Panzer Ace: The Memoirs of an Iron Cross Panzer Commander from Barbarossa to Normandy by Richard Freiherr von Rosen

Although there are many memoirs detailing the German experience in the Second World War, few are written by tankers who served in Tiger Battalions.  Tiger I and II tanks were produced in limited numbers but they consistently made their presence felt on the battlefield and memoir literature from both the Eastern and Western Fronts attest to that fact.  Thus, 'Panzer Ace' is a welcome addition to German memoir literature, although it comes with a few caveats (as most memoirs do).  Richard Freiherr von Rosen began his service on a Pz III and was wounded soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union.  After recovering, he joined the 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion, which initially fielded Tiger tanks and by the end of the war included King Tigers as well.  He participated in the Battle of Kursk, a few Western Front operations after D-Day, and finished the war once again on the Eastern Front, fighting in and around Hungary with Tiger and King Tiger tanks as a company commander.

The strengths of these memoirs are in the day-to-day actions the author describes.  Fighting as a tanker meant daily actions needed to be taken to keep the tanks running by the crew and that involved a lot of effort, especially on the Eastern Front.  For example, Pz III air-cooled engines meant the dust from Soviet roads were a regular problem and tanks required constant repairs and maintenance, while heavy German tanks were constantly becoming stuck in mud, breaking bridges, and needed to be loaded onto trains so as to conserve their engines and fuel on a regular basis.  Additionally, as a company commander the author was in charge of dozens of men and his platoons and company was regularly detached from and attached to various units serving in the role of a fire brigade to put our fires at various parts of the frontline.  Finally, while the author has much praise for his tankers, he is not above criticizing poor German command decisions, especially in the latter part of the war, or praising Red Army forces, also in the latter part of the war.  While Tiger tanks were a fearsome opponent, by the close of the war they were facing formidable Soviet tanks and self-propelled artillery that regularly took a toll on the author's unit and German tanks in general.

While the strengths are many, there are also quite a few weaknesses.  The author saw some fighting but he was wounded five times and that means he missed a large portion of the fighting on both fronts.  The volume is large but about half the pages consist of photos of tanks and the author's comrades from the various units he served in.  They are all interesting, especially those made as part of a propaganda reel, but the size of the volume is somewhat deceptive.  Finally, although the author claims he was unaware of the genocidal nature of Hitler's war on the Eastern Front, or the evolution of the Holocaust in general throughout Europe, he has few qualms about participating in the Second World War, killing allied troops, or helping German forces wage war in general.  Overall, the author comes across as someone proud of his service in the name of the Third Reich but regrets that Hitler's name is attached to that time period.