SS Fallschirmjäger Bataillon 500/600

Rather than have a title such as this one, on a rare subject, suffer from a poor translation, it would have been better to have left the book in the original German. Some of the language is cumbersome, while other passages are incomprehensible. Most of the photographs are not secondhand, and the book is divided by campaigns. I gave it a four star for subject, photos, and the usual Schiffer quality, but feel it should have had a proof-reader before being sent to press. That was a disappointment, as I do not know what the author was trying to convey, with the excreable translation one is forced to suffer through. The book is worth having for anyone interested in anti-partisan warfare against Tito and the Serbs. A plethora of books exist on Fallschirmjaeger of the Luftwaffe, but so little can be gleaned regarding Paras of the Waffen SS.

Good book because it covers a very rare WWII subject! Very poor translation and very disconnected reading. It does contain good information.

This is an extremely detailed and excellently researched book on an obscure independent Waffen-SS airborne battalion that fought with great courage, distinction, and skill in the closing months of WWII. The account of its role in the ill-fated operation to capture Tito in Yugoslavia is superbly done. Lots of small unit combat retold by the handful of SS men who survived this battle and the ones to come on the Vistula and Oder fronts during the final battle for Berlin.

Written in a chronological mission report format, stressing battle groups & task organizations more than a narrative of the missions that this group performed. I tried very hard to read this book on several times, and I suppose it will look cool on my book shelf?

Good, a little less detail than I had hoped for, but still worth the read.

Just got my copy today. Well written and researched with nice photos and lots of interesting details about the unit. Well worth the money to find out about this little-known unit. Book is high quality and written on glossy enamel stock.

SS-Fallschirmjäger Bataillon 500/600 was written by Rolf Michaelis in 2008. The version I reviewed was published by Schiffer Military history of Atglen, PA in 2008 and is 118 pages. The ISBN of this particular book is 978-0-7643-2944-9.The book covers the complete history of the SS-Fallschirmjäger battalion (the only one of its kind) from its inception in 1943 through its final days and disintegration at the end of the war in May of 1945. In between these two dates, the reader is given a history of the battles which the unit participated in and the scant details available to the author in his research of the unit. The book includes several photos of varying quality relating to the unit and maps of the locations in which they participated in the specific battles. The author does list several sources, both from the Bundesarchiv and secondary book sources.Most of the historical information on the battles does not focus on the unit specifically, but mostly looks at the overall operation. Where information on SS-Fallschirmjäger Bataillon 500/600 is available, it is presented to the reader. My overall feeling of the book was that there was not a lot of information on this unit in which to present to the reader. If that was the case, I would have to say that Rolf Michaelis did a fine job in offering a narrative to the reader. The book does have an appendix with a chronology on the battalion. There is no order of battle information, and any war crimes that this unit may have perpetrated are not presented to the reader. I use the term “may” as I know nothing about the unit, other than what this book presents.I have not read anything from the author before this publication, though I see he has published many works, of which quite a few are unit histories. I thought the presentation of the unit was well written, so I plan on picking up more of his books. I would say this book would be appreciated more by the hardcore World War II buff, than say someone who is just looking to get an overview of the SS or the German military structure.

An interesting subject that has been neglected in recent years. Rolf does a good job (this being taken from the German language version) as always and there are some good photos. The format is in the "Bender A5 style" so fits a book shelf well. Not the first book on the subject I'd buy but worth a look.

This book fills a gap about a little known unit of the SS. It isn't a book with a large number of quality images for the serious uniform enthusiast and its translation lets it down quite a lot.

very informative on a unit that has not been written about in any great depth before.well worth the money

excellent piece of military history