From The Realm Of A Dying Sun

One year ago I reviewed Volume I of Douglas E. Nash Senior's trilogy. That book was the first in a series of three examining the formation and combat history of the IV. SS-Panzerkorps (primarily comprised of the 3rd SS-Panzer Division Totenkopf and 5th SS-Panzer Division Wiking for all but a few weeks at the Second World War's end. That first volume looked at the formation of this elite corps. and covered in extensive detail its combat operations near Warsaw in the late summer and fall of 1944.

Volume II and III pick up from there, with each following in the chronological footsteps of its prior volume. I am happy to say there has been no drop-off in quality compared to the first volume. I highly recommend all three of these books as a set very much worthy of not only your attention but their very fair price if one considers the quality of scholarship these books make accessible to either the casual or more serious enthusiast of armored operations during World War II.

Volume II is the meatier of these two final volumes in the trilogy. That makes sense. Though focused on a briefer period of time, there was a much richer vein of primary sources for Nash to mine in constructing this volume. In addition, this volume focuses in on all three of the attempts ostensibly designed to relieve the Axis garrison besieged in Budapest. There was real drama here and Nash helps show how much decisions made differently would have likely changed the outcome of these ultimately failed operations. The coverage of these three attempts is excellent, with detailed attention paid to everything from operational planning to the composition and correlation of the forces assembled - as well as the fault lines between and within the higher levels of command.

To that final point Nash builds a compelling argument as to command decisions and a lack of clearly defined objectives as being among the primary reason these three attempts failed. This is important. All too often these final months of the war in Europe are looked at as a foregone conclusion. One, whereby there was nothing the Germans could have done in the face of the Red Army's numerical superiority to impact the final form of the Third Reich's defeat. In fact, what Nash shows is that the opportunity was there for Army Group South to not only have relieved the garrison at Budapest but potentially have either stopped in western Hungary or dramatically slowed the Red Army's final push into Austria that would be the subject of Volume III.

Volume III picks up in the February 1945 aftermath of the final failed Budapest relief attempt. Though multiple chapters in length this volume is really about two main topics. The first being the final major German offensive of the war - the ill fated "Spring Awakening" launched to eviscerate the Soviet forces west of the Danube and guarantee the safety of the last major source of oil for the Third Reich's faltering war machine. The second half of the book then looks at the overwhelming Soviet response in the form of the offensive that would witness the fall of Vienna and the final retreat of German forces as they scrambled to avoid falling into the hands of the Red Army and instead surrender to American forces advancing through Austria from the west. The final chapter also offers a post-war look at what became of the IV. SS-Panzerkorps key personnel amidst a West Germany seeking to come to grips with its Nazi past.

Both of these volumes are more than just descriptions of events. There is a considerable amount of analysis to be found in the roughly 900 combined pages. Most salient is the discussion of the dysfunctional system of command that did perhaps far more than did the deteriorating material strength of Army Group South to hasten its defeat at the hands of the Soviet Second and Third Ukrainian Fronts. This analysis is multi-faceted. If focuses on two sets of relationships. One is the interplay between Hitler, OKH, and Army Group South in terms of mis-directing the operations in Hungary. The second set of relationships examined is the interplay between the command of Army Group South and the German Sixth Army vis a vis the IV. SS-Panzerkorps and, from March 1945 forward, the Sixth SS Panzer Army (in Volume III) as well. Nash's attempts to unpack this dysfunction, explain its impact on the battlefield, and form a coherent narrative that challenges what we think we might have known about this aspect of the war are to be commended.

If I had to quibble, the one thing I might single out as problematic would be that all three volumes do not do enough to really address the fact that though Waffen-SS formations are the book's focus - we are still talking about the SS. And though the larger Wehrmacht was hardly better (from a criminal perspective) the fear here is that a less educated reader might forget or overlook certain things. For instance, the fact that, say, the 3rd SS-Panzer Division was originally formed from concentration camp personnel and thus individuals whose contributions to the Holocaust were particularly eggregious. Are these books about the Third Reich's crimes against humanity? No. And they don't need to be. But, because these are books specifically about key formations of the Waffen-SS a little more context would have helped the more uninformed readers not to become too respectfull of the SS battlefield performance without keeping in mind the genocidal events many of its men either enabled or, in some cases, participated in.

With that said, I do recommend all three volumes. This is particularly true if you have an interest in armored heavy operational level warfare. All volumes are superb. So are the maps. They are clear, legible, and correspond well with the text they help to describe. The scholarship that went into these books is impeccable, with the author deftly weaving primary and secondary sources to form an excellent and thought provoking picture of this period in the Second World War.