David McCormack

David had a long career in health and social care as a trained nurse and social worker before enrolling as a mature student at the University of Salford in 2006. In 2009 he graduated with first class honours in Contemporary Military and International History. In 2010, David graduated with a Postgraduate Diploma in Museum Management, following which he continued to work as a volunteer at the Museum of the Manchester Regiment in Tameside. Since then, he has worked as a private tutor and as a battlefield guide and tour manager with a number of operators. His specialities are the Holocaust and the rise and fall of the III Reich. David’s previous publications include his ‘Berlin’ series of battlefield/historical guides and his successful Japanese Tanks and Armoured Warfare book which made an impact on both the contemporary gaming & modelling scene and with armour enthusiasts on both sides of the Atlantic. Although still a proud Lancastrian, David has lived in Dorset since 2017.

His next book will examine SS-Obergruppenführer Theodor Eicke: Himmler’s Political Soldier.

Theodor Eicke has for many years characterised the unrestrained brutality and horror of the Nazi terror state. In this fascinating new biography, David McCormack challenges the academic cliché of ‘the banality of evil’ by considering whether Eicke was merely a functionary possessed of mediocre ability and a shallow personality, or a driven ideologue operating within the moral vacuum of the Third Reich. Eicke is known primarily for his role in the concentration camp system and for his participation in the Night of the Long Knives, but he was also an effective military commander who earned the respect of his troops by sharing in their privations. How can a man who came to be feared and detested by so many have generated such loyalty and reverence in others? In life, Eicke was a conundrum. In death, the aim of this book is to make him less of an enigma.