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Summary: My Friend, the Author
Review: A few years ago while touring our WWII battlefields in the Vosges Mountains of Eastern France with members of my 70th Infantry Division Association, my wife and I met the author. Since that first meeting we have had the opportunity to exchange both our recollections of and our thoughts during those dark days. At the US Military Cemetery in St. Avold I have stood next to the author as he placed flowers by our Association's memorial wreath. I have listened to his words as he shared his feelings with our group of veterans on tour in Saarbrucken, the large German city we captured in March 1945. I have felt the anguish in his mind as he described becoming aware of the horrors that the Nazis and some of his fellow Waffen SS comrades had committed in the concentration camps.And the author has listened to my story of being ambushed and captured, then wounded by artillery shrapnel, and surviving a severed artery because a German soldier risked his life while carrying me unconscious to medical aid. As I read the fascinating Black Edelweiss I found myself frequently comparing my situation as a 17 year old youth in rural Kansas with the author's thoughts and activities halfway around the world. Black Edelweiss has given me a new perspective on both the German military and the citizens of Germany during the early '40s. I found once I started reading it was difficult to put the book aside.
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Summary: Sometimes...there are no answers!
Review: A first rate memoir, in which the author crystalizes his wartime experiences and reflections in a direct and thoughtful manner. As the publisher and editorial reviews have stated so well, there is fresh and added-value to this memoir, since it was largely written at the conclusion of WWII. It is free of the 'rationalization' and detachment typical of many memoirs written years later, and largely by the German Officer Corps. The author addresses a number of the painful questions facing German WWII veterans in general, and Waffen-SS veterans in particular. Although, a number of the reasons cited by the author for his volunteer enlistment in the Waffen-SS, and support for the Nazi regime's war effort, may sound stereotypical, the context and timely record of his judgements transcend these well-worn cliches. The author was able to clearly and concisely translate his personal value system against the backdrop of Nazi Germany, and honestly open his life to the reader's inspection, free of rationalization and ready answers. He draws the conclusion that sometimes there are no answers of 'why' to pressing questions of personal value judgements, but that some values remain constant and must be used to face the future. In sum, this memoir presents more of a common man's 'thinking' perspective - a middle-class and average German viewpoint. Again, not to be understated, is the value of this memoir as written at the end of WWII, and the honest insight captured within. Read and enjoy!
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Summary: Highly Recommended - Very Personal & Different Perspective
Review: All of the other reviews are spot on. I have read several books on World War II and this one is at the top of my list. I found it fascinating the details the author encounters vs. the overall big picture of battles and outcomes of large campaigns. I also gained more respect for the planning and professionalism that went into the smaller operations that author witnessed and took part in. As others have mentioned it makes you realize that not all SS were fanaticals and racists. And in this author's case it was matter of joining to do something about the war and attempt to help his country. I particularly enjoyed the author's experiences before the war, how he described his middle to upper middle class life and how nice it was. I also found the relationships, expierences, and his vivid memories he recalls about other soldiers (including his father) very interesting. I can easily imagine what it must have been like. Its a quick read, possibly too fast. I really wish it was longer and that it was not edited down to its size (as mentioned in preface). This is definitely a highly recommended book.
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Summary: A must-read for serious WWII buffs
Review: An amazing book which is very well and thoughtfully written. The author carefully examines his own motives and actions, and then sets them against the background of his emerging knowledge of the holocaust after the war. He and his unit were not involved in atrocities, and I have found no record of accusations against the Nord division. Part of this (or much of it) may be owed to the fact that they operated mostly in the Arctic and then on the Western Front during the final days of the war. They luckily never served in Russia or Poland, so were not in a position to be confronted with the war against the Jews. Despite this the author recognizes that he was involved in the organization that carried out the killings, and feels complicit to an extent. Very interesting look at German homefront life, and the much ignored fighting in Finland on the Arctic front. Not a trace of the self-pity and "look what the Allies did" that you find in some accounts of this nature, but also shows that not everyone in an SS uniform was a bloodthirsty monster. A view some will not approve of.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but somewhat unsatisfying
Review: As a casual World War II history buff who has read a number of books about the Waffen SS written from the distant perspective of historians, I was looking forward to this memoir of a young SS trooper written shortly after the conclusion of the war. Unfortunately, Black Edelweiss doesn't quite deliver all that it promises.
