Book suggestion - British soldiers vs the SS

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Larso
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Book suggestion - British soldiers vs the SS

#1

Post by Larso » 16 Jul 2016, 12:32

I'm reading another British memoir and it has some specific passages on combat and dealings with SS troops. It's fairly common to come across general attitudes in British memoirs that the SS were 'brutes' and 'fanatics' etc and the various recollections I've read support that. I wondered then whether anyone has written specifically on this topic? With the battles in Normandy and then Arnhem, I would imagine there'd be quite a bit to be said?

Larso
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Posts: 1974
Joined: 27 Apr 2003, 03:18
Location: Brisbane, Australia

Re: Book suggestion - British soldiers vs the SS

#2

Post by Larso » 14 Aug 2016, 13:41

Searching around the site found this -

Surrender Invites Death by John A English Stackpole Books
Covers fighting the Waffen SS in Normandy from a Canadian and British view. Through ten chapters Mr. English gives a stark reality of the brutality of war faced by those who fought in the Normandy campaign. He starts with a brief introduction to who the Waffen SS where, and gives us a beginning of the atrocities committed by the SS against allied soldiers throughout the war.
The main chapters of the book then cover the various battles that took place in the first weeks of the Normandy campaign . Covering such divisions as Das Riech and 12 SS Hitlerjugend and the various leaders of the SS divisions involed in the fighting .
These chapters also provide a useful analysis of the performance of the elite armoured formations of the German Army and their decline in both the type of man fighting for the once elite divisions and the short comings of German equipment and tactics in the face of over whelming Allied superiority.
Mr English has provided a unique view from touring the battlefields to talking to veterans from both sides. A book well worth adding to ones collection which has the appropriate number of pictures, maps and tables contained in it.

There's another book 'Stout Hearts' that seems worth my looking at too.


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Sheldrake
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Re: Book suggestion - British soldiers vs the SS

#3

Post by Sheldrake » 14 Aug 2016, 16:34

Try Mike Reynolds books Steel Inferno and Sons of the Reich. This British general wrote the histories of the 1st and 2nd SS Panzer Corps.

Larso
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Re: Book suggestion - British soldiers vs the SS

#4

Post by Larso » 17 Aug 2016, 05:27

Thanks for that. I think I'll spend a while on this topic and I'll add those books to my list.

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