To Battle! the Formation and History of the 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division (Ukrainian Nr.1) - Tapa dura

"This book is a fine addition to literature on WWII and serves as a model of how history should be written. Recently a host of poorly researched and often sensationalised works have been published on the German Army and in particular SS formations. This work stands in vivid counterpoint to these 'potboilers'. The author's impeccable scholarship is readily apparent and the book will be of lasting value."--David M. Glantz

Of all the foreign SS divisions, the 14th has arguably maintained a higher public profile and continued to attract more attention in the UK, US, Canada, Russia and Ukraine than any other. Drawing extensively upon a wide variety of sources, the author details the abortive history of German/Ukrainian relations during the first half of the C20th, which culminated in the formation of this division in the spring of 1943. Following a previously-established pattern, from the outset both the Germans and Ukrainians sought to exploit the formation for their own conflicting agendas. The author gives a careful assessment of the division's military engagements and explains the reasons for its demise at the Battle of Brody, summer 1944, emphasising how the military initiative and vast material superiority of the Red Army led to its virtual destruction. The book concludes with the cessation of hostilities when the division, despite being the focus of Stalin's attention, escaped the forced repatriation undertaken by the Western Allies in the immediate postwar period.