Synopses & Reviews
Fegelein's Horsemen and Genocidal Warfare explores the deployment of the SS Cavalry Brigade in 1941-2, with a special focus on the development of its 'dual role'. The brigade became a pacemaker of the Holocaust in Belorussia during the summer of 1941, and fought against the Red Army in the region between Toropets and Rzhev, a focal point of the eastern front, between December, 1941 and June, 1942. SS cavalrymen underwent a continuous brutalisation which saw them commit acts of mass violence with thousands of victims, a development only comparable to that of the Einsatzgruppen and battalions of the order police. Going beyond a unit history, Henning Pieper analyses the role and behavior of the brigade's personnel and places it within the context of research on perpetrators and the operational history of the Waffen-SS. Thus, military history, Holocaust research, and perpetrator history are combined in this interdisciplinary approach.
Synopsis
The SS Cavalry Brigade was a unit of the Waffen-SS that differed from other German military formations as it developed a 'dual role': SS cavalrymen both helped to initiate the Holocaust in the Soviet Union and experienced combat at the front.
About the Author
Henning Pieper was educated at the Universities of Freiburg, Germany, Nottingham and Sheffield, UK. His research focuses on the Waffen-SS and Germany's difficult process of coming to terms with the Nazi past.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1. Elite sportsmen: The Pre-War SS-Reiterstandarten 2. Brutal Occupation: The SS Cavalry in Poland 3. The SS Cavalry Brigade and Operation 'Barbarossa' 4. Mass Violence in the Pripet Marshes 5. Partisan Warfare in the Soviet Union 6. The Winter Battle West of Moscow, 1941 - 1942 Conclusion