Hitler's Gladiator: The Life and Times of Oberstgruppenfuhrer and Panzergeneral-Oberst Der Waffen SS Sepp Dietrich

by Charles Messenger

The biography of Hitler's most infamous SS General chronicles his involvement in the "Night of Long Knives--for which he was convicted--culling archival materials from Britain, Germany, and the United States

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

1000 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1988

About the author

Charles Rynd Milles Messenger was a British Army officer and writer. He served for many years in the Royal Tank Regiment (19 years as a Regular, 13 years as a Territorial) before becoming a military historian and defense analyst after his retirement from active service. In addition to having published more than forty books during his long career, he also carried out several historical analyses for the Ministry Of Defence and was a writer and/or adviser for several TV documentary series.

Reviews

[Christopher Fox · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF - I read about 30 % into this dry-as-dust account of Dietrich without ever getting a sense of the man as a person or even as a soldier. Page after page of people's names, party names, military groups etc. would go by without even a mention of Dietrich or his place in the whole movement of history. There's a lot of research here as evidenced by the numerous footnotes but Messenger doesn't tell a story or give any sense of the times from a human perspective...just a recitation of facts. Pity.

[William Sariego · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining enough and informative, but nothing spectacular. Dietrich was a far more dimensional than most historians have painted him.

[Lyle Lawson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of Information!

[Claus Andersen · Rating 2 out of 5]

He wasn't a nazi and apparently a good guy. Even though he was one of Adolf Hitler's best friends. Right? Hardly ...

[Timothy Gretler · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book, Dietrich has always been painted with the SS brush and yes he made bad political choices, but he was a soldier's soldier in the end.

[Philip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Liked very much. Any one interested in WWII should read. Changed my opinion of Sepp Dietrich.

[Joe Holman · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptional book. I've read a lot of historical books but never one that showed me the Nazi's from the viewpoint of one of their SS commanders who was also close to Hitler.

I learned a lot.