Himmler's Cavalry

Book excerpt: Dressed in black uniforms emblazoned with the SS flash, Heinrich Himmlers horsemen carried the SS banner across the German countryside and to equestrian competitions throughout Germany and Europe. They rode as the Equestrian SS, an SS cavalry force designed to win elite support, to enhance social prestige, and to attract farmers to Himmlers essentially urban organization. The Equestrian SS was the only SS organization acquitted at the Nuremberg Trials. Yet the Equestrian SS trained to be a security and occupation force. In mounted Deaths Head regiments in Poland and in the SS Cavalry Brigade in Russia, Equestrian SS personnel fulfilled their obligations as devoted SS political soldiers. Driven by SS training, SS horsemen murdered thousands of Jews in Eastern Europe. Wilson provides numerous anecdotes, statistics, and capsule biographies of Equestrian SS personnel. This carefully researched study is essential reading for scholars and lay people interested in the history of Nazi Germany, the SS, and the Holocaust.