Das Reich : The March of the 2nd Panzer Division Through France, 1944 - Softcover

Max Hastings

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0330483897 ISBN 13: 9780330483896

Publisher: Pan, 2000., 2000

Synopsis

Within days of the D-Day landings, the 'Das Reich' 2nd SS Panzer Division marched north through France to reinforce the front-line defenders of Hitler's Fortress Europe. Veterans of the bloodiest fighting of the Russian Front, 15,000 men with tanks and artillery, they were hounded for every mile of their march by saboteurs of the Resistance and agents of the Allied Special Forces. Along their route they took reprisals so savage they will live forever in the chronicles of the most appalling atrocities of war. "My literary VC goes without doubt to Max Hastings for his Das Reich...the story of a march that left behind a trail of blood and death, torture and heroism...the slaughter and burning to death of 642 men, women and children of Oradour-sur-Glane...the hanging of 99 civilians from the lamp-posts of Tulle as a reprisal for Maquis action." - "Sunday Telegraph".

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Sir Max Hastings, recipient of the 2012 Pritzker Military Library Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing, has written one of the classic accounts of World War II.  Days after the D-Day invasion, a Division of battle-hardened soldiers from the vicious and unrelenting battlefields on the Eastern Front, the 2nd SS Panzer, “Das Reich,” marched north from the safe confines of the south France to reinforce the defenders of Hitler's Fortress Europe on the beaches of Normandy. During their march they were hounded for every mile of their march by saboteurs of the French Resistance, as well as by agents of the Allied Special Forces. Das Reich profiles - in Hastings’ characteristic prose - the horrific reprisals that the 2nd SS Panzer Division exacted upon the citizens of Tulle and Ordour-sur-Glane, which resulted in 99 and 642 deaths, respectively. Das Reich is a chronicle of the some of the most appalling atrocities of World War II.

About the Author:

Sir Max Hastings is the author of twenty-five books, many of them about war. He was educated at Charterhouse and University College, Oxford, which he quit after a year to become a journalist. Thereafter he reported for newspapers and BBC TV from sixty-four countries and eleven conflicts, notably the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, Vietnam and the 1982 Battle for the Falklands. Between 1986 and 2002 he was editor-in-chief of The Daily Telegraph, then editor of the Evening Standard. He has won many prizes both for journalism and for his books, most recently the 2012 Chicago Pritzker Library's $100,000 literary award for his contribution to military history, and the RUSI's Westminster Medal for his international best-seller 'All Hell Let Loose'.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pan, 2000.
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0330483897
• ISBN 13: 9780330483896
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 290