From The Realm of a Dying Sun
Volume III: IV. SS-Panzerkorps From Budapest to Vienna, February-May 1945
By
Douglas E. Nash Sr.
This third volume shows the Panzerkorps at the very end of its life. The book shows us the final battles it fought. They then tried desperately to surrender to the Americans, and avoid Soviet retribution. It also shows, like the other volumes, the deep distrust the 6th Army commander (Hermann Balck) had of the SS troops in general, but the SS Panzer Division Wiking in particular. The IV SS-Panzerkorps was part of the 6th Army. Balck's bad blood with Wiking had come from the actions during the Korsun Pocket in 1944.
The IV SS-Panzerkorps was faced with shortages of every kind, and yet there was no end to the Soviet forces attacking them. They fought on, even though even the most ardent Nazis must have known the end was near. It shows what kind of soldiers they were, because the NATO forces delved deeply into how they were able to, time and again, hold off the Russian hordes.
The author has written a seminal triad of books on the IV SS-Panzerkorps. Unless one is looking to read a quick overview of its history, these are the books that you want to read.
When a good book comes to the end, it is at times like losing a friend. This goes for both fiction and non-fiction books, at least for me. The trilogy of From The Realm of a Dying Sun was much more than a sum of its three parts. The books went from the orders to create the IV SS-Panzerkorps to its inception and finally its life and death. The author showed everything that went into the planning and training of the two Panzer Divisions that were the backbone of the Panzerkorps, the SS-Panzer Wiking Division, and the SS-Panzer Division Totenkopf. With these three volumes military history does not get much better. Mr. Nash showed us not only the Panzerkorps' military effectiveness, but never once shied away from the absolute horrifying acts that the troops were engaged in off the battlefield. The Eastern Front was a no holds barred affair from beginning to end. Both sides took the fighting to the death, and sometimes far beyond. How the IV Panzerkorps was able to take Luftwaffe personnel, and average conscripts (Most of the SS reinforcements for the last few war years were conscripted), and gave them a black and deadly esprit de corps is no longer a mystery due to the author. The three book series is a tour de force, nothing more and nothing less.
Robert
Author: Douglas E. Nash Sr.
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
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