Panzer Warfare on the Eastern Front

I had no trouble getting into this book, which contains wonderful, personal accounts of the German Panzer brigades' war on the Eastern Front in WW2. Putting aside any misgivings about the rights and wrongs of invading Russia in the first place, (without antifreeze!!?), these stories are very human narratives from ordinary German soldiers who had to bear the brunt of this titanic struggle. You quickly get some idea of the brutal and debilitating nature of the conflict with vivid descriptions of attacks, taking casualties, dealing with the appalling Russian winters in inadequate clothes and the sheer scale of the conflict, fighting on a 2,000 mile front, trying to get tank engines started on a morning when it's minus 50 degrees and you're freezing and hungry, crawling with lice. If you're not affected, you have a stone for a heart. There's humour too, the soldiers last defence against despair and rock-bottom morale. It doesn't lose sight of the Russian people either and their grievous suffering as their country was torn apart on the whim of a madman who had the example of Napoleon's demise with his Grand Armee before him, but ignored the lessons of history. I'd recommend this book, not just to war buffs or historians, but to anyone who finds the indominitable human spirit and our capacity for suffering fascinating reading. Strongly recommended. The copy editing is a little rough in places, ('drug' is the past tense of 'to drag'?!!!!!) but this gives the voices a realism and authenticity.

This is a very interesting book. Personal accounts of men who fought on the eastern front from the beginning of Barbarossa to the end in 1945. I have two complaints: #1: The title is a little misleading. The men portrayed in the book did all serve in panzer divisions. However, much of the stories took place in units that could have been in any type of division. For instance, the author, who provides probably 1/3 of the stories, served in a communications unit running wire between regiment and battalion HQ's. Don't get me wrong, his stories were fascinating, but weren't exactly panzer warfare. Many of the stories didn't involve tanks at all. Nevertheless, those stories were fascinating as well. #2: Quite a few grammar and spelling errors. nothing that stops you from understanding the stories, but I just don't understand why someone couldn't just read the book once and correct the errors before publishing.

Schaulfler was a Communications Platoon Leader on the Eastern Front and his recollections of the fighting come from his experiences running a comm platoon. It is very interesting hearing how the combat support units operated in a very fluid and dangerous environment. His vignettes on the daily life of the troops are fascinating. In one particular recollection he recounts what it was like from the lower ranks to realize that your division has been encircled by the Russians and the thoughts and conversations among the troops of foreboding and danger. It is great reading. The book is divided into small, 4-5 page, vignettes that allow the reader to look into the life of the troops in the field. Much of it revolves around the fighting but in this case, it focusing on how the comm guys continue to lay wire in the face of artillery barrages and armored warfare. Stackpole didn't spend any more money than they had to on publishing this book and the picture quality suffers due to the poor grade of paper. For someone who knows something of the war on the Eastern Front this is a great read. It really does offer the reader a completely different perspective than they would normally get.

This book is varied. Some of the first hand accounts are merely a boring listing of what a unit did, while other accounts are full of the details of war from a very personal perspective. Some of the writers were so close to death that their survival was sometimes a matter of freak luck. Because the accounts vary so much, from the boring to interesting, I am only awarding three stars. However if the German war in the East is an interest of yours then I recommend you buy this book.

Interesting accounts of Eastern Front action, many of them first-person. Photos are rather muddy, since they're not printed on glossy paper in the edition I read. The maps are hand-drawn and rather crude. But overall I learned a lot new to me about the Eastern Front and I've read a lot about that campaign. Recommended.

I read this book the first time in 1972 when it was published in Germany as Der Weg war Weit: Panzer zwischen Weischsel und Wolga. The English edition is an excellent translation, and includes five Appendices that the German edition did not have. They are: A, Comparative Rank Table; B, 4th Panzer Division Order of Battle; C, 9th Panzer Division Order of Battle; D, 11th Panzer Division Order of battle; and E, 16th Panzer Division Order of Battle. The Appendices and the translator’s notes on the page bottoms, make the English edition a much better reference source than the German edition, though the first-person accounts are identical in both editions. People who expressed disappointment with the book because it was not about tank battles were, probably, unaware of how a German tank division was organized. The Appendices, B through C, provide that information. The only small complaint I have is that neither the German edition nor the English have an Index. I think that is the case because German books rarely have an index, and this English edition is a direct translation and format copy of the original German. I gave it 5 stars because it provides accurate, personal accounts of the war on the Eastern Front. Dwight R. Messimer

I found this book to be interesting. It described the experiences of the soldiers that were actually in 6the action.

何度落としてもiPadのKindleで読めず、もしや？と思ってKindlePaperWhiteでダウンロードすると読めました。 200冊に一冊位の確率で、こうした本に当たる時があります。（iPad Kindleのバグでしょうか） 東部戦線に特化したドイツ戦車の本で非常に好印象で、戦闘写真も極少数ですがページ中に密かに挿入されています。 テキスト情報のみですが、1941開戦〜1945年の末期までを取り扱っていますから、東部戦線全史を追求している 方には向いていると思います。 各部隊の細かい戦いも幾つかあげられています。特にその都度の新たなソ連戦車との対決がいいでしょうか。 残念ながら、地図が載っていないので何か別の地図が載っている和書資料を手元に読まれた方が良いかと... （東部戦線の概要資料は和書でも豊富ですから、問題ないでしょうね）

very facul well written

This book is none of the best I have read on the Eastern Front. It focusses not on grand strategy but at individual contact level. The detail is very good and the many short stories and anecdotes make for gripping, and easy reading. There is not a great deal on tanks per se, but the tanks were supported by Grenadiers who feature highly. A good book.

A great step by step guide to the ending of the German assault of Russia ! A soldiers view of a retreat that left so many dead on both sides .

when i see the word panzer i expect to be reading about tanks and tank men. The majority of the book concerns the motorized infantry and especially the signal corps, so mention of tanks & tank battles are rare and off-camera, like muffled engines heard from the other side of a forest. So i have to say that the book description & title are misleading. That said, the book contains some interesting first hand accounts of life in the soviet winter, deep in the forests where the cold was as much an enemy as the soviets, who for the most part seem under-trained and ineffective. The most moving passages are the accounts of the fall of Danzig, where the german tankmen, deprived of their tanks due to shortages of fuel & spares, try to supervise the evacuation of the city before the soviets arrive. The Soviets are painted as bloodthirsty & brutal, and we don't get a sense that the Germans were simply reaping what they had previously sewn. Grainy b&w pictures are included.