Summary of Max Hastings's Das Reich

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book.

Book Preview: #1 The 2,500 survivors of Battle Group Lammerding were ordered to move to France and form part of the Das Reich division.

They were leaving behind their few remaining tanks, vehicles, and guns, as well as the memory of thousands of their dead in frozen graves.#2 The 2nd SS Das Reich Armored Division was not a shadow of its former self when it arrived in Bordeaux from the East in April 1944.

The High Command in the East had stripped its surviving teeth formations to strengthen the sagging line on the Dnieper.#3 The SS was the fire brigade of Hitler's empire, rushed to every crisis.

They had become the backbone of the German military, and were at the forefront of Hitler's operational plans until the end of the war.#4 The Das Reich was a new division, made up of conscripts.

The Allied forces expected that the 2nd SS and its 209 tanks and assault guns would be playing a prominent role in the Normandy battle by 9 or 10 June.

But the soldiers lacked the passion of the pre-war SS.