I found TIGER TRACKS and THE LAST PANTHER a couple of months ago, and bought both for my Kindle. I recently read the two of them back to back - they're both fairly short reads, probably around 25-30,000 words apiece - and I have to say, they were pretty enjoyable. I don't believe for a second that Wolfgang Faust is a real person, or that the name is even a pseudonym of a real person, but I have to admit that the story reads well, albeit rather over-the-top in terms of the lurid violence and misery. The two stories cover different periods of time during Faust's career; TIGER TRACKS takes place in 1943, while THE LAST PANTHER takes place in April of 1945, right at the very end of the war.
Of the two, TIGER TRACKS (available here on Amazon) is probably the weaker story. Faust's unit of twenty Tiger heavy tanks is assigned to take some hill from the Soviets. The fight is bloody and several Tigers are immediately taken out of the fight, but in the end, the Germans defeat the Soviets and take the enemy position. However, the reinforcements that were originally promised never arrive, and they are forced to retreat, after capturing a Soviet female radio operator. The Tiger force is constantly harassed by Soviet attacks, encountering enemy armor, infantry, air attack, artillery, and even a particularly terrifying ambush by a flamethrower team. Whoever Wolfgang Faust really is, the writer is quite good at depicting the absolute horror of mechanized warfare. In particular, Faust is good at showing how the Tiger might be a very tough tank, but it is far from indestructible. Tigers are destroyed by hits from enemy anti-tank guns and other tanks, cracked open by air attacks, set ablaze by flamethrowers or Molotov cocktails - the list goes on and on. He also points out that a tank is not designed to drive everywhere under its own power - it requires tank carriers or rail transports, and must receive constant maintenance. Faust, as the Tiger's driver, is in charge of the mechanical care of the tank, and he is constantly worrying about the bogie wheels, the track links, the transmission and all other aspects of the fighting vehicle, because he knows that no matter how strong their armor, or powerful their gun, all it takes is one broken track link pin to immobilize the panzer and doom them.
On the other hand, the story kind of rambles. After their mission, Faust's tank commander (who is now in charge of what's left of the force) decides they need to bring the Soviet radio operator back for interrogation. So they set off for the rear lines, and the story just becomes a series of harrowing vignettes, until they reach their destination. There's no real drama, other than the need to get back to the rear echelon area, and even when that happens, the ending is a bit flat. I'm willing to forgive that, though, because the action throughout the story is still, in my opinion, rather top notch. As fun as the PANZER PLATOON series is (and I'll write more reviews of it later on), the combat scenes in these two books are far superior.
THE LAST PANTHER is definitely more intense than Faust's first story. The inclusion of German civilians, who all know their fate in the hands of the Soviets pretty much involves rape, murder, or (likely) both, definitely makes for much stronger tension over the course of the novel. Women and children die in great numbers as the Soviets attack their column over and over again. The Germans, especially the panzer forces, do what they can to protect the civilians, but they can only do so much, especially as their vehicles keep breaking down, getting stuck, or destroyed by the enemy. Faust is constantly terrified that his Panther's engine will die, because he knows the engine is only good for about 800 kilometers, and at the start of the novel, they're already pushing 900. Fuel is also a big concern, and they're constantly on the lookout for more gasoline, usually taken from broken-down vehicles.
But the story also involves a lot more in-fighting and social tension, between the regular Wehrmacht troops, the Waffen-SS forces, and the civilians. Some of the SS are fanatics, to the point of killing Germans who do not stand and fight, while others are cowards who shed their uniforms and try to hide as civilians because they know the Soviets will give SS men no mercy. The worst-fated of all are the Soviets who are prisoners of the Germans and serve as laborers, because they know their own countrymen will kill them - and probably their families back home - if they're ever captured, but they're the Germans' lowest priority in terms of ensuring those in the Kessel escape the encirclement. Historically, only about 30,000 people - a mere fifth of those attempting the breakout - successfully escaped, so you can imagine the scale of slaughter that takes place in this book. There's on scene in particular, as the column tries to punch through a German village as they're being savaged by a Soviet bombardment, which is particularly awful, but by no means is it the only scene of massed slaughter.
