Tony Le Tissier is a well-known author for historians but not so much for plastic modelers. The reason is that the books are heavy on research and very light on photo content. This one is no exception with only 38 low-quality photos in one hundred eighty-four pages and eight maps. Why review it? It is well researched and the text helps set up many vignettes in the mind of the reader to portray.
The text at the beginning is very dry but packed with information. While boring, it sets up the major players of the story and how they end up in the fight for Berlin. Based on the firsthand accounts of two people involved in the fighting, it gets into far better detail and interest near the end. However, keep in mind that these accounts are from the perspective of men fighting in Germany for another country and, without a counter-narrative, ends up as a biased read.
For balance, I would have liked to see data from the other side, narratives of Soviet units which fought against the 33rd Waffen Grenadier Division. Instead, we get in the minds of these Frenchmen and read about how they heard horrible screams from women at the hands of “men from the steppes.” In court, this would be hearsay.
Another issue I had was the reliance of the author to use cut and paste as I felt ‘Deja Vu’ when the same exact passages appeared a few pages later. Once I was done reading it, I did place it in my library and can see myself referring to it as the idea of the Frenchmen, the Nordland unit members, older Naval officers with Italian rifles, and sole Tiger II does make for an interesting vignette.
There is a new book about Berlin by Panzer Wrecks and available from the same US distributor and it will be interesting to see how they compare or complement each other.
Published by Pen and Sword (www.penandsword.com) and distributed in the US by Casemate Publishing (www.casematepublishers.com)
