Hans von Luck

Hans von Luck

Hans von Luck during World War II
Born (1911-07-15)15 July 1911
Flensburg
Died 1 August 1997(1997-08-01) (aged 86)
Hamburg
Allegiance  Weimar Republic (to 1933)
 Nazi Germany
Service/branch Heer
Years of service 1929–45
Rank Oberst
Unit

7th Panzer-Division

21st Panzer-Division
Commands held Kampfgruppe von Luck
Battles/wars
Awards Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross
Medaglia d'Argento
Other work Military lecturer, author

Hans–Ulrich Freiherr von Luck und Witten (15 July 1911 – 1 August 1997), usually shortened to Hans von Luck, was a Colonel in the German Armored Forces (Oberst der Panzerwaffe) during World War II. Luck served with the 7th Panzer Division and 21st Panzer Division, seeing action in Poland, France, North Africa, Italy, Normandy, and the Soviet Union. In several of the World War II campaigns, he served under Generalfeldmarschall Erwin Rommel. Luck is author of the book Panzer Commander.

Early life and career

Luck was born in Flensburg, Province of Schleswig-Holstein, into a Prussian family with old military roots. Luck's father, Otto von Luck, served in the Kaiserliche Marine or the Imperial German Navy. He fought in First World War and died in July 1918 from the great flu pandemic. Following his father's death, his family was destitute, until his mother remarried. Luck's step-father was a naval chaplain and an instructor at a cadet school.[1] He learned several languages, including French, English and Russian. During the war, he was able to communicate with French and British soldiers and later use Russian during his captivity in the Soviet Union.

In 1929, Luck started his career as an Army officer, serving as a cadet in a Silesian cavalry regiment. He was transferred to the 1st Motorized Battalion in East Prussia.[2] Through the winter of 1931 to 1932 Luck attended a nine-month course, led by Erwin Rommel, at the infantry school in Dresden, to complete his commission as a junior officer.[3][4] In the autumn of 1932 Luck was promoted to Lieutenant. On 30 June 1934 Luck's unit took part in the Night of the Long Knives, arresting several Sturmabteilung members in Stettin.[5]

In 1936 Luck assumed command over the 3rd company in the 8th Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion, stationed in Potsdam. In 1939 he was posted to the 2nd Light Division, serving with the 7th Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion.

World War II

Invasion of Poland

Motorcycle reconnaissance forces in Poland, September, 1939

On 1 September 1939 the 2nd Light Division, under General Georg Stumme, participated in the invasion of Poland. Luck served as a company commander in the division's reconnaissance battalion. His unit advanced through Kielce, Radom and Łódź, before driving on Warsaw. His division reached the outskirts of Warsaw on 9 September. The city did not fall until 27 September, marking the end of combat for Luck's unit. Luck states in his memoir that his unit suffered only light casualties during the campaign in Poland.[6]

After Poland, his unit was returned to Germany where the division was reorganized and reequipped to form the 7th Panzer Division. On 6 February 1940 Rommel assumed command of the division. The division's single panzer regiment was equipped with the Panzer 38(t) obtained from Czechoslovakia, supplemented with German Panzer III and Panzer IV medium tanks. Luck served as a company commander in the 37th Armoured Reconnaissance Battalion. The primary vehicle for his unit was the Schwerer Panzerspähwagen, a six-wheel scout car armed with a 2.0 cm gun. At the beginning of May 1940 the unit was transferred to the Eifel mountains area in preparation for the invasion of France.[7]

Invasion of France

Luck and his 7th Panzer Division was a part of the XV Army Corps under General Hermann Hoth. The corps made up the right shoulder of Gerd von Rundstedt's Army Group A. On 10 May 1940 the division participated in the invasion of France. Luck's reconnaissance battalion led the division's advance into Belgium, reaching the Meuse river near Dinant in three days.[8] In his memoir Luck describes the division's crossing of the Meuse and Rommel's active role in gaining the crossing.[9] Luck states he was later wounded in the hand as his reconnaissance battalion crossed the La Bassée canal near the city of Arras.[10]

German armour in France, May 1940

On 28 May, Luck was appointed commander of the reconnaissance battalion.[11] Following the evacuation of British and French troops at Dunkirk, the 7th Panzer Division participated in the second phase of the campaign in France. On 5 June the division moved southwest for the Seine river to Rouen. On 15 June 7th Panzer started toward Cherbourg. By 17 June the division had advanced 350 km. The port was captured the following day. In his memoir Luck described how his division proceeded south towards Bordeaux, halting when the armistice was signed on 21 June.

