Customer Reviews

Tigers in the Mud: The Combat Career of German Panzer Commander Otto Carius (Stackpole Military History Series)

5 star:		(19)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Otto Carius was one of the most successful Panzerkommandanten ever to take a Tiger tank into battle, destroying some 150 tanks and being decorated with the Oakleaves to the Knights Cross. Stackpole are to be heartily congratulated for this cheap paperback edition of a long-out-print Fedorowicz classic, a classic of Eastern Front literature and a marvellous account of Panzer warfare. When World War II broke out Carius had volunteered for 104th Infantry Placement Battalion in May of 1940. Following training, he was assigned to the 21st Panzer Regiment and experienced his first battle as a loader on a Panzer 38(t) during the "Barbarossa" operation in June of 1941. After about a year of war experience on the Eastern Front, Carius was accepted in an Officer Candidate Course and following its completion, was assigned to the 502nd Heavy Tank Battalion in April of 1943. Equipped with the new Tiger tanks, he was assigned as a tank commander to the 2nd Company of 502nd Tank Battalion. That summer, the 2nd Company was deployed to the Russian Leningrad Front and took part in several operations in that area. During that time, 502nd Tank Battalion was ordered to reinforce the front along with 11th SS Freiwillige Panzergrenadier Division "Nordland" at Narva Bridgehead. During one of his engagements, Carius destroyed four Soviet SU-85s and successfully withdrew without losses. In June of 1944, the company was transferred to Dunaburg (Daugavpils in Latvia) to defend the city from a concentrated Russian offensive. In the July of 1944, Russians outflanked the German defensive lines via the motorways west of Minsk and Borissov to Witebsk (same route was used by Germans in 1941). By using tanks in vast numbers, Soviets intended to divide the German occupied territory into small salients and then take port city of Riga. Since Riga is situated at the mouth of Dvina River, Dunaburg was an important strategic point for both Germans and Russians.

On July 22 of 1944, 1st Lieutenant Otto Carius with his company of eight (early and mid production) Tigers advanced towards village of Malinava (northern suburb of Dunaburg) in order to halt the Russian advance. 1st Lieutenant Otto Carius and 1st Lieutenant Albert Kerscher (one of the most decorated commanders of sPzAbt 502) took a Kubelwagen in order to check if the village was already occupied by Russians. They discovered that village of Malinava was already occupied by the enemy. Carius recognized that the Russian tanks in the village were only advance troops waiting for the main force to arrive. He decided to recapture the village before the arrival of reinforcements. Carius returned to his company for briefing and explained his plan to take the village. He decided to attack the village using only two tanks because there was only one road leading to the village and rushing all of his Tigers would be dangerous. Six Tigers remained in the reserve while Carius and Kerscher's Tigers moved towards the village of Malinava. Speed was the essence of Carius' strategy and it was decisive to upset Russians and immobilize their tanks.
When Carius' Tiger No.217 was about to enter the village, two T-34/85 tanks were observed rotating their turrets. At this moment, Kerscher's Tiger No.213, which followed Carius at about 150m, fired and knocked them out. Also for the first time, Otto Carius encountered Russian's latest JS-1 (or possibly JS-2) heavy tank. Its silhouette was somewhat similar to the German King Tiger and Carius was confused at first but after hesitating a bit, he fired and JS-1 burst into flames. Afterwards, Otto Carius recalls that the entire battle did not last more than 20 minutes. In such a short time, Carius and Kerscher's Tigers knocked out 17 Russian tanks including the new JS-1. Although the Russians were attacked by suprise, Carius' quick and accurate recognition of the situation and the excellent tactics used were the main factors in the outcome. Carius' achievement at Malinava is perhaps as equally outstanding as Michael Wittmann's achievement at Villers-Bocage.

In November of 1943, Otto Carius destroyed 10 Soviet T-34/76 tanks at distances as close as 50 meters. In August of 1944, Otto Carius was transferred to Paderborn to the newly created schwere Panzerjager Abteilung 512 and received the command of the 2nd company. sPzJagAbt 512 was equipped with powerful Jagdtigers, armed with 128mm Pak 44 L/55 gun. Carius commanded the 2nd company, which was training at Senne Camp near Paderborn and at Dollersheim near Vienna. On March 8th of 1945, without finishing its training, 2nd company was directed to the frontline near Siegburg. It then took part in the defence of the River Rhine and eventually surrendered to the US Army on April 15th of 1945.
All of this is related in great detail with marvellous accounts of what it was to fight, live & die in the Tiger tank. The book is completed with the reprinting of period newspaper articles, both in the orginal German and in translated form.
Highly recommended.

