A few days ago I picked a copy of Charles Messenger's Hitler's gladiator The life and wars of panzer army commander Sepp Dietrich. A bargain, only €2,50. After reading the first 100 pages I still wonder why this book was published. Messenger wrote 'Liebstandarte', though it might be a typo, just like 'Kietel' instead of 'Keitel'. I can life with these mistakes, it just happens. But the first chapter, about WWI, got a remark about Dietrich's experiences on the Western Front. After pages of fightings of the German army in France and Belgium Messenger states 'We don't know where Dietrich was or anything about his role in these fightings'.
Also the massacre of British POW's in Belgium in 1940: dealt with it in one or two alinea's, but nothing about 'unser Sepp' in it. Nothing about the why. Why were these men killed? Because the Leibstandarte was triggerhappy? Did Dietrich gave orders to kill these POWs? Almost all of the fighting on the Western Front is described. Nothing about the fighting for the Grebbeberg in Holland in 1940 and the mistakes that where made by the LSAH or the losses during these fights. Again Allied (here: Dutch) soldiers were killed and even used as a human shield. Nothing about it. Almost a selective history, with a general view of a part of the fightings. But a few histories missing. Messenger tells a lot about the German fighting in general, but Dietrich is almost reduced as a bypasser, as a man who was nominal commander. No orders of him, nor his role in the units he led.
In my point of view Messenger did dig up a few nice details, but misses a few big things. He states Dietrich never ever was a butcher (nice detail!) and he was appointed as a soldiersleader during the communistuprising in 1918-1919. But like Maser who came up with a lot of details about Hitler during the same period, Messenger didn't find a single thing or detail about Dietrich as a communist. A story which I would like to see confirmed or laid down. How could Maser find things of a 'corporal' and Messenger didn'tfind anything about a sergeant? Why do I have to read anything about the Reichswehr, the uprisings across Gernany, but nothing (!!!) about Dietrich? All I did read was Dietrich joined the police and was fighting near Annaberg in a Freikorps.
Overall, this book gets 4 of 5 stars at Amazon, but in my opion (as a historian and writer), the research is selective and small, the writing is bad and details are mentioned about interesting things of the Freikorps for example. But I want to read about Sepp Dietrich, about his life and actions. Messenger could not dig these up?
I would say: ignore this book! Buy a good book! ANy other opinions about this book or other books we should not pick up ever?
