Das Reich: Resistance, Revenge and the 2nd SS Panzer Division in France, June 1944

(Paperback)

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'The literary VC goes without doubt to Max Hastings . . . the story of a march that left behind a trail of blood and death, torture and heroism' - Sunday Telegraph Written from the perspective of the French Resistance, British SOE and SAS, and the German SS, Das Reich is bestselling historian Max Hastings's gripping and powerful examination of wartime brutality in the aftermath of D-Day. Within days of the D-Day landings in June 1944, the elite 2nd SS Panzer Division Das Reich marched north through France to reinforce the front-line defenders of Hitler's Fortress Europe. Veterans of the bloodiest fighting of the Russian Front, 15,000 men with their tanks and artillery, they were hounded for every mile of their march by saboteurs of the Resistance and agents of the Allied Special Forces. Along their route they took reprisals so savage they will live for ever in the chronicles of the most appalling atrocities of war, including the massacre of 642 men, women and children from Ordour-sur-Glane. Even-handed and insightful, Das Reich vividly brings to life a dark period of the Second World War, revealing stories of cruelty on both sides as well as stories of heroism and sacrifice.

Reviews

His combination of oral history with documentary records revives the authentic flavour of events as they felt at the time -- Times Literary Supplement
The literary VC goes without doubt to Max Hastings for his Das Reich . . . the story of a march that left behind a trail of blood and death, torture and heroism -- Sunday Telegraph
A gripping blend of narrative and investigation -- Evening Standard

Author Bio

Max Hastings is a Sunday Times bestselling author who, between 1986 and 2002, served as editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, then editor of the Evening Standard. He has won many prizes both for journalism and his books, of which the most recent are Abyss, All Hell Let Loose and Catastrophe. In his youth he was a foreign correspondent for newspapers and BBC television. He was knighted in 2002 for services to journalism.