"Best WWII German Memoir?" Topic

Which memoir from the German side in WWII is your favorite, as a wargamer?

Panzer Commander by Hans von Luck is the one that I keep going back to, although Tigers In The Mud has to be up there too….

+1 Dom

The Forgotten Soldier is the one for me

Five Years, Four Fronts by Georg Grossjohann and from the American side one of my favorites is Brothers in Arms by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar/Anthony Walton.

There are others but I go back to these through out the years, interesting to get different perspectives on the war – same war, same front but different people see things very different.

Warlord

If force to pick one, 'I Flew for the Fuhrer' by Heinz Knocke.

After that, Panzers East by Raus. I find his staff college lecture style entertaining, and one day I'll do the camel mounted Soviet cavalry vs Panzer IIIs battle.

I really enjoyed Forgotten Soldier, though historians have cast a lot of doubts on the specific details.

I've read Iron Coffins, Stuka, Forgotten Soldier, and Blood Red Snow. They were all good reads. I've run scenarios based on Blood Red Snow (Eastern front MG gunner) that turned out well, so as a wargamer, I guess that'd be my favorite.

He's a bastard, but IIRC Rudel's memoir has some wargaming uses, at least for air games with Ju-87s.

Dom named some good ones too, though the TitM guy is pretty unrepentant too.

I really enjoyed all of these books, all of them have great wargaming ideas and they were for me really good page turners. The combat was horrific on par with the Pacific or worse.

Goodbye Transylvania.

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Campaign in Russia: The Waffen SS on the Eastern Front 1st Edition
by Leon Degrelle (Author)

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In Deadly Combat: A German Soldier's Memoir of the Eastern Front (Modern War Studies) Paperback – June 7, 2000

by Gottlob Herbert Bidermann (Author), Derek S. Zumbro (Translator)

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The Last Knight of Flanders: Remy Schrijnen and His SS-Legion Hardcover – January 1, 2004

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Panzer Battles by von Mellenthin is well done.

Best I've read is The Forgotten Soldier. Even if half the anecdotes happen to those around him and not really to him, it's an intense read.

Haven't done a search, but have we surveyed best Japanese WWII memoirs? Other than "Samura!" by Sakai, I can't think of any; I know I have a history of Midway from a Japanese perspective, but it's not a memoir.

"The First And The Last" by Adolf Galland. link

The Forgotten Soldier

Hans von Luck. Really a great read. Defense in depth in Normandy. Not huge on western front so this really had to be a good one. He was everywhere.

Stories with the Brits i Afrika was great. Clock in for War. clock out at 5PM.

JH

Another for "The Forgotten Soldier".

One of two books I have read three times, "To Kill A Mockingbird" is the other.

I always remembered his line:

"A day came when I should have died and after that nothing seemed very important".

I understood what he meant when that day came for me.

. Haven't done a search, but have we surveyed best Japanese WWII memoirs? Other than "Samura!" by Sakai, I can't think of any; I know I have a history of Midway from a Japanese perspective, but it's not a memoir.

Japanese Destroyer Captain by Hara

Letters from Okinawa

Midway the Battle that Doomed Japan might be he Midway book you mention and it is a memoir but it's very self serving and untruthful

The Forgotten Soldier.

Black Edelweiss – voss
An Infantryman in Stalingrad – Holl
7 days in January – Zoepf
Fur Volk und Fuehrer – Bartmann

Also second the others on the list.

For a US perspective, The Clay Pigeons of St Lo (Glover S. Johns, jr) is a good read.

As for Japanese, I was a Kamikaze (forgot the authors name) was good, although obviously the author was not successful in his chosen career…..

Front line Stalingrad, life and fate, the red army at war,

With The Old Breed – Sledge

Combat History of the 21. Panzer Division – Kortenhaus

If nothing else, Forgotten Soldier is a fantastic novel.

I like Von Luck's book.

Can anyone suggest a book/memoir that covers the 1939/1940 campaigns ?