Any good Fallschirmjäger histories in English?

[richard hedrick]

Any good histories for the divisions that fought in the west? Most importantly the 3rd and 5th.

I could also make due with a decent compendium of all the Fallschirmjäger divisions.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Richard

[panzermahn]

I think Eric Queen's The Red Shines the Sun is one of the most authoritative books on Fallschirmjaeger. Osprey Series on Fallschirmjaeger is a good start too.

Munin-Verlag's Fallschirmjaeger Im Bild is a must for those who enjoy Fallschirmjaeger photos.

However, I am not sure if much has been covered about Fallschirmjaeger during the Endkampf. I would love to see a book on the final battles of Fallschirmjaeger

[laurence strong]

Stroming eagles by james Lucas. Covers a little of everything including an over view of the war years.

[Richard Hargreaves]

There's a few from the Schiffer stable from memory, but I've not read them. I flicked through German Paratroops in Scandinavia a couple of months ago and thought it looked very good, but the price in the UK (nearly £40 for an ordinary-sized volume under 200 pages) was just too steep unfortunately.

Personally, you can't got far wrong with the official histories by Galla and Stimpel (which I think runs to four volumes), but they're all in German. Of the two authors, I much prefer Stimpel as his books have a bit of the human nature to them.

I think pretty much everything on the FSJ in the Endkampf is in German, e.g. Stimpel's Widersinn 1945 .

[Jan-Hendrik]

I think pretty much everything on the FSJ in the Endkampf is in German, e.g. Stimpel's Widersinn 1945

Well, I don't think Widersinn is sooo well At least, if you compare it with the Volume by Wagner on 9.FjDiv. :)

Happy enough I was lucky to get some reports of forme LW-Soldiers on the battle in the Area of Berlin from a private Archive, never published



Jan-Hendrik

[Richard Hargreaves]

Ah, I've not read Widersinn - it just sits on my bookshelf. I bought it because I liked Stimpel's other FSJ books. Sorry to hear that it is Widersinn...

Wagner's book sounds interesting. Another one to add to my ever-growing Wunschzettel...

[Jan-Hendrik]

I felt so free to send you some example pages from the Wagner I once scanned for someone at AHF



Jan-Hendrik

[Richard Hargreaves]

Danke, wie immer!

[richard hedrick]

Guys,

Thanks for the feedback; I will take a look at the suggestions.

I am less concerned of the way of the Fallschirmjäger than I am about unit histories (basically a chronology of locations and actions) and was hoping to find something similar to Muñozs’ Gorings Grenadiers. I thought given the popularity of the topic this would have been easy to accomplish but have found this not to be the case.

Thanks again,
Richard

[panzermahn]

Anyone knew any good histories on just Heer Fallschirmjaeger units (including Brandenburger fallschirmjaegers?)..I know Eric Queen's did talked about Heer Fallschirmjaegers but it seems that most English language literature of German fallschirmjaegers emphasized mostly those from Luftwaffe units

I recalled that there are some discussions in a couple of militaria forums mentioned about Luftwaffe Fallschirmjaegers wearing Army smock pattern and were awarded Heer pattern Fallschirmjaeger badge

[Marc Rikmenspoel]

A good introductory book in English is Green Devils! - German Paratroopers 1939-1945, by Jean-Yves Nasse. It is published by Histoire & Collections, and is well translated from the original French. The book is full of rare photos and personal accounts while covering every campaign in which FJ participated.

The book was released in 1997, so I'm unsure of its current availability and price, but it is the one title I'd most recommend for readers in English.

[richard hedrick]

thanks Marc, i will look it up.

Richard