Das Reich: The March of the 2nd SS Panzer Division Through France, June 1944

by Max Hastings

A world-renowned British historian recounts the actions of one of Hitler’s most elite armor units in one of World War II’s most horrific months.June 1944, the month of the D-Day landings carried out by Allied forces in Normandy, France. Germany’s 2nd SS Panzer Division, one of Adolf Hitler’s most elite armor units, had recently been pulled from the Eastern Front and relocated to France in order to regroup, recruit more troops, and restock equipment. With Allied forces suddenly on European ground, the division—Das Reich—was called up to counter the invasion. Its march northward to the shores of Normandy, 15,000 men strong, would become infamous as a tale of unparalleled brutality in World War II.Das Reich is Sir Max Hastings’s narrative of the atrocities committed by the 2nd SS Panzer Division during June of 1944: first, the execution of 99 French civilians in the village of Tulle on June 9; and second, the massacre of 642 more in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane on June 10. Throughout the book, Hastings expertly shifts perspective between French resistance fighters, the British Secret Service (who helped coordinate the French resistance from afar and on the ground), and the German soldiers themselves. With its rare, unbiased approach to the ruthlessness of World War II, Das Reich explores the fragile moral fabric of wartime mentality.Praise for Das Reich“A gripping blend of narrative and investigation.” —Evening Standard“This classic account of WWII is a microcosm of the global conflict. Hastings brings to life the horror that the 2nd SS Panzer division, Das Reich, inflicted upon the citizens living in a bucolic corner of France.” —Dennis Showalter, author of Patton and Rommel and Hitler’s Panzers

Genres: History, Nonfiction, World War II, Military History, War, Military Fiction, France

298 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Sir Max Hugh Macdonald Hastings, FRSL, FRHistS is a British journalist, editor, historian and author. His parents were Macdonald Hastings, a journalist and war correspondent, and Anne Scott-James, sometime editor of Harper's Bazaar.

Hastings was educated at Charterhouse School and University College, Oxford, which he left after a year.After leaving Oxford University, Max Hastings became a foreign correspondent, and reported from more than sixty countries and eleven wars for BBC TV and the London Evening Standard.

Among his bestselling books Bomber Command won the Somerset Maugham Prize, and both Overlord and The Battle for the Falklands won the Yorkshire Post Book of the Year Prize.

After ten years as editor and then editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, he became editor of the Evening Standard in 1996. He has won many awards for his journalism, including Journalist of The Year and What the Papers Say Reporter of the Year for his work in the South Atlantic in 1982, and Editor of the Year in 1988.

He stood down as editor of the Evening Standard in 2001 and was knighted in 2002. His monumental work of military history, Armageddon: The Battle for Germany 1944-1945 was published in 2005.

He is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

Sir Max Hastings honoured with the $100,000 2012 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.

Reviews

[Jeff Dawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Das Reich

Max Hastings does a very thorough job in describing the trek of the 2nd SS Panzer Division from Southern France in an effort to help stem the allied invasion of “Fortress Europa.”

In many accounts, the effect of the Marquis is down played as an uncoordinated rabble. In this account, they are key in delaying the arrival of this battle hardened force. The destruction of the railways and communication centers aided the Allies as they scrapped and clawed to establish a strong foothold on the continent.

The reader will be left with questioning what could have happened if they would have arrived in a timely fashion to face the invaders. Could they have helped destroy the tentative bridgehead or would their vehicles become just more smoldering hunks of iron littering the landscape from Allied Airpower?

Excellent work

Five stars!

[Boudewijn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Insight in the efforts of the maquis and agents of the Allies special forces, who tried to prevent the Das Reich panzerdivision reaching the Normandy beachhead

When the Allies invaded Normandy, the crack 2nd SS Panzer Division was stationed in Souther France. Immediately, it was ordered to rush to Normandy to join the front there. The Allies in the meantime, mobilised the French resistance to make sure they would not arrive in time. What follows is a tale of sabotage, follies and massacres. Max Hastings has written a book that offers great insight in the political background and is not afraid to write about the follies of some of the actions. The massacres in Tully and Oradour-sur-Glane get their fair share of attention. An insightful story about an episode oft forgotten.

[Nikola Jankovic · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ovo zapravo nije samo knjiga o (najokrutnijoj?) nemačkoj SS diviziji 2. svetskog rata, već i pogled na francuski pokret otpora. Hejstings počinje kraćim omažom jugoslovenskom otporu, kao daleko najvećem, dajući između ostalog i podatak o tome kako je britanski SOE 1943. godine u Jugoslaviju dostavio 2x više oružja nego u Francusku.

U Francuskoj, sve do maja 1944., pokret otpora je bio pomalo tajnovita, gotovo zanemariva organizacija. Velika većina ljudi je gledala kako da jednostavno žive svoj život, da zaborave na rat. André Malraux, proslavljeni francuski levičar, nije želeo da se uključuje (uprkos Sartrovim ubeđivanjima) sve do trenutka kad su mu Nemci odveli brata u koncentracioni logor. (Ipak, "kod nekih ljudi je važnije šta kažu, nego šta urade, i Malro je bio jedan od njih," tvrdili su u to vreme u pokretu). Sam entuzijazam za pokret otpora, koji vidimo kod Francuza, za vreme rata nije postojao. Do njega je došlo tek nakon oslobođenja. U ratu, pokret je češće bio kritikovan nego hvaljen, zbog protivmera koje su Nemci izvodili nakon njihovih akcija.

