hunters focuses on this counterinsurgency campaign, the anvil of Hitler's crusade for empire. Bandenbekämpfung portrayed insurgents as political and racial bandits, criminalized to a greater degree than enemies of the state; moreover, violence against them was not constrained by the prevailing laws of warfare. Philip Blood explains how German forces embraced the Bandenbekämpfung doctrine, demonstrating the equal culpability of both the SS police forces and the "heroic" Waffen-SS combat arm and shattering the contrived postwar distinctions between them. He challenges the traditional view of Himmler as an armchair general and bureaucrat, exposing him as the driving force behind one of the most successful security campaigns in history, and delves into the contentious issue of the complicity of ordinary German police, soldiers, and citizens, as well as the citizens of occupied territories, in these state-sponsored manhunts. This book provokes new debates on the Nazi terrorization of Europe, the blind acquiescence of many, and the courageous resistance of the few.

Book F  r Volk and F  hrer

Download or read book F r Volk and F hrer written by Erwin Bartmann and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2013-10-19 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One German soldier’s experience in the deadly crucible of World War II combat. Like many Germans, Berlin schoolboy Erwin Bartmann fell under the spell of the Zeitgeist cultivated by the Nazis. Convinced he was growing up in the best country in the world, he dreamt of joining the Leibstandarte, Hitler’s elite Waffen SS unit. Erwin fulfilled his dream on May Day 1941, when he walked into the Lichterfelde barracks in Berlin as a raw recruit. On arrival at the Eastern Front in late summer 1941, Erwin was assigned to a frontline communications squad. When the end of the Reich became inevitable, Erwin was forced to choose between a struggle for personal survival and the fulfillment of his SS oath of “loyalty unto death.” From the war on the southern sector of the Eastern Front to a bomb-shattered Berlin populated largely by old men and demoralized women, this candid eyewitness account offers a unique and sometimes surprising perspective on the life of a young Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler volunteer. “A valuable memoir, providing both a good account of the changing attitudes of the author, both towards the Nazi regime and the chances of final victory.” —History of War

Book The Waffen SS at War

    Book Details:
  • Author : Tim Ripley
  • Publisher : Zenith Imprint
  • Release : 2004
  • ISBN : 9780760320686
  • Pages : 352 pages

Download or read book The Waffen SS at War written by Tim Ripley and published by Zenith Imprint. This book was released on 2004 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Schutzstaffel-SS-(Protection Squad) were the black uniformed elite corps of the Nazi Party. Founded by Adolf Hitler in April 1925 as a small personal bodyguard, the SS grew with the success of the Nazi movement and, gathering immense police and military powers, became virtually a state within a state. The Waffen-SS (Armed-SS) branch was made up of three subgroups: the Leibstandarte, Hitler's personal bodyguard; the Totenkopfverbande (Death's Head Battalions), which administered the concentration camps; and the Verfugungstruppen (Disposition Troops), which swelled to 39 divisions in World War II and which, serving as elite combat troops alongside the regular army, gained a reputation for both professionalism and brutality. Hitler's Praetorians is the complete history of the Third Reich's fighting elite from its humble beginnings to the end in Berlin in May 1945.Hitler's Praetorians begins with a detailed examination of Waffen-SS ideology, selection and training. Their chief "virtue" was their absolute obedience and loyalty to the Fuhrer. On the battlefield the Waffen SS had few peers, especially its elite panzer divisions. Hitler's Praetorians analyzes the many battles and campaigns of the Waffen-SS divisions, such as at Kharkov and Kursk in 1943, and on the Western Front in Normandy in 1944. As well as color maps and black-and-white photographs, Hitler's Praetorianss contains biographical boxes on the commanders who turned the Waffen-SS into a fearsome military machine. There are also boxes on the weapons and equipment used by the Waffen-SS throughout the war, with each item of hardware being illustrated by a line diagram and accompanied by a specifications table.- Detailed single-volume study of Hitler's Black Guard- Analysis of Waffen-SS battle tactics- Contains feature boxes on Waffen-SS commanders and hardware- Full-color mapsAbout the AuthorTim Ripley is a freelance writer and an acknowledged expert on the tactics of modern warfare. He is also the author of SS: Steel Storm and SS: Steel Rain.

Book The SS

    Book Details:
  • Author : Robert Lewis Koehl
  • Publisher : The History Press
  • Release : 2012-05-30
  • ISBN : 0752486896
  • Pages : 377 pages

Download or read book The SS written by Robert Lewis Koehl and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2012-05-30 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The SS grew out of Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler's obsession to prevent the treachery they believed to have caused the German defeat in the First World War. The SS was to be an elite corps of politically aware soldiers whose primary aim was to prevent the undermining of the Nazi Party by rendering its potential enemies harmless. This disturbing story reveals not only the inner workings of the SS, but its paramount role in the mass murder of Europe's Jews, homosexuals and gypsies, its organisation of the death squads and the military campaigns undertaken by the Waffen SS.

