Rupert Butler: 5 books

The 5th SS Division Wiking was the first 'international' – i.e. largely non-German – Waffen-SS division and the only German panzer division comprised largely of foreign troops. Approximately 75 per cent of the division's strength were non-German nationals, all volunteers, and the majority from occupied...

The KGB of Cold War renown was the successor to a series of equally infamous and lethal state security agencies that date from the early days of the Russian Revolution: Cheka, OGPU, GUGB, NKVD, NKGB and MVD. Beginning with the Cheka, the organisation for combating counter-revolution and sabotage, Stalin’s...

Whoever has the youth has the future. My teaching will be hard. Weakness will be knocked out of them. A violently active, dominating, brutal youth that is what I am after.’ Adolf Hitler The divisions of the Waffen-SS were the elite of Hitler’s armies in World War II. SS-Hitlerjugend is an in-depth...

‘I swear to thee, Adolf Hitler, as Führer and Chancellor of the German Reich, loyalty and bravery. I vow to thee, and to the superiors whom thou shalt appoint, obedience unto death, so help me God.’ SS Oath of Loyalty The divisions of the Waffen-SS were the elite of Hitler’s armies in World...

From its creation in 1933 until Hitler's death in May 1945, anyone living in Nazi-controlled territory lived in fear of a visit from the Gestapo an abbreviation of Geheime Staatspolizei or secret state police. Young or old, rich or poor, nobody was beyond the attentions of a brutally efficient organization...