Što se tih protivmera tiče, Hejstings najviše vremena provodi opisujući zločine u dva sela: Tulu i Oraduru. Vešanja i streljanja civila, od kojih je ovaj drugi posebno mučan. 643 civila, izvedenih iz kuća, zatvoreno u štale (muškarci) i crkvu (žene i deca) streljano i odmah zatim i spaljeno. Za Oradur čak nije postojalo ni objašnjenje, deluje da je selo odabrano nasumično, bez razloga i deluje bez naređenja sa više instance.

Opis dešavanja u Tulu je takođe strašan - Hejstings nam daje do znanja da samo logistički gledano, nije jednostavno za jedno popodne obesiti 120 ljudi. Nemamo merdevine, gde naći dovoljnu količinu kanapa u selu... Pa onda treba sve te ljude popeti na te merdevine i obesiti ih. Nemci su, kao kaznu za ubijenih 40 nemačkih vojnika od strane otpora, želeli da usmrte 120 civila, ali ih je taj napor zaustavio na broju od 99 - ostale su oslobodili.

General Dikman, koji je vodio ta pogubljenja, najpre je u prepisci sa štabom kritikovan za nedela i trebalo je da bude izveden pred vojni sud Vermahta, ali je bio spašen 'herojskom smrću' u Normandiji.

Autor ne priča mnogo o moralu za to što se desilo. Šta se tu može i reći? Zadržava se, ipak, na tvrdnji da su te akcije dale rezultat. Zaustavile su akcije otpora i zato su, gledajući s vojne strane, bile uspešne.

Priča i o tome kako dođe do toga da vojnici, među kojima je bilo srednješkolaca koji su na frontu bili tek mesec-dva, izvedu sve to. Prva stvar je naviknutost na smrt i na ubijanje civila. Ako ubiješ dvoje u Belorusiji, pa onda 13, pa 99, onda ubiti 600 žene i dece u Oraduru nije više toliko neobično. Možda spaliti bebu u peći za hleb jeste neobično, ali za iskusne SS-ovce koji su preživeli rat na istoku, izgleda ni to nije prelazilo granicu. Što se mladih tiče, tu je pritisak okoline, i fetišizacija nasilja koja se razvijala u SS. "Bili smo kao mašine, koje su na pritisak dugmeta izvršavale komande," svedočio je jedan od mlađih pripadnika SS divizije nakon rata.

[carl theaker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read and insight into the German perspective of the division's march from the south of France to the D-Day beaches. A sane handling of the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre, the whys and wheres of how these things happen.

[Edward Gwynne · Rating 4 out of 5]

In true Max Hastings style, this is full of first-hand accounts and excellent ideas proposed by the author. It is written is an easy to absorb style this only adds to the brutality of the content.

[Andrew · Rating 5 out of 5]

World War II, like most significant events, has it's share of legends. There are heroes, such as the French Resistance, the British SAS, and the Allied SOE and Jedburgh teams. There are devious villains, such as the Waffen-SS men of the Das Reich division. There are daring missions behind German lines to blow up railways and gather intelligence, and there are infamous massacres in small French towns. Max Hasting's Das Reich tells the story behind these legends, or at least a very specific set of them, and the author does his best to peel back the layers of legend and simplification to present to the reader the nearest thing to the truth that his research can gather.

The book covers a very specific topic, the march of the 2 SS Panzer Division from it's staging area in southern France to Normandy, following the Allied landings on D-Day. The book is also just as much about the French Resistance fighters and Allied soldiers and agents in the area of the march, and the interaction between the opposing sides and the French civilians caught in the middle of it all.

One of the ways in which Hastings provides depth to the story is to explore the character of the main antagonists. The Das Reich division, at that time, had just been refitted and it's rosters refilled with new recruits and transfers. While many of the officers and NCOs were veterans, the bulk of the fighting men were novices, and many of them weren't even technically German. In short, they were not the stringently selected elite that they once were. The Resistance is also a more complex picture than is often portrayed. While doubtlessly courageous, were also rank amateurs when it came to combat and sabotage, and rife with factionalism. The two main groups, the Communist FTP and the Gaullist AS (Armee Secrete), would almost as much fight each other as the Germans. The Allied agents and special operations soldiers were also a mixed bag, coming from a variety of backgrounds with a variety of levels of competency.

Hastings covers the actions of both sides in as great depth as possible, given sometimes difficult source material. The Allied side was pieced together from what official documents had been declassified (at least as of 1981) and interviews of survivors, and the German side likewise was composed from official documents and interviews. Hastings reconciles sources against each other were there are conflicts of information, and does his best to sift through the occasional aggrandizement or obfuscation in source accounts.

As well as enumerating the atrocities committed along Das Reich's march to Normandy (Tulle and Oradour chief among them, though certainly not the only ones), Hastings also provides thoughtful strategic analysis of the operations of the Allied and German forces covered in the book. Hastings covers all of these topics in compelling, easy prose. He provides annotation and appendixes to provide references for those who aren't already familiar with the subject matter, although having a passing knowledge of World War II will help in understanding the narrative.

[AnnaG · Rating 4 out of 5]

The title of this book is deceptively bland - it really deals with the French Resistance/SOE/SAS actions against German troops in France immediately after D-Day. Amongst some incredible stories of bravery and stupidity are some of the most vicious massacres to happen on Western European soil.

Max Hastings recounts these actions in considerable detail and is particularly insightful on the strategic benefits and mis-steps of all the actions taken. He provides as balanced and neutral a view as possible, given the subject matter. Whilst there are other historians, such as Ben MacIntyre, who provide more thrilling narrative, for a real understanding of the war and the soldiers who fought it, I've not seen Max Hastings bettered.

