Nafziger and the Waffen SS

[jacobs_ladder2]

Hello

Would anybody out there have picked up George Nafziger's organizational study of the Waffen-SS while it was still in print? There is a copy of it for sale on amazon for a little over a hundred dollars (vastly inflated price) and I am debating the intelligence of the purchase.

If anybody has any idea where I can get the same kind of information concerning SS formations near the beginning of Barbarossa, I would love to hear about it.

Leo Niehorster is preparing to publish another of his books, but that might not be for a few months.

Any suggestions?

Cheers

Paul

[Dandelion]

The works of Georg Tessin is vastly superior to Nafziger, but not cheaper. Since you'll need all 15 bands in his series, covering about a metre shelfspace. Also out of print, prices are bonecrushing. I cried for days after paying the bill. That was a trip to the Carribean.

I am myself looking forward to Niehorster, a few months passes so quickly these days anyway.

And really, you'll find anything that you'll find in Nafziger on the internet anyway. it's not a lot more than that, and certainly no more accurate. So my personal advice is to save the money, accumulate, and if you go from very interested to blind fanatic, buy Tessin.

Yours

Dandelion

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

The works of Georg Tessin is vastly superior to Nafziger, but not cheaper. Since you'll need all 15 bands in his series, covering about a metre shelfspace. Also out of print, prices are bonecrushing. I cried for days after paying the bill. That was a trip to the Carribean.

I am myself looking forward to Niehorster, a few months passes so quickly these days anyway.

And really, you'll find anything that you'll find in Nafziger on the internet anyway. it's not a lot more than that, and certainly no more accurate. So my personal advice is to save the money, accumulate, and if you go from very interested to blind fanatic, buy Tessin.

Yours

Dandelion

What kind of prices are we talking about here? Also, I am really only in need of the data from 1941 so what should I look for? Isn't Tessin in German?

Cheers

Paul

[Berlichtingen]

Originally posted by jacobs_ladder2:

Would anybody out there have picked up George Nafziger's organizational study of the Waffen-SS while it was still in print? There is a copy of it for sale on amazon for a little over a hundred dollars (vastly inflated price) and I am debating the intelligence of the purchase.

I own it, and it isn't worth more than about $10. Nafziger's stuff isn't all that good and almost completely unless you have other sources to check against

[Berlichtingen]

Originally posted by jacobs_ladder2:

Also, I am really only in need of the data from 1941 so what should I look for?

Pick up Niehorster's two volumns on 1941 then

Niehorster

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by Berlichtingen:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by jacobs_ladder2:

Also, I am really only in need of the data from 1941 so what should I look for?

Pick up Niehorster's two volumns on 1941 then

Niehorster </font>

[Panzer76]

Originally posted by Berlichtingen:

I own it, and it isn't worth more than about $10. Nafziger's stuff isn't all that good and almost completely unless you have other sources to check against

Are you saying BFC are selling worthless books?

[DesertFox]

Originally posted by jacobs_ladder2:

Hello

Would anybody out there have picked up George Nafziger's organizational study of the Waffen-SS while it was still in print? There is a copy of it for sale on amazon for a little over a hundred dollars (vastly inflated price) and I am debating the intelligence of the purchase.

If anybody has any idea where I can get the same kind of information concerning SS formations near the beginning of Barbarossa, I would love to hear about it.

Leo Niehorster is preparing to publish another of his books, but that might not be for a few months.

Any suggestions?

Cheers

Paul

Don´t waste your money on Nafzinger. His books are riddled with numerous errors. Tessin is the only source I would trust on this matter.

cheers

[jacobs_ladder2]

Wow. A resounding defeat for the Nafziger camp. That's around $50 I will now put to better use. Thanks guys.

Any word on where Tessin can be purchased? I have checked with a few places and come up with nothing.

Cheers

Paul

[jacobs_ladder2]

BTW, has anyone ever ordered from the Bundesarchive? That's my next stop.

Paul

[Berlichtingen]

Originally posted by Panzer76:

Are you saying BFC are selling worthless books?

Uh... basically. In many cases, Nafziger is the only easy to find source for orders of battle. I have several of his books and individual orders of battle. All of them that I have been able to check against other sources have glaring errors.

[Dandelion]

Originally posted by jacobs_ladder2:

What kind of prices are we talking about here? Also, I am really only in need of the data from 1941 so what should I look for? Isn't Tessin in German?

