German tank aces
Panzer ace ("tank ace") is a contemporary term used in English-speaking popular culture to describe highly-decorated tank (Panzer) commanders of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS of Nazi Germany during World War II. These commanders were credited in Nazi propaganda with the destruction of large numbers of tanks and other armoured vehicles. The British, Soviet and United States armies did not recognise any of their tank commanders for "tank kills", though some were responsible for destroying a large number of enemy tanks.
While the concept of "tank aces" received little to no attention during World War II, the term "Panzer ace" has become prominent in contemporary popular culture, especially in the United States or as part of the uncritical portrayal of the Waffen-SS in English-language militaria and popular history works. The term is featured prominently in English translations of the works by German author Franz Kurowski. His fictionalised Panzer Aces series focuses on highly-decorated German tank commanders, such as Michael Wittmann and Franz Bäke.
Wartime perceptions[edit]
During World War II the concept of "panzer aces" received little attention. To the extent that the concept existed, it was mainly advanced by the Waffen-SS as part of its contributions to Nazi Germany's propaganda campaigns. In most Wehrmacht's ground force (Heer) units, soldiers generally received awards for mission performance rather than tank kills.[2]
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German highly-decorated tank commanders were most often soldiers who served in units equipped with Tiger I or Tiger II tanks between mid-1943 and mid-1944. The Allies did not have any tanks capable of easily defeating the Tigers during this period. Few soldiers who operated Panther tanks at this time received the same high decorations as these tanks were more vulnerable to Allied tanks and less mechanically reliable than the Tiger.[2] Historian Dennis Showalter has suggested that the confidence which the crews of Tigers and the operators of other relatively advanced weapons had in the capabilities of their equipment may have reinforced their ideological conditioning, and encouraged them to take risks in combat.[3]
The United States Army did not adopt the concept of "tank aces" during World War II, with proposals to do so being rejected. However, some US Army tank commanders such as Lafayette G. Pool and Creighton Abrams were responsible for the destruction of large numbers of German tanks and other armoured vehicles.[4] A 1943 New York Times story labelled Chinese Major General Hoo Hsien-Chung as a "tank ace" for the actions of a force under his command during the 1938 Battle of Taierzhuang.[5]
Similarly, the British Army did not recognise any tank aces.[6] Opportunities for British commanders to destroy large numbers of enemy tanks were limited as the various tanks operated by the Army generally did not outclass German tanks. Some British Sherman Firefly tank commanders were responsible for destroying multiple German tanks.[7] The Soviet Red Army also regarded destroying tanks as not being an act of particular heroism for its tank commanders. This was because the main role of its armored units was to support infantry.[8]
Contemporary use[edit]
The German author Franz Kurowski covers "Panzer aces" in several of his uncritical and hagiographic accounts. Published in the U.S. by J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing in the 1990s and by Stackpole Books in the 2010, his popular series Panzer Aces describes fictionalised careers of highly-decorated German soldiers during World War II.[9] A veteran of the Eastern front (as a member of a propaganda company), Kurowski is one of the authors who "have picked up and disseminated the myths of the Wehrmacht in a wide variety of popular publications that romanticize the German struggle in Russia", according to The Myth of the Eastern Front by historians Ronald Smelser and Edward Davies.[10]
The most famous German "Panzer ace" and "the hero of all Nazi fanboys",[11] Michael Wittmann, is credited by Kurowski as having destroyed 60 tanks in a single day near Kiev in late 1943.[12] The book also describes the actions of "Panzer ace" Franz Bäke in the Cherkassy Pocket. In Kurowski's retelling, after fighting unit after unit of the Red Army, Backe is able to establish a corridor to the trapped German forces, and then "wipes out" the attacking Soviets. In another of Kurowski's accounts, while attempting to relieve the 6th Army encircled in Stalingrad, Bake destroys 32 enemy tanks in a single engagement.[12]
The term "tank ace" is occasionally applied to tank crew from other countries. For instance, Sydney Radley-Walters' obituary published in the Globe and Mail in 2015 described him as the "best Canadian front-line tank ace" of World War II.[13]
Analysis[edit]
The concept of what constitutes success in tank battles has received considerable attention in recent years.[2] The historian Sönke Neitzel questions the numbers of tanks destroyed attributed in popular culture to various tank commanders. According to Neitzel, numbers of successes by highly decorated soldiers should be approached with caution as it is rarely possible to determine reliably in the heat of the battle how many tanks were destroyed and by whom.[14] The military historian Steven Zaloga has also noted that "tank kill claims during World War II on all sides should be taken with a grain of salt" as multiple crews often claimed to have destroyed the same tank, and the German intelligence service on the Eastern Front routinely halved the number of tanks which were reported destroyed to compensate for this double counting.[2]
