SCHIFFER MILITARY HISTORY – serie

This is a brutal story – but, from the safety of fifty years distance in time – it is an extremely compelling one. It is also an enduring lesson that a military unit, formed under an evil ideology, led by a social outcast and composed of vicious criminals, will sink to its lowest common denominator – hate. The Dirlewanger Battalion, also known as “Sonderkommando (special commando) Dirlewanger” was perhaps the least understood, but at the same time the most notorious German SS anti-partisan unit in World War II. German propaganda correspondents and wartime photographers did not follow them in action. And for good reason. Wherever the Dirlewanger unit – named for and led by Oskar Dirlewanger – operated, corruption and rape formed an every-day part of life and indiscriminate slaughter, beatings and looting were rife. Formed as a battalion of convicted poachers in 1940, the unit operated in Poland until 1942, guarding Jews in forced labor camps and making life miserable for Poles in Lublin and Cracow. From there Dirlewanger spent two years combating partisans in central Russia, giving no quarter and expecting none in return, during vicious fighting against an elusive foe in the midst of inhospitable swamps and dismal forests. In 1944 Dirlewanger savaged Warsaw during the Polish Uprising, before moving to Slovakia to crush another rebellion there. The end of the war saw the unit, which was now a division in size, fighting for its life south of Berlin against the Soviet Army. Medieval in their outlook on war and certainly not indicative of many German military formations, this unit none-the-less remains a reflection of a segment of mankind gone mad in the inferno of World War II on the eastern front. Size: 6" x 9" over 50 b/w photographs, maps, fully annotated

The story of Hanns Scharff, the German master interrogator of the Luftwaffe who questioned captured American fighter pilots of the USAAF Eighth and Ninth Air Forces in World War II.  German Intelligence Officer Hanns Scharff gained the reputation as the man who could magically get all the answers he needed from the prisoners of war in World War 2. In most cases, the POWs being interrogated never realized that their words, small talk or otherwise, were important pieces of the mosaic Hanns Scharff was constructing for the benefit of Germany’s war effort. In the words of one former POW, "What did Scharff get from me? Nothing, yet there is no doubt he got something. If you talked about the weather or anything else, he no doubt got some information or confirmation from it. His technique was psychic, not physical." Another POW commented, "Hanns Scharff could probably get a confession of infidelity from a Nun!" To this day, ex-POWs fret and worry over what they said or even might have implied during their interrogations, and over what use Scharff may have made of their slip-ups. This book delves into the question: What was this magic spell or formula used by Scharff which made prisoners drop their guard and converse with him even though they are conditioned to remain silent? Hanns Scharff’s methods broke down barriers so effectively that the USAF invited him to speak about his methods to military audiences in the United States after World War II.