12th Hitlerjugend SS Panzer Division in Normandy

By: Tim Saunders, Richard Hone

Narrated by: Bruce Mann

Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins

Publisher's summary

Raised in 1943 with 17-year-olds from the Hitler Youth movement, and following the twin disasters of Stalingrad and "Tunisgrad", the Hitlerjugend Panzer Division emerged as the most effective German division fighting in the West. The core of the division was a cadre of offices and NCOs provided by Hitler's bodyguard division, the elite Leibstandarte, with the aim of producing a division of "equal value" to fight alongside them in I SS Panzer Corps.

During the fighting in Normandy, the Hitlerjugend proved to be implacable foes to both the British and the Canadians, repeatedly blunting Montgomery's offensives, fighting with skill and a degree of determination well beyond the norm. This they did from D+1 through to the final battle to escape from the Falaise Pocket, despite huge disadvantages, namely constant Allied air attack, highly destructive naval gunfire, and a chronic lack of combat supplies and replacements of men and equipment.

Written with the advantage of new materials from archives in the former Eastern Bloc, this book is no whitewash of a Waffen SS division and it does not shy away from confronting unpalatable facts or controversies.

©2021 Tim Saunders and Richard Hone (P)2021 Tantor

Excellent book German perspective

Excellent book as told from the veteran's themselves. Recommend to anyone who enjoys WWII battle histories

Super book, bad narration

Tim Saunders has written an interesting and informative book on the 12th SS that’s worth having in any military library. First hand accounts as well as big picture views keep it well balanced. Bruce Mann however is not a great narrator. His German accent isn’t the problem. It’s just that he drones on in the style of a 1980s tv news presenter, and it’s difficult not to lose track of what he’s saying and have to go back to erlistend to parts that just don’t etch themselves into the listener’s brain. I almost stopped after half an hour, but persisted, and it does get a bit better as it goes along, but not much. I’d rather have read the original and skipped the audio book.

Great Book, Narration’s Fine

I really liked this book, great D-Day stories from the German POV. Lots of things you’ve likely never heard before. I actually liked the narrator. Not sure what the hate is about there, but it seems exaggerated imho. I think he did a very good job.

the book is very well written, but ....

extremely well researched and written book, but the choice of narrator is a bad one.... I would actually consider getting this book again if they will redo the narration by another.....

Needs to be re-narrated then it would be great

This story *should* be great and gives excellent insights into one of the premiere German units in Normandy. Unfortunately the poor narration ruins it to such an extent that the listener is completely distracted and the story is significantly diminished.

I really despair how Tantor Audio simply must not be quality-checking the work of their narrators. They must be dismissing poor performances with "Sure this is good enough" or similar. In the same way that an editor ensures the quality of the *content*, audiobook producers need to be ensuring the quality of the *delivery*.

This narrator seems to be over-compensating for dull performances by adding emphasis on random words in almost every sentence, regardless of context or meaning. This is what makes the performance so distracting and the inappropriate emphasis just confuses the message or story that is attempting to be conveyed.

Ok, to the story... this is a unit history, rather than a personal tale. So we don't get as many of the small insights but we do get a lot of excellent details and ideas of what life was like in the HJ. I have an elevated interest in the Normandy campaign as I lived there in the 1980s (though I'm more familiar with what was the American sector, a little further west, so I'm hoping for similar memoires from the Panzer Lehr). Anyway, if this wasn't Normandy, I would probably have given up, but I'm back to the narration again.

The histories are mostly given a positive spin (which is fine) and also give the viewpoint from the Canadian or British side, which is a good counterpoint. And we are reminded of how much Allied Air Supremacy impacted the HJ's to mount a successful campaign.


Overall, I can't recommend this book with the current narrator, but if it was re-narrated it could be excellent. Or, if we could have someone like Sean Pratt or Lloyd James, it would be outstanding!

Bad

the performance was awful, the voice and way it was read killed my ears. overall back because of the voice over... do over will someone with a personality in their voice Bruce Mann ruined this.