Zaloga uses the term "tank ace" in quotation marks in his 2015 work Armored Champion: The Top Tanks of World War II. He notes the "romantic nonsense" of the popular inclination to imagine a tank versus tank engagement as an "armoured joust" – two opponents facing each other, – with the "more valiant or better-armed [one] the eventual victor". In reality, most tank to tank combat involved one tank ambushing the other, and the most successful tank commanders were generally "bushwhackers" with "a decided advantage in firepower or armor, and often both".[15]
Zaloga uses Wittmann's career to illustrate the point of the battlefield advantage. He credits Wittman with "about 135" tanks destroyed, but points out that Wittmann achieved 120 of these in 1943, operating a Tiger I tank on the Eastern Front. Having advantages both in firepower and in armor, Tiger I was "nearly invulnerable in a frontal engagement" against any of the Soviet tanks of that time. Wittman thus could "kill its opponents long before they were close enough to inflict damage on his tank".[15] Zaloga concludes: "Most of the 'tank aces' of World War II were simply lucky enough to have an invulnerable tank with a powerful gun".[15] He has also written that "the considerable attention paid to German tank aces in recent years obscures the fact that they were an exception to the rule and that most of the anonymous young German tankers in late 1944 were thrown into combat with poor training".[2]
British historian John Buckley has also criticised accounts of Wittman's career, arguing that "many historians through to today continue to repackage unquestioningly Nazi propaganda" by repeating false claims that Wittman's tank single-handedly defeated a British offensive in Normandy. In reality, this tactical success was achieved by the entire unit Wittman formed part of but was attributed only to him as part of a propaganda campaign.[16]
List of "Panzer aces"[edit]
| Name | Force | Unit | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Franz Bäke | Heer | Panzer Corps Feldherrnhalle | Profiled in Panzer Aces by Franz Kurowski[12] |
| Otto Carius | Heer | 502nd heavy tank battalion | Published post-war memoirs Tigers in the Mud; described as a "Panzer ace" in his English-language obituary[17] |
| Michael Wittmann | Waffen-SS | 101st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion | Profiled in Panzer Aces by Franz Kurowski[18] |
| Rudolf von Ribbentrop | Waffen-SS | SS Division Leibstandarte, SS Division Hitlerjugend | Profiled in Panzer Aces by Franz Kurowski[19] |
See also[edit]
References[edit]
Citations[edit]
- ↑ Smelser & Davies 2008, pp. 173–176.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 Zaloga 2008, p. 38.
- ↑ Showalter 2002, p. 142.
- ↑ Zaloga 2008, p. 46.
- ↑ "Chinese Tank Ace in Cairo". The New York Times. 30 March 1943. p. 8. Retrieved 2 October 2016.
- ↑ Perrett 2012.
- ↑ Hart 2007, p. 49.
- ↑ Forty 1997, p. 60.
- ↑ Smelser & Davies 2008, pp. 175–176, 251.
- ↑ Smelser & Davies 2008, pp. 5, 159.
- ↑ Zaloga 2015, pp. 3.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Smelser & Davies 2008, pp. 176.
- ↑ Rose, Larry D. (24 April 2015). "Tank Ace began stellar career at Normandy". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved 3 October 2016.
- ↑ Neitzel 2002, p. 413.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 15.2 Zaloga 2015, pp. 3–4.
- ↑ Buckley 2013, p. 70.
- ↑ German World War II Panzer Ace Otto Carius Dies at 92, Mercury News
- ↑ Smelser & Davies 2008, pp. 179.
- ↑ Smelser & Davies 2008, pp. 178.
Bibliography[edit]
- Buckley, John (2013). Monty's Men : The British Army and the Liberation of Europe. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300134490. Search this book on
- Hart, Stephen A. (2007). Sherman Firefly vs Tiger : Normandy 1944. Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 1846031508. Search this book on
- Forty, George (1997). Tank Aces: From Blitzkrieg to the Gulf War. Stroud: Sutton. ISBN 0750914475. Search this book on
- Neitzel, Sönke (2002). "Des Forschens noch wert? Anmerkungen zur Operationsgeschichte der Waffen-SS". Militärgeschichtliche Zeitschrift. 61: 403–429.
- Perrett, Bryan (2012). Iron Fist: Classic Armoured Warfare. London: Hachette. ISBN 1780225245. Search this book on
- Showalter, Dennis Edwin (2002). "More Than Nuts and Bolts: Technology and the German Army, 1870–1945". The Historian. 65 (1): 123–143.
- Smelser, Ronald; Davies, Edward J. (2008). The Myth of the Eastern Front: The Nazi-Soviet War in American Popular Culture. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-83365-3. Search this book on
- Zaloga, Steven J. (2008). Panther vs Sherman : Battle of the Bulge, 1944. Oxford: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 9781846032929. Search this book on
- Zaloga, Steven (2015). Armored Champion: The Top Tanks of World War II. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books. ISBN 978-0-8117-1437-2. Search this book on
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