European Volunteers, The 5. SS-Panzer-Division Wiking

by Peter Strassner

Hard cover, 6 x 9, 480 pages, 112 black and white photos and 30 maps. An excellent, comprehensive, single volume, authoritative account of this elite SS division that spent the entire war on the Eastern Front. Wiking was one of the hardest fighting divisions of the German forces in both the East and West. Includes numerous personal accounts as well as extensive, detailed tables and appendices. This is a completely re-translated and re-edited edition.

Genres: World War II

480 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

Reviews

[Oleksandr]

I expected this book is going to bring in more insights about the motivation of non-German volunteers joining the division, but it turned out to be a "been here, done that" story scarcely dilluted with interesting personal stories of the members of the division. The author himself is an ex-member and he really cheers for the division as if it's some kind of a boy scout club. I mean, I expected something like that to a certain degree, but it feels so propagandish-naive. Another thing I expected from the book is to find out how people like the author reflected on such a controversial experience of their past, but again, I haven't found it here. The book also contains numerous cool after-action reports of small engagements. The writing style and the quality of the translation is bearable, but not an easy read.

The print is superb. I guarantee you, you haven't seen books like that before. It will outlive your grandchildren.

So, know what you're buying. The best you can get from this book is a combat history of the division with some nice appendixes about it, but everything else is just missing.