[Kuszma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hastings könyve a normandiai partraszállás egyik epizódját dolgozza fel – a Das Reich SS-páncéloshadosztály útját Dél-Franciaországból a frontig. Stratégiai értelemben ez egy mellékszál, tétje pusztán annyi, hogy az ütőképes egység képes-e idejében bekapcsolódni a harcokba, vagy elkésik, de amúgy meg az eseménysorozat olyan karneválja a hősiességnek és az emberi aljasságnak, hogy az mindenképpen megér egy önálló kötetet. Két főszereplőnk van: egyfelől a Das Reich, a Harmadik Birodalom egyik legszervezettebb, legütőképesebb és leggátlástalanabb egysége, valamint az Ellenállás – a kommunista és egyéb érzelmű gerillák, a maquis, illetve az őket segítő szövetséges ügynökök és kommandósok csoportja. Tekintve, hogy utóbbiak főképp szervezetlenségükkel, gyenge felszereltségükkel és amatörizmusukkal tűnnek ki, az egész egy romantikus Dávid és Góliát küzdelemnek tűnik, ahol Dávid halált megvető bátorsággal feltartja Góliátot addig, amíg szükséges, és legyengíti annyira, hogy a normandiai csata végkimenetelét már ne tudja érdemben befolyásolni.

Persze nem ilyen egyszerű, ezt Hastings is jól érzékelteti. Tárgyilagosan lehántja a mitologikus elemeket az Ellenállás ténykedéséről (persze így is elég hely marad a romantikának), és tisztázza, hogy a Das Reich késlekedésében legalább akkora szerepe volt a német vezérkar hibás döntéseinek*, valamint a korlátlan szövetséges légi fölénynek (alighanem ennek a legtöbb). Ez persze mit sem von le abból a tényből, hogy ezeknek a partizánoknak volt vér a pucájukban. Ugyanakkor van egy mellékszál a mellékszálon belül: Oradour története. Ugyanis az SS már addig is elképesztő aránytalansággal torolta meg a civileken a rajtuk esett sérelmeket (Tullében például 99 polgári lakost akasztatott fel lámpaoszlopokra és az erkélyekre, random válogatva ki őket a város lakói közül – ellenállók persze nem akadtak köztük), Oradourban azonban megmutatta mindazt, amit a keleti front partizánvadászatai alatt normaként elsajátított: egy, tulajdonképpen hasraütésre kiválasztott városka teljes lakosságát irtották ki, a férfiakat agyonlőtték, a nőkre és a gyerekekre pedig rágyújtották a templomot.

Felmerül a kérdés (a könyv legérdekesebb kérdése), hogy feladata lett volna-e az Ellenállásnak (és a szövetségeseknek) belekalkulálni, hogy az SS a civileken torolja meg azokat az eredményeket, amiket elérnek ellenük – és hogy a várható megtorlások fényében nem lesznek-e igencsak szerények ezek az eredmények. Ez persze egy olyan kérdés, amire válasz nincs, csak véleményezni lehet – az viszont biztos, hogy a nácik tetteit semmilyen mértékben nem menti, hogy „csak” reakciók voltak valamire. Nem, gyilkosságot követtek el, nem önvédelemből, hanem élve a szabad akaratukkal. Azok, akik „parancsot teljesítettek”, dönthettek volna úgy, hogy nem vesznek részt ebben – még ha a hadbíróság előtt is kellett volna felelniük ezért, és még ha ez a hadbíróság halálra is ítélte volna őket**, dönthettek volna úgy, hogy ártatlan áldozatok lesznek, nem pedig gyilkosok. Innen nézve még jobban becsülöm Hastings történészi tárgyilagosságát: amikor az SS veterán gyilkosaival beszélgetett Oradourról, és szembesült azzal a hímezéssel-hámozással, amivel kezelték a kérd��st, én a helyében biztos orrba vágtam volna őket. Ő meg írt egy könyvet.

* Elsősorban annak, hogy a jól felszerelt SS-hadosztályokat partizánvadászatra tartották vissza ahelyett, hogy azonnal a normandiai hídfőkhöz irányították volna őket – ilyen értelemben az Ellenállás „haszna” az volt, hogy kiprovokálta ezt a hibás döntést.
** Szögezzük le: nincs dokumentált eset, hogy bárkit komolyan megbüntettek volna azért, mert kivonta magát egy tömeggyilkosságból. A legsúlyosabb szankció az volt, hogy áthelyezték egy másik alakulathoz. No és persze a kiközösítés. Ölsz, vagy kiközösítenek. Kemény döntéshelyzet.

[S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

book is a little misnamed as it's much more about the maquis/resistance than the Das Reich division. other than that, the writing is quite fluent and the story engaging. Max Hastings does it again!

[Hans Brienesse · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a book in which the author attempted to show just how the 2nd SS Panzer was delayed in it's crucial race to push the Allies back into the sea after the June 6 Operation Overlord. He did just that with descriptions of Maquis activity with the Resistance. This he covered adequately but I feel the author's energies were spread over just a little too much for the number of pages utilised. The author did note in his foreword that the information able to be readily verified was not great as subsequent emotive investigations have coloured a lot of the more pertinent events. I personally would have liked the accounts of the Resistance and the Das Reich occupy perhaps twice the number of pages. But the account is true to the full title so perhaps I am being a little unkind. A useful little addition to the bookshelf of WWII European theatre devotees.

