Stephen M. Rusiecki

A twin history of the 6th SS Mountain Division and its final antagonist the US 71st Infantry Division, this is Old School military history that harkens back to Cold War conventions that downplayed the political motivations that undergirded the Nazi Party's private army in the interests of confronting the then new (and future?) enemy. This caveat is relevant considering that while the "Nord" Division had a fairly "clean" war its men were largely trained (and often led) by soldiers associated with the 7th SS "Prinz Eugen" Division, who most assuredly did not have a clean war fighting partisans in the Balkans, not to mention that the ultimate role of the Waffen SS was to assure that in another Great Power war that battle would go on to the bitter end. With this in mind, it is notable that the leadership of the "Nord" found ways to carry out their mission without inflicting more misery than necessary on the German nation they ostensibly served.

While I can wonder if Rusiecki admires the history of this particular division a bit more than it deserves, one can understand his fascination with it. There being the process by which a glorified security division overcame its origins as a scratch force (after a notoriously bad beginning), became capable of a forced march out of Finland when the tables turned in that alliance, and then kept fighting when all the odds were against it. If you're still looking for a Waffen SS unit with a usable history this might be your best candidate.

As for the 71st, this was a relatively unheralded late-war unit that had the virtue of several "Old Army" regiments being assigned to it, and in its case you can call it an example of how the U.S. Army learned lessons on the fly in war to create very good formations across the board. What else you will learn from this monograph is the care and feeding of boundary lines between divisions and corps and how light armor was used in World War II in the traditional roles of recon and harrying enemy forces on the run.… (plus d'informations)