In July Luck's division was sent to the Paris area to start preparations for Operation Seelöwe. This operation was called off when it was clear the Luftwaffe would be unable to gain air superiority over England. In February 1941 Rommel was replaced by General Freiherr von Funk, and in June Luck moved with his division to East Prussia in preparation for the invasion of the Soviet Union.

Invasion of the Soviet Union

Luck was made Hauptmann and attached to 7th Panzer Division's headquarters staff.[12] His division was a part of the 3rd Panzer Group of Army Group Center.[13] In this capacity he participated in the invasion of the Soviet Union. Luck's 7th Panzer Division spearheaded the 3rd Panzer Group as it drove east and the capture of Vilnius in Lithuania, before driving on Minsk to form the northern inner encirclement arm of the Bialystok-Minsk pocket.[13] Following the capture of Minsk the armored group continued east towards Vitebsk.[13] At Vitebsk the division's reconnaissance battalion commander was killed in action, and Luck was assigned as its commander.[14]

Luck's reconnaissance battalion in Russia was equipped using captured French built Panhard 178s

Luck and his unit participated in creating the large pocket around Smolensk, cutting the Smolensk-Moscow road.[15][13] Luck and his unit continued on towards Moscow. In his memoirs he describes the stiffening Soviet resistance, and problems the Germans faced with the harsh winter of 1941.[16] His unit managed to secure a bridgehead south of Kalinin, not far from the outskirts of Moscow before having to retreat back 100 km from Moscow. On 2 January 1942 Luck was awarded the German Cross in Gold.[17]

Since November Rommel had requested Luck be transferred to Africa to take over command of one of his reconnaissance battalions.[4] Once the crisis of the Soviet counterattack had passed, 7th Panzer's General Funk allowed the transfer to go through. Luck left for Africa in late January 1942.[18]

North Africa

Elements of a German reconnaissance battalion.

Luck was promoted to major, spending February and March 1942 on leave. Reporting back for duty on 1 April 1942, he reached Africa on 8 April and assumed command over the 3rd Panzer Reconnaissance Battalion of the 21st Panzer Division.[19][20]

On 24 May the Axis forces launched an offensive towards Tobruk.[21] Three days later Luck's reconnaissance battalion encountered a group of American built Grant tanks. The Grants opened fire from beyond range of the 5 cm antitank guns Luck commanded. His memoir recounts how he was wounded in the right leg by shrapnel.[21] The doctor treating him wanted him evacuated to a field hospital, but by this time the Afrikakorps was encircled and had been drawn back into a defensive position.[22] Luck was tasked with protecting the southern flank. On 1 June the Afrikakorps managed to disengage, and Luck was evacuated to a field hospital.

Men and vehicles of the Long Range Desert Group

Luck states the wound in his leg became infected, and he was evacuated to Germany. He returned to Africa in mid-September and resumed command of the 3rd reconnaissance battalion, garrisoned at an oasis near Siwa on the edge of the Qattara Depression. Tasked with guarding the southern flank of the Afrikakorps, Luck states this posting was largely quiet, with occasional engagements being fought against the British Long Range Desert Group.[23]

Luck describes his interactions with the Royal Dragoons, with whom he would communicate from time, and certain "agreements" in conduct were made. Luck states a regular 5 pm cease fire was established, and the two sides swapped information about men missing, lost or captured, and their condition.[24] On 23 October 1942 the British launched the attack of the Second Battle of El Alamein.[25] The Axis position deteriorated and the Axis forces were compelled to withdraw. Luck was one of Rommel's most experienced commanders, and he called upon Luck's reconnaissance battalion to screen his withdrawal.[26] By December the Germans had retreated to Tripoli.

With the situation in Tunisia becoming more desperate for the Axis forces in March, Luck describes how von Arnim chose him to travel to Germany with an evacuation plan to make an appeal directly to Hitler. He states he met with and had the plan signed off on by Kesselring and Guderian, but was refused a meeting with Hitler and was not allowed to return to Africa. On 6 May the forces in Africa surrendered, with more than 130,000 Germans taken prisoner.

In the reserve

Luck was placed on leave, and in August was posted to the Panzer Reconnaissance School in Paris. He was assigned to the 21st Panzer Division, stationed near Rennes in Brittany. Luck took up his duties there in early May.

