This book has some very good parts. To me, the best parts
were those concerned with the Fallschirmjager during their heyday – really from
May, 1940, to June, 1941 – about 1 year. During this period, German
paratroopers made awesome contributions to victory in Holland, Belgium, Greece,
and Crete. From that time forward, the realities of a slow but steady decline
for Nazi Germany meant that the paratroop formations, though there were more
and more of them, were little more than elite infantry.
One must be careful not to be overly positive toward
anything coming out of the Third Reich, but these men did awesome feats of
military accomplishment at their height. The storming of the Belgian fortress,
Eben-Emael, at the opening of the battle that defeated France in May, 1940, is
inspiring. A small force of paratroopers landed their gliders directly on top
of the fortress and forced it to capitulate to them, opening vital roads to the
advancing German conventional forces. At Crete, an entire paratroop division
was landed and, with the aid of German mountain troops flown in to a captured
airport, captured the island.
What I take from these accounts is the need for decisive
action. This doesn’t just apply to military situations. For me, and for many
others, the temptation to indecision is great. Indecision will lead to defeat
in life, though. So, I hope to learn from these me.
This book is probably best read by those truly
interested in World War II and/or airborne operations and history. It is quite
dry at times.
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