12th Hitlerjugend SS Panzer Division in Normandy

The most effective German division fighting in the West. Describes how the division continually battled the Allied offensives.

\n Format: Hardback
\n Length: 320 pages
\n Publication date: 16 March 2021
\n Publisher: Pen & Sword Books Ltd
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Raised in 1943 with seventeen-year-olds from the Hitler Youth movement, and following the twin disasters of Stalingrad and 'Tunisgrad', the _Hitlerjugend_ Panzer Division emerged as the most effective German division fighting in the West. The core of the division was a cadre of offices and NCOs provided by Hitler's bodyguard division, the elite _Leibstandarte_, with the aim of producing a division of 'equal value' to fight alongside them in I SS Panzer Corps.During the fighting in Normandy, the _Hitlerjugend_ proved to be implacable foes to both the British and the Canadians, repeatedly blunting Montgomery's offensives, fighting with skill and a degree of determination well beyond the norm. This they did from D+1 through to the final battle to escape from the Falaise Pocket, despite huge disadvantages, namely constant Allied air attack, highly destructive naval gunfire and a chronic lack of combat supplies and replacements of men and equipment.Written with the advantage of new materials from archives in the former Eastern Bloc, this book is no whitewash of a Waffen SS division and it does not shy away from confronting unpalatable facts or controversies

\n Weight: 836g\n
Dimension: 164 x 240 x 29 (mm)\n
ISBN-13: 9781526757364\n \n