12th Hitlerjugend SS Panzer Division in Normandy

Raised in 1943 with seventeen-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