Gordon Williamson (1) (1951–)

During his most active period writing for Osprey, Williamson produced a whole raft of booklets dealing with ground and sea aspects of the German armed forces in the "Second Thirty Years War;" this is one of the better ones. Perhaps the most useful thing is that Williamson deals with how the Kriegsmarine thought they were going to wage submarine warfare, as opposed to how they actually conducted it, until allied forces finally checkmated the U-Boat threat with better intelligence, better electronic warfare, more air power, and raw numbers. About the only thing that Williamson doesn't touch on is how the Type XXI & XXIII "wonder weapons" might have been used in actual combat, had they been available in any significant numbers.… (more)

"The Schutzstaffel (German pronunciation: [tstafl], translated to Protection Squadron or defence corps, abbreviated SS? ...) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP). It began at the end of 1920 as a small, permanent guard unit known as the "Saal-Schutz" (Hall-Protection) made up of NSDAP volunteers to provide security for Nazi Party meetings in Munich. Later in 1925, Heinrich Himmler joined the unit which had by then been reformed and renamed the "Schutz-Staffel". Under Himmler's leadership (1929?45), it grew from a small paramilitary formation to one of the largest and most powerful organizations in the Third Reich. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II (1939?45). The SS, along with the Nazi Party, was banned in Germany as a criminal organization after 1945"--Wikipedia.… (more)