Feldgrau Author: Stephan Hamilton

[Stephan H.]

Frederick - Just noticed the post . . .far too busy these days working on the next Volume in the Oder Front series to check as much as I'd like. I hope your talks went well . . . mine was well attended. Oder Front Volume I has hit the streets in the UK, and anyone at Historicon was able to purchase an advanced copy, otherwise the book doesn’t start shipping to the US for another 1-2 weeks.

Cheers

[Richard Hargreaves]

Historicon

Sounds like a fair for selling fake military memorabilia.

Congrats on the new book. I was privileged to see one of the early pdf proofs. It really is rather impressive.

[rommel170]

Dear Stephan Hamilton,
I am very excited as my order was on my way.
But I want to know if the following annex would be in this book:
APPENDIX A: Organization of Heeresgruppe Weichsel
APPENDIX B: Gotthard Heinrici
APPENDIX C: Hasso-Eccard Freiherr (Baron) von Manteuffel
APPENDIX D: Theodore Busse
APPENDIX E: Walther Wenck
APPENDIX F: Hans Georg Eismann
APPENDIX G: MS # R-69 The End of Heeresgruppe Weichsel and 12.Armee 27 April – 7 May 1945
APPENDIX H: MS # B-606 The Last Rally: Battles Fought by the 12.Armee in the Heart of Germany, between the West and the East (13 April-7 May 1945)
APPENDIX I: Soviet Soldier and Equipment Totals for the Berlin Strategic Offensive Operation
APPENDIX J: H.Gr. Weichsel Replacements and Losses through 15 March 45
APPENDIX K: 9.Armee Infantry Fighting Strength, 17 March 1945
APPENDIX L: Operational Availability of Men and Equipment for SS-Freiw.Pz.Gren.Div. “Nordland,” SS-Freiw.Pz.Gren.Div. “Nederland,” 5.Jäger-Division, and 3.Marine-Division, 25 March 1945
APPENDIX M: 9.Armee Infantry Fighting Strength, 10 April 1945
APPENDIX N: H.Gr. Weichsel Panzer and Sturmgeschütze on 13 April 1945
APPENDIX O: Organization of III. (Germ.) SS-Pz.Korps, 23 April 1945
APPENDIX P: Heeresgruppe Weichsel Order of Battle, 25 April 1945
APPENDIX Q: Heeresgruppe Weichsel Heavy Weapons and Other Notes
APPENDIX R: German Order of Battle along the Oderfront, March-May 1945
Many thanks for your reply !
regards

[Stephan H.]

But I want to know if the following annex would be in this book:

Yes, they are all there.

In addition, we included a Person Index, and a Unit Index that goes down to the Abteilungen/Bataillone/Brigade level for German/Soviet formations.

Cheers

[Frederick L Clemens]

Hey Stephan,

I attended your presentation. I was the person who plugged your laptop in for you about halfway through. It was a shame that the scheduling was screwed up and the previous guy stepped on your time block. His deal about the railway gun was interesting but he made his points at least 4 times each and could easily have chopped his time down to 30 minutes. I think you handled it well though. It's better not to get in a tangle with someone if you plan to come back for your next book. Did you previously do a brief on the Berlin book? If not, you should feel free to suggest it to them next year - can't hurt your sales!

You did have a good turnout for Oderfront. I think the Seelow Heights battle always makes for an exciting story!

I saw you were signing books after the presentation but I went to look at other tables first and ran into someone from a while back. When I got back to your table, Glantz had already stepped up to the plate and you were gone. The next day, after my second presentation, I went back to the publisher's table and flipped through Oderfront. I saw that you gave me a mention in the foreword and felt bad that I hadn't caught up with you on Saturday. Thanks, in any case!

My presentations went okay - Sturmstaffel 1 on Friday morning was well-attended (esp with Glantz following me!). My Battle of New Hope Church presentation was thin on attendees Sunday morning. Lesson learned - don't take a slot on Sunday morning when everybody is packing up! (It wasn't a total loss though, preparing the presentation helped me in doing a chapter for my book.)

I live in the DC area and work downtown so if you want to do a Lagebesprechung sometime let me know.

Frederick

[Frederick L Clemens]

Just got my copy of the Oder Front book a couple of days ago (wife still doesn't know it yet...he he). Left this review at Amazon:

"The author's book is an excellent example of integrating various sources and adding expert commentary while keeping all those elements clearly distinguishable. Also, he fills an important gap in the history of this battle at the operational level. Previous works cover either the top level of command (Hitler) or the lowest level (the grunt in the trenches), but leave out operational level of command where the flow of the battle was decided."

Also, would like to add that the publishers listened to us about the text layout problem in the Berlin book (overly wide single column) - this time the pages are two columns and MUCH more readable. The layout of the information and graphics is also very nice - as mentioned above, various sources are blended together without confusing you as to the source for a given statement. That's something that other authors (see David Irving) violate too often.

