Download or read book Panzer Commander written by Hans Von Luck and published by Dell. This book was released on 2013-10-09 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A stunning look at World War II from the other side... From the turret of a German tank, Colonel Hans von Luck commanded Rommel's 7th and then 21st Panzer Division. El Alamein, Kasserine Pass, Poland, Belgium, Normandy on D-Day, the disastrous Russian front--von Luck fought there with some of the best soldiers in the world. German soldiers. Awarded the German Cross in Gold and the Knight's Cross, von Luck writes as an officer and a gentleman. Told with the vivid detail of an impassioned eyewitness, his rare and moving memoir has become a classic in the literature of World War II, a first-person chronicle of the glory--and the inevitable tragedy--of a superb soldier fighting Hitler's war.
Download or read book Panzer Ace written by Richard Freiherr von Rosen and published by Pen and Sword. This book was released on 2018-03-30 with total page 403 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A richly illustrated memoir by highly decorated Wehrmacht soldier—“recommended to anyone with an interest in the Panzerwaffe in the Second World War” (Recollections of WWII). After serving as a gunlayer on a Pz.Mk.III during Barbarossa, Richard Freiherr von Rosen led a Company of Tigers at Kursk. Later he led a company of King Tiger panzers at Normandy and in late 1944 commanded a battle group (12 King Tigers and a flak Company) against the Russians in Hungary in the rank of junior, later senior lieutenant (from November 1944, his final rank.) Only 489 of these King Tiger tanks were ever built. They were the most powerful heavy tanks to see service, and only one kind of shell could penetrate their armor at a reasonable distance. Every effort had to be made to retrieve any of them bogged down or otherwise immobilized, which led to many towing adventures. The author has a fine memory and eye for detail. Easy to read and not technical, his account adds substantially to the knowledge of how the German Panzer Arm operated in the Second World War. “The author has a fine memory and eye for detail . . . It adds substantially to the knowledge of how the German Panzer Arm operated during the Second World War.”—Military Vehicles Magazine “The images accompany the story well. Richard Von Rosen, wounded several times and fighting a good part of the war on the eastern front, was certainly a lucky soldier, and we are also lucky to read these pages . . . highly recommend to all fans of memories of the Second World War.”—Old Barbed Wire Blog
Download or read book Tigers in the Mud written by Otto Carius and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-01-17 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: WWII began with a metallic roar as the German Blitzkrieg raced across Europe, spearheaded by the most dreaded weapon of the 20th century: the Panzer. No German tank better represents that thundering power than the infamous Tiger, and Otto Carius was one of the most successful commanders to ever take a Tiger into battle, destroying well over 150 enemy tanks during his incredible career.
Download or read book Panzer Commander Hermann Balck written by Stephen Robinson and published by Exisle Publishing. This book was released on 2019-08-01 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Panzer Commander Hermann Balck is an intriguing history of one of the world’s greatest armoured warfare commanders. During World War II, Balck directed panzer troops from the front line and led by example, putting himself in extreme danger when rallying his soldiers to surge forward. He fought battles that were masterpieces of tactical operations, utilising speed, surprise and a remarkable ability to motivate his men to achieve what they considered to be impossible. We follow his exciting journey through the fields of France, the mountains of Greece and the steppes of Russia. In Greece, through flair and innovative leadership, his soldiers overcome every obstacle to defeat determined Australian and New Zealand soldiers defending the narrow mountain passes. This is also the story of a cultured and complex man with a great love of antiquity and classical literature, who nevertheless willingly fought for Hitler’s Third Reich while remaining strangely detached from the horrors around him.
Download or read book Panzer Aces written by Franz Kurowski and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2004 with total page 485 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With speed, violence, and deadly power, heavily armored tanks spearheaded the German blitzkrieg that stormed across Europe in 1939. In this reprint of the classic book, prolific author Kurowski tells the action-packed stories of six of the most daring and successful officers ever to command these Panzers.
