GERMAN PARATROOPERS The illustrated history of the Fallschirmjäger in World War II

The illustrated history of the Fallschirmjäger in World War II Paratroopers as a military force were a creation of the 1930s, made possible through the application of one of the latest technological developments in warfare — air power. 

Introducing troops into a combat zone by air would, it was believed, not only achieve surprise, but eliminate the costly losses which had been incurred in World War I. From the first, the airborne forces were an elite body set apart from the massed ranks of a country's armed forces, and often tasked with the role of shock assault troops. This concept was most energetically developed in inter war Germany. German Paratroopers is a pictorial record of Germany's airborne troops, or Fallschirmjäger, both as they developed as a unit in the run up to war, and as they were deployed once it had commenced. 

Rarely seen images show their spectacular, glider borne deployments in the Low Countries during the early campaigns of the war in Western Europe, their dramatic airdrop and costly seizure of Crete, and their stunning and daring missions at Monte Rotondo and Gran Sasso later in the war. Ironically, it was their willingness to give every effort unwaveringly even in the grimmest of situations that meant that, throughout most of the war, the paratroopers were seldom used as parachutists. Instead, the paratroopers were prized for their combat abilities, and frequently acted in a ' fire brigade ' role as a roving elite of infantrymen, serving with distinction on the Eastern Front, in North Africa, Italy and resisting the turning tide of the war after D-Day. In every theatre, the paratroopers fought with honour and never gave less than their all. 

Includes over 200 previously unpublished photographs.