German raiders: A history of auxiliary cruisers of the German Navy, 1895-1945

By Paul Schmalenbach

Through two world wars German commerce raiders, or auxiliary cruisers, were the bane of Allied merchantmen. This heavily illustrated and fact-packed volume by a former German naval officer is a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0870218247
• ISBN13: 9780870218248
• Release Date: January 1979
• Publisher: Naval Inst.
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 1.25 lbs.

Customer Reviews

An excellent view of merchant raiders in general.

This book is a general treatment of the German merchant cruiser. It is a collection of wonderful photographs of all aspects of the raiders, plus individual photographs of each raider at least once along with photos of their captains. While the combat history of each specific raider is lacking, there are reasonably priced books that do just that. What no other book I have seen before this one is to provide the wealth of photographs showing details of main armament installation, torpedo installations, etc. This, along with either your favorites about the individual raiders or Hitler's Secret Pirate Fleet: The Deadliest Ships of World War II by James P. Duffy will provide you with a very good combination of photos and narrative about these ships. In consideration of the overall lack of surviving photographs of these ships, I think this is about as good as it ever will get.