The famous Tiger Ace, Otto Carius, has provided a valuable memoir of his experiences in WWII. This book is an asset whether you are a professional soldier, WWII historian, or Tiger tank afficinado.
Valuable lessons are gained by learning the problems associated with fielding new technology in the time of war. While the Tiger tank proved to be an awesome weapon while operational; its' Achilles heel was the tremendous amount of logistic and maintenance support required to keep it running.
I was reminded of Stephen Crane's "The Red Badge of Courage" when reading about Carius' first engagement as an officer, but by the end of the book one thing that is not in dispute is the personal courage of Carius and many of the tankers he led, especially Albert Kerscher. They would slug out the battle from extreme close ranges often so close that traversing the main gun was not possible!
The drama of tank warfare on the Eastern Front is simply told in this book and valuable lessons can be learned by those in the profession of arms. Much like Patton, Carius relays his frustration that the German and Anglo-American forces did not join together and turn on the forces of the Soviet Union. The desperation of German forces to retard the advance of the Red Army allowed many Germans to escape and avoid Communist 0ppression is noteworthy.
Yet these brave German soldiers were an embarrassment to the Post-War Germany and unlike the US where our veterans are dubbed the "greatest generation," German veterans are shunned and instead monuments go up to the draft dodgers and deserters.
In light of the recent prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, his comments concerning the treatment of Prisoners of War by the Americans are interesting.
I am fortunate to have met Otto Carius, who is still alive and active as a pharmicist at his Tiger Apothecary. A generous man, he personally delivers medicines to those homebound.
One of the most telling comments he made to me concerned his leadership as the Company Commander of 2d Company, 502d Heavy Tank Battalion; while in command he did not have one soldier killed in the company - many were wounded, but all lived. That fact, tied with his successes on the Armor battlefield in high intensity conflict truly makes him one-of-a-kind.

Author Otto Carius is the kind of soldier whose wartime service in the Wehrmacht reflects credit upon every combat soldier of the German army. It is a pleasure to read such a straight-forward, honest personal narrative such as this that confines itself exclusively to the author's own frontline experiences. I agree with Carius that it is a disgrace the heroism and sacrifices of men like him have not, until only recently, received the recognition they deserve. Those of us who were in Vietnam know what it's like to be reviled by our own countrymen. Robert Edwards' English-language translation deserves special credit. The appendices in this book will be of special interest to the military historian and the facsimile reproductions of Carius's awards and citations, expertly translated, will be of particular interest to the militara collector. But I have given this book only 4 stars because it slows down considerably about halfway through. How many assaults and attacks can you absorb without becoming bored and bogged down in details? These combat accounts eventually become only a little more interesting than the official after action reports themselves, which Carius had when he wrote this book, and some of which are in the appendices. But overall this book is the story of a brave and honorable soldier, of value to anyone interested in armored warfare, but more importantly, a succesful attempt to balance the horror stories about the inhumane conduct of the German army in Russia during WWII.

Excellent book on how Tigers were effectively deployed into combat on the Russian front by the German tank commanders. This book, like many others, show how much independence low ranking German officers had in the field. In preperation for combat and during combat Carius took initiative that clearly shows a German officer did not have to wait for approval from a higher ranking officer. As a contrast look at the US military actions as seen in the book 'Black Hawk Down' - in the middle of combat a driver of a Hummer could not turn left or right as directed by the observation helicopter above, until they got approval from HQ back at base. While reading this book pay attention how much independence Carius had as a tank commander - by late 1944 he was just a First lietenant. Consider how even the lowest ranking German officers could make unilateral decisions, and you will understand why the German army remained effective despite being vastly ournumbered in airplanes, tanks, soldiers, and supplies.

Very interesting accounts on the mechanical problems of the Tiger - if they drove 50km with 6 tigers only 3 make it. At the end of the book there is an extensive field report reprinted detailing very specifically items on the Tiger that need to be redesigned.

This is one of the better books I've read on WWII tank action at the tactical level. The author addresses not only tank combat, but the whole spectrum of activity at the tactical level--the conduct of route-recon, the vital necessity, and often complete lack, of infantry support, the critical importance of maintenance and vehicle recovery operations, the impact of initiative (or lack thereof) by junior officers, etc.

This book is also interesting because it describes many of the personal aspects of the German military: how the author's commander refused him a jeep necessary for combat operations so that the commander could go womanizing; the relationship between the Werhmacht and SS, and the status of nobleman-officers in the army.