The 21st Panzer Division was reconstituted in late 1943 with a cadre of veterans from Africa who had been evacuated for wounds, along with some veterans from the Eastern front and new recruits from Germany. The division was commanded by General der Artillerie Edgar Feuchtinger, a political appointment who had no combat experience and no experience commanding panzer forces.[27] Luck was placed in command of the 125th Panzer Grenadier Regiment. Most of the vehicles of the division were captured or damaged French vehicles which had been repaired and armoured at Baukommando Becker. The assault guns of its anti-tank battalion were also captured French vehicles that had been refitted with heavier German guns.[28][29] Luck's regiment was stationed at Vimont, northeast of Caen, with two companies of assault guns in support.

The Normandy invasion

Map showing territory gained in Operations Atlantic and Goodwood

On 6 June 1944 the invasion of Normandy started. During the night Luck was startled by the reports of paratroopers landing in his area, and establishing a bridgehead on the east side of the Orne River. Luck requested permission to attack, but Feuchtinger, the 21st Panzer Division's commander, refused to allow him to do so, citing strict orders not to engage in major operations unless cleared to do so by high command.[30] Apart from an order at 4:30 a.m. directing other elements of the division to move against the paratroopers of the British 6th Airborne Division, the 21 Panzer Division remained mostly motionless. As the morning wore on, the defenders on the coast were smashed and the British beacheads secured.

Around 10:30 a.m. General Erich Marcks, commander of the German LXXXIV Corps to which 21st Panzer Division was attached, ordered the entire 21st to leave a single company from the division's 22nd Panzer Regiment to deal with the paratroopers and move the rest of the division to attack the British forces advancing from the beachhead toward Caen.[31] Feuchtinger finally ordered his division forward, but leaving a company of panzers as ordered, but also leaving Luck's 125 panzergrenadier Regiment as well. This order was later countermanded as well, this time from 7th Army, and only Luck's detachment was left to attack the paratroopers east of Orne. The confusion and inflexibility of the German command situation markedly delayed the German response. Nevertheless, at 1700 p.m. Luck attempted to break through to the Orne river bridges at Bénouville with his armoured personnel carriers, but heavy fire from the warships supporting the British paratroopers, under Major John Howard, holding the bridges drove his forces back.[32] Added to this, more British paratroopers landed in the rear area of the regiment, causing some of Luck's forces to fall back.

On the morning of the 9 June Luck's command was designated Kampfgruppe von Luck, and in addition to the elements of 125th Panzer Grenadier Regiment already under Luck's command it consisted of a battalion, three assault-gun batteries and one antitank company with 88mm guns. With this force Luck was again tasked with assaulting the Orne bridges, and recapturing them from the British paratroopers. Starting one hour before dawn to avoid the worst of the British naval and aerial support, the Kampfgruppe advanced on the village of Ranville, dislodging the enemy there, but it could not penetrate the British lines to reach the bridges. The British paratroopers, reinforced by the British 51st (Highland) Division and the 4th Armoured Brigade, then attempted to advance around the eastern edge of Caen as the left side of an envelopment attack, but there efforts were thwarted by Luck's kaempfgruppe.[33] Over the next several days Luck's group initiated what amounted to a spoiling attack, and tying up the British units. On 12 June Kampfgruppe von Luck engaged in the fighting for the village of Sainte-Honorine, lying on a hill overlooking the invasion beaches.[34] The British forces east of the Orne were unable to move forward unitl 16 June.[33] The After these actions the sector was relatively quiet for the next two weeks.

Operation Goodwood

Main article: Operation Goodwood
Major Hans von Luck (center) receives a report from Lt Gerhardt Bandomir (left), who commanded 3. Ko. of I./125 Panzer Grenadier Regt. during Operation Goodwood. Looking on is Major Willi Kurz, CO of II Battalion.