[D · Rating 4 out of 5]

An early work by Max Hastings covering one of the many dark and tragic footnotes of the war. The whimsical brutality displayed in Oradour-sur-Glane and Tulle is shocking. Written 40 years ago, the author was able to interview many of the participants and victims. Also covers the Maquis/SOE/SAS activities in the region and includes a good discussion on how regular soldiers regard irregular opponents - with reference to the behaviour of Napoleon's armies, and Montgomery in Ireland.

[Davisklemavis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Early Hastings, focused on a fairly small time period and event compared with his larger works. Important in painting a specific picture of German cruelty and the atrocious way of dealing with partisans that they'd brought with them from the eastern front.

[Sleepy Boy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mr. Hastings is one of the excellent historians of our time. This book does not disappoint and goes incredibly in depth to find the truth about how and what atrocities the Das Reich committed in France.

[Chris Wray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an excellent piece of narrative history that centres around a well-known and infamous episode in the history of the Second World War, and more than that, sets it in its proper context. In laying out his purpose for the book, Hastings comments that "This is not a history of Resistance or special operations. It is intended to be a portrait, at a critical moment of the war, of one of their great dramas. It is an attempt to establish the context of events. What manner of men and women on both sides did these things? How and why did they do them? There is much stupidity, cruelty and tragedy below, but there are also great heroism and achievement." While it may not be a general history of either Resistance or of special operations, I came away from this book with a good general sense of the landscape of Resistance in France in the run-up to D-Day and of the divisions between the various resistance groups, particularly the Communist and de Gaullist factions. He also ably outlines the often difficult and ambiguous position of the SOE in attempting to train, equip and support the resistors: "The British and French officers parachuted to provide arms and liaison with London could seldom do more than paper over the cracks of local rivalries, and try to steer the movement towards a broad common policy. This policy was, quite simply, to direct every effort towards creating a clandestine army to rise on D-Day and cause the maximum difficulty for the Germans behind their lines."

When D-Day actually arrived, the response among the resistance and maquis was remarkable as many thousands of French men and women sought to contribute to the liberation of their country, in whatever way they could. In the main, this involved attempts to disrupt the Germans away from the battle front in Normandy, as well as some ill-judged decisions to liberate whole towns and villages. While this resulted in some understandable panic among the low-grade garrison units the Germans had stationed in France, as Hastings points out higher quality units like 2nd SS Panzer Division should have known better: "If OKW and Army Group G had kept their heads, withdrawn their weak, and obviously panicky, local garrisons and abandoned large tracts of southern France to the Resistance, it would have avoided immense problems. The résistants posed no military threat to major formations, and could be disposed of at leisure once the vital battle in Normandy had been won. Instead, Army Group G now deployed piecemeal every man, gun and vehicle that could be scraped together to counter-attack résistants wherever they had massed. Not even the most optimistic Allied planner before the invasion had anticipated that the German High Command would be so foolish as to commit major fighting formations against maquisards. Perhaps the greatest contribution that Resistance made to D-Day was now to goad the Germans into deploying against the maquis forces out of all proportion to the real threat that they represented."

This distraction and dispersal of effort is probably the Resistance movement's greatest achievement, and also provides the context in which the Das Reich began their march north and were quickly deflected onto anti-partisan operations. At this point, two chapters particularly stand out. The first is, inevitably, the account of the massacre in Oradour. Following the abduction of a Das Reich officer, rumours that he was being held in Oradour-sur-Glane led to it being occupied by a company of Waffen SS under Sturmbannführer Adolf Dickman. What followed has rightly gone down in infamy, as 643 French civilians were massacred in several barns (the men) and the village church (the women and children). Hastings writes his account of what happened that day as dispassionately as possible, but even so, his revulsion is clear. Even at a distance of 80 years, the events that unfolded in Orador that summer day are horrific, even hellish, and it is hard to believe that such a thing happened in France - indeed, in a part of France I visited this summer. In his analysis, Hastings is unwavering in his condemnation of the SS. He concedes that it is highly unlikely that Dickmann received an order that authorised him to destroy Orador. However, he was part of an organisation whose whole culture made such actions seem like a reasonable exercise of his discretion – the summary execution of civilians by the Waffen SS was so commonplace as to be unremarkable for those in these units. Hastings also points out the chilling effectiveness of the actions of the SS in Orador: "Painful though it may be for humanitarians to accept, a policy of unlimited repression can be formidably effective. Oradour made a lasting mark on the Haute-Vienne. If the exercise had a weakness from the SS point of view, it was that it was not publicly announced as a reprisal for the seizure of Major Kampfe. It seems certain that if the Das Reich had been available to continue carrying out such appalling acts in reprisal for every operation carried out by the AS or the FTP, maquis commanders would have come under enormous pressure from the local population to desist absolutely from attacks. Mercifully, however, the Das Reich was compelled to move on."

The other chapter that stood out for me was that recounting Operation Bulbasket, where a larger SAS unit was inserted after D-Day to cause further havoc behind the lines. While the SAS did not directly engage the Das Reich, their connection to this story is that their main achievement was to reconnoitre a large fuel train convoy, which was then destroyed by the RAF and further delayed Das Reich's progress to Normandy. While even this had only a minor impact on the outcome of the battle of Normandy, Hastings is surely right when he comments that, "casualties and material damage were never the matters at issue. The highest ambition of the Allied commanders before D-Day was that the Resistance might unbalance the German forces in France, delay the passage of reinforcements and divert strength from the Normandy battle. In all these things, the résistants of the Lot, Corrèze, Dordogne and Limousin succeeded. If the German decision to commit the Das Reich to a ratissage operation two days after the invasion was profoundly foolish, it was a decision to which they were goaded by Resistance…The great contribution of Resistance – that which justified all that SOE did and made worthwhile the sacrifice of all those who died – was towards the restoration of the soul of France."

