The full title of this book is "The Leibstandarte in Greece. The 1st Battalion LSSAH during Operation Marita, 1941 from Battalion archives". It is a quite accurate description of the contents, an impressive collection of photos of this unit in a particular period of World War II. This volume published by Schiffer has been compiled and edited by Branislav Radovic and Martin Stiled.
It is a large hardcover edition, measuring 30.5 by 22.5 cm with 240 pages. It is printed on high quality thick glossy paper, ideal for photo reproduction.
All the photos come from two albums of a war photographer, hence their high quality: they are the work of a professional who was looking for the best snapshots and not of a simple amateur.
The book opens with a brief one-page introduction to the German campaign in Greece. The next page explains the origin of the two photo albums that make up this book, with some 200 photos in each. The images were not ordered or captioned, so the captions have been written by the editors after extensive research. Following is a full-page map of the division's movements between April and May 1940, when they crossed the country almost entirely from north to south.
From here, and after the acknowledgements, comes the bulk of the book, 225 pages of photos of the 1st Battalion's advance through Greece. On most pages there are only one or two photos, so they are usually quite large. Some are even double-page spreads. The photos are of excellent quality as they are perfectly sharp and illuminated, therefore they can be printed at this large size without losing quality.
The subject is very varied, mainly the soldiers of the Division in a multitude of situations, although there are also vehicles, guns or civilians. All images are captioned with details as far as the editors have been able to ascertain them. This includes information on vehicles, locations and uniforms.
Numerous officers of the unit have also been identified: among them are well-known names such as Sepp Dietrich, Max Wunsche, Joachim Peiper, Michael Wittman or even Heinrich Himmler, who visited the unit.
At the end of the book there are three pages with ‘Then&Now’ photos, comparing images taken by the photographer in 1941 with current ones of the same place and using similar framing, as some buildings still persist. These are photos of Nafpaktos and Athens.
This is followed by a page of Waffen SS Collar Tabs up to 1940 and two pages of glossary to close the book.
Conclusion
An excellent collection of images, perfectly reproduced at large size, of the 1st Battalion LSSAH during the invasion of Greece.