From the Realm of a Dying Sun, Volume 1

IV. SS-Panzerkorps and the Battles for Warsaw, July - November 1944

De: Douglas E. Nash Sr.

Narrado por: David de Vries

The histories of the first three SS corps are well known - the actions of I, II, and III (Germanic) SS-Panzerkorps and their subordinate divisions, including the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler, Das Reich, Hitlerjugend, Hohenstaufen, Frundsberg, and Nordland divisions, 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 both the 3. and 5. SS-Panzer Divisions (Totenkopf and Wiking, respectively) was born in battle and spent the last 10 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 US forces in May 1945.

Herbert Otto Gille's IV SS-Panzerkorps was renowned for its tenacity, high morale and, above all, its lethality, whether conducting a hard-hitting counterattack or a stubborn defense in situations where its divisions were hopelessly outnumbered.

©2019 Douglas E. Nash, Sr. (P)2020 Tantor

Outstanding history and narration.

I have all of Nash’s books and was pleased to see one appear on Audible. Definitely looking forward to Volume II.

Excellent top to bottom

Very well researched and presented. Naration was steady and avoided trying to interject a sense of drama.

Outstanding

If you are a fan of military minutiae, then this title is for you. Incredibly well researched and narrated so well by David de Vries, From the Realm of the Dying Sun takes you down deep into the 4th SS Panzerkorps. I can't recommend this herculean labor of love enough. I'm diving into volume 2 right now.

Unbelievably Visceral

This is a very technical book. I admit I struggled to get through parts of it because it’s very dense and requires extreme concentration. And it doesn’t read like a win/loss book but with more focus on the technical aspects of Gille’s 4th Panzer Corp. as they battle the Red Army in Warsaw and after.

If nothing else the reader sees how much of a brutal slugfest this was with so much loss of life. And The Warsaw uprising and its aftermath are rarely discussed. At this point the German army is disintegrating piece by piece. But they don’t know it yet, but the reader can see it. There’s still hope since Warsaw was held. It’s truly a remarkable book. And the narration is perfect.

Awful, awful audiobook.

The book apparently contains numerous maps; but, as I don’t have a decent knowledge of local terrain and cities in western Russia, it is almost impossible to follow. Waste of a credit.