Original title Panzerschlachten Genre Memoirs | Language German, English Publication date 1956 (U.S. edition) | |
Author Publisher University of Oklahoma Press | ||
Panzerschlachten (Panzer Battles) is the German language title of Friedrich von Mellenthin's autobiographical account of his service as a staff officer in the Panzerwaffe of the German Army during World War II. The first English edition, as Panzer Battles: A Study of the Employment of Armor in the Second World War, was published in 1956 by the University of Oklahoma Press.
Contents
Panzer Battles was part of the exculpatory memoirs genre that fed the post-war revisionist narrative, put forth by Wehrmacht generals. The book was instrumental in forming the misconceptions of the U.S. view of Eastern Front military operations up to the mid-to-late 1990s, when Soviet archival sources became available to Western and Russian historians.
Content
The book covers the North African campaign where Mellenthin served with the Afrika Corps, while also describing engagements of the XXXXVIII Panzer Corps on the Eastern Front from 1943 up to the spring of 1944.
Reception
The veracity of Panzer Battles and Mellenthin's other works has been called into question over the years. The historian Wolfram Wette lists Mellenthin in the group of German generals who authored apologetic, uncritical studies on World War II, alongside Ferdinand Heim, Kurt von Tippelskirch, Waldemar Erfurth and others.
Military historian David Glantz in his review of the book calls it an "operational/tactical account of considerable merit", which showed the negative impact of Hitler's interference in the military operations. Glantz points out that Mellenthin's experiences on the Eastern Front took place before spring 1944, and thus "reflected impressions acquired principally during years of German success". Further, written without the benefit of either German or Soviet records, the book suffers from incomplete or incorrect interpretations of Soviet forces, dispositions and intentions. Glantz provides an example of operations along the Chir River against the Soviet 5th Tank Army, following the encirclement of the 6th Army in the Soviet Operation Uranus. Mellenthin describes the German tactical actions as a great success but omits the larger operational context:
In fact, while Soviet 5th Tank Army occupied XXXXVIII Panzer Corps' attention, to the northwest Soviet forces overwhelmed and destroyed the Italian 8th Army and severely damaged Army Detachment Hollidt. Moreover, Mellenthin did not mention (probably because he did not know) that Soviet 1st Tank Corps had been in nearly continuous operation since 19 November and was under strength and worn down when it began its march across the Chir. Similar flaws appear elsewhere in Mellenthin's work, many of which result from a lack of knowledge of opposing Soviet forces or their strengths.
Critics point out that Panzer Battles downplays the Wehrmacht's failures while extolling the fighting qualities of the German soldier. The historians Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies characterise Panzer Battles as part of the "exculpatory memoirs" genre that fed the post-war revisionist narrative, alongside books by Erich von Manstein (Lost Victories), Heinz Guderian, Hans Rudel and Hans von Luck. Mellenthin blames the Wehrmacht's defeat solely on the Soviet advantages in men and materiel, describing the Red Army as a "ruthless enemy, possessed of immense and seemingly inexhaustible resources"; the "endless waves of men and tanks" eventually "submerged" the supposedly superior Wehrmacht.
Several works by historians highlight the consistent depictions of "Russian" opponents in racial terms, as "primitive" "Asiatics". Panzer Battles devotes a section to the "Psychology of the Russian Soldier":
No one belonging to the cultural circles of the West is ever likely to fathom the character and soul of these Asiatics, born and bred on the other side of the European frontiers... The Russian is quite unpredictable. Perhaps the key to this attitude lies in the fact the Russian is not a conscious soldier, thinking on independent lines, but is a victim of moods which a Westerner cannot analyse.
The Wehrmacht's adversaries on the Eastern Front are depicted in derogatory terms:
Russian soldiers' mental sluggishness makes them quite insensible to losses. The Russian soldier values his own life no more than that of his comrades... Life is not precious to him. He is immune to the most incredible hardships. The Russian soldier is essentially a primitive being. (...) He lacks any true religious or moral balance, and his moods alter between bestial cruelty and genuine kindness.
Panzer Battles was reprinted six times in the U.S. between 1956 and 1976. According to Smelser and Davies, the book continues to be popular among readers who romanticise the German war effort. The book was instrumental in forming the misconceptions of the U.S. view of Eastern Front military operations up to the mid-to-late 1990s, when Soviet archival sources became available to Western and Russian historians. The historian Robert Citino notes the influential nature of Mellenthin's works in shaping the perceptions of the Red Army in the West as "a faceless and mindless horde" whose idea of military art was to "smash everything in its path through numbers, brute force and sheer size". Citino includes Panzer Battles among the German officers' memoirs that are "at best unreliable and at worst deliberately misleading". Citino concludes that, contrary to Mellenthin's archetype of "Ivan the Primitive":
Thanks to modern research, the Red Army now occupies a different position in the history of World War II. Today it is known as a highly skilled and brilliantly led force that absorbed the best the Wehrmacht had to offer in 1941, then turned the tables and eventually smashed it. From a primitive horde, it has now become the seedbed of modern military operations.