Hitler's Commanders

London: Leo Cooper, 1992. Hardcover. Good/Good. Goes beyond the stereotyped images to examine the true nature of the military commanders of Hitler's Third Reich. Here you will meet Theodor Eicke, who went directly from being an inmate of a mental institution to commandant of the concentration camp at Dachau; Ernst Udet, a drug-abuser and womanizer whose ineptitude ruined the German bomber forces; Fedor von Bock, the humourless embodiment of ruthless ambition; Walter Wever, the stategic genius; Michael Wittmann, the quiet farm worker who became the greatest tank destroyer of all time; Hans-Joachim Marseille, playboy and perhaps the greatest lady-killer in Europe; Helmut Becker, commander of the Death's Head SS Panzer Division and a killer of an entirely different order; Rudolph Stegmann, a hero whose insobordination saved his command, although he could not save himself; and Erhard Milch, the son of a Jewish pharmacist who became the number two man in the Luftwaffe. They are all here, as well as dozens of others. A fascinating volume that offers an unprecedented insight into the men who ran Nazi Germany's war machine. Contains 354 pages, 16 pages of b&w photos and 8 maps. Ex-library, front endpaper removed, some library marks. Black cloth boards in good illustrated dust jacket. Internally, shows weak front hinge supported by invisible tape, otherwise good: mostly clean and unmarked in sound bindings.