Book Hitler s Soldiers

    Book Details:
  • Author : Ben H. Shepherd
  • Publisher : Yale University Press
  • Release : 2016-01-01
  • ISBN : 0300179030
  • Pages : 681 pages

Download or read book Hitler s Soldiers written by Ben H. Shepherd and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 681 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A penetrating study of the German army's military campaigns, relations with the Nazi regime, and complicity in Nazi crimes across occupied Europe For decades after 1945, it was generally believed that the German army, professional and morally decent, had largely stood apart from the SS, Gestapo, and other corps of the Nazi machine. Ben Shepherd draws on a wealth of primary sources and recent scholarship to convey a much darker, more complex picture. For the first time, the German army is examined throughout the Second World War, across all combat theaters and occupied regions, and from multiple perspectives: its battle performance, social composition, relationship with the Nazi state, and involvement in war crimes and military occupation. This was a true people's army, drawn from across German society and reflecting that society as it existed under the Nazis. Without the army and its conquests abroad, Shepherd explains, the Nazi regime could not have perpetrated its crimes against Jews, prisoners of war, and civilians in occupied countries. The author examines how the army was complicit in these crimes and why some soldiers, units, and higher commands were more complicit than others. Shepherd also reveals the reasons for the army's early battlefield successes and its mounting defeats up to 1945, the latter due not only to Allied superiority and Hitler's mismanagement as commander-in-chief, but also to the failings--moral, political, economic, strategic, and operational--of the army's own leadership.

Book Hitler s Armed SS

    Book Details:
  • Author : Anthony Tucker-Jones
  • Publisher : Pen and Sword Military
  • Release : 2022-09-15
  • ISBN : 1399006940
  • Pages : 264 pages

Download or read book Hitler s Armed SS written by Anthony Tucker-Jones and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2022-09-15 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Waffen-SS was one of the most formidable German military formations of the Second World War – feared for its tenacity and ruthlessness in battle, notorious for the atrocities it committed. As a distinct fighting force derived from the Nazi Party’s SS organization, it stood apart from the other units of the German army. Its origins, structure and operational role during the war are often misunderstood and the controversy still surrounding its conduct make it difficult today to get an accurate picture of its actions and its impact on the fighting. Anthony Tucker-Jones, in this concise and fluently written account, provides an absorbing and clear sighted introduction to it. He traces its development under Himmler from modest beginnings in the early 1930s as Hitler’s personal protection squad of elite soldiers to a force which eventually amounted to thirty-eight divisions. Towards the end of the war many Waffen-SS units were formed from foreign volunteers and proved to be of poor quality, but its premier panzer divisions thoroughly deserved their reputation as tough fighters. Through accounts of the Waffen-SS’s major battles on the Eastern Front, in Normandy and finally in defence of Germany, a detailed picture emerges of the contribution it made to the German war effort, especially when Hitler’s armies were in retreat. The parts played by the most famous Waffen-SS formations – Das Reich, Totenkopf, Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler among them – and their commanders – men like Dietrich and Hausser – can be seen in the wider context of the war and Germany’s defeat.

Book Weapons of the Waffen SS

Download or read book Weapons of the Waffen SS written by David Fleming and published by Zenith Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 128 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Waffen (or armed) SS was initially raised solely for the protection of Adolf Hitler, but during the course of World War II it developed into one of the most effective armored spearheads available to the Wehrmacht, gaining a spectacular series of victories in France, the Balkans, and the Soviet Union. This book examines the weapons, uniforms, and equipment of the Waffen SS and describes how they contributed to success on the battlefield. Complementing an authoritative narrative text will be full details and specifications of the weapons and equipment used by this elite organization, ranging from the 98k rifle to the awesome power of the 70-ton Tiger II tank. About the Author:David Fleming is a military author who has written extensively on World War II. He has previously published works on the Waffen SS, Nazi Germany's Blitzkrieg operations, and the desert campaign in North Africa. Features: , Full-color photography of guns and artifacts actually used by Waffen SS soldiers during World War II, with full technical descriptions and specifications. , Rare black-and-white wartime photography illustrating the SS in action on all fronts. , Authoritative text exploring key aspects of the military hard wear used by the infamous force.