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

The savagery of Waffen's most notorious division Das Reich is revisited in the book. Tales of hanged men burned women and mutilated children fill the book as the 2nd SS Panzer Dvision moved from southern France to reinforce the Wehrmacht units overwhelmed by the Allied landing in Normandy.

This is also the story of the resistance in France and the role play by the maquis in delaying the advance of the 2nd SS Panzer Division to Normandy. The story of British and American troops dropped in France to train the resistants in order to mount a challenge to the Germans.

The book lacks depth in the stories of the characters but aims to tackle the question of whether the resistance movements played a crucial role in delaying the 2nd SS Panzer Division through sabotage of railways lines and bridges. In the end, it seems they played a role but not significant enough to be considered a worthy contributor to the liberation of France.

[Jordan Phizacklea-Cullen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Important history of a pivotal moment in the French Resistance movement is told with plenty of pace and benefits in recording first-hand accounts from those on both sides of the battle. The atrocities committed at Tulle and Oradour-sur-Glane are recounted in their full horror, with Hastings making the point that comparisons to Dresden and similar Allied actions are a matter for morality, not history. The actions of the Resistance movement are, however, shown to be justly heroic.

[C.A.I. Logan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good general narrative of the events in France in June 1944, before and after D-Day. Hastings writes well and provides some gripping accounts of the action and atrocities carried out. He remains quite objective in his writing, and while he condemns the actions of the SS unreservedly, he still points out the flaws and negatives with the actions of the resistance. The book was first published in 1981, so Hastings was able to interview many surviving witnesses to the attacks, both German and French. Overall recommended for being an accessible and gripping history.

[Luke Grainge · Rating 4 out of 5]

In depth book that goes into great detail into the Das Reich regiment. Can often drag towards the middle of the book as it gets lost in telling so many stories.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

As always, Max Hastings writes an interesting book full of detailed and well researched characters and events. This one covers the various resistance factions in France that helped delay the 2nd SS Panzer Division on it's way from southern France to Normandy. Not surprising, it came at a very high cost in lives and structures to the civilians and resistance fighters.

[Aurélien Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

15,000 men, about 209 tanks, and one of the best striking force of the Nazi army, the 2nd Panzer Division Das Reich became infamous for having, in June 1944 during its advance from Montauban up to Normandy, committed the worst war crimes then committed on French soil - the hangings in Tulle, and the Oradour-sur-Glane massacre.

British journalist, Max Hastings retraces here this bloody journey in a book remarkable for its subjectivity, and its attempt, even clumsy, to try and understand, put such events back into a whole context nowadays quite difficult to grab. Of course, in no way does he excuses or defend National Socialism nor the atrocities perpetrated by the Das Reich! But, he dares throwing lights upon all involved, and so question the motivations of everyone - Germans, and French.

He details the specific mindset of those soldiers, most not only being the product of a generation completely brainwashed by Nazi ideology, but, who had also then spent more than three years battling the awful warfare on the Eastern front. He also describes the various factions of the French Resistance, since it's their actions (or supposed so) which motivated the reprisals of the Das Reich upon the civilians of Tulle and Oradour-sur-Glane. This makes for a fair read. If picturing thus the quarrels, disagreements and differences within the different French Maquis and Groups of Resistant whose actions, at times plainly irresponsible (the 'liberation' of Tulle by the FTP) at times cruel (the highly controversial issue of summary executions of prisoners) blows away their romantic image still entertained nowadays (and can be a truth difficult to swallow) the shyness and amazing naivety of the British services is also astoundingly baffling. Another warning against simplistic explanations is the hypothesis he puts forward to understand Oradour-sur-Glane - maybe named as scapegoat by traitors. Here's indeed another sharp slap in the face, which won't fail to put France in front of its shameful past.

Now, Max Hastings fully recognises the brave and necessary actions of the French Resistance (eg. in delaying the German advance to Normandy, thus facilitating the task of the Allies upon their landing). But his blunt and honest look, free from any idealism, allows for deep ethical questions to be raised. Was the delay inflicted upon the Das Reich worth such a price? In a broader context, what about the fate of civilian populations during armed conflicts? The fact the author is British (that is, not French) is a great asset for such a fair and needed outlook. Sure, being British, he also fails to offer the same criticism towards the British themselves (eg. their later refusal to extradite some of these war criminals...). This surely is a weakness. Yet, all in all, his lack of sentimentalism and fair balance in assessing French vs Germans and how such massacres unfolded make this a great read.

Recommended.

[Peter Moy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good Story Plus Great Insights into French Society at the Time of the D-Day Landings.

The background for the story is the need to delay the elite 2nd SS Panzer Division known as the ‘Das Reich’ being rested and re-equipped in Bordeaux after hard two years in Russia from joining the D-Day battle in Normandy. To quote the author:

‘The decisive problem was to prevent the Germans from building up their counter-attack against the beach-head more rapidly than the allies could more reinforcements across the channel to strengthen it. If the German could move unimpeded, predicted the joint planning staff, 60 days after D-Day they could have a theoretical fifty-six division deployed against thirty-six allied divisions in France.’