Cheers

Paul [/QB]

Yes German, though I don't imagine there is a lot of linguistic challenge since he is so extremely brief. It's basically data.

(Most of) Tessins works are numeric. The SS divisions never reached very high numbers so yoiu'll get very far indeed just by owning his first three volumes. Of course, it's not easy to find single volumes like that. And Tessins works also include a lot of other type of data, apart from the pure unit data.

Prices, well, there is a newprint which last time I looked was at some 1300 USD or so? I have collected my own series peu-en-peu and I think the tag ended at around 700 USD, but of course I have no reprints but old volumes falling apart on me.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[Dandelion]

Originally posted by jacobs_ladder2:

Any word on where Tessin can be purchased? I have checked with a few places and come up with nothing.

Cheers

Paul

Try German Amazon (don't worry, they speak English). They don't have any of their own I'd think but they...er...whatsitcalledinEnglish - they help other people and companies sell products via Amazon, for a fee. You can find stuff that way. The reprint is Munin Verlag, you can always write them directly.

Cheerio

Dandelion

[Dandelion]

Originally posted by Berlichtingen:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Panzer76:

Are you saying BFC are selling worthless books?

Uh... basically. In many cases, Nafziger is the only easy to find source for orders of battle. I have several of his books and individual orders of battle. All of them that I have been able to check against other sources have glaring errors. </font>

[Dandelion]

Originally posted by jacobs_ladder2:

BTW, has anyone ever ordered from the Bundesarchive? That's my next stop.

Paul

Yup, frequently, Freiburg is any researchers base of operations you know.

There is a form to fill, with the documents (usually pages in microfilms) that you want. I hope you are being literal about it being your next stop because your initial dilemma - seeing as you're one of them people relocated to the New World - is that you have to go there and look at the microrilms to know what you want.

There is another form to fill when you order time and chair there, and if it is crowded you'll be wise to include a letter of introduction explaining the urgency and importance of your research, or you might face some waiting.

They don't do the research for you, they just reproduce whatever specific document you order. But you might be interested in documents you already have ID on (from footnotes or such), which nullifies the problem entirely.

By the way do you read German? The documents are all in German you know.

Freiburg then sends it all to a company in Koblenz (Selke), with which you will have all further contact, payments etc. Good company, good speed, the outsourcing was an improvement in this case. Until recently they reproduced these orders at Lichterfelde, a name no doubt ringing a bell with a person interested in the Waffen SS.

You're the second Canadian here not mentioning the USNA. I am now suspecting a boycot or some kind of suppressed hostility. You know ze Amerikaner stole all of our archives and only gave it back to us after having copied it - all of the present BA/MA and some of the Berlin files - after WWII. I think they took some eight to ten years completing this act of piracy too, so I'd be amazed if there was a document in Freiburg that has not the very same ID in Washington DC - they copied the archive structure as well you see. Except maybe for a few chapters early war documents that ze Sowjets stole instead.

If language is a problem - do have a go at the many reports that the US Army forced several of our officers to write for them after the war. Basically AARs or Special Studies that the Americans wanted to benefit from. All of those are in English, or have a quality translation, and not all of them have superior Germanspeaking counterparts. These are also found in the USNA.

Several posters here are USNA veterans. Try hollering for Harry Yeide, he's been there a lot recently

Hope that helps and let me know if it doesn't and we'll take it from there.

Canadelion

[jacobs_ladder2]

Originally posted by Dandelion:

You're the second Canadian here not mentioning the USNA. I am now suspecting a boycot or some kind of suppressed hostility.

Dandelion, I truly appreciate the information. Rest assured I will put it good use.

And speaking of the USNA, no boycott. The people I talked to (Leo Niehorster, Cristopher Awender, David Glantz, etc.) all pointed me to people who pointed me to the archives in Germany. No one has mentioned an American source outside of Nafziger (who, ironically, also reccommended the Bundesarchive).

In all fairness, though, I have yet to be overly impressed by ANY of the more "accessible" sources I have purchased, new or old world. Hence my efforts to go straight to original documents. Why rely on others' interpretations?

BTW, German is fairly straightforward. Remember where the word Anglosaxon comes from. Now the real problem is becoming the excellent new Russian sources that are only published in the cyrillic alphabet. These are a huge pain in the you know what to, one, find, and two, understand. After trying to wrap my head around Russian grammar, German is a pleasure.

BTW, how is Panzertruppen by Jentz? BFC sells it and it seems to be highly reccommended by Stone & Stone. Any reviews?

Cheers

Paul