Reign of Hell

Name: Reign of Hell
Rating: 4.2 (1835 reviews)

by Sven Hassel Book 9 in the Legion of the Damned series.

First published 1971

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4.2(1,835)

In Warsaw during the uprising of 1944, the 27th Penal Regiment enters a city contested by the Polish Home Army and German occupation forces. Street fighting, barricades and burning districts trap Sven and his comrades between insurgents defending their capital and SS formations carrying out collective punishment. The original Danish title, Kommando Reichsführer Himmler, makes the connection to Heinrich Himmler’s apparatus explicit.

The novel presents the uprising through German soldiers who are neither reliable witnesses nor enthusiastic defenders of the Nazi regime. Adolf Hitler’s war and Himmler’s orders turn Warsaw into a campaign against both organised resistance and the civilian population. Hassel combines combat, looting and grotesque humour to depict the moral collapse produced when military operations are subordinated to terror and destruction.