With the same drama and excitement as Panzer Aces, Panzer Aces II relates the combat careers of six more decorated German Panzer officers. Extensively researched, these gripping accounts follow the men and their tanks across three continents into some of World War II's bloodiest engagements. They campaigned with Rommel in the deserts of North Africa, participated in the monumental tank battle at Kursk, and, maneuvering only by muzzle flashes, fought frightening small-unit contests in the dark of night. Master tacticians and gutsy leaders, these men, including Hermann von Oppeln-Bronikowski, Kurt Knispel, Karl Nicolussi-Leck, and others, are legends.

Each recipient is presented in a capsule biography including dates of birth, awarding of the various Knights Cross grades, and other particulars to rank and career. Each is also shown in a World War II era photograph.

Each recipient is presented in a capsule biography including dates of birth, awarding of the various Knights Cross grades, and other particulars to rank and career. Each is also shown in a World War II era photograph.

This is an authentic account of German infantry aces, common foot soldiers who were thrust into a blazing maelstrom of bloody horror the world had never seen. On the frozen Russian steppes, under the scorching African desert sun, and in the final desperate battles, they were outnumbered and outgunned and faced impossible odds. Here are the fascinating stories of the men who stared death in the face during some of the most brutal battles ever waged.

Following the signing of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, Germany was not permitted to build or operate submarines. However, clandestine training took place on Finnish and Spanish submarines and U-boats were still built to German designs in Dutch yards. At the outset of the Second World War, Admiral Karl Doenitz argued for a 300-strong U-boat fleet, since his force of fifty-seven assorted U-boats could not materially affect British seaborne trade on their own. In August 1939, _U-48_ left Germany, commanded by Kapitanleutnant Herbert 'Vaddi' Schultze, to take up a waiting position around the British coast. It scored its first success on 5 September, when it torpedoed the British freighter _Royal Sceptre_, followed by _Winkleigh_ on 8 September. On both occasions, the first of many, Schultze showed himself to be a notable humanitarian: he addressed signals to Churchill giving positions of the sinkings so that crews could be saved. By 1 August 1941, _U-48_, the most successful U-boat of the Second World War, had sunk fifty-six merchant ships, of 322,478 gross tons, and one corvette. She was then transferred to the Baltic as a training boat. Schultze became commander of operations at 3 U-Flotilla, before being appointed commander of II/Naval College Schleswig. He died in 1987 at the age of 78\. _U-48_ was scuttled on 3 May 1945.

. . . One of these events, the attempt of the Red Army to cut off and destroy the panzer formations far advanced before Moscow, is little known. In January 1942, when the 3rd, 4th and 22nd Soviet Shock armies set out from the Army Group North area to the south and attacked Kholm, Toropets, Demidov, Vitebsk and Belikie Luki, in order to roll over the rear area services approximately 160 kilometers behind the front and the strong point-like positions and cut off the main body of Army Group Center from its supply of weapons and soldiers, the Eastern Campaign appeared to be lost. The renewed major offensive of the Red Army, which began in November 1942, found these troops - hopelessly opposing massed enemy formations - in a battle to the bitter end. This is especially shown in Velikie Luki, where the defensive strength of 7,500 German soldiers fought to the end paid for with their own lives. Only a handful of soldiers escaped from this inferno. Never before has such detail on this aspect of the Russian front campaign been available in English. Reknowned author Franz Kurowski uses first-person accounts, and never before published documentation to present this, the turning point of the war in Russia.

Each recipient is presented in a capsule biography including date of birth, awarding of the various Knights Cross grades, and other particulars to rank and career. Each is also shown in a World War II era photograph.

A tribute to one of the top fighter aces of the World War II, this new full length biography appears here in its first edition. Marseilles' wartime exploits are legendary with the 158 aerial victories, including 17 in one day. He was, and still is, considered by many of the Luftwaffe aces to be the premier fighter pilot of the Luftwaffe-all before the age of twenty-three. Also chronicled is the combat life of JG 27, Marseilles' unit, and the various personalities throughout the North African campaign.

