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Panzer Commander: The Memoirs Of Colonel Hans Von Luck (1999)

Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck (1999)

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4.12 of 5 Votes: 4
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English
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dell publishing co.

About book Panzer Commander: The Memoirs Of Colonel Hans Von Luck (1999)

Probably the all around best account of tank warfare through the eyes of a German Colonel of the 21st German Panzer Division. Hans von Luck had the fortitude to fight on almost all fronts. Including Poland, France, Russia, in the Afrika-Korps, then again in France during D-Day. At the end his battle-group was thrown into the defense of Berlins southern flank to fight the unstoppable Russian juggernaut.Hans was a scholar of Rommel, with whom he shared a special relationship of professional appreciation and whose style of leadership he tried to copy. Still, von Luck wasn't blind about obvious character- and professional faults of Rommel. In his very lightly spirited recount of an particular anecdote during the French campaign in '40 von Luck delivers the most pointed and most stinging criticism of Rommel's style of leadership that I ever found anywhere. He doesn't say it directly, but upon reading it you can only draw the correct conclusions. I won't spoil it for you, though. That alone makes this book very like-able.Yet: Von Luck's memoirs doesn't contain very detailed descriptions of battles or maps, which has lead to some criticisms in other reviews I've read. He's more focused about the people he serves with or the people that he encountered - friends, foes or civilians alike. It's mostly a recollection of notable anecdotes and he spares us from the horrors of battle that he encountered on various occasions.Especially the brutal fightings after D-Day and the defense of Berlin's flank are a bit cloudy and he only hints the horrors the complete wipe outs of what was left of his division and the neighboring ones.This book is also a good account of the most despicable of Generals that served the Wehrmacht: Edgar Feuchtinger, divisional commander of the 21st Panzer Division. Feuchtinger was the complete opposite of Rommel and a thoroughly corrupted and negligent individual unfit of becoming an officer. Yet it was Feuchtinger's constant and prolonged absence from the Division (he had a Brazilian mistress in Paris) that allowed it's battalion commanders the most leeway to structure the 21st into an organic fighting force - contrary to the normally established procedures of the Wehrmacht. This - and Major Becker's contraptions (heavily modified captured enemy equipment) - contributed a lot to the successes of the 21st. All in all it is a light, but gripping read that allows us a glimpse into the mindset of an intelligent and rather sophisticated German aristocrat (without much to show for it) who ended up serving his country through thick and thin. Which can also lead to some more criticism, when he ponders more about the loss of his wine collection than the KZ incarceration and murder of the parents of his fiancée. This doesn't make von Luck any more likable and probably tells more about his flaws than anything else. Yet this unfiltered view into his mind helps to understand some of the incomprehensible things that went on during that period of time. It helps to understand why such men fought (and in case of so many others) died for such a morally corrupted regime. Down at an individual level such men as von Luck carried their own baggage for various reasons related to upbringing, education and - in some forms or other - indoctrination as well. Men like von Luck were born for war. If not this one, then the next.The final chapters of this book deal with his five year long POW stint in Russia. Despite that he speaks without malice of the Russians and his insights into the Russian mindset of that period is also very enlightening. Last but least his book recounts the difficult adjustments back to a "normal" life back in West-Germany. More than 10 years have passed since the last peacetime he enjoyed in Germany and he now meets a society who has all but forgotten the war and which has moved on a lot further than he could ever imagine.The book closes with a note to von Luck's sons with the hope for a better and more peaceful future. Yet, it contains many lessons which our politicians have all too easily discarded in the decades that passed.I liked this book and will certainly read it again in the future. Despite some of the shortcomings that I might have had while reading it first time around.

This book had me hooked from the first page. And maybe that was all a clever trick on von Luck's part because by the time I got to the point in the book where the military jargon and the (sometimes) dry descriptions of various missions was annoying me - I was too hooked to give up.I'm glad I stuck with it. Hans von Luck's story is worth reading if you're a WWII history buff because it gives a unique perspective I had yet to encounter: a story from the other side. So much of what I've read about WWII - and I realize that I haven't even begun to touch the surface of what is out there - has been based on the Allies, the British and/or the Americans, with the Germans being the bad guys. When you do read about the German 'side' of things, it's predominantly to understand why the good side reacted the way they did.This is why I loved this book so much. Hans von Luck was a mid-ranking military official from the pre-war years right through to the end when he was captured by the Russians and kept prisoner for five years. And he writes as though he is both staunchly proud of being German and having fought in this war, but then also very sympathetic to the other side.While I've since read criticisms that von Luck's position in this book makes it appear as though he distances himself from Hitler and the Nazi's partly to save face, I do believe after having read his story that he was simply a good man doing his job, and was not a war criminal like so many of his counterparts.I could go on about this book for quite some time given its astonishing depth and ability to convey a great deal of emotion, but I will leave my review at this: if you don't read any other WWII book, read this one.I like that it made me think about the Germans on a different level, and despite my obvious allegiance to those who were oppressed by Nazi Germany for so many years (including my Dutch grandparents), I was glad to have the chance to try and understand another perspective.

