I really like how, just to carefully avoid any accusations of anti-Semetism, he made his hero an SS man who converted to Judaism, married a Jew, and moved to Israel to train IDF fighters. Yeah, that's so believable. I'm reminded of the miniature wargamers with entire SS divisions lovingly painted in perfect detail who go on and on about how the Waffen SS were "just Soldiers" who built nice tanks.

Reminds me of another book, which - to my surprise - is available in English translation (http://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Who-Lived-As-Jew/dp/0532191455) (maybe you want to order it before you unscreen this message).

The last history book I read (http://www.amazon.com/Architects-Annihilation-Gotz-Aly/dp/1842126709) might also be interesting to you, once you're done pondering about parallels between Lincoln and some or another Alexander Romanov.

Might also show the difference between Wehrmacht and Red Army and what you're doing. The US and A seems to pursue a policy that folks who happen to live on top of important natural resources need not be physically eliminated under the pretext of their religion. It's fully sufficient to turn them into helots, or, if they behave well enough, even perioikoi.

cMAD ← btw, I personally guarantee that neither of these books would unbalance any of your credit cards any further if you're interested ... I have some bonus points to burn on my amazon credit card, because I'm too busy reading New Yorker cartoons to buy books.

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The Architects of Annihilation actually sounds interesting. The question of "Holocaust, wtf were they thinking?" is one of the more inexplicable questions. It really never made sense to me.

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Did the letter evey find you?

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Yes, it showed up just before I left Baghdad. I missed mentioning it in the run-up to leaving.

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If you named the author or the book, the review might be more enlightening.

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By Tom Kratman, LtCol USA(ret). Part of John Ringo's "Legacy of the Aldenata" series.

I wonder what our reviewer thinks of Eric "Trotsky was misunderstood" Flint and his series with a commissar as the protagonist.

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I haven't read Watch on the Rhine yet (I've read the rest of the Aldenata series) but it has occurred to me that given the threat posed by the Posleen (the utter annihilation of humanity and all its works), it would make sense to rejuvenate anyone who could fight effectively against them. Even the Waffen-SS.

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Jordan179 wrote:

it has occurred to me that given the threat posed by the Posleen (the utter annihilation of humanity and all its works), it would make sense to rejuvenate anyone who could fight effectively against them. Even the Waffen-SS.

That was one of the major themes of the book...

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There's a difference between doing that, and taking a positive glee in doing that. Which is my point.

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Did you have to use his name? He's worse then Scientologists. I got rather enough of his childish trollery last time I used his name in this blog.

And it's USAR, ret, if you're going to be technical about.

I haven't read the above-mentioned series. Eric Flint is capable of writing entertaining books that don't revolve around his personal political beliefs. And he doesn't express his politicals beliefs in the form of gleerful descriptions of how he'd like to torture to death anyone who ever disagreed with him, unlike Kratman. Eric Flint can even poke fun at his own beliefs and has a sense of humor (Rats, Bats, Vats, IIRC), unlike Kratman. When Flint's communism gets a little too much, I put the series down, like I did with his 1632 series.

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Well, I don't consider myself an Ost Front Fan boy and I didn't get all that from the book. There were some interesting people in the German side. They were fighting for the wrong side and I don't begrudge them their humanity. That still doesn't mean I'd not shoot them in a heartbeat if I were a Dog Face in Normandy fighting one of the SS or Heer units.

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There were some interesting people in the German side. They were fighting for the wrong side and I don't begrudge them their humanity.

To be fair, on the Eastern Front what they were fighting was almost as evil.

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True enough. And it does seem like, from my limited study of this, that the SS units that shifted from the Ost front to the west (ie Normandy, etc) tended to be more brutal which got the SS units their bad rep with Allied Troops and somehow managed to piss of Canadians en mass. 8-o

Not that the occupation troops in France didn't have the ability to be especially brutal when the opportunity arose. It just seemed to be less de rigeur.

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It's funny.

I knew who you meant.

I have not read his stuff, largely because I trust your opinion, and I have a lot of reading on my list.

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Ever consider a history degree?

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Yes. Frequently. If I ever go back to school, that's what I'll likely end up with. Of course, what one does with a history degree, I don't know, except work in the National Archives, and only if you have a Master's degree.

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You get a commission and then bitch about how much you miss being an NCO.

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You can teach, and continue to shape young impressionable minds... but you don't get to smoke them anymore.

DV

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The idea of me in the public school system is faintly amusing, if only because I'd probably set a record for fastest firing. Not for incomptence, because that won't get you fired from being a school teacher. But for lack of political correctness.

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"If I ever go back to school, that's what I'll likely end up with. "

That's assuming that you can keep your mouth shut & agree with the Indoctrinators long enough to get a passing grade, of course.

Knowing more about history than your professor can be a real handicap, don't you agree?

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Instructor at West Point? You could go work for the CIA. Or you could get a talk show on Fox. :-D

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