THE SS - Alibi Of A Nation 1922 - 1945 by Reitlinger, Gerald

London 1981, Arms & Armour press, hard bound in dust jacket, 6x9, VG/VG- ( dj shows light wear, rubbing and several chips), xi, 502 pages, illus, maps, notes, bibliog, index................................................................Based almost entirely on original German documents, including the captured files of the SS leadership, The SS: Alibi of a Nation gives a final account of the Nazi Praetorian Guard. With steadily mounting tension, the story moves from the origins of the SS before 1923 to its supremacy, twenty years later, as the most appalling instrument of political and military terror known to history.The author sees the SS not as an historical accident, but as a tyrannical expression of bureaucracy in politics. It is with the administration and internal• rivalries of the Nazi state that the book is mainly concerned: how the whole system worked out in peace, and above all in war. Amongst other items, the book includes a study of the field divisions of the SS, of the Gestapo and its peculiar limitations, and of the rival agencies of the German Military Intelligence. Also discussed is theorganization of the concentration camps and death camps, and the greatest racial massacre in history.Gerald Reitlinger (famous as the author of The Final Solution) brought the objective eye of the historian to bear on this emotive subject and produced a book that is not only factual and absorbing but also a valid and vital contribution to the study of the Second World War. The SS: Alibi of a Nation is the classic work on the history of the SS, and is now available after many years out of print.£14.95