Download or read book Tiger Ace written by Gary L. Simpson and published by Schiffer Publishing. This book was released on 1994 with total page 406 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first comprehensive study of the legendary Panzer commander. Though there have been numerous articles on Wittmann, none have come close to understanding the scope of his life and combat experiences. Wittmann's military exploits stand out from all the rest, as his Sturmgeschutz III and Tiger I crews succeeded in destroying 138 enemy tanks and 132 anti-tank guns and field artillery pieces. Gary Simpson conducted extensive research, travel, and interviews to uncover the tru facts and situations that Michael Wittmann encountered on the battlefields of both the eastern and wetsern fronts.
Download or read book The Devil s Adjutant written by Michael Reynolds and published by Pen and Sword Military. This book was released on 2009-10-19 with total page 475 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The dramatic story of Nazi field commander Jochen Peiper’s military career, war crimes trial, and 1976 murder. Jochen Peiper would likely never have been heard of outside Germany if not for the infamous massacre of US Army POWs near Malmedy, Belgium, during World War II, with which his name has been forever associated. Shunned and despised in the years following Germany’s surrender, Peiper is nevertheless praised by many for his military acumen. This meticulously researched book explores Peiper’s youth, his career with the SS, the now famous trial of the officers and soldiers of the Leibstandarte, who were accused of war crimes, and Peiper’s murder in France over thirty years later. “One of WWII’s most interesting combat leaders . . . a fascinating story.” —Armor Includes maps and illustrations
Download or read book Panzer Leader written by Heinz Guderian and published by . This book was released on 2021-03-10 with total page 480 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Germany's opening run of victory in World War II was only made possible by the panzer forces that Heinz Guderian (1888-1954), the father of modern tank warfare, had created and trained, and by his audacious leading of those forces from 1939-1941. Guderian's breakthrough at Sedan and lightning drive to the Channel coast virtually decided the Battle of France. The drive he led into the East came close to producing the complete collapse of Russia's armies, but at the end of 1941 Guderian was dismissed for taking a timely step back instead of pandering to Hitler's illusions. He was recalled to service only when Germany's situation had become desperate, and was eventually made Chief of the General Staff when it had become hopeless.
Download or read book Panzer Destroyer written by Vasiliy Krysov and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2010-08-19 with total page 431 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this military memoir, a Soviet Red Army officer recounts his experience fighting against Nazi Germany along the Eastern Front in World War II. The day after Vasiliy Krysov finished school, on June 22, 1941, Germany attacked the Soviet Union and provoked a war of unparalleled extent and cruelty. For the next three years, as a tank commander, Krysov fought against the German panzers in some of the most intense and destructive armored engagements in history, including those at Stalingrad, Kursk, and Knigsberg. This is the remarkable story of his war. As the commander of a heavy tank, a self-propelled gun—a tank destroyer—and a T-34, he fought his way westward across Russia, the Ukraine, and Poland against a skillful and determined enemy that had previously never known defeat. Krysov repeatedly faced tough SS panzer divisions, like the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler Panzer Division in the Bruilov-Fastov area in 1943, and the SS Das Wiking Panzer Division in Poland in 1944. Krysov was at Kursk and participated in a counterattack at Ponyri. The ruthlessness of this long and bitter campaign is vividly depicted in his narrative, as is the enormous scale and complexity of the fighting. Honestly, and with an extraordinary clarity of recall, he describes confrontations with German Tiger and Panther tanks and deadly anti-tank guns. He was wounded four times, his crewmen and his commanding officers were killed, but he was fated to survive and record his experience of combat. His memoirs give a compelling insight into the reality of tank warfare on the Eastern Front.
