THE REICH'S COMMANDOS Vol. 1: The Reign of the "Brandenburgers"

The famous "Brandenburgers", selected for their perfect command of foreign languages and intensively trained to infiltrate enemy lines dressed in enemy uniform and shed it at the moment of going into action, unquestionably contributed to the success of the Blitzkrieg offensives from 1939 to 1942.

Indispensable during the crossing of the Meuse and the capture of the strategic crossroads of Saint-Vith on 10 May 1940, in the front line during the preparations for the invasion of Great Britain and that of Gibraltar, posing as a football team to protect Romanian oil wells from British sabotage, outflanking ANZAC defences on Mount Olympus and at Thermopylae, supporting Baltic and Chechen guerrillas during the offensives against the Soviet Union, conducting reconnaissances beyond the Sahara and commando raids in Tunisia — the "Brandenburgers" were everywhere. They were present at every victory of the Wehrmacht.

Victims of their own success, the companies of the "Brandenburg" regiment gradually fell under the sway of the regular combat units to which they were attached, whose commanders took advantage of their distance from the front to take control of the commandos and use them as elite infantry. Wishing to put an end to this drift, the Wehrmacht high command decided to take the "Brandenburgers" directly under its control and to exploit their deep knowledge of guerrilla warfare, deploying them in anti-partisan operations. The "Brandenburgers" were thenceforth supplanted by other special forces: those of the Waffen-SS, led by a certain Otto Skorzeny…

It is up to this pivotal moment in mid-1943 that this first volume devoted to the Wehrmacht commandos lifts the veil, through a compelling text illustrated with numerous previously unpublished photographs and half a dozen commando silhouettes. A book that is quite simply indispensable!