Stackpole Publishing upcoming books

[panzermahn]

Hello folks

I just look at Amazon and it seems that Stackpole is going to republish these three books:

1. For Europe: French volunteers of the Waffen SS by Robert Forbes

2. For the Homeland by Rudolf Pencz

3. In the Fire of the Eastern Front: The Experiences of a Dutch Waffen-SS Volunteer, 1941-45 by Hendrik C. Verton

Any thoughts of this? Generally I think Stackpole books are aimed for low cost market so their editing quality isn't as good as the previous one but I think a lot of readers are grateful for Stackpole since it allows the text and material from those expensive upper range cost books to be available

Panzermahn

[Marc Rikmenspoel]

I had lunch with Chris Evans when I was in New York a couple of weeks ago. He's the Editor of the Stackpole Military History line. He told me that there's a very big American market for these $20 (less on Amazon) books full of detailed information. They put them into the chain stores and on Amazon, and sell plenty of copies. Of course they sell to other markets too.

Most people who buy these books, according to Evans, aren't really even aware of the high priced, hardcover originals. They just visit their local Barnes & Noble or poke around on Amazon, and see an interesting title at a good price. And he emphasized that the Stackpole line covers many aspects of WW2, not just the German side. But there's enough customer interest in the German-themed books to keep publishing plenty of those, which is good for us here too.

[phylo_roadking]

Mark, how do they work this - are they paying to republish good stuff....or picking up on suff that has expired its 25-year copyright?

There's a LOT of the latter in the UK at the minute, with a LOT of 1940s and 1950s books coming out in cheap folios for the bargain bucket shops. makes it far easier for people to get hold of a lot of good "period" memoirs etc.

[michael kenny]

Stackpole are republishing a lot of Pen and Sword Titles that are only a few years old.

[Reb]

Stackpole is where I got panzerMeyer's "Grenadier" and Hubert Meyer's 12 SS Pz Div. I'm well aware of many of their titles from Fedorowiz (sp) and from bibliographies (yeah I read 'em - I'm boring).

Two recent Canadian / Normandy books "Tank Tactics" and "Hold Nothing Back" are good enough that I'd recommend them to anyone. (both cover Totalize in detail - the latter is all about Totalize) Particularly the "Hold Nothing Back," if you like revisionist history - and you know you do!

All together I own twelve or fifteen of these books and most have been great. Panzer Legions was useful but descriptions of 21 Pz and Pz Lehr were badly flawed as if quoted from early postwar books - and just plain wrong in places. Made the other stuff suspect. But did at least have an oob for all the pz divs (Heer). Author was Sam Meachum I think, who has written a number ofthem - don't care for his usually but others might.

They've got a two or three volume order of battle (Whermact) that I've not gotten yet - can anyone recommend it?

cheers
Reb

[panzermahn]

First things first, I must thank Stackpole Publishing for their cheaper editions where I got my Kurowski's Brandenburgers: Global Mission as well as Kurt Meyer's Grenadiers as I knew I couldn't not afford to buy the more expensive versions of these books such as Schiffer's, Helion's and Fedorowicz (since I was a student at that time and cash is pretty tight)

But apart from that, I do wished that Stackpole editors would at least made the typset looks more professional instead of just putting the text in there, get the covers, bind it and then you get a book. I don't mind the cheaper paper quality or the lower quality of the photographs (as I am looking at the text rather than the external aesthetics) but the typesetting of Stackpole edition books could sometimes be an eye sore when reading. There are unequal spacing between paragraphs or you would have a paragraph out of nowhere.

Those who had Michael Wittmann and the Tiger Commanders of Leibstandarte Stackpole edition would know what I meant. However apart from these, I think Stackpole has done a good service by reprinting books at a cheaper costs which helps those folks out there who doesn't want to spend so much cash on quality deluxed books but wanted to read good materials.

May I suggest Stackpole Publishing to do translations of older German books or those out of print books (such as Alexander Dallin's German Rule in Russia or Erich Kern's Vebrechen an Deutschen Volk, General von Pannwitz und seine Kosaken). That case many researchers or students of WW2 history would have access to the out of print or rare books

[Nicolai]

I already have For Europe (hardcover reprint), but I'll definitely be picking up In the Fire of the Eastern Front when it is released next year. I enjoy their reprints of older stuff, but I wish they'd focus more on the really obscure stuff that's nearly impossible to find cheaply (Goodbye Transylvania, Moscow Tram Stop, Doctor at Stalingrad, etc).