The planners favoured using of heavy bombers to destroy rail yards but even when they flew at the dangerously low altitude to 2500 meters their bombing was not accurate to do any significant damage except to the nearby housing. (This altitude made the bombers sitting ducks for the very effective German anti-aircraft artillery.) But their failure was not for the lack of trying. In the four months up to day the heavy bombers dropped 75,000 tons of bombs in 21,949 sorties. (As a personal note, my grandmother’s brother’s son was one of the air men killed in this futile campaign.)

More effective were the cheminots, rail workers operating as part of the “Secret Army” coordinated and supplied by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) in association with the Free French Army. In the first week after D-Day 960 of the 1055 rail cut scheduled were carried out. The author provides an excellent example of the subtle nature of this operation by mentioning Tony Brooks a 22-year-old SOE agent:

‘Brooks had established that the key to the movement of heavy armour from Southern France by rail was the limited stock of flatcars capable of passing under the nation’s bridges laden with tanks. He had pinpointed the whereabouts of most of them. In the days before 6 June, he and some of his enthusiastic cheminots spent many hours of many nights working on their axle bearings with abrasive paste supplied from London. There were now incapable of travelling more than a few miles before seizing.’

What I found amazing was the devastation that moving a German panzer under its own power on a road trip caused to itself. When Das Reich mobilised, they were forced travel under their own power, leaving a trail of broken-down equipment behind them as they went. Unfortunately, the plan’s weakness was that it did not sustain the initial disruptions with repeated sabotage activities. After the initial damage to the rail network was quickly repaired, priority trains began running and Das Reich were able to complete most of their journey by rail.

It was tactical air power in the form of Fighter Bombers operating in close support from air fields in Normandy the really disrupted the panzer movement:

‘In Russia, the enemy air force had presented no serious threat to movement. But in France, questing fighter bombers fell on them ceaselessly. The convoys of the Des Reich were compelled to abandon daylight movement after Saumur and Tours, and crawl Northwards throughout the blackout.’

The book provides one successful example of the combination of tactical air power and local intelligence. A cheminot had located three sets of tank wagons which were fuel dumps for Das Reich. This information was relayed to the Special Air Service which in turn send the information back to England:

‘2nd TAF Mosquitos had attacked Chatellerault in three waves at very low level with cannon, forty-eight 500 lb bombs, and perfect accuracy. The petrol trains, more precious than gold to Germany’s battle for Normandy and to the movement of the Das Reich, were blazing beyond salvage.’

This a great book to read if you only have a passing knowledge of French society at the time of the D-Day landing. It was a very divided community. Of interest is the communist ‘Frances-Tireurs et Partisans’ (FTP):

‘Many FTP maquis achieved a terrible reputation in their regions as little better than bandits, murdering alleged collaborators with a ruthlessness that earned as much enmity from respectable Frenchmen as the reprisals of the Das Reich and the Gestapo. But there were also many non-communists who admired the energy with which the FTP inflicted violence on the Germans.’

The FTP used D-Day invasion as a sign to rise and take control of the country. They were unfortunate enough to ignorantly slaughter the German garrison in the town of Tulle, unaware that Das Reich would be arriving on their mobilisation Northward in a day or two time. They fled into the hills when Das Reich arrived, and 99 local men were hung by the Germans in retribution. They also succeeded in kidnapping one of the Das Reich brigade commanders. The whole town of Oradour was slaughtered in retribution for that action.

The author also provided good background information on the German military and particularly the Waffen SS, the various arms of the British and American secret services, competition for resources between the different service organisations.

I found the author’s view that ‘private armies’ were tolerated by the Churchill and his generals particularly interesting. To quote:

‘An impeccably-bred Englishman who fought with distinction in Europe said afterward: “The great thing about the 1939-1945 war was that everybody did what they liked.” By this he really meant that a few thousand Englishmen with access to the bars of the great St James’s clubs proved able to organise their own military destinies – sometimes even their own campaigns – in a manner impossible in any war before or since.’

Reading between; lines organisations such as Special Air Services wasted a lot of resources and achieved very little in resisting the movement of the 2nd SS Panzer Division in its movement to join the battle after D-Day. To quote the German from Faulty Towers. “How did they win the war.”

There is a lot of information packed into this book in association with a good story. I have seen some criticism of it because this information bores the reader who just wants an exciting story. Personally, I think the background information really adds to the story. In particular, the book highlights the fog of war and how prejudices and theory come to nothing when they are put to a real test.

[Henri Moreaux · Rating 5 out of 5]

This non-fiction account follows the elite Waffen-SS division 'Das Reich' (2nd SS Panzer Division) and their notorious 1944 journey from the southern French town of Montauban to the Normandy front.

Das Reich had the ability to change the course of the war and prevent the Allies from establishing a beach head, however a combination of mismanagement, incompetence and Allied subterfuge led to Das Reich being held back in Montauban some 400+ miles away.

Once orders were finally passed down to move Das Reich to Normandy to confront the Allied landings the division was in such disarray they could not immediately move out, this was to be a precursor of the weeks to follow.

