To what extent do the memoirs of tank commanders demonstrate similar traits?

The experiences of tanks commanders and crews have varied wildly in the 100 years in their
inception at the Battle of the Somme. There are many aspects that have changed in armoured
warfare in that 100 years, and these have impacted on the tanks crew and, subsequently, on their
memoirs. There are two areas where memoirs have clear differences. Firstly, in the motivation of
the tank commanders. The motivation of ‘Tank Ace’ Michael Wittmann, an experienced and well-
trained tank commander fighting in Normandy in 1944 after D-Day are inherently different to those
of Gunther Grass, a 17-year-old conscript who served in the 10th SS Panzer Division as a loader for a
tank crew in the last few months of the war, in a fighting retreat across North-West Europe.
Secondly is their experiences of the environments in which they fight, the intensity of the combat
they are involved in and their length of service. This is demonstrated very well by the experiences
and memoirs of German tank crews in the Second World War, as the War encompassed many
different theatres of operation and the German Army had a wide variety of quality of crews and
commanders. Furthermore, the accounts of those who fought on more than one front are incredibly
usefully at showing us how the experiences of tank commanders varied. Wittman had fought
extensively on the Eastern Front before being move to the West, and highlights some key
differences in his memoirs, most notably regarding the conduct of opposing forces and the
treatment of non-combatants and prisoners by both sides. The brutality and motivation of the tank
commanders are the key areas where there is notable difference in memoirs. Some similarities are
common without being universal, such as the disregard for the lives of infantry and other
combatants. Finally, there are themes that that are universal, across different theatres of war. The
most prominent of these is that almost all memoirs highlight a close-knit crew, and a strong bond of
friendship amongst them. Then there is a growing sense of vulnerability through the war as anti-tank
capability grows exponentially and tellingly this leads to the last common thread, an overwhelming
desire to simply survive the War.

The area where there is the widest variation is in the motivation of the various crews and their view
of the War. Whilst some tank commanders were fervent Nazis, with their memoirs portraying this,
there are others who clearly viewed the war as questionable; this latter group are by and large
young conscripts with little loyalty to the Nazi party, especially at the end of a draining war, or the
foreign troops pressed into service with the Wehrmacht or SS. Whilst there is no definitive split
between the more fanatical crews and the more reluctant ones, as an overarching theme, the more
elite units such as the Waffen SS tended to have the more aggressively Nazi individuals amongst
their ranks, bolstered by a National-Socialist world view. This by no means, means that the
Wehrmacht did not contain any individuals with strong Nazi beliefs, and the ‘clean Wehrmacht
theory’ has been thoroughly discounted. Nonetheless, the more elite and harder-fighting units did
tend to have the more driven and fanatical soldiers and commanders amongst their ranks.
Conversely, there were many units with little zeal for the Nazi crusade. Individuals such as Franz
Bake were incredibly capable tank commanders, with little direct allegiance to the Nazi Party1. Bake
was released shortly after his capture in 1945 and had, by 1947, had returned to his pre-war
occupation running his dental practice, evidence of a lack of war crimes that were too often
associated with fervent Nazis in the German Armed Forces. However, during the war, he had been a
generalmajor in the Heer and the commander of 6th Panzer Div. Bake was a well-trained commander
and highly successful, but when being written about in the post war period, there is very little
reference to any Nazi connections, allowing him to be used as an example of the ‘clean Wehrmacht’

1
Kurowski, F. (2004). Panzer Aces. Stackpole Books.
theory. By 1945, Bake was tired of the war, and lacked the enthusiasm shown by more fanatical
commanders. Whilst his Division kept fighting until May 1945, Bake was more than happy to
surrender to the Americans at the end. Other tank commanders, such as Joachim Pieper, were very
enthusiastic for the war and the Nazi crusade, and his various war crimes and subsequent death
sentence stand as testament to this. In Peiper’s Biographies, he suggests that the War is worth
fighting and shows a greater sense of aggression, nationalism and Nazism2. From this therefore we
can understand that German tank commanders in the Second World War had very mixed feelings
about the war in general, and not all supported it, even some of the most capable panzer aces.
Whilst German tank crews varied in their motivations, they were seldom cowards but rarely reckless.
Even the most successful crews, such as Wittmann’s crew in 1944, only pushed an attack when they
believed they would have the upper hand. Even Wittmann’s infamous ambush at Villers-Bocage was
calculated and carried out against lightly armoured vehicles that posed little threat to his crew,
rather than a suicidal charge against the prepared might of 7th Armoured Brigade. In Bake’s
memoirs, he suggests he was hesitant to attack towards the end of the war, as he was so grossly
undermanned that any attack would lead to needless casualties. Whilst he was a hardened veteran,
he was not going to needlessly throw away the lives of his men for no tangible gain.3