So far I have the following Stackpole books: 12th SS vol. 1 & 2, Armor Battles of the Waffen SS, Grenadiers, Infantry Aces (my single Kurowski book), Penalty Strike, Red Road from Stalingrad, Tigers in the Mud and Twilight of the Gods.

[Marc Rikmenspoel]

Evans chooses titles based on what he considers a good book, and what is likely to sell to an audience that is mostly "WW2 Buffs" rather than hardcore, dedicated historians. The books are not old, out of print cheap titles, but rather, ones that wouldn't normally find their way into American chain stores (Borders and Barnes & Noble) in their original editions, along with a few for which Stackpole is the first publisher (Evans cited Zaloga's Armored Thunderbolt as an example).

Stackpole even has an edition out of The Germans in Normandy, but I'm suspicious. The author hangs out on some revisionist site called "Feldgrau" amid dodgy characters such as "Internet Guru" Marc Rikmenspoel Something about The Myth of the Western Front

[Marc Rikmenspoel]

For Nicolai, Tom at the Aberdeen Bookstore reprinted Doctor at Stalingrad a few years ago. As far as I know, he still has it in stock, so I'd check with him. He lists it on his site for $35 for his hardcover facsimile edition.

[Reb]

Gentlemen

I have "Armor battles of the WSS" which is quite good but has one glaring flaw to my taste - the attributions aren't documented well at all. I've read all or part of many of them including as far back as in McKee's "Caen: Anvil of Victory" with the Heinz Trautman quotes; but all in all Armor Battles doesn't tell me enough about the authors of the various narratives.

On the plus side there is plenty of (to me) erstwhile unknown details of actions by units of interest such as Viking and 502 SS Heavy Pz - in the latter case a downright nightmarish journey into the Halbe pocket.

cheers
Reb

[Nicolai]

For Nicolai, Tom at the Aberdeen Bookstore reprinted Doctor at Stalingrad a few years ago. As far as I know, he still has it in stock, so I'd check with him. He lists it on his site for $35 for his hardcover facsimile edition.

I ended up picking up a copy of the Aberdeen reprint (2001) at Amazon.com for $50 after writing that post, guess I should have checked his site first.

Still looking for the other two, though.

[bil]

Nicolai-do you have a link to the site selling 'Doctor at Stalingrad'? My original one fell apart years ago! ---bil

[Nicolai]

It seems to be available at Aberdeen Bookstore's webshop (it is book number 81 on this page: http://www.aberdeenbookstore.com/german ... raphys.htm) for $35. The website's layout is rather antiquated, so you have to place the order manually via an order form or email, but I suppose that it ought to work just fine.

Personally, I got it used from Amazon Marketplace, right now there's a copy going for $40, which is $10 less than what I bought it for. (The seller doesn't appear to ship internationally, but he'll probably not have any trouble doing so if you ask him about it)

[Richard Hargreaves]

3. In the Fire of the Eastern Front: The Experiences of a Dutch Waffen-SS Volunteer, 1941-45 by Hendrik C. Verton

Verton's quite good - and a very good source for Festung Breslau (especially if you read alongside Georg Haas' two-volume fictional memoir). He wrote the first draft shortly after the war; comparing that with the finished English translation, you can see that he "sexed up" (to use a notorious English phrase!) the published version; it's much more literary.

The down side is that he occasionally strays into areas far beyond his very limited sphere of responsibility (e.g. the Battle of Britain) and it's pretty clear that he remained a supporter of far-right ideals to the end of his life.

[panzermahn]

I had lunch with Chris Evans when I was in New York a couple of weeks ago. He's the Editor of the Stackpole Military History line. He told me that there's a very big American market for these $20 (less on Amazon) books full of detailed information. They put them into the chain stores and on Amazon, and sell plenty of copies. Of course they sell to other markets too.

Most people who buy these books, according to Evans, aren't really even aware of the high priced, hardcover originals. They just visit their local Barnes & Noble or poke around on Amazon, and see an interesting title at a good price. And he emphasized that the Stackpole line covers many aspects of WW2, not just the German side. But there's enough customer interest in the German-themed books to keep publishing plenty of those, which is good for us here too.

Hi Marc,

Any chance of asking Stackpole Books republish the Oxford's Germany and the Second World War series? Perhaps Stackpole could offer us poor readers some affordability of these series :)

Panzermahn