Book The Waffen SS in Allied Hands Volume One

Download or read book The Waffen SS in Allied Hands Volume One written by Terry Goldsworthy and published by Cambridge Scholars Publishing. This book was released on 2019-01-29 with total page 458 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Waffen-SS are commonly regarded as the elite of Germany’s armed forces during World War II. They gained much of this reputation while fighting on the Eastern Front in Russia during Germany’s war against the Soviet Union. They were also called to the fore in an attempt to hurl back the Western Allies’ invasion forces in Normandy, and were used in the last great offensive on the Western Front in the Ardennes and contributed to the final defence of Berlin. In adversity, they were some of the most resilient soldiers that fought for Germany in World War II and were ideologically and politically aligned with Hitler. For over 70 years, many of the manuscripts contained in this book, and sourced from the United States National Archives, have not been scrutinised by modern researchers. This book provides a unique opportunity to publish these records in order to provide an insight into the Waffen-SS. The Waffen-SS was a military organisation that is steeped in the military folklore of being a force capable of incredible military feats, but it was also capable of incredible evil. These records are exceedingly valuable as they are one of the few contemporaneous primary sources of information available in relation to the Waffen-SS.

Book Hitler   s Elite

    Book Details:
  • Author : Chris McNab
  • Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
  • Release : 2013-10-20
  • ISBN : 147280645X
  • Pages : 415 pages

Download or read book Hitler s Elite written by Chris McNab and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2013-10-20 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hitler's Elite: The SS 1939–45 tells the complete story of the SS at individual, unit and organizational levels. Following an explanation of the SS' complex political and social origins, and its growth within the Nazi empire, it goes on to look at both its war record and its wider role in Heinrich Himmler's implementation of Hitler's vision for the Third Reich. As well as providing a combat history of the Waffen-SS from 1939 to 1945, it also explores themes such as ideology, recruitment, foreign SS personnel, training and equipment. The book's textual history is brought to life with more than 200 photographs and colour artworks from Osprey's series titles. As a companion volume to Hitler's Armies and Hitler's Eagles, this book gives a detailed and highly visual insight into one of Hitler's most powerful instruments of policy.

Book Hitler s Army

    Book Details:
  • Author : Omer Bartov
  • Publisher : Oxford University Press
  • Release : 1992-11-26
  • ISBN : 0195313518
  • Pages : 253 pages

Download or read book Hitler s Army written by Omer Bartov and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1992-11-26 with total page 253 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the Cold War followed on the heels of the Second World War, as the Nuremburg Trials faded in the shadow of the Iron Curtain, both the Germans and the West were quick to accept the idea that Hitler's army had been no SS, no Gestapo, that it was a professional force little touched by Nazi politics. But in this compelling account Omer Bartov reveals a very different history, as he probes the experience of the average soldier to show just how thoroughly Nazi ideology permeated the army. In Hitler's Army, Bartov focuses on the titanic struggle between Germany and the Soviet Union--where the vast majority of German troops fought--to show how the savagery of war reshaped the army in Hitler's image. Both brutalized and brutalizing, these soldiers needed to see their bitter sacrifices as noble patriotism and to justify their own atrocities by seeing their victims as subhuman. In the unprecedented ferocity and catastrophic losses of the Eastrn front, he writes, soldiers embraced the idea that the war was a defense of civilization against Jewish/Bolshevik barbarism, a war of racial survival to be waged at all costs. Bartov describes the incredible scale and destruction of the invasion of Russia in horrific detail. Even in the first months--often depicted as a time of easy victories--undermanned and ill-equipped German units were stretched to the breaking point by vast distances and bitter Soviet resistance. Facing scarce supplies and enormous casualties, the average soldier sank to ta a primitive level of existence, re-experiencing the trench warfare of World War I under the most extreme weather conditions imaginable; the fighting itself was savage, and massacres of prisoners were common. Troops looted food and supplies from civilians with wild abandon; they mercilessly wiped out villages suspected of aiding partisans. Incredible losses led to recruits being thrown together in units that once had been filled with men from the same communities, making Nazi ideology even more important as a binding force. And they were further brutalized by a military justice system that executed almost 15,000 German soldiers during the war. Bartov goes on to explore letters, diaries, military reports, and other sources, showing how widespread Hitler's views became among common fighting men--men who grew up, he reminds us, under the Nazi regime. In the end, they truly became Hitler's army. In six years of warfare, the vast majority of German men passed through the Wehrmacht and almost every family had a relative who fought in the East. Bartov's powerful new account of how deeply Nazi ideology penetrated the army sheds new light on how deeply it penetrated the nation. Hitler's Army makes an important correction not merely to the historical record but to how we see the world today.

