The Story of the SS: Hitler's Infamous Legions of Death

by Al Cimino

'The best political weapon is the weapon of terror. Cruelty commands respect. Men may hate us. But, we don't ask for their love - only for their fear.'
-Heinrich Himmler

The Schutzstaffel , or SS - the brutal elite of the Nazi Party - was founded by Hitler in 1925 to be his personal bodyguard. From 1929 it was headed by Heinrich Himmler, who built its numbers up from under 300 to well over a million by 1945. The SS became the very backbone of Nazi Germany, taking over almost every function of the state.

SS members were chosen not only to be the living embodiment of Hitler's notion of 'Aryan supremacy', but also to cement undying loyalty to the Führer at every level of German society. Merciless fanatics in jackboots, the SS systematically slaughtered, tortured, and enslaved millions. This is the story of the rise and fall of one of the most evil organizations the world has ever seen.

Genres: History, War, Nonfiction, World War II, Historical, Nazi Party, European History

276 pages, Kindle Edition

Published December 12, 2017

Reviews

[Ananova · Rating 1 out of 5]

HORRIBLE BIAS CRAP. That’s the best way to explain this book.

I want to say that I don’t believe that Nazi Germany were the good guys, but I don’t believe there IS a “good guys” in war. Only you vs them...however, I believe a writers job with a HISTORICAL book is to tell us the reader the facts of what took place, and allow us to come to our own conclusions...not inject it with his or her own opinions on the the topic....which is exactly what this author did...

The first few pages are filled with words like, “blood thirsty”, “monsters”, “inhuman”, “evil”....you get the idea? Almost EVERY sentence on the first 3 or so pages is something like that. I get that the SS did some awful things, but I don’t need the author to give me my opinion before I even have my own...

Luckily I’ve got a fairly decent knowledge on WWII Germany, it makes me sad for anyone who has this as their intro to it. Also because the book is filled with inaccuracies...example:

The author talks about how Himmler had an office job before the war (filing papers and such) and that is WHY he was such an organized person who kept journals almost obsessively ...WRONG!! The reason he was this way was because his father was a head master at a school, and from around age 9-10 he made him keep track of all of his work, money, and daily activities in a journal to make sure he never wasted any of his time in life...now yes, one could say, “okay but that’s such a small detail so what?” Well if he can make such a small mistake like that, what’s to say he isn’t making many, many other mistakes about people, and events? (Which he does FYI over and over)

He also mentions after bashing the Waffen-SS for page after page that, “...some were brave men...” lol. Any WWII Veteran or historian will tell you that during WWII, there was no more fierce, brave, heroic group than the Waffen-SS. Does that mean we have to like them?? No, but it does mean that’s just the way it was, and simply pretending it’s not true, doesn’t change history!!! ...many men in the US Revolution had slaves...does this mean now they weren’t extremely intelligent/brave trailblazers? History happened, like it or not...it is what it is. I don’t read a history book for personal opinions, I read it for the facts.

Bottom line, this book was written out of spite, pure and simple. It’s all about telling us what “evil evil men these were” and not much of anything about their story as the title claims...to be honest, you’d get a better, more fair account in a US history public school classroom.

Worst WWII book I’ve ever owned.

[Ananova · Rating 1 out of 5]

Waste of $3.99. When you only spend $3.99 on a book & feel like you just wasted money, that should tell you how bad a book is.

I want to make sure it is known that by no means do I believe the Nazi regime should be shown in POSITIVE light, but I also do not believe it should be shown in a NEGATIVE one either. It should be shown in a factual way, simply give us (the reader) the details, the story...THE FACTS. And you can let us decide for ourselves what actions lay where on a moral ground.

This author clearly is VERY anti German. You might be thinking, “how can anyone be pro 1930s-1940s German!?” As above I said, you should be neither, you should be an impartial storyteller of history.

When you see lines such as, “....all SS men were expected to father at least 4 children, although Himmler fell short of this, as usual...” the author subtly squeezes in “as usual” as to let us, the reader know that Himmler was a failure in general. Sounds like something a high school girl with a vendetta would say about her rival.

Another beautiful unbiased quote (sarcasm) is: “...the SS, merciless fanatics in jackboots. Systematically slaughtering & torturing millions” ...for those that don’t know, the SS was really kind of an umbrella term & it wasn’t all the awful nasty men you see in Hollywood movies...this book is bad...it makes a person who knows history almost have to say “wait a minute, but they didn’t do that...” & in a sense the author makes you sound like a Nazi sympathizer or something.

