History of the German army by Philippe Masson and the Waffen SS Jean-Luc Leleu By Sébastien Vincent
Unpublished text
Two major books written by Philippe Masson and Jean-Louis Leleu us into the heart of the Wehrmacht and Waffen SS, the formidable German war machine.
History German Army (1939-1945) , Philippe Masson, Perrin, et al. Tempus, 2010
Originally the "Blitzkrieg
" and building on its successful lightning between 1939 and 1942, the German army managed to fight for more than two years face a formidable coalition.
History of the German army was published in 1994 and recently reissued in paperback collection of "Tempus
. Philippe
Masson (1928-2005), professor of history, former head of the historical section of History of the French Navy, author of The War
world. Strategies, methods, controversies (Tallandier, 2003) and
Dictionary World War (Cambridge, 1980), it exhibits with details of a fascinating story, strategies and tactics, the evolution of means, intelligence and daily life on all fronts where the German army fought. It also highlights the central role of Adolf Hitler, who was closely following the movements of each division.
Strangely, the author points out, "
no work in France does the German army. The work undertaken by Benoist- Mechin [History of the German army, Albin Michel, 1964-1966)]
stops in 1939 [...].
[History of the German army] was therefore intended to fill a gap. [The book] does not deal only with the army, but also of the Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine, that is to say the entire Wehrmacht. [It] is not confined to military operations, but strives to discern the secret springs of this army in terms of command, doctrine, equipment, intelligence or political, may explain the resounding victories and a disaster virtually without precedent in the history . The author also stresses one point: "With new equipment
appeared at the far end of the war, rockets, jets, submarines, electric, a new Wehrmacht was in gestation at the origin of the revolution of the second half of the twentieth century .
's point of view of Masson, "
the German army carried out two successive wars completely different from one another. Until autumn 1941, with campaigns Poland, Norway of of France, the Balkans and the first months of Barbarossa, the Wehrmacht was revealed to a shocked world all resources of the Blitzkrieg. From 1943 to 1945 she led a fight however fundamentally defensive, punctuated with offensive returns limited.
How such a unique fighting was it made possible? Martinez responds, especially in the last chapter entitled "Moral and political." Certainly there is the weight of military discipline, the terror of the Feld-acting police until late on the backs of the front. One can also evoke the historian says, the quality of command, regular mail, as the equipment and food for all, the decorations deserved the rest and the existence of "primary groups" , apolitical, composed of men united by the ties of friendship and hardships together. "The German soldier reportedly found at the company, battalion, regiment, division and even a cell where he was at home, in confidence, and where it is professionalized with surprising speed."
This thesis of "
primary groups," as advanced by Frederic Rousseau
War censored (Seuil, 1999), was undermined by the historian Omer Bartov's Hitler in
Army . According to him, "
is war in the East would have constituted the main driver of the fighting spirit of the German soldier, who explains that this is hard to be maintained and even strengthened during the worst defeats and has persisted to the end, especially as the enormity of the loss of around 200% for some units would have resulted in the collapse and disappearance of "primary groups .
course, the thesis advanced by Bartov " justifies the surprising strength of the German soldier in the East, especially when the invasion eastern provinces of the Reich , [but] it does not explain the resistance just as fierce in the West, even after the passage of the Rhine, in the midst of a hostile population become .
Force is then to mobilize the political factor based on Nazi propaganda, which has fostered the "latent militancy" of the German people by exploiting " a complex system of desires, demands and aspirations of a nation deeply affected in its identity "after the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles. I
It should therefore not neglect the effect national consensus, the strength of patriotism and pride that Hitler was able to create a new Germany. At this level, the Führer played a role, in that it was considered a " medicine man who knew how to cure the German people's frustration . Everything was torn with his suicide, " population and the army [took] brutally aware of the terrible ambiguity of the National Socialist regime and the magnitude of his crimes .
This book is an important synthesis of one of the most effective instruments of war have sown destruction in Europe. While the work of Jacques Benoist-Mechin was limited to events and ended at dawn of war, that of Masson offers a perspective of critical phases of the conflict, strengths and weaknesses of military German army through a text medium. He reminded that complacency has testified against the Wehrmacht National Socialism in the hope of restoring the power of the Reich. It is pulled through the madness of Nazi atrocities by agreeing to play the card of the fight against "international Jewry." Watermark, is unveiled another vision of Adolf Hitler that proved, according to Martinez, the thinker of the decisive German strategy.