Book Hitler s Army   Soldiers  Nazis  and War in the Third Reich

Download or read book Hitler s Army Soldiers Nazis and War in the Third Reich written by Society of Fellows Harvard University Omer Bartov Junior Fellow and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1991-07-04 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As the Cold War followed on the heels of the Second World War, as the Nuremburg Trials faded in the shadow of the Iron Curtain, both the Germans and te West were quick to accpt the idea that Hitler's army had been no SS, no Gestapo, that it was a professional force little touched by Nazi politics. But in this compelling account Omer Bartov reveals a very different history, as he probes the experience of the average soldier to show just how thoroughly Nazi ideology permeated the army. In Hitler's Army, Bartov focuses on the titanic struggle between Germany and the Soviet Union--where the vast majority of German troops fought--to show how the savagery of war reshaped the army in Hitler's image. Both brutalized and brutalizing, these soldiers needed to see their bitter sacrifices as noble patriotism and to justify their own atrocities by seeing their victims as subhuman. In the unprecedented ferocity and catastrophic losses of the Eastrn front, he writes, soldiers embraced the idea that the war was a defense of civilization against Jewish/Bolshevik barbarism, a war of racial survival to be waged at all costs. Bartov descibes the incredible scale and destruction of the invasion of Russia in horrific detail. Even in the first months--often depicted as a time of easy victories--undermanned and ill-equipped Geman units were stretched to the breaking point by vast distances and bitter Soviet resistance. Facing scarce supplies and enormous casualties, the average soldier sank to ta a primitive level of existence, re-experiencing the trench warfare of World War I under the most extreme weather conditions imaginable; the fighting itself was savage, and massacrs of prisoners were common. Troops looted food and supplies from civilians with wild abandon; they mercilessly wiped out villages suspected of aiding partisans. Incredible losses led to recruits being thrown together in units that once had been filled with men from the same communities, making Nazi ideology even more important as a binding force. And they were further brutalized by a military justice system that executed almost 15,000 German soldiers during the war. Bartov goes on to explore letters, diaries, military reports, and other sources, showing how widespread Hitler's views became among common fighting men--men who grew up, he reminds us, under the Nazi regime. In the end, they truly became Hitler's army. In six years of warfare, the vast majority of German men passed through the Wehrmacht and almost every family had a relative who fought in the East. Bartov's powerful new account of how deeply Nazi ideology penetrated the army sheds new light on how deeply it penetrated the nation. Hitler's Army makes an important correction not merely to the historical record but to how we see the world today.

Book Valhalla s Warriors

Download or read book Valhalla s Warriors written by Terry Goldsworthy and published by Dog Ear Publishing. This book was released on 2010-06 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: They were the soldiers sworn by an oath of loyalty to follow Hitler into a maelstrom of genocidal barbarity. They were the elite of the German military in World War Two. They were the Waffen-SS. On June 22, 1941, before dawn, German troops invaded Russia. The Barbarossa campaign included some of the greatest episodes in military history: it also allowed Hitlerʼs ideological warriors, the Waffen-SS, to give full vent to their ideological way of war. It provided the killing ground in which some of the worst atrocities seen by humanity were committed. In Valhallaʼs Warriors, author Dr. Terry Goldsworthy, meticulously chronicles what has become one of the most famous fighting elites in World War Two. Discovering the truths behind the legend by drawing on hundreds of sources - including first hand accounts of Waffen-SS veterans - and spanning five years of research Dr. Goldsworthy leads the reader through the events that occurred on the Eastern Front, both on the front lines and behind. This book is an exploration of the Waffen-SS, and by necessity of evil. The Waffen-SS are commonly regarded as the elite of Germany's armed forces during World War II. They gained much of this reputation whilst fighting on the Eastern Front in Russia. Germany's war against the Soviet Union in World War II, in particular the role of the Waffen-SS forms much of the subject matter of this book. The death and destruction during this conflict would result not just from military operations, but also from the systematic killing and abuse that the Waffen-SS directed against Jews, Communists and ordinary citizens. This book provides a clear, concise history of the Waffen-SS campaign of conquest and genocide in Russia by looking at the actions both on and behind the front lines. By drawing on the best of military and Holocaust scholarship, this book dispels the myths that have distorted the role of the Waffen-SS, in both the military operations themselves and the unthinkable crimes that were part of them. The conventional wisdom that the Waffen-SS in World War II fought a relatively clean fight, unsullied by the atrocities committed by the Nazis, is challenged-and largely demolished. Focusing on the Eastern Front, the book contends that the Nazi vision of a racial-ideological death struggle against Slavic hordes and their Jewish-Bolshevik commissars resonated with soldiers of the Waffen-SS, steeped in traditional anti-Semitic and racist dogmas. In doing so this book clearly shows that the Waffen-SS was an organisation that committed widespread atrocities, and were truly soldiers of evil. DR. TERRY GOLDSWORTHY is a Detective Senior Sergeant with over 25 years policing experience in Australia. He has served in general duties, watchhouse and traffic branch before moving to the Criminal Investigation Branch in 1994. Dr. Goldsworthy has completed a Bachelor of Commerce, Bachelor of Laws, Advanced Diploma of Investigative Practice and a Diploma of Policing. As a result of his law studies Dr. Goldsworthy was admitted to the bar in the Queensland and Federal Courts a a barrister in 1999. Dr. Goldsworthy then completed a Master of Criminology at Bond University. He later completed his PhD focusing on the concept of evil and its relevance from a criminological and sociological viewpoint. In particular Dr. Goldsworthy looked at the link between evil and armed conflicts using the Waffen-SS as a case study. He has also contributed chapters to the tertiary textbooks Forensic Criminology and Serial Crime, published by Academic Press. He has also written a chapter to the general crime book Crime on My Mind published by New Holland Publishing.

