Hitler's Irishmen

by Terence O'Reilly

During the Second World War, two young Irishmen served in the armed forces of Nazi Germany, recruited to the German Special Forces after they were captured on the island of Jersey. They were involved in some of the most ferocious fighting of the war in the last days of the Third Reich. This account, which also covers some of the other Irishmen who sided with Nazi Germany, draws heavily on their own accounts and on state papers which have been released in recent years. ""If you like military history, you'll love this book."" The Irish American News

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ireland

320 pages, Paperback

First published August 15, 2008

Reviews

[Cathal Joyce-Donnellan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Terence O'Reilly has done commendable work in getting the most out of a very shallow pool of primary sources. However, this, I feel, is greatly undermined by the heaps of vaguely relevant context that only serve to inflate the book to 300 pages.

(I also want to point out - though this can hardly be blamed on the author - that the book's cover doesn't even depict any of the Irishmen (rather the Austrian commando Otto Skorzeny), which really symbolises the overall lack of focus the book maintains on its subject matter.)

In its favour, there is some food for thought offered on the legacies of the IRA and of Irish neutrality during the Second World War. There is great insight into the lower-level in-fighting of the German government that serves as an illuminating microcosm of the wider National Socialist regime. My biggest takeaways are the multitude of amusing anecdotes of Abwehr and SS bureaucrats trying and failing to turn a handful of willing yet stubborn and (generally) incompetent Irishmen into capable spies, saboteurs and soldiers as the war starts to go against them.

Not a brilliant read, not bad either, but would have made for a much better essay or article.

[Múiris Ó Máille · Rating 5 out of 5]

A detailed look at an obscure piece of modern Irish history. Equal parts fascinating and gobsmacking. A look at a dark corner of Irish history and a true case of fact being stranger than fiction.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is filled with details. A little too much for me. Very well researched.

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a strange book. It was clearly well researched and did not stray from the subject matter but I found it very hard to read. Unfortunately, it seems that the subject matter was perhaps too narrow. For the first 50 or so pages you get an account of Irishmen behaving badly and generally failing in various army platoons be it the Spanish Civil War or the British Army. Then you get an account of Irishmen captured by Germans deciding to fight for the SS. Finally you get an account of Skorzeny. An Austrian connected to the Irishmen.

It is simply too narrow a subject matter to really keep the readers attention. I have no doubt that those with a specific focus on Nazi Germany and its history would find this enthralling. I however only have a glancing interest, having studied the period during school days. I find other periods of history more enthralling.

I cannot say that this book is not well researched and well written. The writer clearly has an excellent knowledge of his subject material. However, KI just found it did not hold my interest quite as much as I would have liked. I did however finish the book. There are just no "characters" of people that are anywhere near likeable. I appreciate that during the Nazi Germany period we are not likely to find any likeable characters given the nature of the subject matter but often in such books we do also look at those opposing the horrific regime. This book has very little in it to balance out and you simply feel like you are reading an account of Nazi manoeuvres during the war.

I would however recommend it for those with a strong interest in the Nazi Germany period simply for a bit of extra reading material on the subject.

[Friedrich Haas · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm 42 pages into the historical record of how the drunken Irish never distinguished themselves in any association with the Germans or anyone the Germans sided with, and wondering if I even want to get to what they did under Hitler. Now we get into German Intelligence trying to recruit Irish agents from among the POW's, and by page 70 I can't slog through this anymore and I jump to chapter 3, page 115. I perked up at the activities of Skorzeny, but then he's not Irish. The pages about training in the SS are better too. It is a very detailed researched account, but the subject personalities are not keeping my interest, and the off topic side stories of context don't last.

[Katie Mcsweeney]

I bought this years ago but never got around to reading it... someday hopefully I will.