In the beginning of July, the area defended by von Luck's Kampfgruppe came under the control of I SS Panzer Corps under the command of Obergruppenführer Sepp Dietrich. Nearby was the Heavy Tank Battalion 503 equipped with one platoon of Tiger II tanks and two platoons of Tiger I tanks. On 18 July, Bernard Montgomery launched Operation Goodwood; an operation aimed to wear down the German armoured forces in Normandy in addition to seizing territory, on the eastern flank of Caen, to the extent of the Bourguébus–Vimont–Bretteville area. If successful, the British hoped to follow this limited attack by pushing reconnaissance forces south towards Falaise.[35][36][37][38] The offensive opened with a massive aerial bombardment, followed by artillery and naval gun fire, intended to suppress or destroy all defences in the path of the attack.[39]

During the morning, von Luck had just returned from a three-day leave in Paris. Informed of the air raids, he moved forward to determine the exact situation and soon realized that a major offensive was underway.[40][41] The air raid had neutralized the remnants of the 16th Luftwaffe Field Division, which held the front line, as well elements of the 21st Panzer Division (in particular, elements of the 22nd Panzer Battalion and the 1st battery of Assault Gun Battalion 200) leaving a temporary hole in the German defensive line.[42][43] While elements of the British advance were stalled by the surviving units of Assault Gun Battalion 200,[44] the leading British tanks advanced towards Cagny. At this crucial point, von Luck found a Luftwaffe battery of 88mm flak guns, in Cagny, still positioned for anti-aircraft duties.[45] Von Luck ordered, at pistol point, the reluctant commander to depress his guns and open fire on the flank of the British tanks.[46][47][45] Around Cagny, during this period, 12 tanks of the 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry were destroyed.[48][49] Von Luck's version of events has been questioned.

Von Luck spent the rest of the day using the resources he had to check the gaps in the line. In the afternoon, the first elements of the 1st SS Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler had moved up in support and the situation was somewhat stabilized. The following day, von Luck's Kampfgruppe, supported by the armour of 1st SS, held the British in check, and launched counterattacks on the British flanks. The British attack ended on 20 July.[50] In the evening, the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend relieved von Luck's men. For his service during Operation Goodwood, von Luck was awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross, and on 8 August, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel.

The Falaise Pocket

A week later, after a brief rest and refit, the 21st Panzer Division was sent to the Villers Bocage area south of Bayeux. On 26 July Panzer Lehr's lines were broken, and 21st Panzer Division reoriented themselves on this new threat. On 31 July General Patton's forces broke through at Avranches into open country.[51] The German motorized forces were brought west to counterattack in an effort to cut the supply and communication lines of the advancing American forces, but the counterattacked was known due to Ultra decrypts and the attacking formations were heavily shelled and bombarded, stopping the attack before it could jump off.[52] Unable to check the advancing American armour, all the German divisions in Normandy were in danger of being encircled.[53]

Luck reached Falaise after two weeks of delaying action. On 17 August a British attack split the 21st Panzer Division, leaving half inside the now emerging Falaise Pocket, while Luck's command found itself on the outside. Kampfgruppe von Luck was now tasked with holding the Western end of the gap open, which it did until 21 August. About half of the 100,000 trapped troops to escape, though most of the heavy materiel and vehicles were destroyed in the pocket. A new threat was already emerging, with Patton threatening to create yet another pocket, south of the Seine River. Luck was put in command of the remains of 21st Panzer Division and conducted a rearguard action, until the last German forces could be withdrawn over the Seine on 26 August.

On 9 September Luck's command reached Strasbourg, where it was attached to General Hasso von Manteuffel's Fifth Panzer Army. During Operation Nordwind, Luck was ordered to participate in the recapture of Hatten, Bas-Rhin. In January 1945, when the division was moved to the Oder front, the division took part in fighting along the Reitwein Spur. Luck surrendered to the Soviets while attempting a breakout from the Battle of Halbe encirclement in April 1945.

After the war

After the war Luck was interned at a GUPVI forced labor camp in Georgia, similar to a GULAG camp.[54] After five years, pressure from the western powers resulted in the repatriation of many German soldiers in captivity.[55] Luck was among those released. He returned to Germany and initially found employment at an international hotel in Hamburg, where his command of multiple languages made him a valuable asset.[56] He eventually moved on to work in a coffee import business.[57] He married, and had three sons.[58] He became heavily involved in veterans' associations, and was frequently asked to lecture at military schools. He spoke annually for the British Staff college during their summer tours of the Normandy battlefields, and subsequently was asked to speak at a number of other military seminars.[59] He was a participant in the UK's Ministry of Defense Army Department film presentation on Operation Goodwood Lectures.[60]

Through his involvement as a speaker at military lectures he came to be good friends with several of his former adversaries, including Brigadier David Stileman and British Airborne Major John Howard.[59] After the war, Luck and Howard would have coffee together in Bénouville at probably the first building in France to be liberated from German occupation, the Café Gondrée. Because the owners were severely anti-German, Howard convinced them that Luck was a Swede.[61][62] He also formed a friendship with popular U.S. historian Stephen Ambrose, who encouraged him to write his memoirs, which was titled Panzer Commander.