Book Hitler s Monsters

    Book Details:
  • Author : Eric Kurlander
  • Publisher : Yale University Press
  • Release : 2017-06-06
  • ISBN : 0300190379
  • Pages : 411 pages

Download or read book Hitler s Monsters written by Eric Kurlander and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2017-06-06 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A dense and scholarly book about . . . the relationship between the Nazi party and the occult . . . reveals stranger-than-fiction truths on every page.”—Daily Telegraph The Nazi fascination with the occult is legendary, yet today it is often dismissed as Himmler’s personal obsession or wildly overstated for its novelty. Preposterous though it was, however, supernatural thinking was inextricable from the Nazi project. The regime enlisted astrology and the paranormal, paganism, Indo-Aryan mythology, witchcraft, miracle weapons, and the lost kingdom of Atlantis in reimagining German politics and society and recasting German science and religion. In this eye-opening history, Eric Kurlander reveals how the Third Reich’s relationship to the supernatural was far from straightforward. Even as popular occultism and superstition were intermittently rooted out, suppressed, and outlawed, the Nazis drew upon a wide variety of occult practices and esoteric sciences to gain power, shape propaganda and policy, and pursue their dreams of racial utopia and empire. “[Kurlander] shows how swiftly irrational ideas can take hold, even in an age before social media.”—The Washington Post “Deeply researched, convincingly authenticated, this extraordinary study of the magical and supernatural at the highest levels of Nazi Germany will astonish.”—The Spectator “A trustworthy [book] on an extraordinary subject.”—The Times “A fascinating look at a little-understood aspect of fascism.”—Kirkus Reviews “Kurlander provides a careful, clear-headed, and exhaustive examination of a subject so lurid that it has probably scared away some of the serious research it merits.”—National Review

Book The Waffen SS in Combat

    Book Details:
  • Author : Bob Carruthers
  • Publisher : Pen and Sword
  • Release : 2015-07-30
  • ISBN : 1473857589
  • Pages : 277 pages

Download or read book The Waffen SS in Combat written by Bob Carruthers and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2015-07-30 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A photographic history of some of the most elite of Germany’s armed forces as they fought on all fronts during World War II . . . Highly recommended.”—Scale Military Modeller This is the photographic history of the Waffen-SS in combat on all fronts. The short six-year history of the Waffen-SS spanned triumph and disaster, and their story can be traced through these powerful images, which clearly document the reality of combat from 1940 to 1945. These rare images span the combat history of the Waffen-SS from the optimism of the opening phases of the war in the west through to the challenges of Barbarossa and the long and bloody retreat against a numerically far superior enemy in both the east and the west. The powerful photographic record is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the course of the war from the German perspective and clearly demonstrated the scale of the task undertaken by the Waffen-SS on all fronts. “This collection of b&w historical photos from WWII showcases photos taken by the Germans for propaganda purposes and published in newspapers, magazines, and books between 1940 and 1945. Many of the photos come from the SS-Kriegsberichter-Kompanie (Waffen-SS War Reporters Company), led by Gunter d’Alquen, which recorded actions of platoons. The photos are grouped in three sections on the activities of the Waffen-SS in the west in 1940, in the east in 1941-1943, and in combat and defeat 1943-1945. Each section begins with an introduction giving context on the origins of the photos and the photographers and crews involved. There is also background on the units, platoons, and divisions photographed.”—ProtoView