A professional soldier, Hans von Luck joined the Panzerwaffe in its earliest days, serving under Erwin Rommel. Skilled in the art of armoured warfare, von Luck fought in the invasion of Poland in 1939 and was present as the Blitzkrieg swept across the Low Countries and France the following year. In 1941 Hitler's forces turned their attention to the East, launching their invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, on 22 June. Hans von Luck's unit was one of the many deployed in that offensive. Von Luck then served with the Afrika Korps in the Western Desert. In describing his service in this theatre, he tells of the occasionally chivalrous relationship with the men of the Eighth Army. After the Axis collapse in Africa, he returned to Europe and fought throughout the Normandy Campaign. Captured by the Soviets at the end of the war, he was held for five years in a prisoner of war camp. After the war, he formed friendships with those who had been his opponents during the war, including Major John Howard, who had led the capture of Pegasus Bridge on D-Day. As the renowned historian M.R.D. Foot once wrote, _Panzer Commander_ is a book that shows the finest face of the old officer class, the Kaderfamilie of central Europe, who were brought up to fight, but to fight clean - even when they came under the orders of satanic leaders'. That this unique and insightful account of one man's war and its aftermath is one of the classic memoirs of the Second World War is beyond doubt.

A stunning look at World War II from the other side...

From the turret of a German tank, Colonel Hans von Luck commanded Rommel's 7th and then 21st Panzer Division. El Alamein, Kasserine Pass, Poland, Belgium, Normandy on D-Day, the disastrous Russian front--von Luck fought there with some of the best soldiers in the world. German soldiers.

Awarded the German Cross in Gold and the Knight's Cross, von Luck writes as an officer and a gentleman. Told with the vivid detail of an impassioned eyewitness, his rare and moving memoir has become a classic in the literature of World War II, a first-person chronicle of the glory--and the inevitable tragedy--of a superb soldier fighting Hitler's war.