Not my usual fare, but I picked this up after getting hooked on the World of Tanks Blitz game.

There are a lot of interesting tidbits about what life was like for tankers on the Eastern Front, but it's not what I hoping for. It stands in complete contrast to [b:A Bloody War: 1939-1945|11280993|A Bloody War 1939-1945|Hal Lawrence|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|16208189], which I read years ago and still remember fondly.

Some details are very vivid and memorable. Picture them falling asleep in the tank, and waking up with their hair frozen into the frost on the inside of the tank. Or his friend that slipped on the ice in front of a moving tank. The meeting with Himmler and the generals discussing arming the Croats to fight the Serbs. The authour's opinion of Russian and American fighting abilities.

Some are much more mundane. They spent more time towing broken tanks than you'd ever imagine.

But there are several factors here that end up making it less than I hoped for.

First up, I suspect the translation was done by someone less than ideal. It's very stilted and awkward in many places, and I can't help but think it reads better in the original.

Secondly, the authour obviously had a couple of axes to grind here.

He spends a lot of time defending the regular German soldier against what he feels is persecution by everyone outside the armed forces. I can only imagine the lot of a German soldier post war, and thus I understand a bit why he's doing it, but it doesn't read well.

The authour also, quite honestly, comes across as a cold, arrogant know-it-all.

Let me be clear here. If anybody has the claim to talk about WWII tank warfare with authority, this guy is it, period, end of discussion. His track record (pun intended) is almost without equal.

On the other hand, he spends half the book talking about which commanders he liked, and which ones he ignored. I can't help but think his level of independence would never be tolerated in almost any other situation.

He mentions often how he always spent time with the men rather than off apart from them, but he mentions only a handful by name. Apparently they all loved him, but it's hard to tell if it was reciprocated. Any officer mentioned gets much more press than the people I'm assuming he spent time with day in and out. The last tank loss he describes where he's commanding on foot and the tank is destroyed is so cold as to be inhuman.

Many things, including pretty much every battle, are described very dryly, with no personal details. We moved here, took this position, destroyed that many tanks. It's impossible to tell in many places whether the authour was even present at any given place in the recital. He's commanding, so the royal 'we' makes sense I suppose, but it ends up so distant it's not lifelike. The spots where it becomes personal are the best parts of the book, and they are few and far between.

There is a bunch of 'end matter' in this edition, over a third of the book is reproduced records of the time, often not written by the authour at all. It's also pretty dry, with a few exceptions.

The section written by the mechanics is fascinating when you read between the lines - you can picture those poor guys attempting to fix these behemoths under fire in the middle of nowhere and running into problems they can't control.

The whole book is a fascinating glimpse into what happened, but I'm left wishing I could see more. ( )

Jawohl! Basically a war diary - is interesting to see life from a war grunt's view but this guy didn't think all that much about his situation. I guess that in itself is telling, as I'd guess most veterans didn't delve into the mysteries of "why the heck are we doing this?!?". So, given that this is mostly a diary of one man's trail thru the german military machine, that is interesting, just not _super_ interesting.

Good audiobook narrator ( )

Muy buen libro de Otto Carius, protagonista en primera persona.
Narra la acción de un modo espectacular como carrista y enorme patriota. Gran detallista y seguramente buena persona. ( )

A great book about tank warfare on the Eastern Front fighting Soviet tanks with a Tiger tank. ( )