Download or read book Panzer Operations written by Erhard Raus and published by Da Capo Press. This book was released on 2009-04-28 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Drawing from post-war reports commissioned by U.S. Army intelligence, World War II historian Steven H. Newton has translated, compiled, and edited the battle accounts of one of Germany's finest panzer commanders and a skilled tactician of tank warfare. Throughout most of the war, Erhard Raus was a highly respected field commander in the German-Soviet war on the eastern front, and after the war he wrote an insightful analysis of German strategy in that campaign.The Raus memoir covers the Russian campaign from the first day of the war to his relief from command at Hitler's order in the spring of 1945. It includes a detailed examination of the 6th Panzer Division's drive to Leningrad, Raus's own experiences in the Soviet winter counteroffensive around Moscow, the unsuccessful attempt to relieve Stalingrad, and the final desperate battles inside Germany at the end of the war. His battlefield experience and keen tactical eye make his memoir especially valuable for scholars, and his narrative is as readable as Heinz Guderian's celebrated Panzer Leader.
Download or read book The Panzer Killers written by Daniel P. Bolger and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2021-05-25 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A general-turned-historian reveals the remarkable battlefield heroics of Major General Maurice Rose, the World War II tank commander whose 3rd Armored Division struck fear into the hearts of Hitler's panzer crews. “The Panzer Killers is a great book, vividly written and shrewdly observed.”—The Wall Street Journal Two months after D-Day, the Allies found themselves in a stalemate in Normandy, having suffered enormous casualties attempting to push through hedgerow country. Troops were spent, and American tankers, lacking the tactics and leadership to deal with the terrain, were losing their spirit. General George Patton and the other top U.S. commanders needed an officer who knew how to break the impasse and roll over the Germans—they needed one man with the grit and the vision to take the war all the way to the Rhine. Patton and his peers selected Maurice Rose. The son of a rabbi, Rose never discussed his Jewish heritage. But his ferocity on the battlefield reflected an inner flame. He led his 3rd Armored Division not from a command post but from the first vehicle in formation, charging headfirst into a fight. He devised innovative tactics, made the most of American weapons, and personally chose the cadre of young officers who drove his division forward. From Normandy to the West Wall, from the Battle of the Bulge to the final charge across Germany, Maurice Rose's deadly division of tanks blasted through enemy lines and pursued the enemy with a remarkable intensity. In The Panzer Killers, Daniel P. Bolger, a retired lieutenant general and Iraq War veteran, offers up a lively, dramatic tale of Rose's heroism. Along the way, Bolger infuses the narrative with fascinating insights that could only come from an author who has commanded tank forces in combat. The result is a unique and masterful story of battlefield leadership, destined to become a classic.
Download or read book Jochen Peiper written by Patrick Agte and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 690 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Achtung Panzer written by Heinz Guderian and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2012-12-20 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is one of the most significant military books of the twentieth century. By an outstanding soldier of independent mind, it pushed forward the evolution of land warfare and was directly responsible for German armoured supremacy in the early years of the Second World War. Published in 1937, the result of 15 years of careful study since his days on the German General Staff in the First World War, Achtung Panzer! argues how vital the proper use of tanks and supporting armoured vehicles would be in the conduct of a future war. When that war came, just two years later, he proved it, leading his Panzers with distinction in the Polish, French and Russian campaigns. Panzer warfare had come of age, exactly as he had forecast.This first English translation of Heinz Guderian's classic book - used as a textbook by Panzer officers in the war - has an introduction and extensive background notes by the modern English historian Paul Harris.
Download or read book Panzer Leader written by HENNING OTTO and published by . This book was released on 2022-05-30 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The armoured reconnaissance units were the spearheads of Hitler's Panzer divisions, moving stealthily ahead of the tanks to locate the enemy. Otto Henning's armoured car unit of the elite Panzer-Lehr-Division fought throughout the campaigns in the West in 1944 and 1945, arriving in Normandy a few weeks before D-Day and finally surrendering in the Ruhr pocket in mid-April 1945. Henning describes the difficulties that reconnaissance forces such as his faced in the close terrain of the Normandy bocage and the threat posed by the Allies complete control of the air. He experienced first-hand the devastation wrought by the Panzer Ace Michael Wittmann's lone Tiger tank against the British 7th Armoured Division at Villers Bocage, as well as ensured the chaos and demoralisation of the Germans retreat across France. After the Battle of the Bulge and the final fighting in western Germany, Henning surrendered and endured terrible conditions in a prisoner-of-war camp until he escaped in 1947. This is a fascinating and often harrowing account of the final campaigns in Western Europe.
