This is a somewhat revised version of the book originally published in 2002 by The Military Book Club as “Waffen-SS: The Encyclopedia” and it is divided into the following sections:

Formations of the Waffen-SS
Structure of Waffen-SS Divisions
Germans in the Waffen-SS
Germanics in the Waffen-SS
Non-Germans and Non-Germanics in the Waffen-SS
Leading Personalities of the Waffen-SS
Weapons of the Waffen-SS
Misconceptions and Controversies about the Waffen-SS
Apart from the above sections it also includes rank tables, weapons tables with basic data on some of the weapons used and an annotated bibliography.

The “Formations of the Waffen-SS” section of the book provides brief unit histories, commanders listings, orders of battle and unit symbols for the army, corps and division sized units of the Waffen-SS as well as a list of many of the smaller units.
The brief “Structure of Waffen-SS Divisions" section provides some basic information on and diagrams of the standard organization of the different types of division-size units (panzer, mountain, infantry etc).
The early history of the Waffen-SS is covered in the “Germans in the Waffen-SS” section together with a brief overview of how it developed during the war.

The author’s interest in the “Germanic” volunteers is obvious and the section dealing with those volunteers covers 100 pages in this 286 page book. It begins with discussing the Wiking, Nordland and Nederland divisions before discussing each country in turn.
For the countries he provides some historical background and information the various right-wing organizations that help explain the form the recruitment took there, he then moves on to the units where the volunteers served, providing information on the fighting, personalities and ending with the post-war fate of the volunteers.
The section on the non-Germanic volunteers deal briefly with the more exotic nationalities that served in the Waffen-SS, such as the Azerbaijanis, Bulgarians and Indians, but also nations such as France and the Balkan states that were not regarded as Germanics by the SS, though they were more than welcome to serve in German forces.

The lives of thirteen of the better known Waffen-SS commanders, for example Hausser, Steiner, Dietrich, Kumm and Dirlewanger, are covered in a few page long biographies in the personalities section.
The section of the weapons provides some brief information some of the most common types of weapons used, from infantry weapons to armored vehicles.

The final section of the book (apart from the bibliography), “Misconceptions and Controversies” is in many ways the most interesting one in my opinion. It discusses things such as, did the Waffen-SS get better equipment than the Heer units? Did the Waffen-SS suffer unnecessarily high losses? This section also discusses the relationship between the Waffen-SS and the camp guards as well as the war crimes committed by them.
This section could easily have been expanded, both to cover the existing questions in more detail and to cover other issues as well, for example the conscription into the Waffen-SS.

The post-war fate of those who served in the Waffen-SS compared to those who served in the other branches of the German military, Germans as well as non-Germans, would also have been an interesting topic for this section.

The annotated bibliography is interesting, but would have benefited from being divided into sections such as general works, unit histories and memoirs, to make it easier to locate books for further reading on a particular aspect of the Waffen-SS.

An index listing the personalities and units would make the book even more useful as would more information on the units that were made up of Germans and not foreign volunteers, but this is in my opinion probably the best one-volume book on the Waffen-SS, especially for those looking for a good impartial and well-researched introduction as well as reference on the topic, in particular the brief unit histories and the information on the different nationalities serving in the Waffen-SS will be of great use.

(Reviewed by Marcus Wendel)
Thanks to the publisher for the review copy.