Name Gordon Williamson | Role Writer | |
Books The SS: Hitler's Instrumen, Kriegsmarine U‑boats 1939‑45, Afrikakorps 1941‑43, German E‑boats 1939‑45, World War II German Battle Insi | ||
The sun s surprising movement across the sky gordon williamson
Gordon Williamson (born 1951) is a popular history writer based in the United Kingdom. Williamson spent seven years with the Military Police in the British Territorial Army and, as of 2016, resides in Scotland. Williamson has written more than 40 books and other publications. His works have focused on topics ranging from U boats, military insignia, flying aces, the Waffen-SS, and special forces. Williamson's works present an uncritical portrayal of the German war effort during the Second World War.
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Reception
Williamson has authored over 20 books on the Waffen-SS and the Wehrmacht. The military historian S.P. MacKenzie describes Williamson as a writer who attempts "to restore the tarnished reputation [of the Waffen-SS] and reiterate its superb fighting qualities" by relying on veterans' narratives, with "predictably positive results".
MacKenzie includes Williamson's books among the works that perpetuate the myth-making, revisionist tendencies in the treatment of the Waffen-SS, first advocated by HIAG, a lobby group founded by former high-ranking Waffen-SS personnel in West Germany in 1951. MacKenzie notes that Williamson "at least approaches his subjects with a degree of skepticism", but is nonetheless an "admirer" whose works tend to romanticize the Waffen-SS. Commenting on this contemporary trend, Mackenzie writes:
As the older generation of Waffen-SS scribes has died off, a new, post-war cadre of writers has done much to perpetuate the image of the force as a revolutionary European army. The degree of admiration and acceptance varies, but the overall tendency to accentuate the positive lives on, or has indeed grown stronger.