The Cruel Hunters

[andy*]

THE CRUEL HUNTERS by French L. MacLean. This is a history of the SS-Sonder-Kommando Dirlewanger. This German unit operated on the Eastern front doing anti-partisan duty. A VERY notorious unit commanded by a even more notorious commander. Formed in 1940 from convicted poachers and headed by a sex-offender, this book from the onset sounds like a bad re-write of THE DIRTY DOZEN. However this is fact not fiction. And hard to read at that. Not that Maclean is a bad writer, but his subject is one that is difficult to imagine.
This book is not for the "faint of heart". It describes war at its harshest.
Maclean's book is a well researched and balanced look at a little known and much misunderstood unit. Andy

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