Another difference is the way that the Germans experienced the conduct of war. In his
autobiography, Faust suggests that on the Eastern front, the brutality to shown to prisoners was not
done through hatred for Slavs, but rather an overwhelmingly indifference and an unquestioning
following of orders4. The Eastern front was so brutal that it quickly desensitised those involved, and
the killing of prisoners and wounded was an emotionless process, driven by a callous pragmatism,
rather than ideology. This contrasts to the Western Front and North Africa, where war crimes were
rare, especially so in North Africa, which is something that Rommel highlights in his memoirs.5
Furthermore, most war crimes committed in 1944-45 by the Germans on the Western Front were
done by units that had seen extensive fighting in the East, where the execution of prisoners had
become standard practice on both sides. Therefore, it can be inferred that the willingness to commit
or acceptance of war crimes depended on the esprit de corps of the units involved, with those that
that had fought in North Africa had not spent extend period fighting on the Eastern Front displaying
far higher standards of discipline, if not chivalry and committing few war crimes. Another key factor
in determining the treatment of non-combatants was the time spent in theatre. In Faust’s memoirs,
he suggests that at the beginning of his time on the Eastern Front, he was reluctant to kill and that
the killing of the injured seemed wrong to him, but that after a few months, he became totally
desensitised to it and very few seasoned troops had any issue with killing6. Therefore, it could be
argued that the reason the Western front was less brutal was because it only lasted 11 months, and
so very few units that fought exclusively on the Western Front had become desensitised enough to

2
Westemeire, J. (2007). Joachim Peiper: A Biography of Himmler's SS Commander. London: Schiefer
Military History Publications.

3
Kurowski, F. (2004). Panzer Aces. Stackpole Books.

4
Faust, W. (1949). Tiger Tracks - The classic panzer memoir. 1st ed. Bayern: Bayern Classic Publications.

5
Rommel, E. (1953). The Rommel Papers.

6
Faust, W. (1949). Tiger Tracks - The classic panzer memoir. 1st ed. Bayern: Bayern Classic Publications.
start killing prisoners and the wounded. Conversely, fighting on the Eastern Front had been raging at
full intensity since 1941. With a full 4 years of brutal combat, many individuals had become
hardened to the realities of war and the prevailing unit attitude was at best indifference and at
worst fully supportive of the war crimes committed. The killing of prisoners was never universal, but
over time individuals became hardened by their experiences and desensitized to suffering and were
more likely to commit war crimes, especially those led by veterans, who were often more ruthless,
an attitude that then became ingrained into the actions of the unit.

