Book recommendation

[Silas]

hey guys

I am looking for a book that comprehensively covers the recruitment and training of Waffen SS soldiers and officers. While reading many other books and memoirs, I frequently see phrases like "our training was much different than the Wehrmacht", or "we did things much differently". How was it different? It seemed to be more effective, why?

Aside from some general stuff, like in Flaherty's book on the SS, I haven't seen anything in-depth. Something in English would be preferable, as my German is not the best.

[Christoph Awender]

Hello,

Well, all memoires I´ve read and all W-SS veterans I know told me that it was not different. So my question is which memoires you have read which tell what you say?

/Christoph

[GregSingh]

There were separate schools for W-SS, so I would think training was a bit different, at least at some stages of the career.

"Dich ruft die SS", 50-pages booklet, available on the internet, has lot's of info about career options, but I don't know how much of it was just propaganda to lure candidates.

Not so long ago I watched a documentary about life in Germany after WWII.
Former SS soldier said that in difficult post-war years he got a job when he mentioned being in SS, as these were considered better workers for some reason, not only by his future boss, but in general. That could be just isolated incidents, I don't know. That chap was young, couldn't be longer in SS than a year or two.

[Rob - wssob2]

"Dich ruft die SS", 50-pages booklet, available on the internet, has lot's of info about career options, but I don't know how much of it was just propaganda to lure candidates.

Yeah - that' a 1943 SS propaganda magazine.

Not so long ago I watched a documentary about life in Germany after WWII.
Former SS soldier said that in difficult post-war years he ...

This probably has nothing to do with his training.

Michael Logusz in his book Galicia Divison provides some good detail of the basic training program for the 14th SS Division, broken down week by week. Jay Hatheway in his book In Perfect Formation covers the SS OCS Bad Tolz. Gerhard Rempel's book Hitler’s Children: The Hitler Youth and the SS covers the SS involvement in Hitler Youth paramilitary training. Christian de La Meziere in his book The Captive Dreamer provides interesting information on the training of the 33rd SS Division.

It's important to remember that from 1943 onward the training became more and more haphazard and abbreviated.

For a good synopsis of Waffen-SS Western European recruitment history, see Ken Estes' A European Anabasis For a deep dive into Belgian Waffen-SS recruitment, see Martin Conway's Collaboration in Belgium: Leon Degrelle and the Rexist Movement 1940-44