Hans von Luck died in Hamburg on 1 August 1997, shortly after his eighty–sixth birthday.[63]


Awards

Hans von Luck's map marked up during 7th Panzer's movements across the Moscow-Volga Canal, just north of Moscow

External links

References

Citations

  1. ↑ Luck 1989, pp. 9–11.
  2. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 13.
  3. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 14.
  4. 1 2 Butler 2015, p. 393.
  5. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 16.
  6. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 32.
  7. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 37.
  8. ↑ Deighton 1980, p. 211.
  9. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 38.
  10. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 40.
  11. ↑ Luck 1989, pp. 41-42.
  12. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 66.
  13. 1 2 3 4 Askey 2013, p. 379.
  14. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 70.
  15. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 71.
  16. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 76.
  17. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 83.
  18. ↑ Luck 1989, pp. 77-83, Luck quoting Funk: "I have to tell you that this transfer has been on my table since November. I didn't tell you or release you because you couldn't be spared in that decisive phase".
  19. ↑ Fraser 1993, p. 389.
  20. ↑ Butler 2015, p. 392.
  21. 1 2 Luck 1989, p. 99.
  22. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 100.
  23. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 110.
  24. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 125.
  25. ↑ Lewin 1998, p. 173.
  26. ↑ Fraser 1993, p. 413.
  27. ↑ Mitcham 2009, p. 53.
  28. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 167.
  29. ↑ Keegan 1982, p. 202.
  30. ↑ Mitcham 1983, p. 82.
  31. ↑ Mitcham 1983, p. 83.
  32. ↑ Ambrose, D-Day
  33. 1 2 Mitcham 1983, p. 103.
  34. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 187.
  35. ↑ Jackson 2006, p. 79.
  36. ↑ Trew, p. 66
  37. ↑ Reynolds (2002), p. 44
  38. ↑ Ellis, pp. 330–331
  39. ↑ Keegan 1982, p. 193.
  40. ↑ Luck 1989, pp. 187, 192.
  41. ↑ Keegan 1982, pp. 205-206.
  42. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 192.
  43. ↑ Keegan 1982, p. 205.
  44. ↑ Dunphie, p. 74
  45. 1 2 Napier, Stephen (2015). The Armoured Campaign in Normandy June-August 1944. The History Press. pp. 248–251. ISBN 9780750964739.
  46. ↑ Keegan 1982, p. 206.
  47. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 193.
  48. ↑ Dunphie, p. 74
  49. ↑ Trew, p. 80
  50. ↑ Keegan 1982, p. 216.
  51. ↑ Hastings 2006, p. 260.
  52. ↑ Hastings 2006, p. 262.
  53. ↑ Hastings 2006, p. 263.
  54. ↑ Karner, Stefan, Im Archipel GUPVI. Kriegsgefangenschaft und Internierung in der Sowjetunion 1941-1956. Wien-München 1995. ISBN 978-3-486-56119-7 (book review, English) (German)
    • Russian translation: 2002, ISBN 5-7281-0424-X
  55. ↑ Biess 2006, p. 45, At the Moscow foreign minister conference in 1947, the Allies agreed to repatriate all German POWs by 31 December 1948, and the Western allies largely lived up to this agreement. By contrast, the repatriation of German POWs from Eastern European countries and from the Soviet Union lasted until the Spring of 1950.
  56. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 326.
  57. ↑ Luck 1989, p. 328.
  58. ↑ Luck 1989, p. vii.
  59. 1 2 "Obituary Brigadier David Stileman". The Times. August 10, 2011. Retrieved February 22, 2016.
  60. ↑ Ministry of Defense; Army Department: Operation Goodwood
  61. ↑ Ambrose 2001, p. 198, "When Howard went to the cafe in the seventies and early eighties, he sometimes brought Hans von Luck with him. Howard told Madame that von Luck might look suspiciously like a German, but that he was in fact a Swede.".
  62. ↑ Luck 1991, p. 342.
  63. ↑ Mitcham 2009, p. xcvii.
  64. ↑ Patzwall & Scherzer 2001, p. 286.
  65. ↑ Scherzer 2007, p. 516.
  66. ↑ Fellgiebel 2000, pp. 297, 497.