Keep up the great work, Stephan!

[Stephan H.]

Frederick-Thank you for the kind words! I am very pleased with the layout and we will keep it for the rest of the volumes in the series. To your other point, sourcing is key, and I have tried to source everything back to a primary or secondary source--I believe I ended up with well over 1,100 footnotes. Having researched across a wide body of popular material of the period, I have come to learn just how poorly a number of authors have sourced their work. Nothing wrong with that, unless of course you want to try to follow their bread crumbs back to locate other nuggets of relevant information. It gets frustrating to say the least

I'll also add that Volume 2 will be delayed, but for good reason. I am translating a significant amount of new archival material, most of which is previously unpublished (even in Germany)--KTBs, diary entries, etc.,. Volume 2 will also cover the period of Himmler's tenure (Jan-Mar '45), to include Operation Sonnenwende, in far more detail then I originally planned.

Enjoy Vol. I,
Cheers

P.S. Thanks again for plugging in my laptop at Historicon . . .the presentation would have ended up being a train, or should I say--Confederate Rail Gun--wreck!

[Dutto1]

Hi Stephan,

I have received your new book Oderfront 1945 back in July i have only looked through it up to now but it looks very good indeed. I am also pleased Helion have changed the text layout it is a lot easier on the eye.

I was wondering are Helion going to do a reprint of Bloody Streets,as i think there is a lot of demand for it.Looking on Amazon and Abebooks prices range from 725-1500 GBP. .I am almost tempted to sell mine at that price but i won t because its a "Untouchable" book in my collection.

Regards

Ron

[Stephan H.]

Ron – I hope you enjoy Volume I.

Regarding Bloody Streets, it will not be reprinted. I am pleasantly surprised at the continued demand for the book, but shocked at the going rate. However, much of the material and imagery in Bloody Streets will be corrected, updated and integrated with a significant amount of new research that has yielded additional first person accounts and primary documents. I plan to produce an even more detailed—perhaps multi-volume treatment—of the battle of Berlin as a capstone to my ongoing Oder Front series. This effort is still a few years out, so there isn't much else I can add at this time.

Cheers

[John P. Moore]

Stephan - It is unfortunate that a Kindle version of "Bloody Streets" is not available. That way interested readers could still obtain copies without having to pay high prices on EBay. Did you ever have any discussion with your publisher regarding the production of a Kindle version?

John

[Stephan H.]

John - Bloody Streets won't see a second life in print or digital media, especially since I plan to reissue much of that material in a more comprehensive treatment of the topic. However, I am certainly curious about what the demand is for digital versions of military history books in general. . .especially ones that include significant imagery/photos/maps.

Cheers

[Jukka Juutinen]

As far as I am corcerned, I have little, i.e. zero, interest in digital versions. I have to spend several hours a day staring at a computer screen already so if I had to add reading books on screen to that (ANY screen) , no deal. Plus since e.g. an A4-sized book allows reproduction of A3-sized images, I really wonder how handy an e-book reader with a 12" x 16" screen would be! By the way, to put things in perspective, e.g. Bloody Street's strict physical costs of the book were very likely well below $10. In other words, the cost difference between fully laid out e-book vs. printed book is very small.

[rommel170]

Dear Stephan,
When do your oder front vol.2 be published? Could it be available in this year?
regards

[Stephan H.]

The book is scheduled for a late fall 2012 release. I have delayed its release due to the vast amount of primary documents and other material I acquired, most of it unpublished, and requiring translation (over 23,000 pages of documents). The scope of the book increased dramatically and it will probably be about 30% larger than VolI. I’ll post a table of contents and updated book description in a few months on Helion's new website.

Also, don’t bother looking for Panthers to the Front! That book is cancelled. I’ve incorporated much of Bodenmüller's account in VolII of the Oderfront 1945, but left out quite a bit (60%) that can not be corroborated by historical fact. Based on a variety of sources that other researchers graciously provided me as well as some documents I uncovered in the records of OKH, I’ve been able to confirm to my satisfaction that he likely never served in Pz.Gren.Div. ‘Brandenburg’, but just Pz.Rgt. ‘Brandenburg’ that only saw action with Pz.Gren.Div. ‘Kurmark’. I discuss this in detail in VolII. I will produce a history of Pz.Gren.Div. ‘Brandenburg’ based on the hundreds of pages of KTB (from the division and H.Gr. Mitte) I have, and you can expect that book out in the spring of next year as the translation work will be done this summer. Again more detail will be presented on the publisher's website in the fall.

Cheers

[Dutto1]

Hi Stephan,

Is there anymore news on on when volume 2 of your Oderfront book will be released ?


Regards,

Ron