Like TIGER TRACKS, this second book features some really solid, tensely-written combat scenes, and Faust is very good at portraying the various fighting vehicles in something approximating their historical strengths. The Panther was an excellent tank, with a main gun capable of defeating any tank in the world at that time, and very thick, sloped frontal armor that was probably the equivalent, if not superior to, the Tiger's frontal protection. However, the Panther was a smaller, lighter, faster tank, making it more maneuverable and not quite so mechanically fragile (although like all the late-war Panzers, it did break down in great numbers). There are also some good scenes involving King Tigers, Hetzer tank destroyers, and other German vehicles which added to the flavor of the combats.
All in all, these two books are relatively inexpensive ebook reads, fairly short by novel standards but fast-moving and filled with action. They both get relatively good reviews on Amazon (although a fair number of low reviews, mostly complaining about them being "false memoirs"), and they both seem to be selling quite well. If you're a fan of WW2 action-adventure fiction, I highly recommend reading both of them - I don't think you'll be disappointed.
13 comments:
I'm pretty sure I've read a fake WWII memoir before or a greatly embellished one, at least.
Granted, I've heard the other way was some times true. Someone asked a former squad mate of Audie Murphy's unit, if To Hell and Back was accurate. He replied it wasn't and Audie was being too modest.
Swedish heavy metal band wrote a song about German soldiers defending the civilians at the end of war. (They also did a song on Murphy on the same Album.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSabII2h7jI
Hum, i may have to give these a look. Folks who actually fought in WWII are getting purty old now.
WWII is a rich source of great action/adveture fiction that is simply not mined nearly often enough nowadays. I like reading the occasional memoir or history lesson on certain events during the war years, but I really enjoy pulpy action oriented fiction set in that most tumultuous of times.
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Fake or not, it is a great read if you like this kind of military action adventure pulp fiction, which I do. So I give these two books five stars each simply for their ability to keep the action moving and engaging for the duration of the novels. Well done
Just stumbled over this blog by accident after reading through both The Last Panther (TLP) as well as Tiger Tracks (TT).
I agree that both books make for very entertaining readng and both are well researched and obviously written by somebody well versed in WWII tank warfare.
I however very strongly doubt the authenticity of both works based on the following observations:
1. TT refers to the original version beeing published in Germany under the name "Panzerdämmerung" (actually he even incorrectly writes "Panzerdammerung"). However after searching German sources for about 2 hours I could not find any references online that refer to this publication (or any other German publication by Wolfgang Faust - even on amazon.de you can only order the English versions of TLP and TT)
2. Whenever the author uses German terms and wordings he usually mangles them in such a horrible way that no German native speaker (even somebody really awful at grammar) could do with such consistency.
3. The way the books (especially TT) are written gives me the impression that the author is actually an English native speaker. This stems from the fact that he uses some phrases that suggest that the book was never written in German and translated, but rather written in English in the first place. One such example is the following paragraph from TT:
"Late?’ he said. ‘Well, some things can be late. Trams can be late, Faust – you know that. Easter is late some years. I had a pretty girlfriend once, who said she was two months late, when she wanted a ring on her finger. But a whole Kamfgruppe? Late?"
This is actually the sentence when I realized for myself that both books are not authentic, because the whole pun about the guys girlfriend would not make any sense if you phrase it in German, because while trams and Kapfgruppen (note the misspelling in the cited text) can be "verspätet", for Easter you would most likely use the word "später" and for girlfriends that are two months late you would probably use the term "überfällig". So, once you translate the whole sequence into German it simply makes no sense and is not funny anymore.
As a comparison read some interviews conducted after the war by Western officers and authors with verified German soldier and if you read those (which were translated pretty much verbatim) you realize after each sentence that this was either said in German and translated verbatim or said in English by a German with poor English skills.
However, as I stated at the beginning, both books are enjoyable (actually they make for much better reading than a lot of authentic first hand accounts I read), they are well researched and IMHO give a good impression of WWII armored warfare.
Very nice analysis, Anonymous!
Yeah, I have no doubt in my mind that the works are, at best, highly embellished / fictionalized accounts of someone's experiences. More than likely, they're complete fabrications, but at least they're very entertaining!
Thanks for your comment, Jack. (I'm the "Anonymous" above)
I just realized I forgot to add as an additional point that the author repeatedly uses "Spandau" to refer to MG42s, a term that AFAIK was only used by British soldiers during WWII (which interestingly was a carry-over term from WWI where the Brits used "Spandau" as a nickname for the MG08 as that piece of equipment was, among other locations, manufactured in the DWM works in Spandau).