A final key difference that caused the crews and commanders of tanks to have different experiences
in the Second World War was the conduct of the opposing forces. The most notable difference
between the conduct of the Soviets and Allies can be seen by examining the German attempt to
retreat Westwards in 1945 to surrender to American and Commonwealth forces, rather than face
the Soviets. Faust suggests in his memoirs that he would have much rather died than have been
captured by the Soviets7, as he was certain that a slow and torturous death would follow were this
the case. This is in no way the same when looking at the Western Allies, who provided markedly
more humane treatment of prisoners. The willingness of the Germans to surrender on the Western
Front in 1945 proves this. Whilst those captured were kept in prison, some for many years, most
were dealt with fairly and ultimately released shortly after the end of the war and allowed to return
to their normal lives. On the other hand, the Soviets were far less forgiving, and an approximate
380,000 Axis troops died in Soviet captivity – a number not much less than the total number of
fatalities suffered by the British in the entirety of the Second World War. However, this number is
disputed and the number may be somewhere more than 1 million. The Germans taken prisoner in
North Africa were mostly sent to Canada to work as farmers, for whom the largest cause of death
was being sunk by German U-Boats. Overall, there was no universal fear of being taken prisoner and,
for some on the Western front, it was a quick way out of a war in which they wanted no part and
could only see further suffering and damage to their homeland. The Italians, for example,
surrendered en masse as the Allies fought up through Sicily and Italy, as they had no desire to fight.
Conversely, on the Eastern front, in places like Stalingrad, they fought just as hard as their German
counterparts to get out, knowing that a cruel fate awaited anyone who fell in to the hands of the
Soviets, regardless of their nationality or motivation. Therefore, it can be understood that the
concept of surrendering was almost entirely based on the conduct of the opposing force, whilst
there are other factors, such as the determination and morale of the crews, remained constant
across theatres. There were far more veteran crews surrendering by choice to the Western Allies
than there were conscripts and broken men surrendering to the Soviets.

Allied to this is a factor shared by most tank crews, but not all. That is the total disregard for the
infantry who fought around them. When the Germans began to fight a defensive war against the
Soviets, effectively following Battle of Kursk in 1943, the tank was used mostly as a mobile anti-tank
gun, rather than as a breakthrough-and-exploit capability. As such, the tank crews had little to do
with the infantry who moved and fought around them. Furthermore, the tank crews often spent
their time scared of throwing a track or becoming bogged-down and vulnerable to the revenge of
the infantry soldiers who could them swarm them. Accordingly, their thoughts were almost entirely
of self-preservation. As such, crushing friendly troops who were unable to get out the way of a
moving tank was not uncommon, and in Faust’s memoirs, he suggests this was common place, and

7
Faust, W. (1949). Tiger Tracks - The classic panzer memoir. 1st ed. Bayern: Bayern Classic Publications.
 not overly frowned upon8, just accepted as a grim reality of war. Moreover, this was not limited to
just infantry. Faust also suggests that most tank crews made little attempt to rescue other bailed-
out tank crews, unless it was immediately doable with little threat to themselves and only if the crew
recognised the other bailed-out crew, otherwise it was totally acceptable to just leave the crew and
let them make their own way back9. The same applied to other combatants, such as downed
aircrew, who were treated with open contempt.

On the other hand, there were many things that were seen almost universally in all theatres and by
all tank crews, irrespective of experience or enthusiasm. The most notable of these is close bond of
friendship between the crewmembers. This can be seen through the memoirs of Wittman, who
spent most of his career with his gunner, Bobby Woll, who was a witness at his wedding and with
whom he shares a grave in Normandy. Faust reinforces this statement by suggesting that the only
real comfort on the Eastern Front came from his crewmates, caring little for anyone outside of his
platoon10. Even at a level as low as Gunther Grass, who was conscripted at 17, he felt supported by
the hardened members of his tank crew11, even though he did not necessarily share their
experiences or motivation. Almost all tank crews, irrespective of experience, were a friendly and
often incredibly tight knit group. This was quite common with the Germans, especially with tank
crews, due to a belief in Kamaraderie, a mix of comradeship and brotherhood, that seems
widespread amongst crews relied on each other so much for their own safety and survival, and
includes the conscripted forces that fought alongside the Germans. Vitez Ervin was a Hungarian tank
ace who held his crew in high regard and accredited a large amount of his success to their actions.
After being mortally wounded by the destruction of his tank in 1945, he was carried by the other
two surviving members of his crew until he bled to death, indicatives of the close relationship that
tank crews had.