The Waffen SS , Soldiers policy war, Jean-Luc Leleu, Paris, Perrin, 2007
The cover of the book contains a famous poster artist of the purified Nazi Mjolnir. It shows a representation of Waffen SS which was engraved after the war: elite fighters and war criminals.
The mere mention of the paramilitary organization of the Waffen SS (Schutzstaffel or level of protection weapons), has great evocative power. After the troops loaded into the twenties to protect Hitler, it has become, from the middle of the conflict, "a major component in the strategy of the German High Command" (p. II). Incarnation of Nazi barbarism as a result of crimes that these members have committed in occupied Europe, it still inspires a curious mixture of disgust and morbid fascination. Evidenced by the spate of films representing the and the plethora of books that address this often impressionistic.
But really, what do we know exactly the Waffen SS, apart from certain myths such as that of elite soldiers implacable, fanatical and ruthless leaders of the worst abuses of the policy instruments Nazi war machine and Prototypes of the new man that wanted to establish the Reich? And reminds the massacre perpetrated by the division "Das Reich
" in the village of Oradour-sur-
Glane, in south-western France, June 10, 1944 ...
So an object of history that raises many questions: under what conditions the Waffen SS was it created? Who were these men who composed it? How were they recruited and what criteria are ideological, racial and physical? What were their motivations to engage? What training have they followed? How have they been brainwashed, conditioned? What have they been used? How they behaved on the battlefield and in the missions of repression? What were the relations between the SS and the Wehrmacht? In which issues of power relationships have they developed? How is it that has retained the seed of men of the Waffen SS as their fanaticism, a symbol of sacrifice in combat and abuses in the occupied territories?
All of these issues at the confluence of military history and the social and political history, Jean-Luc Leleu , research engineer at CNRS
, the addresses in this book rigorously scientific from a winning thesis, which requires these with 1240 pages, with 250 notes and more 50 of bibliography, not to mention the 43 tables and charts.
Leleu Not only does he discusses the workings of the Waffen SS (800 000 fighters) as the elite corps of the army, composed of a mix of racial theories of strategic necessities and Nazi ideology, he also studied the distortion between myth and reality.
plan, especially theme alternates between visions and analysis of all individuals.
The first part deals with the military expansionism of the SS. From quantitative considerations on the number of men engaged and recruitment criteria, Leleu shows the competition that develops between the Waffen SS, originally a personal guard, and the Wehrmacht, the national force. We cross
Himmler and ground maneuvers and
Führer who ceaselessly to advance or to retreat then require.
The second part focuses specifically on individuals. It deals with the issue of human resources: recruitment policy in the era of "total war" sociology of the troops (distribution of age, social origins, selection criteria in moral, physical and racial), motivation and commitment of the management of human group that famous primary core.
The third and fourth parties review the structure and organization of Waffen SS: equipment, supplies, military training, indoctrination, training personnel. Interesting pages discuss the motivations for combat, the cohesion and esprit de corps.
The fifth part examines the use of the Waffen SS in the conflict, while the sixth returns to the individual level by looking at military training in decisive hours of combat and violence of war, a common theme in the historiography of the recent conflict. This is presented as a culmination of a process that is both cultural (the "principle of hardness" of the SS), and through the institutional functioning of the command that false moral perspectives. The author provides insightful explanations here to practices of extreme violence, such as those perpetrated in Oradour-sur-Glane, which is analyzed from the minutes of the postwar period.
This monumental and groundbreaking is a thousand miles pictures transmitted by the film and literature. Using many primary sources, it offers a dive into a universe remains unknown. Unquestionably, it outperforms a controversial partisan publications, monographs training written by former SS members, those produced by a few academics and literature focused on abuses by SS formations.
Although it focuses, for practical reasons, on the battlefields of Western Europe (Netherlands, Belgium and France) between May 1940 and May 1945 and that the style often resembles that of the thesis, which is detrimental to the fluidity at times, the project of Jean-Luc Leleu is a real model methodological landmark.