Bibliography

  • Ambrose, Stephen E (1994). D-Day, June 6, 1944, The Battle for the Normandy beaches, Pocket Books. ISBN 0-7434-4974-6
  • Ambrose, Stephen E (2001). Pegasus Bridge. Touchstone Books. ISBN 0-671-67156-1. 
  • Askey, Nigel (2013). Operation Barbarossa : the complete organisational and statistical analysis, and military simulation. Lulu Publishing. 
  • Biess, Frank (2006). Homecomings : returning POWs and the legacies of defeat in postwar Germany. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. 
  • Butler, Daniel Allen (2015). Field Marshal: The Life and Death of Erwin Rommel. Havertown, PA; Oxford: Casemate. ISBN 978-1-61200-297-2. 
  • Deighton, Len (1980). Blitzkrieg: from the rise of Hitler to the fall of Dunkirk. New York: Knopf, Distributed by Random House. 
  • Dunphie, Chris (2005). The Pendulum of Battle: Operation Goodwood - July 1944. MLRS Books. ISBN 978-1-844-15278-0. 
  • Ellis, Major L. F.; with Allen RN, Captain G. R. G. Allen; Warhurst, Lieutenant-Colonel A. E. & Robb, Air Chief-Marshal Sir James (2004) [1st. pub. HMSO 1962]. Butler, J. R. M., ed. Victory in the West: The Battle of Normandy. History of the Second World War United Kingdom Military Series I. Naval & Military Press. ISBN 1-84574-058-0. 
  • Fellgiebel, Walther-Peer (2000) [1986]. Die Träger des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939–1945 — Die Inhaber der höchsten Auszeichnung des Zweiten Weltkrieges aller Wehrmachtteile [The Bearers of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939–1945 — The Owners of the Highest Award of the Second World War of all Wehrmacht Branches] (in German). Friedberg, Germany: Podzun-Pallas. ISBN 978-3-7909-0284-6. 
  • Fraser, David (1993). Knight's Cross: A Life of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. New York: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0-06-018222-9. 
  • Hastings, Max (2006) [1985]. Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy. Vintage Books USA; Reprint edition. ISBN 0-307-27571-X. 
  • Jackson, G. S. (2006) [1945]. 8 Corps: Normandy to the Baltic. MLRS Books. ISBN 978-1-905696-25-3. 
  • Keegan, John (1982). Six Armies in Normandy: from D-Day to the liberation of Paris, June 6th-August 25th, 1944. New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0-14-02-3542-6. 
  • Luck, Hans von (1989). Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck. New York: Dell Publishing of Random House. ISBN 0-440-20802-5. 
  • Luck, Hans von (1991). Panzer Commander: The Memoirs of Colonel Hans von Luck. Dell Publishing. ISBN 0-440-20802-5. 
  • Lewin, Ronald (1998) [1968]. Rommel As Military Commander. New York: B&N Books. ISBN 978-0-7607-0861-3. 
  • Mitcham, Samuel W (2009). Defenders of Fortress Europe. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books. ISBN 978-1-59797-274-1. 
  • Mitcham, Samuel W (1983). Rommel's last battle : the Desert Fox and the Normandy campaign. New York: Stein and Day. 
  • Patzwall, Klaus D.; Scherzer, Veit (2001). Das Deutsche Kreuz 1941 – 1945 Geschichte und Inhaber Band II [The German Cross 1941 – 1945 History and Recipients Volume 2] (in German). Norderstedt, Germany: Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall. ISBN 978-3-931533-45-8. 
  • Reynolds, Michael (2002). Sons of the Reich: The History of II SS Panzer Corps in Normandy, Arnhem, the Ardennes and on the Eastern Front. Casemate. ISBN 0-9711709-3-2. 
  • Scherzer, Veit (2007). Die Ritterkreuzträger 1939–1945 Die Inhaber des Ritterkreuzes des Eisernen Kreuzes 1939 von Heer, Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm sowie mit Deutschland verbündeter Streitkräfte nach den Unterlagen des Bundesarchives [The Knight's Cross Bearers 1939–1945 The Holders of the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross 1939 by Army, Air Force, Navy, Waffen-SS, Volkssturm and Allied Forces with Germany According to the Documents of the Federal Archives] (in German). Jena, Germany: Scherzers Miltaer-Verlag. ISBN 978-3-938845-17-2. 
  • Trew, Simon; Badsey, Stephen (2004). Battle for Caen. Battle Zone Normandy. Faber and Faber. ISBN 0-7509-3010-1. 
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Thursday, May 05, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.