JJF working on new 3 volume WSS unit history.

[Klaus Richter]

According to JJF's website, they are starting to work on a 3 volume WSS unit history. I wonder what unit it might be covering??? Hopefully Wiking...

http://www.jjfpub.mb.ca/

[MarcRikmenspoel]

I have no inside information, but the first 3-volume Waffen-SS unit history to come to mind is Die Sturmflut und das Ende, the history of the 17. SS-PGD Goetz von Berlichingen.

Hans Stoeber wrote the first two volumes, but Helmut Gunther did the third. They already have a relationship with Gunther's estate, as shown by the publishing of translations of both volumes of his memoirs. So this makes the GvB history seem even more likely to me.

[Mark C. Yerger]

Would be a good read, though hopefully will made into just 2 volumes. He took longer to do Weidinger's "Das Reich" 5 text volumes than it did for Otto to write it.

He has the free rights to all the Munin text histories but doubt anyone will live long enough to see any of the multiple corps studies they did, all being the only works on the subject.
Fedorowicz's general priority seems to be Tiger tank photo books and similar unit books.

Same with Steiner's books, available but have not been done for reasons unknown while piles of repetitive crap are churned out.

Cheaper to print and ship a text book at today's rates, and could be just as good in a quality SB book. For Steiner's books and the Munin corps studies even cheaper to do if photos deleted, their worth being minimal

Thinking of this as I mailed a birthday gift book to Europe today, before the next postal increase in May. Unless in the country where published, add 50% or more to price of acquiring a HB book. Insane.

[Klaus Richter]

17th SS, that would be great! Has anyone read "Die Sturmflut und das Ende?" How is it?

[MarcRikmenspoel]

I haven't read it, but I know that it is incredibly detailed for a unit that was in combat for less than a year. This is because the last staff officers of the division didn't destroy the war diary at the end of the war. Against orders, they buried it securely in a forest, before surrendering. Around 25 years later, they dug it up and used it as the basis of the divisional history. They also published an extra volume, which I have seen, which is a giant book of reproductions of all the documents added to the war diary.

Of course, it is still possible JJF intends to produce a different series ;-)

[Klaus Richter]

that's incredible that they were able to save the war diaries, no wonder it's three volumes!

[Remy Spezzano]

Just spoke with John Fedorowicz and he conformed the new book will be on the 18. SS Volunteer Panzergrenadier Division "Horst Wessel".
Hoping to release it sometime this summer.

[Klaus Richter]

I assume it's "...im letzen Aufgebot 1944-1945," by Wilhelm Tieke, which isn't surprising since they have translated most of his books so for, especially recently. However that book is only one volume. Though I could care less for the 18SS division, I will still buy it because I love Tieke's writing style. JJF also said earlier that they were working on a single SS unit history that they will release very soon. I would assume that this is the book. The 3 Volume SS history is something they are starting right now, so it can still be the 17SS history...

[MarcRikmenspoel]

Tieke's 18. SS-FPGD history was originally published as two volumes. One was the text, the other was photos and documents and such. I assume they can be combined the same way Tragodie um die Treue was combined with Korps Steiner to form the English language Tragedy of the Faithful.

The 18. SS-FPGD is of interest because it was the least distinguished SS armored division. It was in some ways the opposite of the Nordland and Nederland Divisions. The III.(germanisches) SS-Panzerkorps was formed around a cadre of elite veterans from the Wiking Division, and then filled out primarily with Romanian ethnic-Germans who were Romanian Army veterans that specifically volunteered to join the German military.

The 18.SS was had as its cadre the 2nd-line 1. SS-Infanterie Brigade. It was filled out with Hungarian ethnic-Germans from the late-summer 1944 conscription campaign in the Batschka and neighboring areas (the Baranya and the Swabian Turkey). This took in the men who hadn't previously volunteered, and who were usually less keen on joining the German military. Some would have preferred to serve in the Honved, others wanted to avoid the war all together. This same pool of men filled out the 22. SS-FKD Maria Theresia and the 31. SS-FGD.

More than the two other divisions, the 18. SS was plagued with desertions and men abandoning their positions when attacked. The best elements of the 18. SS were reassigned to the 4. SS-PPGD, yet once Georg Bochmann took over in early 1945, he was able to get some good service from the division in desperate fighting in Silesia.

I haven't read Tieke's history of the 18. SS, but I hope he explores the nature of the ethnic-German experience. It is an aspect of the Waffen-SS that has been little studied and little understood, especially in English.

[Klaus Richter]

Well, if you put it like that, I'm now more interested! ...anyways I love Tieke!