It’s the equivalent of another nation referring to the USA dropped the nuclear bombs, saying something like, “...& that’s when the Americans, bloodthirsty & unmoved by any amount of destruction unleashed 2 nuclear bombs, with the attempt to vaporize every man woman & child!!”

See what I mean...? It’s a classic case of someone taking a factual event of history, but rather than giving it the context of its time, & letting history/the reader decide - its injected with the authors own point of view, & his or her own moral guide. He essentially is playing the role of Judge.

If a story of war is told accurately, there should be no “good vs evil” because unlike movies, that’s not war. There is no “good vs bad” only “you vs them”...and as a great author once said, he VERY suspicious of any war tale that has a moral value behind it, or a moral lesson to be learned. War itself is evil, & war is Hell.

This author instead of being a cold accurate history teller, decides to take you along his timeline of Nazi Germany, & he forces you to make him be your moral guide/compass. Al Cimino, you should stick to fiction, sir.

[Ken Sampson · Rating 3 out of 5]

[16 Sep 2025] This is a well written book that presents a clear account of the SS in Nazi Germany. It seems well researched and is written logically. The amount of atrocities, inhumanity and depravity described is truly shocking and appalling. There are two things that I was disappointed in - First the Nazi's appeared to create a whole number of competing, overlapping and conflicting organisations each with remits that changed and altered over time, Once titled and briefly explained they are referred to by their initials - so you end up grappling with multiple acronyms. There is no list or glossary and frankly it gets confusing. The other and for me more important issue is the lack of analysis.

I was expecting some depth in trying to understand why this happened? He asks the question at the beginning - 'it beggars belief that right here in the 20th century a civilised European country such as Germany could descend into unimaginable abyss that was Nazism.' Yes it does - but what theories or ideas have people come up with to understand or even try to understand what happened here. I thought the book was a clear, well set-out account of the SS in Nazi Germany, but found the presentation style confusing and the lack of analysis to underpin the multiple descriptions of the horrific actions of the SS disappointing.

[Brandon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The story of the SS gives an overall start to finish about the rise and fall of one of history’s most brutal killing forces.

This book didn’t give me to much new info on the SS that I haven’t read before. The book was broken up in a simple form and just gave a brief summary of this topic.

I would recommend this book to anyone new to Nazi history but if you are a heavy historian on the subject probably just skip this one.

[Creighton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I haven’t read a book in almost a month, I took a break and was having a heard time finding something else to read.

I decided to read this, because it was short and I figured why not.

I give it a 2 star rating because although it had a decent amount of information, the author had some inaccurate info and he seemed to veer off into giving biographical sketches of SS leaders that kind of interrupted the narrative.

[Darren-lee · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Simon Lucas · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book gives a general overall to the course of the SS, and provides a nice description on many members of the SS, not just focusing on the main individuals, such as how they started out and what happened after the war.

However, the way the information is portrayed throughout the book I found was incoherent, and I was constantly having to re-read segments to remind myself what I was reading about. It jumps all over the place chronologically while constantly introducing new characters, so we could be reading about the Munich putsch, enter into a brief history of the second world war, introduce two new individuals which covers their entire career, then jump back into the Munich putsch. Very difficult to follow.

There was also one glaring historical accuracy. When talking about Hitlers occupation of Czechoslovakia which was before the second world war, it stated that Czechoslovakia was formed at the end of the second world war. It was actually formed at the end of the first World War. Such a simple error really casts a shadow on the other facts presented inside the book.

So while there is some interesting information inside the book which can give a nice overview, it is difficult to follow and has inaccuracies, which for me casts a shadow over the book.

[Oliver Hepburn · Rating 2 out of 5]

A very big ‘meh’ I’m afraid. I thought I got this book for a bargain when I saw it on sale in Waterstones for £3, but now I can see why it was in the reduced section. It’s by no means a terrible book if you just want a simple, easy to read history of the SS, but ‘A Dummies Guide to the SS’ would’ve been a more appropriate title for it. It doesn’t go into anywhere near enough depth for anyone with more than a basic secondary school level knowledge of Nazi Germany or the Second World War. If you’re at a level where you want to study the history of an organisation like the SS, I can assure you that you probably already know most of the information that this book provides. There are far more detailed options available if you’re a history enthusiast, but for the A-Level student wanting to cram in some last minute revision, it’s a solid option.

[Chris · Rating 2 out of 5]

The story line is hard to follow. The author talks about so many different people, groups, and events but does not do it in chronological order. It's almost like reading a bunch of extremely short stories. The book has good information but it's hard to follow.