The only thing I didn't like about the book was his repeated harping about how post-war German society betrayed the WWII veterans (...OK, we get the picture...), and to a lesser extent, his scathing remarks about the US army and soldiers (but he is entitled to his opinion, I suppose).

Overall, very highly recommended for those interested in tactical armored combat or the Eastern Front.

Carius' book is an outstanding look at the reality of armored warfare. Far from the romantic view of modern knights, Carius explains what is actually involved in commanding a platoon of tanks. The constant need to allocate resources to vehicle recovery, the reality of grand-tactical movement, just how much time a platoon commander is out of the track and on foot. It's all in this book. Carius does act as an apologist for the German army, but if one ignores the occasional rhetoric (as one should from both sides of the issue) there is a lot to be learned from this book.

I saw some of the negative reviews and although some were correct, I don't think to an extent to take away from the remarkable story and piece of history this book is. Carius is too apologetic for Germany and Hitler, but he doesn't do it often enough to have a major impact on the value of his book. It's like he wrote the book while he was there almost, and doesn't take what he learned later on into account so much to ruin the real story. He let's you know how he felt and what it was like in 1944, not what it was like in 1960 thinking back on 1944. While I think he is wrong at times, I also was not in his shoes. Yes, I feel like the man himself is writing it in his own terms instead of having some guy polish him up too much. I'm glad he didn't try to sugercoat everything with a writing style that is not him. If you want to read about what happened to Carius in his own words (a real tiger tank company commander who tells his story), than have a look. I don't want War and Peace, I want Otto Carius. It's also nice to see the view from an intermediate officer who had dealings with sargents and lieutenants usually but did get to mingle with upper crust Nazi's at times. His viewpoint is interesting and if you read between the lines, I think you get a real look at the way some things actual were, which is rare.

If you've read all the previous reviews then you know what the book is about. It's a revealing portrait of the tactical and political mindset of the Waffen SS during WWII. In today's sense the pace of combat seems almost leasurely. What might suprise most readers is that the commander of a Tiger tank spent so much time on foot, painstakingly walking and crawling the ground around his tank(s). It explains why he survived so many encounters. Equally instructive is the political view of a dedicated, motivated German soldier during WWII. At first glance it seems appalling at how he ignores the massive, unbelievable war crimes committed by Germany and sees it as a victim, but that may explain how a military which included millions of men who were not rabid Nazis allowed it to happen. Like the Waffen SS as a whole, you might admire his elan, but you shake your head at his moral blind spots.

This first hand account of a German tank officers combat in Russia during WWII. It has been translated into English which makes the reading sometimes rough and clunky. It is a pretty good account of non-stop combat. The biggest problem is that it doesn't dive deep enough into the authors feelings. Kind of sterile.

Tigers in the mud
Author-Otto Carius
Translated from German to English by Robert Edwards.
Stackpole Books
English Copyright 1992 by J.J. Fedorowicz
Paperback 365 pages/ 24 pages B/W photos, various maps.

This book was written by the author about his exploits and perceptions of the war on both the Eastern and Western Fronts. The author served as a tank crewman in the Czech 38t during the invasion of Russia and later as a tank commander in the 502 Heavy tank battalion. It has been claimed that he had over 150 tank kills during his career and he won the Knights Cross with oak leaves for his exploits. Wounded and convalesced several times, he ended the war on the Western Front fighting the Americans in Hunting Tigers.

I have been wanting to get this book for a long time and eagerly looking forward to reading it. But I have been very disappointed. The book lacks polish and is a slow read. I had to force myself to even finish it.
The author writes almost in a monotone, devoid of any flourish that denotes excitement or even interest. Glossed over are only a few of his "over 150" kills. After reading his book I got the impression that he did not even get one tenth of that score. He mentions the T-34 as a superior tank when first met, but does not go into detail on the enemy equipment or hardly even the German equipment on the field. Numerous mentions of German APC's are made throughout the book. I take this and the reference to a Napalm rocket battery as well as other minor glitches in the text to poor translation.
Assigned to the new JadgTiger in the final stages of the war, the author had this to say: "That such a monstrosity had to be constructed the final phase of the war-of all times!" Needless to say, he was unimpressed. In the last part of his narrative the author is clearly bitter at the fact that the enemy has won and feels letdown that the West did not join Germany and fight the Russians.
All in all, this book would have benefited from some else writing it, I do not question the authors record, but his book does not do the man justice!