The Black Angels: A History of the Waffen-SS

by Rupert Butler

The Black A History of the Waffen-SS

Genres: History, Military History, World War II, Nonfiction, Germany

276 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1979

Reviews

[Edwina Book Anaconda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I hate to say it but this book bored me out of my mind.
Now I remember why I didn't like History class in school ...
The only reason that I'm giving it 2 stars is because of the detail provided about Himmler's suicide.
He deserved every second of those 12 minutes that it took him to die.

[Greynomad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just an incredible history read. Well written

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The history was precise when I read it in the 1980's. But, looking back on what I know today, the author was trying to disassociate the Waffen SS from the general SS.

[Hyper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written highly informative. As this book stands as one of few that acknowledges the fact that Waffen-SS may well be the greatest army the world has ever seen. It depicts details of the forces that combined over relatively short time that was highly trained and motivated and who quickly became virtually insurmountable due to their collective pride and belief.
As very well equipped and trained yet overwhelmingly battle inexperienced soldiers they rapidly gained confidence and their reputation preceded them.
As their sheer daring, cutting edge tactics and popularity became irrevocably questioned by the actions of a relative minority, Their collective integrity and self esteem were taken beyond human endurance with the demise of chain of supplies and command structure.
Having spoken with former members of Waffen-SS and reading a number of the few published non-fiction accounts, this should be regarded as compelling, a hard to put down page turner, and well worth reading as testament that atrocities attributed to the Waffen-SS as a whole was more than likely abhorrent to the majority of these outstanding combatants.