[Joe Seliske · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was always confused about the secret police and the special forces of Nazi Germany. I never knew the difference between the SS, SA, SD, Gestapo and other special forces. This book outlines each and every one - a difficult task as they were merging forces all the time. It also outlines who led each of the factions and the dates that they were active and how they died (usually unceremoniously shot). By the end of the book, which coincided with the end of WW II, this was getting a little dry. However, my purpose for reading this book was to differentiate the different forces and this book did that in spades. A good read for the enthusiast.

[Jonny Keen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A well-written and concise history of the SS. It's written very simply which makes it easy for the reader to take in as much information as possible but also contains a lot of detail. I like how the author sheds light on some of the lesser known eras of SS history (the pre-WWII parts are especially interesting).

I also really appreciated the many human stories involved. Cimino often takes diversions to offer short biographies of SS members of all ranks which is super interesting.

[Nathan Fishell · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book gives a good baseline history and timeline of the SS. It’s difficult to follow as each chapter profiles several different officers and skips around between biographies and decades.I often found myself having to go back to see who I was reading about after becoming lost in side stories.

You will also find yourself reading about the same events over and over again.

I’ve given it three stars for the history, but it is unorganized and difficult to follow.

[Joni Doe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bit dense towards the end, but a good read.

Full of interesting details that shine a light on the Nazis being as incompetent and stupid as they were nasty and ruthless. However the format of the book tends to repeat details and situations and towards the end of the book especially, there are few interesting tales and it reads just like a list of names.

[MajorEpic · Rating 1 out of 5]

There’s a reason this book was in the bargain section.
It’s not a bad book but I wouldn’t recommend it. Everything that is said in it can be learned by reading some online articles. I also thought the author put too much of his personal feeling into the book. Instead of being a factual text like it should be it felt more like a piece of persuasive writing.

[Kieran Reader · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rather surface level overview of the SS. Provides numerous short biographies of high-ranking SS officers but these start to feel formulaic and that the author was trying to reach a wordcount. There are certainly more thorough books on the topic out there.

It jumps about a lot in the way it is written and often feels like there is a lot of filler.

[Rūdolfs Kivlenieks · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book is quite interesting, it is shocking to read about how people rise to power or how it changes a person. In that aspect the book gives insight in to many lives of the former SS members
However I can only agree with the other reviews that the information is a bit chaotic, going from the first world war, then to the second, then back to the 30s and so on.

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good introduction to the SS with the backstory of the Nazi rise to power as well as the major players and less well known individuals, also has a look at the aftermath of the Nazi war machine as well as looking into the rat run and ODESSA, A fairly quick read.

[Adam Balshan · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars [History]
(W 2.69, U 2.53, T 2.62)
Exact rating: 2.61

Most of it read like a Wikipedia entry. Only a healthy use of original-language (German) terms kept the Writing score from below 2.5.
The Holocaust material was better than average.

[Matt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not much meat on the bones style book. This is a very brief overview of SS. If you know nothing or very little of the SS then thus is an ideal taster book. If you want a more in depth history, there are better books out there.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book provides the beginning of the SS and its formation and covers its history to the end of the war, the Nuremberg trials, and even those in the SS who fled to South America after the war. The author covers a lot of different individuals which can be hard to follow along at times.

[Catherine Mohs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting history read, but I did not think the book was well organized. It seemed to jump all over the place, was not in chronological order, and just contained too many names to keep track of.

[Ed Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Detailed, yet a quick and easy read.

[Lucy Chang · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ok so I didn’t finish it because it was so boring. Like I wanted to hear bad stuff and crazy things but it was just who died in what war and who rose in ranks. Eh

[Ian Willey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Covers all aspects of the SS

[Roland Hamblin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A few date errors but in the whole an interesting read. Didn’t know the dates of the secondary players do that was interesting.

[Adam Jarvis · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a really interesting read. I enjoyed it. The content is brutal but gives a good insight into the awful things that happened.

[Warren Fisher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, but fact-filled and readable

Not the most thorough and detailed account of the SS, but an engaging read, filled with interesting nuggets of facts. Recommended.

[Adrian R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very brief nutshell summary of the SS and their role in history. It is informative as a quick way to learn something about the axis during the second world war.

[Nigel Passey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very sad but good read

It just shows how Hitler and his thugs achieved great power then committed mass murder.
It is the true story of evil.

[Peter L Deegan · Rating 3 out of 5]

neither good or bad. given as birthday gift