The final stage of the Second World War, with the enemy across the Reich's borders, saw final desperate battles for numerous "fortified places" and blocking positions. Hitler ordered the defense of these fortified places such as Koenigsberg and Breslau, Wesel and Kolberg, Danzig, Posen and many others. In these isolated bastions the war-weary German units offered desperate resistance, offered for good purpose. This stubborn holding-on to the last round saved hundreds of thousands of women and children, made possible the evacuation of hospitals and the transport out of surrounded Wehrmacht female auxiliaries. The fates of German soldiers were realized in bunkers and caves, in tunnels and fields of rubble. In the Hurtgenwald as in the Reichswald, during the crossing of the Rhine between Wesel and Emmerich, in the Remagen bridgehead, on the hill at Keppeln, in the Ruhr pocket, as well as in the east of the Reich in the East Prussian pocket, in Pomerania, in Silesia and in the Reich capital. Shocking scenes of apocalyptic battle were played out wherever Hitler's last bastions held out against the onrushing enemy, whether at the frontiers of the Reich or inside Germany itself.

In his latest account of German soldiers in combat in World War II, Franz Kurowski journeys into the desert with the Afrika Korps, graphically depicting what it was like to sweat beneath the African sun, to taste the gritty sand, to serve under a brilliant commander like Erwin Rommel. From 1941 to 1943, this fighting force waged an impressive campaign that turned Rommel into the Desert Fox and secured the Afrika Korps a legendary place in military history. The Afrika Korps deployed to Africa as Germany's Italian allies teetered on the brink of collapse in early 1941. With high spirit and aggressive courage, the Afrika Korps roared into action and battled the British back and forth across the Western Desert--at places like El Agheila, Gazala, Tobruk, and El Alamein--for much of the next two years. The campaign then shifted into Tunisia, where the British onslaught combined with the arrival of the Americans and growing supply difficulties to force the Afrika Korps to surrender in May 1943. Kurowski's narrative focuses on the men who did the fighting, who endured not only enemy attacks but also the extremes of the desert climate, who experienced moments of sheer terror as well as occasions of humor, who saw war's savagery and its surprising, if brief, civility, and who counted themselves proud to be members of Germany's Afrika Korps.

• Exciting stories of the infantrymen who supported Germany's tanks
• How tanks and infantry cooperated at the small-unit level
• First time in English

The panzergrenadiers were the footsoldiers who went into battle alongside the Third Reich's feared tanks. Whether in the Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS, these troops endured all the horrors of infantry combat--fighting hand-to-hand, storming enemy positions, and rescuing fallen comrades--but they did so in the shadow of thundering giants like the Tiger and Panther. Kurowski tells the stories of some of the very best of these mechanized infantrymen, bringing them and their actions to life.

With speed, violence, and deadly power, heavily armored tanks spearheaded the German blitzkrieg that stormed across Europe in 1939. Tracks rattling and engines roaring, these lethal machines engaged in some of the fiercest fighting of World War II, from the beaches of Normandy and the Ardennes forest to the snow-encrusted eastern front. In this reprint of the hugely popular book, prolific author Franz Kurowski tells the gritty, action-packed stories of six of the most daring and successful officers ever to command Panzers, including Michael Wittmann, Hans Bolter, Hermann Bix, and others. Timelines mark the milestones of each officer's career.

As a crucial part of the blitzkrieg that swept across Western Europe in the spring of 1940, German paratroopers made combat drops in Denmark and Norway and then won a brilliant victory in their assault on the Belgian fortress of Eben-Emael. Their most famous airborne operation came in Crete in 1941 when they captured the island but with such high casualties that Hitler would not allow another major drop. Also organized as motorized infantry for ground attacks, the paratroopers saw action at Monte Cassino in Italy, in Normandy, and on the Eastern Front. Jump into Hell is the action-adventure narrative of these elite German airborne troops, covering recruitment, organization, training, and combat on all fronts.