Download or read book Hitler s Gladiator written by Charles Messenger and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 493 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A charismatic yet notorious character, Sepp Dietrich the man is impossible to separate from Sepp Dietrich the General, who was awarded twenty-four different honors during his service to the Nazi party and was known for his devotion to his men as he led them through some of the fiercest fighting in the war. In this extensively researched book, historian Charles Messenger attempts to discover the truth about this sparsely documented man, painting a vivid picture of the aggressive war and politics under the Third Reich. From Dietrich’s humble upbringing and his eventual rise to General, to his dissatisfaction with Hitler’s leadership and the trials he faced after the war, Dietrich remains a mysterious figure in history.
Download or read book Order in Chaos written by Hermann Balck and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 579 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: German general Hermann Balck (1897–1982) was considered to be one of World War II's greatest battlefield commanders. His brilliantly fought battles were masterpieces of tactical agility, mobile counterattack, and the technique of Auftragstaktik, or "mission command." However, because he declined to participate in the U.S. Army's military history debriefing program, today he is known only to serious students of the war. Drawing heavily on his meticulously kept wartime journals, Balck discusses his childhood and his career through the First and Second World Wars. His memoir details the command decision-making process as well as operations on the ground during crucial battles, including the Battle of the Marne in World War I and his incredible victories against a larger and better-equipped Soviet army at the Chir River in World War II. Balck also offers observations on Germany's greatest generals, such as Erich Ludendorff and Heinz Guderian, and shares his thoughts on international relations, domestic politics, and Germany's place in history. Available in English for the first time in an expertly edited and annotated edition, this important book provides essential information about the German military during a critical era in modern history.
Download or read book Panzer Operations written by Hermann Hoth and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2015-03-19 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A German commander’s “very readable and thought-provoking” study of Operation Barbarossa (Military Review). This book unveils a wealth of experiences and analysis about Operation Barbarossa, perhaps the most important military campaign of the twentieth century, from a perspective rarely encountered. Hermann Hoth led Germany’s 3rd Panzer Group in Army Group Center—in tandem with Guderian’s 2nd Group—during the invasion of the Soviet Union, and together, these two daring panzer commanders achieved a series of astounding victories, encircling entire Russian armies at Minsk, Smolensk, and Vyazma, all the way up to the very gates of Moscow. This work begins with Hoth discussing the use of nuclear weapons in future conflicts. This cool-headed postwar reflection, from one of Nazi Germany’s top panzer commanders, is rare enough. But then Hoth dives into his exact command decisions during Barbarossa—still the largest continental offensive ever undertaken—to reveal new insights into how Germany could, and in his view should, have succeeded in the campaign. Hoth critically analyses the origin, development, and objective of the plan against Russia, and presents the situations confronted, the decisions taken, and the mistakes made by the army’s leadership, as the new form of mobile warfare startled not only the Soviets on the receiving end but the German leadership itself, which failed to provide support infrastructure for their panzer arm’s breakthroughs. Hoth sheds light on the decisive and ever-escalating struggle between Hitler and his military advisers on the question of whether, after the Dnieper and the Dvina had been reached, to adhere to the original idea of capturing Moscow. Hitler’s momentous decision to divert forces to Kiev and the south only came in late August 1941. He then finally considers in detail whether the Germans, after obliterating the remaining Russian armies facing Army Group Center in Operation Typhoon, could still hope for the occupation of the Russian capital that fall. Hoth concludes his study with several lessons for the offensive use of armored formations in the future. His firsthand analysis, here published for the first time in English, will be vital reading for every student of World War II.
