Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck (CASSELL MILITARY PAPERBACKS)

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The battery thus engaging the enemy, Luck spent the remainder of the day furiously trying to plug the gaps in his line. Sometimes we discover new information that changes what we know about an object, such as who made it or used it.

A brilliant book, Col Von Luck comes over as a jolly decent commander, respected by his own men and the Brits. By embedding this audio file you agree to the terms and conditions of the IWM Non-Commercial Licence, including your use of the attribution statement specified by IWM. He played by the rules and in some cases created his own rules of engagement such as stopping war at 5pm when operating at the extreme wing of Rommel's campaign in Africa. 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. Most of the Kampfgruppes armour had been destroyed in the heavy barrages earlier in the day, so it was left to a few scattered antitank and assault gun batteries to take on the advancing British tanks.He served with the 7th Panzer Division and 21st Panzer Division, seeing action in Poland, France, North Africa, Italy and Russia. As he says early in the book, what the Germans had that their enemies never matched, was unit cohesion and as a consequence, a strong sense of comradeship. He was wounded twice and received two of his country’s highest awards for gallantry, the German Cross in Gold and the Knight’s Cross.

Napier wrote that Luck's account of threatening a Luftwaffe officer is plausible given that "88mm anti-aircraft crews did not expect to become embroiled in fighting as per III Flak Korps policy, and their direct involvement occasionally took some persuasion. Daglish argued that Luck embellished his role during post-war official British tours of the battlefield, with his version of events eventually coming into question (off the record).So it is much more a look at the psychology of the people at the time and less a description of military battles. Added to this, more British paratroopers landed in the rear area of the regiment, causing some of Luck's forces to fall back.