Off my old forum...
Not quite finished with this one but WHAT A READ!
Das Reich - Max Hastings - Review - New light shed on dark times.
The book centers around the march of the SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" towards the Normandy Beaches and the delaying actions fought by the French Resistance. An interesting part is early on where a hoary old SS Russian Front vet makes a speech to the new recruits-many Alsatians, Romanians, Hungarians and other "junior members" of the "Ubermenschen World Order", and wins them over totally. After Normandy and the uprising of the French Resistance things take on a bloody minded momentum of their own. The book also delves into the SOE activities, Jedburgs, the various communist and non communist French Maquis groups and how all these elements collided against the mighty Das Reich during it's march Northwards. Von Rundstadt had recemmended that that the German forces in France cede the South to the Resistance and concentrate their available forces against the beachheads-but OKW would have none of this. It is rather perplexing that OKW would make such a militarily BAD DECISION. I am guessing that the Partisan Movements in the USSR and Yugoslavia played a part in High Command's decision-they had after all seen resistance movements in their Eastern territories grow from bad jokes into deadly threats, and perhaps hoped to "nip this one in the bud." It was a fatal overextension of the German Forces in the West's capabilities.
JeffinMNUSA
PS. Hastings also "gives the Devil his due" in admitting that the SS massacre did put a quick stop to Partisan activities. France was not the East....The French Resistance accomplished more by sabotaging the Railroads and forcing Das Reich to the roads than it did by any shooting actions in any case...