Stormtroop development

[graf]

Bob, have you ever seen...

"Der große Krieg im Feld und in der Heimat" 1922 von Oberst Bauer?

I just came across it and bought it, any opinion of it is welcome.

[Bob Lembke]

Col. Max Bauer's Book

Graf;

I was alerted to the e-Bay auction of this book that you won by my writing partner. I had heard of the book, and when I looked into this I realized how important Bauer was to the development of the storm troops and the flame-thrower. However, I decided to buy it on ZVAB; the participating dealers have a number of copies up for sale.

Interestingly, my wife, who is a very clever foreign-language librarian at a major university library, was not able to track down a copy in a US library, and she has great book-search tools that us ordinary mortals can only dream about. Surprising, and a good reason to get your own copy. Generally such a book can be found in a number of major US libraries.

Bauer was quite a character. A very knowledgable secondary source recently described him as the second most important man in the WW I German General Staff. After the war he was deeply involved in right-wing plotting with Ludendorff and others, in Eastern Europe as well as Germany, and surprisingly was a great fan of a curious rascal named Trebisch Lincoln and sponsored him in the circle of plotters. Another plotter, Major von Stephani (the founder of the Freikorps Potsdam, the unit my father fought in), was appalled at Trebitsch when he met him (both were Jewish, but Guards Major von Stephani, son of a Prussian general, was very assimilated; while Trebitsch was a wildly stereotypical Orthodox Hungarian Jew who was also, surprisingly, an Anglican minister, a former Member of Parliment, and later a Buddist abbot)and got rid of him by the simple expedient of giving Trebitsch an unsealed letter to take to Col. Bauer, knowing that he would peek at it; the letter advised Bauer to have Trebitsch killed. Trebitsch took the hint and fled, however, taking Bauer's files with him, causing some difficulties.

Other major participants in the development of the flame-thrower, like the Crown Prince, wrote little about it, possibly because there was still talk of trying them as war criminals; Bauer, seemingly a bit of a madman, seems to have had no such inhibitions. Your book should be quite an interesting read. However, I suspect that the e-Bay description is a bit mis-leading, and the book will not be as focused on storm-troops and flame-throwers as it suggests.

Bob Lembke

[graf]

Agreed...

The auction description did seem a little leading to draw attention.
As luck would have it- I almost always refer to ABE before placing a bid on a book off ePay, but this time I was less diligent... turns out the book is quite common in Germany (both a 1st & 2nd edition) & can be found in numbers off ABE searches.
Quite annoying to know one has over paid by twice the amount!

Perhaps it will be worth it in the end? I placed another purchase through ABE for another issue- I just hope the text isn't in the old German script, darn difficult to discern.

Thanks for the detail on Bauer, he was quite a character it seems.

Graf;

I was alerted to the e-Bay auction of this book that you won by my writing partner. I had heard of the book, and when I looked into this I realized how important Bauer was to the development of the storm troops and the flame-thrower. However, I decided to buy it on ZVAB; the participating dealers have a number of copies up for sale.

Interestingly, my wife, who is a very clever foreign-language librarian at a major university library, was not able to track down a copy in a US library, and she has great book-search tools that us ordinary mortals can only dream about. Surprising, and a good reason to get your own copy. Generally such a book can be found in a number of major US libraries.

Bauer was quite a character. A very knowledgable secondary source recently described him as the second most important man in the WW I German General Staff. After the war he was deeply involved in right-wing plotting with Ludendorff and others, in Eastern Europe as well as Germany, and surprisingly was a great fan of a curious rascal named Trebisch Lincoln and sponsored him in the circle of plotters. Another plotter, Major von Stephani (the founder of the Freikorps Potsdam, the unit my father fought in), was appalled at Trebitsch when he met him (both were Jewish, but Guards Major von Stephani, son of a Prussian general, was very assimilated; while Trebitsch was a wildly stereotypical Orthodox Hungarian Jew who was also, surprisingly, an Anglican minister, a former Member of Parliment, and later a Buddist abbot)and got rid of him by the simple expedient of giving Trebitsch an unsealed letter to take to Col. Bauer, knowing that he would peek at it; the letter advised Bauer to have Trebitsch killed. Trebitsch took the hint and fled, however, taking Bauer's files with him, causing some difficulties.

Other major participants in the development of the flame-thrower, like the Crown Prince, wrote little about it, possibly because there was still talk of trying them as war criminals; Bauer, seemingly a bit of a madman, seems to have had no such inhibitions. Your book should be quite an interesting read. However, I suspect that the e-Bay description is a bit mis-leading, and the book will not be as focused on storm-troops and flame-throwers as it suggests.

Bob Lembke