This relatively short book chronicles the family background, formative teenage years and military service of the author. Voss comes across as a pleasant young man, largely removed from the coarser aspects of Nazi Germany and National Socialism. He joins the Waffen SS not out of any ideological fervor but rather because he naively subscribes to the view that it is his duty as both a good German citizen and as a member of the larger Western European community to combat the Bolshevist threat. Voss is ultimately assigned to the Nord Division and posted to Finland where he sees a modest amount of combat before returning to Germany where he is ultimately captured by the Allies.
Quite frankly, I did not find the author to be nearly as introspective as some of the reviews suggest. Although open and candid, Voss rarely has anything truly profound or of great import to say. Because he served in Finland, he was not forced to confront firsthand any of the atrocities committed by his comrades stationed either at home or on the Eastern Front. It is only after the war, while in captivity, that Voss is exposed to the horrors of the Einsatzgruppen and death camps. It bears noting that Voss was apparently not subjected to combat as brutal and horrific as that experienced by many of his comrades on the Eastern Front. Perhaps for these reasons, Voss' account is often far less poignant and compelling than those of some other German soldiers such as Guy Sajer (Forgotten Soldier). Same is not intended as a criticism of either Voss or his military service - merely an observation that his perspective is somewhat limited.
Despite my reservations, Black Edelweiss remains an interesting read that I would recommend to any student of either World War II or the Waffen SS.
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Summary: A Great War Memoir
Review: As noted in the other reviews, this is one of the best war memoirs around, perhaps the best German memoir of WWII. Unlike so many other accounts written only years after the fact, Black Edelweiss was penned within the first years after the war and not originally meant for publication. I suspect the author, with a strong sense of family, wanted to have something to present to his decedents, something that he had completed as a young man still with the full emotion and confusion of the initial bewildering and catastrophic events that were the fate of his generation. This memoir is interesting on a variety of levels. One is the account of mountain infantry training the author received as a young volunteer for the Waffen SS. Far from politically indoctrinated fanatics, we see an elite military organization preparing men for combat in modern war. I suspect that the emphasis on political and racial indoctrination was more a product of the pre-war years, when the Waffen SS was seen as a force against potential enemies within the Reich, not after say 1941 when large numbers of new replacements were needed to man an expanding number of divisions fighting in foreign theaters of operations. That and the fact that many foreign volunteers, some from ethnic groups lower on the SS pecking order, where filling the ranks of these formations as well. The emphasis went from "elite order of racial Uebermenschen" to "cadre of the common European struggle against Bolshevism". This latter attitude is mentioned by the author numerous times and obviously was one of his main reasons for joining the organization. On another level is the sociological perspective of various views common among Germans during 1941-3. He sees his own class in school as divided between the idealists and the pragmatists. Some, like the author, saw the war as a personal challenge and were eager to commit themselves, while others saw it as the business of others and hoped to survive the chaos as best as possible, which is hardly the usual view we have of German youth of that time. Interesting in that the author shows us how universal this conflict of views is. One need only think of the attitudes of the generation of young Americans confronted with the Vietnam War and how they reacted, although in some cases in later life only to adopt the opposite view when it no longer required a personal commitment. So some of us can respect the author's decision to serve his country as a soldier in wartime. But the branch he chose to serve with was the Waffen SS, part of the larger SS, which was to be branded a criminal organization by the Allied courts due to their administration of the Holocaust among other crimes. The author admits the crimes and the guilt of the SS (he found out about the death camps and other atrocities as a POW after the war), but can't condemn all his comrades, most of whom are dead, as criminals in serving a cause which they believed in, which the author never thinks included common knowledge of the criminal character of the SS. It is a quandary for which the author never finds an answer, perhaps because no answer is possible. That the author saw the Nazis as having perverted all the values that his generation had believed in, of destroying his country in a senseless war while pursuing the most inhuman crimes imaginable is tempered by the fact that he doesn't see the defeat of Germany as a liberation. . . See page 133. The mistake was in not overthrowing the criminal regime themselves, which was a "disgrace", but in having to have their enemies do it for them. Furthermore, the final outcome of the National Socialist swindle was not inevitable, "All the same one lesson is clear: never again must there be any public authority without active popular control". Page 71. There are others points the