The Devil's Adjutant - Jochen Peiper, Panzer Leader

The Devil's Adjutant - Jochen Peiper, Panzer Leader
by Michael Reynolds

This book by retired British General Michael Reynolds was supposed to a biography of the famous SS-Standartenfuehrer Jochen Peiper. The book begins with a brief overview of the 1. SS-Panzerdivision 'Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler' and Peiper's pre-Ardennes career, the planning, and the forces available on both sides. The main part is the description of Kampfgruppe Peiper's advance and retreat at La Gleize, and interestingly sheds new light on the Malmedy massacre, presenting both sides of the arguments. It ends with the dubious trial of Peiper and his men at Dachau, his imprisonment and murder by French Communists in France in 1976. While it has a mixture of biography and a unit history of Kampfgruppe Peiper, it should be one or another, as it is not quite clear and even if it was, then the Kampfgruppe Peiper history takes up quite a lot of the book. The research is impressive from both German and Allied points of view, and it is a better job than his several other books on the Waffen-SS, which are normally cramped together from other books, although better generally than that of the likes of Butler. This book also received praise from veterans. There are some photographs in it of Peiper, his commanders, his enemy commanders and the Kampfgruppe in action, and some good maps. Overall if one is interested in a detailed biography of Peiper, go somewhere else, while if one is interested in Peiper generally or the 'Battle of the Bulge', then this is the book.

K