The Allies through OSS, SOE & support of the Resistance led a sabotage & delay campaign which tied up Das Reich for over two weeks on a journey which should have taken less than 3 days. This action also led to the massacres of Tulle and Oradour-sur-Glane as Das Reich was diverted to suppress the uprisings supported by the Resistance. Both of these atrocities are covered fairly in the book.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

[219] "But it would be false to suppose that the Dad Reich was an enfeebled fighting unity in Normandy. The only redeeming merit of the SS was that they were among the most dogged, fanatical soldiers in the world." My opinion: Dogged, determined, fanatical yes but I draw the line at describing the SS as soldiers. I have met Wehrmacht veterans and grew up with US veterans, have met British, Canadian and Australian veterans; these were soldiers. The title soldier speaks of honor. The SS did not have honor. They were bullies and terrorists in uniform. There are many examples of their atrocities (yes other troops from almost every nation are guilty of wrongful acts) which stand apart for the wrongful actions of other nations troops. I site the incident at Oradour-Sur-Glane. A response of "I was just following orders," at some point should not longer be sufficient in the human experience. Regardless of rank you are either compliant or you take a stand which might get you killed along with the others.

[Sandy Ferguson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book many years ago, and have read it many times since then!
This is one of Max Hastings early works, and it shows his willingness to engage in difficult topics and explore all of the angles. On the surface it should be an easy case of plucky heroic French resistance rising up against the evil SS committing atrocities. Hastings pulls no punches about the atrocities of the SS, but at the same time through his exploration of the politics of the Resistance, the SOE and the objectives of the Western allies, the picture is more complicated.
Max Hastings has made a career of exploring the reality behind the comfortable myths that have arisen around the Second World War, particularly the involvement of the British Commonwealth and the United States, and his work is fundamentally important in exploring the truth of the Second World War. Das Reich is an excellent example of this work.

[Philip Whiteland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I suspect that Max Hastings, from a purely military history point of view, has a sneaking regard for the German Army and that comes through in this account of the movement of 2nd SS Panzer Division from Paris to the Normandy beachhead. Having said that, Mr. Hastings does not gloss over the many atrocities that accompanied the transit as the Nazis were harassed and delayed by the various factions of the French Resistance. Nor does he gloss over the lack of communication and ineptitude of aspects of the Allied Undercover Agents, particularly the futile competition between different services. Overall, not a joyful read but a compelling one.

[Mal Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

HOW EFFECTIVE WAS THE FRENCH RESISTANCE? THIS BOOK ANSWERS THE QUESTION

Max Hastings has gained a reputation as one of Britain’s foremost military historians. Today, aged 77 as I write, he is best known as a commentator on television. But as a young man of 34 he wrote Bomber Command (1979) about the role of strategic bombing in World War II. It’s probably his most read book. He also published Das Reich (1981), which tracks the path of Germany’s 2nd SS Panzer Division northward through France to counter the Normandy Invasion. It’s an in-depth account of the atrocities of the SS on their way north—and of the work of the French Resistance, Britain’s SOE and America’s OSS to harass and slow them down. Above all, the book serves as an assessment of the French Resistance. But in naming names of perpetrators and victims alike, Hastings presents an indelible picture of World War II in all its awful intensity.

A VAIN ATTEMPT TO AVERT DISASTER AT NORMANDY

We now know that the Allied invasion of Normandy was both a strategic and a tactical disaster for the Third Reich.

Strategic, because despite more than a year’s advance warning, Hitler and the German high command (OKW) insisted for weeks after June 6, 1944, that the main attack would come against the Pas-de-Calais to the north. As a result, they kept their most formidable military units positioned there.

And tactical because their efforts to move reinforcements from central France into Normandy failed to arrive in time. The troops and armor they ordered northward lost precious days fighting the French Resistance and the British and American irregulars parachuted in to help them. And one of the most significant Nazi forces on the slow march north was the 2nd SS Panzer Division. This book is the story of what happened along the way.

HISTORY VIEWED FROM THE BOTTOM UP

Das Reich is history as seen from the ground. It’s an account of the 15,000 men of a single crack German division and of the thousands of French citizens (and a scattering of British and American special operators) who fought them. Delving into primary sources such as diaries, letters sent home, official French and German records, memoirs, face-to-face interviews, and later trial testimony, Hastings introduces us to the thoughts and feelings of individual players in the drama.

We meet Nazi officers and men, innocent civilians, and members of the French Resistance, plus the SOE and OSS operators who helped arm and train them. There are scores of characters in Hastings’s drama. In fact, the narrative can become difficult to follow at times as he traces the hour-by-hour movements of individual Nazi units and the internecine politics of the French Resistance. But in the end, he furnishes us with an indelible picture of what life was like for the people involved as the Second World War wound down toward its endgame.

HOW EFFECTIVE WAS THE FRENCH RESISTANCE?

Debate continues to rage today about the contribution of the French Resistance to the Allied victory on the Western Front. Many historians as well as military leaders such as Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery downplay its significance. Others, most notably General Dwight Eisenhower, have little but praise for its work to harass, divert, and weaken Nazi forces, especially in the days leading up to the Normandy Invasion. Hastings’s view falls somewhere in the middle of the two extremes. He makes clear that the Resistance succeeded in delaying the 2nd SS Panzer Division by a week or more. That alone might not have made the difference at the Normandy beachhead. But Resistance efforts elsewhere in France slowed down other Nazi reinforcements. Collectively, all these delays might well have had a large impact on the coast.

HOW THE ALLIES DELAYED NAZI REINFORCEMENTS INTENDED FOR NORMANDY

Judging from Hastings’s account, three factors were decisive in frustrating the Nazis’s plan to reinforce the mostly third-rate units on hand in Normandy on June 6.

First, Resistance attacks on the railroads that the Germans hoped to use to ship tanks and artillery north. One such attack was probably most significant: Resistance fighters led by an SOE officer poured abrasive material into the wheel assemblies of most of the flatbed rail cars indispensable to the Germans. They all came to a halt after a few miles. That forced the Nazis to drive tanks and half-track artillery units up the roads, where they repeatedly broke down.

