A compelling military history of the Waffen SS Totenkopf Division. Charles Sydnor has a talent for describing battalion to division level military engagements. The descriptions of unit formations, movement, and tactics were so well phrased that I was able to vividly visualize the operations as I read about them without constantly having to refer to a map. This was the most impressive aspect of the book.

Also of interest was the description of how Theodore Eicke bootstrapped the SSTK into becoming an elite military formation from nothing, almost entirely through Eicke's sheer force of will. Sydnor's thesis that the SSTK's excellent combat record was ultimately a result of the Eicke's legendary fanaticism is convincing. That the SSTK was Eicke's "private empire" is really not too much of an exaggeration, and understanding that aspect of the SSTK's history is central to understanding the origin of the often intense rivalry between the Waffen SS and the regular Wehrmacht

Less interesting was Sydnor's interest in proving that the Waffen SS and the broader SS itself was a 'revolving door' system. A case can be made for this, sure, yet the implications of that argument are not particularly important to me nor worth reading an entire book about. I read this book because I wanted to learn about the combat record of the SSTK and I was not disappointed in that regard. ( )