Night of the Bayonets: The Texel Uprising and Hitler's Revenge, April - May 1945 by Eric Lee

Eric Lee's "Night of the Bayonets" attempts to cover the uprising on Texel Island by a battalion from the Georgian Legion.  In April 1945 some 800 Georgians turned on the Germans, massacred several hundred in the night with knives and bayonets, and went on to continue resisting German attacks and searches until the end of May, by which time some 228 men were able to survive. 

The first time I came across any references to this incident was in Michael Jones's "After Hitler."  I was fascinated to learn that such an incident occurred and more so that many of these men were not punished like many others who were handed over by the Western Allies to the Soviet Union at the end of the war.  Why some or all of them were able to escape severe punishment that many others who served in the Wehrmacht suffered is still a question without an adequate answer.

"Night of the Bayonets" is a slim volume and most of it does not directly deal with the revolt.  Lee does a good job with the source material available to him, but it's limited.  He touches on the history of Georgia, its relations with Russia and the Soviet Union, the role of the Communist Party, Operation Barbarossa, treatment of Soviet POWs, the Georgian Battalion's relations with the Dutch on Texel, and numerous other topics to help set the stage for what would happen in April and May of 1945.  But he devotes limited space to each of these topics as is evidenced by the rather small source base.  The uprising itself is covered in about 40 pages.

One of the strengths, however, is that Lee correctly directs the reader's attention to the contested memories that resulted from this event.  German, Dutch, and Georgian memories all differ in terms of what happened, who was responsible for the many deaths of civilians that became inevitable once the Germans began to fight the Georgians, and why the uprising began in the first place.  Each participant has altered, for their own needs, what happened, how they want to represent themselves, their actions, and those of their comrades, complicating an already complex set of facts.  But, that's a perfect example of the continuing reverberations of the Second World War.

All in all, this is an interesting book but one that really serves as an introduction to a little-known event on a little Dutch Island.