Soldiers of Destruction : The SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945 - Updated Edition

Charles Sydnor relates the political and military experience of the SS Totenkopfdivision to the institutional development of the SS and the ideological objectives of Nazi Germany. Surveys The Emergence Of The Nazi Ss And Its Death's Head Division, Noting The Impact Of This Elite And Powerful Army Upon Military History. The Prewar Background : The Development Of The Concentration Camp System And The Ss Totenkopfverbände -- The Polish Campaign And The Creation Of The Ss Totenkopfdivision -- Growing Pains : December 1939-may 1940 -- The Ss Totenkopfdivision And The Battle Of France -- The Long Interlude : Occupation Duty And Transfer To The East -- The Ss Totenkopfdivision And The War In Russia : June 1941-january 1942 -- The Soviet Counteroffensive : Encirclement In The Demyansk Pocket, January-october 1942 -- Perpetual Crisis : The Führer's Firemen, 1943-1945 -- Some Observations : Ideology, Personality, And The Question Of Totenkopf Criminality. Charles W. Sydnor, Jr. Reprint, With New Pref. And Postscript. Originally Published: Princeton, N.j.: Princeton Universirty Press, 1977. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 351-362) And Index. This is the eighth Princeton Paperback printing and includes a new preface and postscript. The reason this book is so unusual and compelling is because its subject occupied so central a place in the most extraordinary and destructive phenomenon ever to threaten the structure of civilization and the values of humankind. As a specialized monograph detailing the history and experience of a single Waffen SS division, the original edition of the book stimulated questions, provoked responses, animated inquires and in time became caught up in the remarkable growth of public fascination with the Hitlerian era and the SS. In its own small way, Soldiers of Destruction helped to create the phenomenon that has now absorbed it. THE Waffen SS Totenkopfdivision emerged from two significant interrelated forces in the structure of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich.