From the Realm of a Dying Sun vol. 1-3

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Pascal Kuhlman,

You post, "The best (most tactical insightful) works on the Waffen-SS are those written by authors who portray the Waffen-SS in a pretty uncritical light....." I prefer actual military history to pretty uncritical puff pieces for the Waffen-SS.

You post that they, ".....also use tons of german primary sources (Douglas Nash, Rolf Michaelis, George M.Nipe, Mark C. Yerger)." So they are purely reliant on German and Waffen-SS self appraisal? Where is the equivalent Soviet perspective in what sounds like an orgy of inter-German and inter-Waffen-SS back-slapping written by partisan "on-message" authors?

Based on what I have so far read here, I am not ".....planning on reading the book" unless I run into it discounted in a second hand bookshop or elsewhere, or unless I develop a sudden interest in this campaign. So you will, at least, be spared any detailed critique of it by me in the near future!

Cheers,

Sid.

[Westphalia1812]

Hi Pascal Kuhlman,

Where is the equivalent Soviet perspective in what sounds like an orgy of inter-German and inter-Waffen-SS back-slapping written by partisan "on-message" authors?

Cheers,

Sid.

You want an equivalent Soviet perspective? Try Stalins Favourite by Igor Nebolsin.

PS: Funny thing is that I have probably read more literature concerning the Holocaust (and the Waffen-SS involvement in it) and the german occupation policies than you have. There are many great German works (Felix Römer or Christian Gerlach e.g.) dealing with these topics but I guess you wont be keen to learn German just for them...

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi PK.

No, I don't want an equivalent partisan perspective from the Soviet point of view any more than I want a partisan perspective from the German point of view. I want well rounded military history drawing broadly on sources from all participants.

Yes, my German is limited and ponderous and, keen as I may be, at 66 I am probably a little old to become truly fluent or to wait for GoogleTranslate or Babelfish to be perfected!

However, it looks as though most, perhaps all, of the authors you mention above suffer from a similar handicap with Russian, leaving their books significantly compromised regarding "the other side of the hill".

Cheers,

Sid.

[Westphalia1812]

No, I don't want an equivalent partisan perspective from the Soviet point of view any more than I want a partisan perspective from the German point of view. I want well rounded military history drawing broadly on sources from all participants.

Then try Warsaw II by Norbert Bacyk.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi PK,

Thanks for the tip. I have invested £23.28p in it and it will arrive after Christmas.

Cheers,

Sid.

[Cult Icon]

I recently finished the audiobook (IV SS Panzer Korps July-Nov 1944). This audiobook is 28 hours long. The second one (25 hours long) finishes up the history of the Korps for the remainder of the war.

In inspecting audiobook 2 (suspiciously short) it appears that the product is mislabeled!!

https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/fr ... 945/434065

I listened to the ending and the audiobook only covers Vol. 2 The IV. SS-Panzerkorps in the Budapest Relief Efforts, December 1944–February 1945.

The final volume isn't recorded.

[Cult Icon]

Halfway through the second audiobook, focused on the Konrad offensive operations. So far it is more difficult to follow than the first audiobook, which was predominantly on defensive fighting, which is more straightforward.

An unusual "reading" experience, as generally this type of detailed tactical/operational history is not narrated. When narrated it is sometimes too much data/information to process at once, I find myself listening to the same thing twice so it's taking twice as long.


An extreme example would be Glantz' Stalingrad Trilogy. Listening to that would be information overload, even more so than "Realm".

Does anybody know of other tactical/operational histories converted into audiobook form?

[Cult Icon]

Anybody believe or disbelieve the viewpoint that Konrad II was close to success (1 day) before it was recalled by Hitler?

Interesting to see shade thrown at Balck & his memoir. Naturally the series sides with Gille on this matter, while exposing one lie in Gille's memoir halfway through book 2.

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi Cult Icon,

Due to hard-fact overload from the sheer weight of place names and formations in his books, Glantz can't really be read without having his mass of sequential maps also available. I, too, would imagine that this would rule out any purely audio version of his books.

Cheers,

Sid

[Sid Guttridge]

Hi PK,

My copy of Warsaw II by Norbert Bacyk arrived earlier than promised.

In format it is like a very thick, hardback, Osprey book, its proof reading is a bit dodgy and there is no foot noting or bibliography.

On the other hand, as you promised, it does seem to have researched sources on both sides, which is very different from most W-SS-related books. (Though, the W-SS subtitle is really click-bait, as most of the German formations participating were from the Wehrmacht).

Warsaw II's primary value, for me, is its text, which gives us more information from which to judge to what degree the failure of the Red Army to relieve the Warsaw Uprising was deliberate policy, or the result of a strong German defence. The book comes down largely on the side of a strong German defence rather than lack of effort by the Red Army.

I would give it 6 or 7 out of 10. For others, the masses of photographs and colour armour illustrations may be of more interest and they might well score it higher..

Thanks for the tip.

Sid.

[Art]

Warsaw II's primary value, for me, is its text, which gives us more information from which to judge to what degree the failure of the Red Army to relieve the Warsaw Uprising was deliberate policy, or the result of a strong German defence.

You cannot fail in what you are not going to do. By the moment when the uprising started it was already clear that bridges in Warsaw cannot captured quickly and with little opposition, hence a lack of Soviet interest in direct attack across the Vistula.

In general the problem with your reasoning is that Warsaw/Praga was just a smaller piece in a global picture of operations in Poland. When looking at this piece isolated from the global events you cannot understand what was going on. That applies to the Bacyk's book to some degree. Unfortunately, I don't know any good source providing a global overview of operations in Poland in the campaign of 1944 on a modern level. Hinze's books give much factual material, but are dated and one-sided and the narrative is somewhat disjointed. Frieser's chapter in the Germany and the Second World War is IMO just an atrocious BS. Probably, someone can name some alternative titles here.

[Jan-Hendrik]

Good detail you can find in Vopersals 'Soldaten, Kämpfer, Kameraden' and in the files of AOK 2 and 9.

Thats why I ordered Vol. 1 of Doug's book and hope it will arrive in early January.

Jan-Hendrik

[Cult Icon]

vol. 1 focuses a lot on the actions of 73.ID, 19.Pz, 3.SS, 5.SS

[Jan-Hendrik]

Well, I have gathered much, much material on the battles between Bug, Narew and Weichsel over the past 15 years...I'm looking forward what this book has to offer me!

Jan-Hendrik

[Art]

vol. 1 focuses a lot on the actions of 73.ID, 19.Pz, 3.SS, 5.SS

I've bought it, unfortunately it has many problems similar to Frieser, i.e. instead of describing Soviet actions and operational objectives it describes German perception of them. The question of accuracy of these perceptions is not adressed, while it should be. Similar to Frieser the book overdramatizes importance of "battle of Praga/Radzymin/Volomin", which had mostly a tactical effect. It is repeated many times that the Soviet 3 Tank Corps was almost fully destroyed in this battle, which is not true. I believe there is some kind of overreliance on oral sources: in many instances "a hellish Russian drumfire" describes what was a modest artillery support accoridng to Soviet documents. In general, the books needs to be countebalanced by a perspective from the opposite side. Again, it seems to me that a lack of good modern overview of this campaign was a handicap.