A shared trait that grows during the war is the fear of destruction. At the start of the war tanks were
impervious to most small arms fire. Until the introduction of the RPG-43 in 1943, there was little
infantry could do to threaten the crew inside a tank, and whilst petrol bombs or brick corners could
relatively easily score a mobility kill on a tank, the crew were mostly safe. Faust highlights in his
memoirs that around 1943-44, with the Soviets use of captured panzerfausts and the greater use of
PIAT, Bazooka and anti-tank grenades, infantry become far more threatening, and can overcome
armour through the use of man-portable anti-tank weapons and anti-tank guns12, especially in close
or urban terrain. As an extension of this, most commanders seem to agree that most time in a tank
was spent terrified. With the exclusion of a few fearless individuals, being a tank commander
towards the end of the war, even in Panther and Tiger, consisted largely of hoping they would not
come across a ‘cat-killer’ or some other form of allied specialised anti-armour tank such as Firefly or

8
Faust, W. (1949). Tiger Tracks - The classic panzer memoir. 1st ed. Bayern: Bayern Classic Publications.

9
Ibid

10
Ibid

11
Grass, G. (2010). Grimms Worter. Steidl Gerhard Verlag.

12
Faust, W. (1949). Tiger Tracks - The classic panzer memoir. 1st ed. Bayern: Bayern Classic
Publications.
Pershing. Added to this was, the fear of throwing a track or breaking down was an entirely realistic
fear, especially in the unreliable early Tigers and Panthers, and could very easily lead to being
captured by the enemy. As such, most accounts of tank crews suggest that moving at all in a tank
was a frightening experience. Faust suggest that facing most Soviet tanks was not overly scary, as
being in a Tiger, it was likely that most rounds from most tanks would bounce off with a mostly
harmless ping. Wittmann supports this, as he suggests that he was never genuinely scared of fighting
tanks, but rather the idea of facing infantry, who were much more capable of overwhelming and
assaulting his tank13. Overall therefore, it can be suggested that for most tank crews in the late war
period spent a good portion of their experience terrified of being attacked and captured by enemy
infantry. From this we can understand that at the end of the war, most crews were just genuinely
interested in surviving and there were very few in 1945 who still held any beliefs in recapturing lost
lands, or winning the war. Whilst some remained optimistic, and fought hard, from the Ardennes
Offensive to the last defence of the Reichstag, most of these men were still fighting for the same
sense of self-preservation as all others. There was a reason that a full third (4/12 Corps) of the final
defenders of Berlin were SS, who arguably had the most to answer for from their captors.

In conclusion, most tank crews had very different experiences in the war, which shaped the
memoirs. There were the fanatical elites and the panzer aces like Wittmann, who feared very little
and revelled in the opportunity to pit their armour against their enemies, and there were those like
Faust who spent most of the war terrified and hoping their tank wouldn’t fall apart when they
moved. There were those like Pieper who were rabid Nazis and fully supported the War as a crusade,
and there were those like Grass who were pressed into service and were reluctant to do much more
than survive. But mostly there were those like Ervin, who fought without hesitation or doubt, but
owed no great debt to the Nazi party, nor had any great desire to see them rule, but rather did their
part for their country, their crew and their own survival. Overall, every tank commander and every
tank crewman had a different and personal experience, with some decent to the end and others
became desensitised and callous, inexorably became broken by the War. However, all were united in
a tangible sense of Kamaraderie and an ever-present fear of death. There were very few tank crews
who were careless in their actions or put themselves in needless risks, and those that were, rarely
lasted for very long. The final and overriding uniting trait stands out above all other similarities or
differences; the desire for self-preservation.

13
Agte, P. (2006). Michael Wittmann and the Waffen SS Tiger Commanders of the Leibstandarte in WWII.
Stackpole Books.
Bibliography

Website
Bevetes. Captain vitéz Ervin Tarczay. [online] Available at:
http://www.bevetes.hu/cikkek/karrier/vitez_tarczai_ervin [Accessed 20 Oct. 2018].

Books
Agte, P. (2006). Michael Wittmann and the Waffen SS Tiger Commanders of the Leibstandarte in WWII.
Stackpole Books.

Faust, W. (1949). Tiger Tracks - The classic panzer memoir. 1st ed. Bayern: Bayern Classic Publications.

Grass, G. (2010). Grimms Worter. Steidl Gerhard Verlag.

Kurowski, F. (2004). Panzer Aces. Stackpole Books.

Rommel, E. (1953). The Rommel Papers.

Westemeire, J. (2007). Joachim Peiper: A Biography of Himmler's SS Commander. London: Schiefer

Military History Publications.