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 Russion front — von Luck fought there with some of the best soldiers in the worlds. 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 eyewiteness, 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. - From the back cover of the book. It’s a very good book, and I highly reccommend it to anyone who has a special interest in Panzers.
I have read this book.
Pehaps the major contribution that von Luck has to add over other Panzer commanders is his experiences in the Gulag. An good analysis of the book is most likely available from amazon etc, so I won’t bore you all with the details. I would offer my second warning of the evening. There is a strong trend in the (auto)biographies of Wehrmacht Officers / Soldiers to distance themselves from the Nazi aspect of Germany from that period. The current view taken from such sources is that the German military was schizophrenic, with the Wehrmacht fighting an honourable waar and the Waffen SS fighting the evil ethnic cleansing campaigns that so many peoples are sadly familiar with. I do not believe that the lines were so clear cut. Others on this site are likely better informed than me n this matter, but that is my assessment so far.