Brandenburger – Wartime Photographs of Wilhelm Walther
This is part of the Images of war book series and is one of my favourite types of books – one with lots of photos. one of the main elements of this book is that it looks at a little covered unit in World War two. While we have lots of books and coverage of the British and American Special Forces, apart from the Fallschirmjaeger (German Parachute regiment) very little is shared about Germany’s other special forces, or commandos, the Brandenburgers. The brandenburgers start life as part of the pre war Abwehr or military intelligence service and carried out clandestine operations.
The book is a unique insight into the regiment and its activities as it is formed of 200 photographs from Wilhelm Walters personal photo album.The books overs images from the prewar years, right up until 1944.
The photos all had captions written on the back of each image which have been translated.
The book is fascinating as it covers the taking of the Sudetenland and Czechoslovakia, then onwards into the War. The Brandenburgers seemed to have been in many of the major theatres of combat. The Balkans, Russia, Greece, Albania and Yugoslavia. The author states that these are taken from some 600 photos the family still have of their fathers service.
It would be amazing to have seen all them. There are lot of in theatre images of uniforms and dress. I can see this being a useful resource for anyone reenacting this Unit.
You can buy the book here from Pen and Sword books.
Please note I was not paid to write this review but was sent a review copy of the book. All comments are my own, and the publishers have not amended the review in any way.
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