The first volume of the tactical and operational history of World War II Germany’s fourth SS-Panzerkorps division and its leader. During World War II, the armed or Waffen-SS branch of the Third Reich’s dreaded security service expanded from two divisions in 1940 to 38 divisions by the end of the war, eventually growing to a force of over 900,000 men until Germany’s defeat in May, 1945. The histories of the first three SS corps are well known—the actions of I, II, and III (Germanic) SS-Panzerkorps have been thoroughly documented and publicized. Overlooked in this pantheon is another SS corps that never fought in the west or in Berlin but one that participated in many of the key battles fought on the Eastern Front during the last year of the war: the IV SS-Panzerkorps. Activated during the initial stages of the defense of Warsaw in late July, 1944, the corps—consisting of the 3. and 5. SS-Panzer Divisions (Totenkopf and Wiking, respectively)—was born in battle and spent the last ten months of the war in combat, figuring prominently in the battles of Warsaw, the attempted Relief of Budapest, Operation Spring Awakening, the defense of Vienna, and the withdrawal into Austria where it finally surrendered to U.S. forces in May, 1945. Herbert Otto Gille’s IV SS-Panzerkorps was renowned for its tenacity, high morale, and, above all, its lethality. Often embroiled in heated disputes with its immediate Wehrmacht higher headquarters over his seemingly cavalier conduct of operations, Gille’s corps remained to the bitter end one of the Third Reich’s most reliable and formidable field formations.

“An excellent work that adds to the history of the Normandy Campaign. It also gives the armchair historian points to ponder.” —A Wargamers Needful Things South of the Norman city of Caen, the twin features of the Verrières and Bourguebus ridges were key stepping stones for the British Second Army in late July 1944—taking them was crucial if it was to be successful in its attempt to break out of the Normandy bridgehead. To capture this vital ground, Allied forces would have to defeat arguably the strongest German armored formation in Normandy: the I. SS-Panzerkorps “Leibstandarte.” The resulting battles of late July and early August 1944 saw powerful German defensive counterattacks south of Caen inflict tremendous casualties, regain lost ground, and at times defeat Anglo-Canadian operations in detail. Viewed by the German leadership as militarily critical, the majority of its armored assets were deployed to dominate this excellent tank country east of the Orne river. These defeats and the experience of meeting an enemy with near-equal resources exposed a flawed Anglo-Canadian offensive tactical doctrine that was overly dependent on the supremacy of its artillery forces. Furthermore, weaknesses in Allied tank technology inhibited their armored forces from fighting a decisive armored battle, forcing Anglo-Canadian infantry and artillery forces to further rely on First World War “Bite and Hold” tactics, massively supported by artillery. Confronted with the full force of the Panzerwaffe, Anglo-Canadian doctrine at times floundered. In response, the Royal Artillery and Royal Canadian Artillery units pummeled the German tankers and grenadiers, but despite their best efforts, ground could not be captured by concentrated artillery fire alone. This is a detailed account of the success of I. SS-Panzerkorps’ defensive operations, aimed at holding the Vèrrieres-Bourgebus ridges in late July 1944.

An operational history of the notorious Dirlewanger Brigade, culminating in its destruction in Budapest at the hands of the Red Army. One of the most notorious yet least understood body of troops that fought for the Third Reich during World War II was the infamous Sondereinheit Dirlewanger, or the “Dirlewanger Special Unit.” Formed initially as a company-sized formation in June 1940 from convicted poachers, it served under the command of SS-Obersturmführer Oskar Dirlewanger, one of the most infamous criminals in military history. First used to guard the Jewish ghetto in Lublin and support security operations carried out in occupied Poland by SS and Police forces, the unit was soon transferred to Belarus to combat the increasingly active Soviet partisan movement. After assisting in putting down the Warsaw Uprising during August–September 1944, by November of that year it had been enlarged and retitled as the 2. SS-Sturmbrigade Dirlewanger. One month later, it fought one of its most controversial actions near the town of Ipolysag, Hungary, now known by its Slovak name of Šahy, between 13 and 18 December 1944. As a result of its overly hasty and haphazard deployment, lack of heavy armament, and a confusing chain of command, it was virtually destroyed by two Soviet mechanized corps. Consequently, the Wehrmacht leadership blamed Dirlewanger and the performance of his troops for the encirclement of the Hungarian capital of Budapest during late December 1944 that led to the annihilation of its garrison two months later. The brigade’s defeat at Ipolysag also led to its compulsory removal from the front lines by General der Panzertruppe Hermann Balck and its eventual shipment to a rest area where it would be completely rebuilt, so thorough was its destruction. Despite its lackluster performance, the brigade was rebuilt once again and sent to East Prussia in February 1945, but never recovered from the thrashing it received at the hands of the 6th Guards Army in December.

A collection of twenty-three articles, led by "Deciphering the Text Foundations of Traveller" (about the role-playing game from GDW) and "Languages of the Dying Sun" (about science fantasy from Jack Vance, Gene Wolfe, and Damien Broderick).

A millennium from now, global warming has gone into retreat as the Sun's dynamics convulse. The great ice returns, driving humankind back to its primitive origins. Here, bands of brutal warriors wage war in the bitter cold. Xaraf Firebridge, powerful young son of a barbarian chieftain, enrages his sire by adopting the pacifistic doctrine of an outland mystic, Darkbloom. Before he can break his vow and slay his father, he is drawn into a temporal wormline and flung a further million years into the Earth of the Failing Sun. Clever and determined, Xaraf wanders landscapes haunted by prospects of doom and overseen by a trio of godlike Powers. Since childhood he has dreamed of a beautiful young woman. His fate, he sees, is to rescue her from captivity--and perhaps save the whole world, now moved into the outer solar system and lit by a string of tiny orbiting suns. He has yet to meet his true foe, the dragon whose history stands opposed to humankind's. But which will prove to be this world's mythic Galahad?

The concluding volume of the battle history of IV. SS-Panzerkorps during World War II.

Foremost among Japanese literary classics and one of the world's earliest novels, the Tale of Genji was written around the year A.D. 1000 by Murasaki Shikibu, a woman from a declining aristocratic family. For sophisticaion and insight, Western prose fiction was to wait centuries to rival her work. Norma Field explore the shifting configurations of the Tale, showing how the hero Genji is made and unmade by a series of heroines. Professor Field draws on the riches of both Japanesse and Western scholarship, as well as on her own sensitive reading of the Tale. Included are discussions of the social, psychological, and political dimensions of the aesthetics of this novel, with emphasis on the crucial relationship of erotic and political concerns to prose fiction. Norma Field is Assistant Professor of Far Eastern Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. Originally published in 1987. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.