Review of Hitler's Guards by James J. Weingartner

Author:  James J. Weingartner.
Title:  Hitler's Guard - The Story of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, 1933-1945.
Publisher:  Battery Classics.
Copyright:  (1974), 1989.
Pages: 194.
Price:  $22.50.

Overview:
This is one of those stories about books I'd purchased, read them, and then realized I used to own a copy of it and had already read it!

The books is the story of Joseph Sepp Dietrich and the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler.  The unit originally started out as a ceremonial bodyguard unit.  It was an entire panzer division by the end of WWII.

How that happened is part of the book.  The other part is how the unit was used to deal with the Third Reich's enemies, both foreign and domestic.  The Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler fought all over Europe during WWII.  They were seen as an elite of the Waffen SS carrying out Adolf Hitler's personal orders.

Starting with the "Night of the Long Knives" and the murder of Ernst Roehm to the final days of the Reich, Sepp Dietrich willing became Hitler's personal "paladin" in carrying out his master's orders.  This places Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler not only among the elite military units of history, it also ranks them as some of the worst war criminals, too.

Though little thought was given to Himmiler's propaganda, Sepp Dietrich and average ranks of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler say themselves as a new racial elite fighting the Bolsheviks and international Jewry in their crusade on the Eastern Front.  For they liked to say, "My loyalty is my honor."  Recommended.