Fedorowicz, who released my first book over a decade ago, have finally put up a pre-publication offer on the long-awaited second and final volume of their translation of the veterans' history of the 4. SS-Polizei-Panzergrenadier Division. Read about it here.
The Polizei-Division has been maligned for decades as a second-rate unit. In fact, it was equal to the best divisions in the German Army, and, in the last two years of the war, was as good as other SS-Armored Divisions. It only fell short in comparisons circa 1940-41, when its human material wasn't as special as the very carefully selected manpower found in the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (the eventual 1. SS-Panzer Division) and the SS-Verfügunstruppe (the eventual 2. SS-Panzer Division). The Polizei-Division was originally intended to be like a first-line Army infantry division, and then, from 1943, to be the equivalent of an Army Panzer or Panzergrenadier Division, and the unit succeeded admirably in attaining those goals.
There's a myth about the World War 2 Eastern Front, which holds that after the late 1941 German defeat before Moscow, everything important up to the summer of 1944 took place in Ukraine and the sector of German Army Group South. This is because Soviet accounts ignored the Red Army's defeats on the Army Group Center front, west of Moscow, and the Army Group North Front around Leningrad. The Soviet (now Russian) archives have become available to researchers over the past 20 years, and their records corroborate German records of massive, important battles on the central and northern sectors.
Fedorowicz have been making rare German books available in English for over 20 years. Their books have regularly turned up in bibliographies, along the way to expanding the understanding of the war for historians who struggle with the German language. This has subsequently helped expand the understanding of the war for the readers of the works of the aforementioned historians.
This second volume of the Polizei-Division history will continue the trend. The first volume gave some of the only detailed descriptions in English of the dreadful Battle of the Volkhov Pocket (first half of 1942, it was where Andrei Vlassov was captured by Dutch volunteers of the Legion Nederland) and the First Battle of Lake Ladoga (autumn 1942). Now this second and concluding book will allow English language readers to learn about the Second Battle of Lake Ladoga (early 1943), the Third Battle of Lake Ladoga (late summer 1943), the retreat from the Volkhov River (early 1944), the anti-partisan war in Greece (summer 1943-summer 1944), and the defense of the Tisza River in Hungary (autumn 1944).
The latter campaign was recently covered in English in Perry Moore's chaotic (but informative) Panzerschlact, and the Polizei-Division's history will be a useful supplement to this (see also Fedorowicz's recent translation of the History of the 23. Panzer Division, which was in this campaign).
The Polizei-Division then fought in the little-known Pomeranian campaign of early 1945, before being assigned a section of the Oder River defenses during the last weeks of the war. Its participation in so many little-known, yet very important campaigns, means that anyone who enjoys studying the Nazi-Soviet portion of World War 2 in detail, will benefit immeasurably from this book, and from its companion first volume. Together, they advance the cause of learning.
