Saturday, 23 April 2022

Book Review - Soldiers of Destruction by Charles W. Sydnor Jr.

 Soldiers of Destruction: the SS Death's Head Division, 1933-1945 by Charles W. Sydnor Jr.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977                  ISBN 0691052557

So, here is the book that I should have read - rather than the sensationalized Curse of the Death's Head - to learn more about the SS Totenkopf Division and it's role in the fighting and killing of Nazi Germany and World War II. Whereas Rupert Butler went for the Hollywood angle of the story, Charles Sydnor has produced a meticulously researched, factual but very readable account, which Butler has obviously used as the basis for his airport non-fiction.

Soldiers of Destruction catalogues the shaky beginnings of the Totenkopf organisation - Theodor Eicke being the driving force behind not only the re-organization of the concentration camp system, but really the progenitor of the military arm of the SS. Sydnor shows us in Eicke a man who was in turn brutal, bullying, racist and yet in some ways very particular and prissy.

Through his vigour and chivvying Eicke managed to set up a national concentration camp system, which eliminated the personal sadism of previous commanders, and imposed not only a set of instructions which institutionalized brutality against those incarcerated, but also engendered within his SS cadres a feeling of being special and superior to those whom they opposed.

With his organizational ability and thrusting personality, Eicke was a natural choice to be the leader to initiate the armed wing of the SS. It also helped that the Totenkopfverbande was really the only source of combat-capable SS troops to create an armed division. Eicke's bullying blustering nature, and his ability to claim to be fulfilling the will of not only Himmler, but Hitler himself, initially didn't get him far in his battle with the German Army to get equipment and arms for his division. The Army did not like competition, did not like the overt ideological nature of the training of the SS troops, and frankly thought that the SS would not be able to fight.

Despite such opposition, Eicke worked hard to get his division up and running - begging, borrowing and stealing equipment - on many occasions incurring the wrath of Himmler, and working his troops very hard to get them up to speed. Eicke was determined that his troops would not only be the most ruthless in their pursuit of victory, but be exemplary National Socialists as well. He regularly cashiered soldiers and officers who transgressed his rules - many to do with drunkenness and sexual crimes, or anything else he thought besmirched the honour of the division. By the time SS Totenkopf arrived in France, the division was itching to get into battle.

That happened soon enough in France, where the division suffered proportionally more casualties than other units, owing to both their vigour in prosecuting battle, and their commanders not yet fully grasping how to use troops in modern war. Once France was defeated, the division not only had more experience, but plenty of  captured equipment. They also had some grudging respect from the Army for their efforts. What we remember today from the Totenkopf's time in France is the Le Paradis massacre.

This was not the last war crime that the Totenkopf - or its members that moved onto other SS organizations - committed.

Soon enough the division was on its way to Russia, where it was part of Army Group North's push to Leningrad. While we now think of the German invasion of Russia as a bit of a walk-over up until Winter arrived, Sydnor makes clear that even the early advances came at the cost of huge casualties, especially for Totenkopf, for whom the Russian war was the apogee of their ideological world-view. The Division's high and low point came during the battle of the Demyansk Pocket where they proved that they were one of the best fighting units available to Germany, but where they had their heart torn out by the unremitting Russian assaults. By the time the Pocket was relieved, the Totenkopf had almost ceased to exist as a fighting unit.

They were sent to France to recover and refit, but found themselves instead part of the force who occupied Vichy France, before being sent back to Russia - this time the Ukraine. Here they were used as the "firemen" of the German forces, sent wherever the need was greatest. It was here that they lost their leader, with Eicke shot down and killed just before the Battle of Kursk. While the division made the most headway of any German unit during that battle, Russia defeated the Germans, and the remainder of the War saw Totenkopf continuing to fill holes in the German front, with less and less success, until they ceased to exist around Vienna at the end of the War.

Syndor has used the archives fully and well, which is why we find out much more about the Division before the death of Eicke, and not so much after, owing to the fact that the later records of the Division were destroyed at the end of the War. Syndor doesn't shy away from the criminality behind not only some of the actions undertaken by the Totenkopf, but behind its very basis. He shows through evidence that the idea espoused by some that the Waffen SS was merely another part of the Army and not tainted by all the evil undertaken by the rest of the SS is not near the truth. The Totenkopf Division in particular regularly cycled officers from combat, back to the camps and administration of Einsatzgruppen, and then back to the Division. He shows us that Hitler valued his SS Divisions, eventually giving them preference over his Army divisions when it came to equipment and manpower. He shows us that they were anything but another division in a normal army.

This book is a must-read for anyone who wishes to understand how the Waffen SS was born, how it grew, how it died, and how it was as much part of the SS as the Camp Guards and members of the Einsatzgruppen. A great piece of scholarship.




Cheers for now, from

A View Over the Bell

No comments:

Post a Comment