D-Day Tank Hunter: The World War II memoirs of a frontline officer from North Africa to the bloody soil of Normandy

A superb, compassionately written, thought provoking account of WW II, from a German Soldier’s perspective.From the start it grips you, totally page turning, un-put downable read. I finished the book with the upmost respect for Lieutenant Hoeller.

A great,easy to read biography that takes the reader through the authors training,through the African campaign & eventually to Normandy. My only niggle( not possible to submit 4 1/2 stars) is that the translation to English could be better; I found myself reading a lot of lines more than once,to fully understand the text. Other than that,a great read !

this book is brilliant a first hand account of what went on. it’s also tells a very different story about the camps. highly recommend this for anyone interested in ww2

This book is a worthwhile read. It takes the reader through the early years building up to the Second World War and onwards. The story is an interesting counterpoint to many of memoirs from Allied service personnel. The similarities between the stories are all too familiar.Written in an open and easy to read style with no overt political grandstanding, and reaching the obvious conclusion that these things should not happen again.

thoughfully and honestly written account of a soldier from the other side makes you realise how much these men had in common

A decent read and more interesting being memoirs of a German officer . He fought in North Africa and in Normandy , he was a very brave man who was decorated for bravery in action . I enjoyed this book and recommend it to anyone .

An enthralling account, of very much more than just D-Day tanks. Hoeller gives clear accounts of his wartime career.

This is OK, but not great. The author expects us to believe that he could reasonably have thought he was on the 'right' side up until he saw footage of German concentration camps. Utter nonsense - he was a leader in the Hitler Youth, and could not possibly have been ignorant of what the Nazis said about Jews even before the war began. Sad that a man can reach such advanced years without finding the courage to be honest with himself. His moaning about the conditions of his imprisonment and refusal to work are laughable and demonstrate an extraordinary lack of self-awareness, all things considered. The reality is that he chose to be wilfully blind to the obvious because the harsh truths about the Nazis - which would undoubtedly have been all around him - were inconvenient for a young man who wanted to get swept-up in the zeitgeist of the time.

This book was written very well and the insights from a man who was actually in areas of conflict, are awe inspiring. Thank you to Hans Hoeller.

This book is an excellent memoir of the author's experiences throughout WW II. As other reviewers have stated, he served in both North Africa and the entire Normandy Campaign. Due to his illness and wounds his service in N. Afrika was short. But he survived the entire Normandy experience, including his narrow escape from the Falaise Pocket. In October he was captured and spent the remainder of the war as a P.O.W. in the U.S.In Normandy, he served with the 8th Company, II Battalion, 192nd Panzergrenadier Regiment, 21st Panzer Division. In this unit he commanded an anti-tank platoon supplied with old, captured French Somua MCG artillery tractors fitted with German 75mm Pak 40 anti-tank guns (to make them into self-propelled anti-tank guns). The author carried a camera with him and includes several photos of these vehicles that he took while in France. There are numerous other private photos taken by the author throughout the book as well as a few photos from other sources. Most of these were never before published (except in his original German language edition), so they were delightfully new to me. Unfortunately, these photos appear to have just been photocopied out of the German language edition rather than using the original photos again. Consequently, some are poorly rendered: too dark or too light, blurry, etc. I don't fault the author for this as it was most likely a publishing decision (to save on cost). Also, I don't know if this was originally published in hardback (in the German edition), but it deserved a hardbound printing in English as this is a rare look at the German side of the Normandy battles against the British near Caen. It is also one of the very few books written about the German 21st Panzer Division in Normandy. Having this story presented by an eye-witness is a wonderful treat for the history student and makes it exceptionally rare. A hardbound edition would have been much more durable, not to mention a more fitting tribute to this unique veteran's account.The author has a great eye for details that would interest serious students of this time period. For example, on page 52 there is a photo taken by the author of a destroyed British Matilda tank Mark II behind their positions at Halfaya Pass in N. Africa. On it is clearly painted the number "38" which he explains was painted by the German anti-tank gunners to keep track of their successful score on disabling enemy tanks. And on page 49 is a photo he took of one of their German half-track vehicles towing an anti-tank gun in the desert. On the half-track roof, with his legs hanging in front of the passenger-side windshield, sits an observer to watch for enemy planes, a practice which he says was continued and became even more important in the Normandy battles, where the Allies had complete air superiority. There are other details of interest like these throughout the book, such as how they camouflaged their vehicles in Normandy to avoid detection from the air (as well as an interesting photo of same).The author also writes candidly about the politics of his time, what he and his fellow soldiers knew about Hitler and the Nazi party, and what they remained naively ignorant of. Also he writes about his personal ethics in wartime, how his prisoners were treated in Africa and France, and, comparatively, how he was treated when captured by the French in 1944. Then he writes about his coming to terms with the realities of the war created by Hitler and his regime, once he learned of the terrible truths. His statements also have the ring of truth. In reading them I had no doubt of his sincerity.There are the numerous typos and grammatical errors common in publishing today, perhaps made worse due to translation errors from the German edition to this one in English. Again, I don't fault the author here either, as this could have been prevented by good editing; a publisher's task. In spite of this and the poor quality of some photos, this book still gets 5 stars because of its absolute value to students of WW II history. There just aren't that many good memoirs from the German side of the war in NW Europe (translated for English readers).In addition, the author is a gifted writer. It's very readable and kept my interest throughout. Once he began the chapters on the fighting in Normandy I couldn't put it down (this being my primary area interest).Along with the memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck: "Panzer Commander," and the published divisional histories of the 21st Panzer Division, you can now gain a fairly good understanding of this part of the fighting in Normandy.If you have even a passing interest in WW II, and especially the Normandy Campaign, you won't want to miss this one. According to the jacket, the author is still alive and resides in his hometown of Pottschach, Austria! What a treat to be able to read about his WW II experiences at a time when so many other old veterans are passing on.I suspect that even this paperback edition will sell-out eventually. So get it while it's still in print! It will add tremendously to your library of WW II memoirs and you'll regret it if you pass it up! These specialty-subject publications become very expensive and hard to find once they go out-of-print. This one I highly recommend!

Justifying the warriors at field believing their leadership without having knowledge about happening around them. Great description about the valour of warriors without border.

I have read many books, memoirs, testimonies, you name them. This one is by far one of the best.

Overall, it was a different perspective on the war, but it was poorly translated. I struggled to find a deep sense of remorse, even through hindsight, shown for the impact the actions of the Reich and it's soldiers had on the world at that time. Even with the benefit of time to reflect, the author seems to fail to acknowledge why the world, for example, may have frowned on German Officers at the point of his capture and during his POW stint and this story lacks emotion or connection to what must have been an atrocious time. Whether much is lost in translation I am not sure, but I felt that it needed greater acknowledgement of the outside looking in perspective as a counterbalance to his views. I left at the end of this book with a sense of understanding for a Wehrmacht Officer perspective but, as above, poor translation and (perhaps a personal expectation) longing for more empathy, sympathy to the non Reich view of the world.