Second, attacks by the Resistance on Nazi forces enraged Hitler and the generals of the OKW. As a result, they diverted forces from the drive north to settle scores. The Das Reich Division was among the units that lost days to this strategically pointless diversion.

Third, and possibly the most decisive, Allied bombers nearly destroyed the French rail network in the north of France in the days before and after the invasion.

Of course, you might read this detail-laden account and arrive at a different assessment. That’s my take.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sir Max Hastings is a British journalist and military historian, He is the author of thirty books, most of them about World War II. Hastings published Das Reich in 1981, the fifth of his books to see print. He was born in London in 1945 and attended University College, Oxford, but dropped out to take up work as a journalist. His bio on his author website notes that he has written for every British national newspaper. He lives with his second wife in Berkshire. And Hastings has a surviving son and daughter by his first wife. A second son died of suicide in China in 2000. He is active politically, a supporter of the Liberal Democrats.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Das Reich: the story may be full of inaccuracies, but Hastings ties it together so well. With so much History in detail you would expect some errors and omissions.

I'd like to those who, through their own perceived intellect, find it able to sn negatively critique an excellent book. Try and write some useful yourself - useless tossers.

This book is detailed, meaty and full of interestin little-known facts.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very even-handed, first-class account of the march of the 2nd SS Panzer division through rural France towards the Normandy beaches in June 1944- and the efforts of the French Resistance, and a veritable alphabet soup of Allied secret agencies, to hinder their advance. This is a very informative, smartly-written, and graphic account of a little-known episode in the history of D-Day and WW2 overall.

[Nixon Strmelj · Rating 4 out of 5]

For someone so British I have to respect how honest Max Hastings is about Allied failures during the war, especially those that are not openly talked about like the incidents in this book. He towed a similar self critical line in his other novels, but in this one he goes more in depth into what has hitherto been seen as a heroic and worthy area of the war. Hasting's dismantles the image most of us have of the resistance movements, but does so with good sourcing and info rather than ideologically motivated ire.

Should be said that this book isn't really about the Das Reich, and if you are wanting to learn about them you will find this book heavily wanting. This book is really an analysis of the French resistance, its history, its organization, its effectiveness, and the impact it had on both the war effort and the civilian population.

Hasting's has a rather controversial opinion of the resistance movements. In a lot of post modern revisionist literature a lot has been said about anyone who did even the smallest thing to hinder the Third Reich. Hasting's questions just how useful such a force was, and whether they did more harm then good. He doesn't buy into hero worship and gives us very compelling reasons not to either.

Maybe it is a spoiler to say but Hasting's seems to come down on the side that they did more harm, and he has the evidence and statistics to back it up. Hundreds if not thousands of civilian lives were endangered and lost in order to stall the Das Reich from reaching the Normandy beachhead. But as Hasting's himself explains, none of it really mattered beyond propaganda victories to the French Resistance. One extra German division after the landings had already happened wasn't going to change history.

The book asks tough questions, can undergound resistance against an enemy like the SS be justified? Was it at all useful or moral? When your enemy is willing to kill 30 or 40 civilians for each of their own killed is the blood also on the hands of the resistance movement? Especially when they knew exactly how their enemy would react?

These are the hard questions asked by the novel. It makes for a very fascinating read and elevates the book beyond being a simple recount of a particular historical event, no matter how dramatic that event may have been. It left me with a lot more to digest then I was expecting, which I would call a victory on the books part.

But the book doesn't always have such a drive, and it gets bogged down in some very bland historical recounting of Resistance movements and organizations. There are entire sections in this book that could be skipped and you wouldn't be lesser for it.

Not to mention Hasting's teases the reader with only brief snippets of the action of the Das Reich. Maybe less then a third, maybe only even a quarter of the book actually discusses the division itself. Which is pretty disappointing considering how this book is marketed.

But Hasting's is a master of historical non fiction and it shows, there are few like him and even when he misses, which he did in parts in this book, he is still imminently readable.

[Andrew Wardle · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. Reliable military history from a later-famous author. This one is a mixed bag: a well-researched account of the journey of the 2nd SS Panzer Division "Das Reich" from Southern France to reinforce the D-Day front in Normandy, and the delays and harassing attacks inflicted on it by the French resistance, SOE and the SAS, together with the infamous massacres of civilians at Tulle and Oradour.
The narrative flow of this part was not helped by the apparent insistence of the author on including every dot and comma of his extensive research, even where it was of dubious relevance.
He was on surer ground with the historical analysis, discussing the terrible dilemmas of irregular warfare: the ability to make focussed attacks on transport which caused less damage and civilian casualties than aerial bombing but did provide a pretext for barbaric collective reprisals by the Germans. He rightly derides the German decision to divert the resources of a precious armoured division to fight off a few French farmers armed with Sten guns, but admits that the effect on the overall German war effort was minimal. He quotes a senior SOE figure who felt that the effort put into the attacks on Das Reich was "only just about worth it".
Hastings is an admirer of, and occasionally apologist for, the German Army in most of his books, and in discussing the atrocities described in this book his sympathy with fighting soldiers trying to deal with partisans claiming the protection due to civilians occasionally merged into glossing over clear excesses. It is true that francs-tireurs are subjected to harsh measures by all armies, but there can be no justification for mass collective punishment of civilians under any circumstances. The fact that none of the perpetrators of the Tulle and Oradour massacres suffered any serious punishment is sadly typical of the unsystematic, inefficient and lethargic pursuit of war criminals by the Western Allies after the war.