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I'm not quite sure what to make of this one. Luck certainly comes off as a decent enough fellow, not a bad word to say about anyone save for the Nazis and military officers who were overly loyal to Hitler. His explanation that the German army had a strong sense of loyalty, one that Hitler abused, comes off as particularly hollow. "We were just so honorable, and Hitler abused that." The minutiae of some of the battles are not particularly compelling to me, and that is what Luck knows best because he fought those battles. I still believe that the notion of "The Good German," is a bit of a myth. Luck alludes to crimes committed by the Nazis, and twice to the "notorious" Dirlewanger Brigade, but he never describes what those crimes were or why the Dirlewanger brigade was so notorious. That Dirlewanger's men slaughtered civilians in Russia and turned Warsaw into hell on earth after the uprising goes unmentioned. That's what makes his memoir so odd. For a man who fought in Poland, twice in France, Russia, North Africa, and in Germany at the end, there is surprisingly little blood, as if Luck were relaying someone else's experiences. It's an interesting read, but don't expect any sort of reckoning with Germany's crimes or the part that Luck, and officers like him, played in aiding and abetting those crimes.
—Patrick

Col. von Luck's memoirs are a fascinating account of a soldier that participated in almost every major campaign of the German Army during WWII. I have read many books on the 2nd World War, but this is the first for me on the German side. Col. von Luck was no Nazi, but rather a professional soldier from a long line of Prussian soldiers. At times I wish he went into more detail about particular engagements and his tactics, but that would be my only criticism. He was eventually captured and spent many years as a POW in a Soviet Camp. His time their was equally as fascinating as his time fighting the war. A great book.
—Pete

Hans Von Luck (pronounced like the English name "Luke" not the English word "luck") was a "good German," which makes his memoir an interesting story that has certain elephants constantly lurking in the back of the room. Luck addresses them a few times, though perhaps not to the satisfaction of those who really want to know about the moral calculus of serving as a willing officer in Hitler's army.I found his account compelling and sometimes riveting for his first-hand accounts of war and all its accompanying terror, as well as the years he spent as a prisoner in Russian camps at the end of the war, before he was finally released back to Germany.However, his war stories, while detailed, meticulous, and sometimes dreadful, were somewhat lacking in the technical and tactical details that made Japanese Destroyer Captain a much better read. If you want to know all about tank warfare and what is was like to drive Panzers, Luck talks surprisingly little about the machines and the maneuvers themselves. He covers the battles he was involved in as if giving an AAR (After Action Report), narrating his campaigns from the Eastern Front to North Africa, where he served under Rommel, and finally, to the bitter end defense of Berlin, which led to his being captured by the Russians and spending the next five years as a POW.In the foreword, he issues a plea for tolerance and peace in the hope of "never again" repeating the mistakes his country made, and throughout the book he gives the impression of being a conscientious man who always had his doubts about Hitler, but was just being a loyal soldier. He certainly wasn't anti-Semitic, as his girlfriend throughout the war was 1/8 Jewish, and they were told by the High Command that for that reason, he could not marry her. (He observes indignantly that reserve officers were allowed to marry a 1/8 Jew, but active army officers could not.) Actually, his romance with Dagmar became an ongoing "subplot" in the story, as he would frequently manage to speak to her briefly even while he was in the field and she was back in Germany (in areas being bombed), and at one point she basically hitchhiked through a war zone to meet him! Spunky woman. I won't "spoil" the ending by telling you whether or not they wind up marrying.All that being said - I experienced some skepticism about his studious disavowals that he or his fellow officers really knew what was going on with the Jews. Dagmar's own father was locked up in a camp (just a prison camp; they hadn't become death camps yet) and Luck tried to exercise his influence to free him. There are also an awful lot of stories about how noble and generous he and his men were to local civilians, and how grateful they were, and it was only in other places where less honorable German soldiers treated non-combatants with less humanity. Not that I doubt Luck's personal conduct — I'm sure he was a conscientious commander who followed the Geneva Convention. But still, he never seems to encounter anyone who actually dislikes Germans, or has reason to.Later, Luck relates the increasing desperation of the German army as they realize (from about 1943 onward) that the war is lost and they are fighting for survival and increasingly diminishing chances of being allowed something less than unconditional surrender. As this happens, he talks about how Hitler and the High Command were increasingly detached from the reality at the front, how Hitler was trying to micromanage divisions (which often no longer existed except on paper), and how the Nazi police state even affected officers at the front. At one point, one of Luck's platoon sergeants is summarily executed by one of the infamous "flying drumhead" judges who were going around shooting soldiers for any reason they could drum up. Luck is furious, but even a highly decorated colonel can't do anything about it.This was a good book for its look into the mind of a Wehrmacht officer, but I found the anecdotes like those above more interesting than the actual war, which Luck describes in dry detail. The chapters about life in a Russian labor camp were interesting too.
—David

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