author mentions as well such as the belief common in Germany after the First World War that a new movement which would do away with the old distinctions of class and status, create a Volksgemeinschaft, was necessary for national rebirth. Also of special note are his interesting and gratifying comments concerning US troops in action and his description of Operation Birke, the German evacuation of their Lapland Army from Finland to Norway in the fall of 1944, an arduous trek of over 1600 kilometers conducted in good order under pressure from both the Red Army and later the German's former allies, the Finns. I doubt that this unique military achievement of the Lapland Army will ever be repeated. This book should be of interest to all readers interested in the Eastern Front in World War II, particularly since it is one of the few accounts available of fighting on the Karelian sector, those interested in the history of the Waffen SS or those interested in a sociological perspective of Germany during World War II.
Rating: 
Summary: A warrior tries to understand why...
Review: Black Edelweiss (by Johann Voss) is the story of a young German who served his country in WWII by fighting in the 6th SS Mountain Division. While young Voss did serve in an SS unit, his story is not that of a fanatical Nazi, but rather that of a young person who wants to serve his country in the best possible way.
Johann Voss wrote Black Edelweiss while he was held captive by the Americans. Rather than being a historical book told after many years have passed, Black Edelweiss is Johann's way of confronting his war experiences after learning of the atrocities other SS units had committed. In reviewing what lead him to his current position, Johann tells us about his family, what's made him the way he is and what drives him to join the SS (it was communism that did). Having completed training, Johann then tells us about war on the Northern front (his unit fought in Northern Finland), what happens to his unit once the Finn's make peace with the Russians, and fighting against the Americans. All throughout the book Johann provides us with excellent descriptions of his thoughts, observations, and feelings.
Black Edelweiss is not an attempt by Johann to excuses himself for anything he'd done during the war, nor the men he served with. It's told with the brutal truth of a person who's trying to understand why he and the men he served with were criminals. This is brutal look at one's own past and coming to grips with what a nation has done. My overall review, read it! It's a 4 star book (out of 5 possible).
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Summary: A memoir of rare value!
Review: Black Edelweiss is a rare example of a personal WWII memoir written soon after the events (most of the draft was written while the author was a POW during 1945-46) with the emotional and historical breadth of a book written from a much greater distance of time and utilizing a variety of non-personal references. Johann Voss (a pseudonym) has put his life in the SS-Mountain Infantry Regiment 11 (given the name 'Reinhard Heydrich' in 1942) to paper in a way that the reader can truly assess the actions of a single soldier, his immediate platoon members and larger Regimental force rationally without the baggage of bias. This is not to say that the author has created a typical post-war apologetic piece that draws empathy/sympathy from the reader. Rather, Voss draws the reader along in an honest forthright story of his experiences as a loyal soldier within a larger group of comrades who, although fighting for the Hitler regime, did so with heart and passion for comrades, unit and country, but with clear chivalry (or at least as much as can fairly be expected in war) and battle fairness. It is the very nature of when this book was drafted (and little changed by the author later although published 60 odd years after being drafted) ' while the author was still feeling connection to and pride of unit ' that makes this NOT a typical Nazi apologia book. The book was however written at a time when the author was learning (second hand) about the atrocities of the Nazi regime and the SS structure more particularly, and as such the author is able to place his military experiences in perspective of the regime he served. This creates both an honest look at combat and the emotions invoked upon finding for what and whom he and friends served and died for. Emotion is raw and real in this book. Voss starts and ends the book in third person from the POW pen, but in between weaves an engrossing story of how a young impressionable German is compelled to join an elite SS-Mountain Regiment; how this decision positively affects his life; how he survives the cold and combat of service above the Artic circle, in the Vosges Mountains, and the last days of the western Reich frontier; and how his earlier decision to join this elite group of men affected his life upon realization that his combat unit has been wholesale lumped with the SS of the Endlösung. The stories of regiment combat are visceral in content and quite rewarding. One can feel the cold, stress, fear and adrenalin of the situations. I highly recommend this book if you want a clear and apparently unembellished, time-unbiased picture of a German combat unit in action. If you want to double your pleasure read Black Edelweiss back-to-back with another Aberjona Press production, Seven Days in January by Wolf Zoepf. This latter book deals exclusively with the SS Nord Division and it's combat both above the Artic Circle and the Lower Vosges and is pitched more from the pure combat history perspective.
