The author traces the complete history of this SS armored division whose core was originally formed to guard concentration camps. It fought in France in 1940 and then almost exclusively on the Eastern Front from 1941 to 1945. It participated in the most fierce East Front battles such as Kharkov, Kursk, Warsaw and Vienna, to name a few. It surrendered in May 1945 to the Americans who immediately delivered them to the Soviets. The division's history has been punctuated by atrocities, the best know of which is the massacre of British prisoners in May 1940 but other bloody crimes are also recounted in detail in this book.

Using eye-witness testamonies the author has reconstructed the exact route of the division in France. There are also first-hand veterans accounts of combat on the Eastern Front. Finally, to complement this history, there are very detailed organizational charts of the division including all heads of regiments, battalions and companies and executives General Staff through the battalion level and an exhaustive list of all officers of the division who served in concentration camps.

Charles Trang, is a 45 year old pharmacist who has been fascinated since childhood by the history of the Second World War. In 2000, he published his first book with Editions Heimdal which was devoted to the SS cavalry division "Florian Geyer" and he has contributes regularly to Heimdale's "39/45 Magazine." Although not a historian by profession, he still analyzes the different subjects in great detail using original documents from archives in Germany (Berlin, Freiburg and Koblenz), American (Washington), France (SHAT and IHTP) and Czech (HAV of Prague).

Hard cover, 8.5" x 11", French/English text, 400 pages, 1100 photos and documents!!!