Yesterday, I also read the first couple of chapters of "Into the Gates of Hell - Stug Command '41", which I had lying around for some time now and never got to reading it. And after the first couple of chapters I highly doubt I'll ever finish it due to the poor and cheesy writing style (reads like the plot for an 80s action flick).
But after reading through the authors comments at the end of the book I did some researching the German sources since the book claims that Ritter von Krauss was (as a pen name) used for a number of manuscripts about the German experiences during WWII.
Guess what... you don't find anything about or from a "Ritter von Krauss" during WWII.
But, turns out a bad book based on fake facts actually made me learn about an fascinating historical person, the real Ritter von Krauß. Check out this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Krauss
What amused me most is the fact about Ritter von Krauß changing the spelling of his surname to "Krauss" due to the fact that he had to write his name like this on the signs of his factory which were all written in capital letters.
I didn't bother doing the digging when I read StuG Command, mostly because the book was so mediocre/terrible, I didn't really care, and just assumed it was pure fiction. Interesting that you found out about the historical RvK though!
And nice catch with the Spandau. I think it is similar to the "Schmeisser" term that gets thrown about - originally meant for one weapon, carried over to others. Practically every British WW2 novel I've ever read uses "Spandau" for machine gun...
"Late?’ he said. ‘Well, some things can be late. Trams can be late, Faust – you know that. Easter is late some years. I had a pretty girlfriend once, who said she was two months late, when she wanted a ring on her finger. But a whole Kamfgruppe? Late?"
This is actually the sentence when I realized for myself that both books are not authentic, because the whole pun about the guys girlfriend would not make any sense if you phrase it in German, because while trams and Kapfgruppen (note the misspelling in the cited text) can be "verspätet", for Easter you would most likely use the word "später" and for girlfriends that are two months late you would probably use the term "überfällig". So, once you translate the whole sequence into German it simply makes no sense and is not funny anymore.
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I haven't read the book. In fact, I saw the book and people stating it seemed fictional and I came across this thread trying to verify the information.
That said, while your analysis on the German to English translation is good reasoning, I don't think it's correct.
That's because you read it in English and then back to German verbatim. The original German could have used überfällig in all the cases, and plays better in my mind as a phrase in German than später or verspätet. Remember, that the are colloquial idioms and expressions all over Germany, and Bavarian's speak much differently than the rest of Germans.
Translating to English can be ever harder, because Overdue doesn't work in English for the examples. It lacks the wrong tone.
Reminded me a lot off sven hassel. Although ge is even more vivid in his descriptions of battle carnage.
It reads much the same, though the characters are less prominent.
As are the whole political machinery that hassel weaves into his tales.
Although it is there, the chaindogs go st their business as usual picking out deserters and shooting them.
He knows his tiger way better though. Is it the real deal? I don't know, probably like sven partial and then woven into more fictional stories.
Currently at two third of his tiger book and it is a good read.
It holds you onto the story and captures the battles and the horror quit well. Way better then lots of other stuff I read. Looking forward to the last panther which is better then this one I'm told.
I'm half-way through 'The Last Panther'. I'm very suspicious. My guess is that it was written in the 1990s by a bloke called Martin who lives with his mum in a semi-detached in Wolverhampton.
There are several details that are wrong. The last one that stood out at me was the time he fired his pistol through the pistol port in the rear of his panther tank's turret. Panthers have no such port.
He sees a very suspicious amount of action and death for one man, no matter what battle he is in.
The main thing that seems wrong is that everything in the fights happens in plain view of him, such that he can describe it in detail, and is so very VERY spectacular. So far, every tank hit and knocked out has veered off-course, crashed into something significant, flipped over and blown up in a mountain of fire, illuminating the landscape for miles around. Not one tank has just been abandoned, or smoked a bit.
Real WW2 fights, especially at night, involve lots of fire from unseen enemies, and lots of shooting at unseen or partially seen foes, who just don't fire back after a while, so are presumably dead or seen off.
I am just reading The Last Panther now, and although in my mind it most likely is an embellished first hand account it still is pretty enjoyable; you almost are willing on the Germans, who created the whole mess in the first place. The best read of a German soldier's plight during the Second World War has to be The Forgotten Soldier
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