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Summary: There were honorable men in the Waffen-SS!
Review: During almost a decade of teaching graduate level WWII(ETO) courses, I developed a curiosity about the Waffen-SS. Specifically, why did so many men volunteer and how was the esprit de corps developed by its elite divisions? Yes, some of those men committed attrocities. But the spate of oral histories coming to light after more than half a century indicate that such conduct was not limited to the SS. We also did some of that. But as they say, "history is written by the winners." Voss joined the Waffen-SS in 1943 at age 17 and wrote the notes that were to become _Black Edelweiss_ as a 20 year old PW. As a former Lieutenant in the Jungvolk, he enlisted because he wanted to help his country. His father and older brother were on the Ostfront. His father, a veteran of WWI had also been a Freikorps volunteer. Fighting Bolsheviks was a family tradition. His best friend was transferring from the Wehrmacht (Heer) to the W-SS. Patriotism was a family value, Johann was a patriot. He also volunteered for a mountain division and was posted to the 6th-SS Gebirgs Division "Nord," stationed in Soviet Karelia and northern Finland above the Artic Circle. After about year of fighting, allied with the Finns, Finland again capitulated to the Soviets. Nord had to fight its way out of Finland. Voss' 11th Regiment ended up in the lower Vosges near Reipertswiller fighting the US 157th Reg, 16-20 Jan '45. In Feburary he was taken prisoner during an ill advised attack on Lampaden. Many of his comrades died during this fight. That Nord was still undertaking attacks, futile as they were, was due to the comradeship found in good outfits, usually concomitant with good NCO and Officer leadership. So what prompted him to write his memoirs as a 20 year old PW? The JAG Captain he worked for as a clerk/translator (he also spoke French), was the recipient of photographs from the concentration camps. Voss was horrified by these photos. He had not joined for that reason, nor would his family have condoned such behavior. The camps were thought by the average German to be work camps. As a point of information, combat Waffen-SS units were not posted to these camps. Yes, before the SS-Totenkopf was placed under Army control after the Polish campaign, the SSTK served as Einsatzgruppen behind the lines during that campaign. Regardless, there were only a small number of W-SS, usually convalescing from war wounds, who saw duty as guards. About a month after the trials at Nurnburg began (which was why the JAG had the photos), the International Military Tribunal ruled that the Waffen-SS, as part of the Allgemeine SS, was guilty of being a criminal organization. "So, under the law of the victors, the volunteers were a gang of criminals." _Black Edelweiss_ is a must read for persons curious about World War II and for that matter, curious about German culture. Keith Bonn's Aberjona Press has done another amazing research-wise accurate job! Superb follow-up was done on "Voss'" memoir. Again, a must read! Andrew Baggs
Rating:
Summary: Yeah It's Good
Review: Good book, parts of the book are enthralling and vivid. Overall not up to 5 stars, however.
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